Page 16 of Open Water
I looked away too. But feeling it gave me was still in my body, warm and stupid and dangerous.
I wanted to walk across that room. Sit on the erg next to him. Put my hand on his knee and say something dumb and watch him pretend to be annoyed about it. I wanted to not calculate the distance between us or count the eyes in the room or run the risk assessment that fired automatically every time I felt something real in a public space.
I wanted to be done with this.
Ethan's voice from yesterday:Come out because you want Liam. Not because you're sick of your father.
Both. It was both. And I didn't know how to make the first reason louder when the second one was screaming.
Practice ended. Everyone filtered out. Kingswell guys heading toward the foot bridge to cross the river. Riverside guys scattering toward campus. I headed out the back door toward the parking lot.
Braden was alone.
He was standing by the far end of the lot, near the fence where the path split. Bag on the ground. Phone in his hand. Not scrolling. Just standing there, looking at the river.
I should've kept walking. The smart thing. The Ethan-approved thing.
But I was tired of smart.
The thought that had been sitting in my stomach since yesterday. If it was Braden, I needed to know. If it wasn't, I needed to know that too.
I walked over. Shoes crunching on gravel. He looked up. The jaw tightened. The competitive scan.
"Harrington."
"Lockwood."
I almost turned around.
What am I doing?
I'd told Liam we'd figure it out together. I'd told Ethan I'd be smart. And here I was, walking up to Braden Lockwood alone in a parking lot because I couldn't sit with it for one more day.
Too late.
"Can I ask you something? I need you to be straight with me."
Braden pocketed his phone. Crossed his arms. "Depends."
"Someone's been sending me anonymous messages trying to blackmail me." I kept my voice level. "And people keep pointing at you."
Something shifted behind his eyes. Not guilt. Something harder.
"People keep pointing at me?" He repeated.
"You've got motive. You've been in my face since—"
"Moore already had this conversation with me. Except his version involved attacking me."
"I know what happened."
"Good. Then you know I've already been accused once for shit I didn't do." He stepped closer. "So that's three times now. Moore with his fists, you on that porch, and now this. Three times I've been the guy everyone blames."
The anger was real.
"I'm asking. Not accusing."
"No. You walked over here with your mind made up. Same as Moore." His jaw worked. "You know what the problem is? Something goes sideways for Alex Harrington, and everyone looks at me."
