Page 87 of Offside

“I was not—” I stopped. Pressed my lips together. “I was reacting to a situation that was uncomfortable given the⁠—”

“Jealous.”

“I was experiencing a completely understandable emotional response to⁠—”

“Maren.”

I exhaled hard through my nose. “Fine. I was infinitesimally jealous. The smallest possible amount. Barely measurable. It would not show up on any standard assessment tool.”

He smiled—brief and real and devastating—and I groaned and dropped my face into my hands.

I groaned and lifted my head. “You’re very charming. And hot. And it’s frustrating. Don’t look so pleased with yourself.” I cracked a smile. A very small one.

He smoothed his expression back to neutral, which helped nothing because his eyes still gave him away completely.

“I’m not mad at you,” I said, redirecting before I said something else I couldn’t take back. “I want to be really clear about that. I’m mad because I couldn’t do anything. I’m mad because I had to sit there and be fine and I’m very good at being fine in front of people, I’ve had a lot of practice, but that was—” My voice went slightly uneven. I pushed through it. “That was harder than I thought it was going to be.”

Ryan leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and watched me directly. “Can I say something?”

“You’ve been saying things.”

“Something else. Something we’ve been avoiding.”

I nodded.

“It’s not just the secrecy,” he said. “The reason that happened. The reason there’s always going to be a version of that. It’s because of what I do. My job. The life that comes with it.” He paused, working through it carefully, the way he didn’t speak until he knew what he wanted to say exactly. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of. Early in my career. Easy things that didn’t cost anything because nothing mattered enough to cost anything.” Puck bunnies. That’s what he was talking about. “That’s not who I am now. It hasn’t been for a long time. And I need you to know that. When I said what is between us isn’t nothing, I meant that.”

I knew Griffin was a fuck boy; he had been since…well as long as I could remember. It was reasonable to assume that a man with the Nordic good looks Ryan had would not have been a saint. The house was quiet. I didn’t know how to respond, or if I was supposed to.

“How long?” I asked, not really sure I wanted to know.

His jaw shifted. “Longer than I want to admit.”

“You haven’t⁠—”

“No.”

I stared at my knees. The loose thread had come all the way off now and I was holding it between my fingers without remembering pulling it.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

“I’m processing.” I pressed my lips together. “Give me a second.”

He gave me a second. He was good at that. At waiting without making the time passing feel like pressure.

“The whatever her name is situation,” I said carefully. “That’s always going to be a thing. With your job. There will always be bunnies.”

“Yes.”

“And I know that. I went into this knowing that.”

“Yes.”

“And it still felt terrible.”

“I know.” He reached over and pulled my feet out from under me, settling them across his lap, his hand resting warm over my ankles. “And it’s not nothing to me that it cost you something. Even if I didn’t do anything wrong, you still paid for it, and I’m not going to pretend that part doesn’t matter. If our roles were reversed, I don’t know that I could keep quiet about it.”