After the disastrously bad date that I took Kate on, I avoided Ward for almost a week. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. We lived together, trained together, and played together. The fact that I managed to avoid being in the same room with him in all that time was an achievement. One that backfired massively. Eventually he cornered me in our apartment. He closed the door to my room behind him and looked me square in the eye. Every muscle in my body tensed up.

“I know what you did,” he said. His voice was serious, and his expression gave nothing away.

My heart was hammering in my ribs in a way that would probably kill poor Lucas if he got this worked up. Ward was actually going to murder me. Right here. Right now. This moment was the end of my life. There was a textbook in his hand and he was probably going to bludgeon me to death with it. The coroner’s report would say that I had my brains bashed in with algebra textbook. What a humiliating way to die. Death by math. I hoped they didn’t put that on my tombstone.

“I, uh…” There was really nothing to say. I might as well accept my fate. If he knew, there was no escape. “I’m sorry.”

Ward sat down in the chair across from me. “You did the right thing.”

I swallowed hard. What was happening? My fear was mixing with my confusion in a way that made me feel lightheaded, weak, and unreal. I still wasn’t able to speak, so Ward continued. I struggled to keep up with him.

“Kate’s really upset,” he told me. “It’s for the best, though.”

“How—” I stuttered, and Ward cut me off with a gesture.

“Lucas sold you out, obviously. He was worried that you couldn’t keep a secret, so he told me himself. But I’d already figured it out by then anyway. Hell, I figured it out before either of you did.” He smirked at me like I should find this as funny as he clearly did.

Ward had a bad habit of making his intelligence known at the most inconvenient times. It was great in football, and terrible in person. He really was quite brilliant when it came to strategy. That’s what made him such a good quarterback.

“S-sorry?”

Ward’s smirk turned into a full grin. “Did you really think I didn’t know what was going on with you and Lucas? That you two could skulk around with your little top-secret plan and I wouldn’t catch on?”

I made a noise that was not a word, but sounded vaguely like a denial, and Ward laughed at me. Being laughed at should have made me annoyed, but in that moment, anything that wasn’t a beat down felt like a victory.

“Dude, I’m not mad at you!” He shook his head at me like I was a total moron. “Stop acting like I’m about to jump you with a tire iron again.”

“You aren’t?” I still wasn’t sure I believed him. This could all be some sort of a trick to make me incriminate myself.

“No!” He laughed again. “I couldn’t have planned that better myself. You did the right thing.”

“I did?” My voice was an octave higher than usual and it broke halfway through. It was like I’d become fourteen again.

“Yeah.” Ward sat back in his chair and regarded me with a look that did seem to be approving. “I’m glad you ran Kate off like that. She needs to focus on her school work, not chasing football players.” He rolled his blue eyes at me. “I know my sister pretty well, you know, and not just because I read her diary once. She’s had a huge crush on you for years. Ever since you gave her those daisies when you apologized for the glitter. She’s convinced herself that she’s in love with you.”

Kate was in love with me? My heart hurt. I didn’t deserve to be in the same room with her.

Ward couldn’t contain his laughter. “I know, right?” He seemed to think the idea was simply hilarious. “She’s just a kid though, don’t hold it against her.”

“I don’t think she likes me anymore,” I managed to say. At least I could be honest about that.

“Well that was the point, wasn’t it?” He arched an eyebrow at me.

“Yeah. That was the point.”

“So why do you still look guilty then?”

Because I want her. I want her so badly that I can’t think of anything else. I think about her from the second I wake up until the moment I fall asleep, and then I dream about her all night long.

“I don’t know,” I lied.

“Lucas said you would be weird about this,” Ward told me. He was still smiling. “I guess I didn’t realize just how weird that could be.” He was still smiling, clearly thinking I was still afraid. I wasn’t. Fear had given way to a guilt so powerful that I wanted to crawl under a rock and die.

“Look,” Ward was saying as he rose and turned to go. “Don’t worry about Kate. She’s tough. She’ll be fine. She’s going to mope around for a week or so and then she’ll probably hate you forever, but she’ll move on.”

The thought made me want to throw up. Ward grinned and shut the door behind him, pleased as punch. I wished that he had just beaten me up. It would have been kinder than telling me the truth.

She loved me.