Page 136 of Studs Up
I didn’t answer. The team, the game, the final, the trophy all meant nothing. Insignificant. Never in my life did I think I would find anything more important to me than all of that.
Quit.
It floated again. If I thought for a second that would solve this, I would do it. But I knew Holden better than that. He would blame himself. He would suffocate under the weight of it. That would cause him more pain, if possible, than the situation he was currently in.
So quitting wasn’t an option. And with that, I had nothing left. No tools, ideas, or solutions.
He looked pale and sick as he sat down. Every bone in my body broke with the effort of staying still and not flying out of the room like a madman.
“You okay?” Marcel asked.
“Fuck off,” I snapped.
He sat up there alone with a piece of paper. He was trying to be brave, and I struggled to keep myself still. The agony of helplessness settled like a black weight in my chest. I almost couldn’t watch it.
A few others finishing up late workouts and massages trickled in to watch, and I wish they would all fucking go away.
Their PR rep announced that Holden had a statement and would not be taking any questions.
Holden cleared his throat and stared at the words that had undoubtedly been written for him. He set it down and laid a hand on it. Don’t read what they told you to read. I begged him. It was screaming in my head.
“I’m gay,” he started. “It is something I have kept to myself for a long time. My career has always been important to me. Being out in this league is nearly impossible. And my choice to keep my privacy was taken away from me. This has affected my team and our fans in a way I never wanted for them.”
He swallowed hard and continued. I had a ferocious urge to sweep him out of that room and take him away.
“Questions are being asked about the man in the picture.”
My heart started to beat. Tell them. Every cell in my body screamed for him to tell them. I could take the heat, and I could deflect it from him.
“He was someone I met that night, and it was nothing more than what was seen in the picture.”
He looked up into the camera for the first time, directly into my eyes. I saw nothing but pain and something else. My spine stiffened. I had never seen that look in him before, not even the night when he showed me the texts.
He looked like he was hardly there, a ghost of the man I knew. He had been sucked dry of his life and his passion. Emptiness. That’s what it was. That’s what was staring at me.
There was more to this. Something else happened.
“It’s my hope that he will get to keep his privacy and not be subjected to the hate that is going around social media.”
He looked away again. I stood up. Everyone looked at me, I didn’t care.
“No one deserves that,” he said quietly. Then he took the piece of paper he hadn’t looked at once, crumpled it, and stood. He left the room as it burst into an explosion of questions. As the camera panned to him leaving, I saw a sliver of Alex waiting on the other side of the door.
Thank god.
“What do you think that means?” Marcel leaned over. The look on my face must have been terrifying because he snapped to attention and looked away.
It came together slowly. He was protecting me. He didn’t end it because of the texts. He ended it because he was trying to be my fortress. Asshole, that was my job. I shut my eyes tight and waited for this rage and sorrow to pass.
It didn’t.
We had a deal. He would tell me, and we’d do it together unless the blackmailer changed the game. I went to a place of dark, dangerous thoughts. If that was what happened, If the blackmailer was holding me in the balance, that would explain Holden’s decisions.
If that was true, well, I was a fucking asshole, and I wasn’t going to give up.
I had two days to put a plan together. A plan to get us both through the final and then make sure he knows that steps two through five weren’t fucking words on a paper. There was nothing I could do about his career now. It was in the hands of everyone around him.
I just hoped he had enough in him to keep fighting for it.
