This conversation has every chance of ending with Maddie walking out the door and never coming back. Especially given how she caught her ex.

It figures I’d find myself in this position. And I can fully admit I deserve it. I find myself bracing for the worst because when karma fucks you up the ass, she’s not gentle.

Clearing my throat, I start at the beginning. “I can’t really tell you about Veronica without explaining my relationship with Clementine.”

I wonder if this will be weird, for me to talk about someone who has become Maddie’s friend too, but when I glance at Maddie, she nods.

Returning my attention to the ceiling, I stare at the long streak of light streaming in from the street. “Clem, Jax, and I grew up together. As I’m sure you gathered from reading Clem’s book, their parents are epic assholes, so they spent a lot of time at my house. We lived next door.”

Maddie’s quiet, and the pressure of what I need to say weighs on me like a concrete slab. “Clementine and I didn’t get together until our senior year in high school. We’d joke about dating, but I think we were both afraid it would change our dynamic. So, for the first three years of high school, we dated other people. But at the end of the night, we always ended up together, hanging out, goofing off. She and her brother would sneak into my room, and we’d stay up watching horror movies or playing video games.”

“Sounds like fun,” Maddie says softly.

“Yeah, we had a blast.” I blow out a breath, not wanting to continue, but knowing I need to. “So Clem’s best friend was this chick Veronica, and she and I did not get along. She seriously annoyed the shit out of me. Freshman year, we argued all the time, and it sucked because Clem and Veronica were often a package deal. As we got older, I’d end up having to drive Veronica home because she didn’t have a car. I didn’t want Clem to have to do it in the middle of the night, and Jax would never do it because he never fucking liked her. Anyway, after a few years of playing chauffeur, I guess Veronica and I got to know each other better. We stopped arguing as much. She stopped trying to get a rise out of me. By senior year, I suppose we had become friends.”

“Hmm.”

I don’t bother to look at Maddie because I’m positive she’s silently calling me an idiot. And she’d be right.

“I’m not sure if you know this about Clem because she’s pretty private now, but in high school, she was the ‘it’ girl. The party followed her. She was homecoming queen. Prom queen. Student Council president. I forget what else. Oh, she was like a state champion runner. The girl had more talents than she knew what to do with. All of this meant she was pretty fucking busy. Busier than me, which is saying something because football was all-consuming. On more than one night, Veronica would go to her house, find she wasn’t home yet, and come hang out with me. When you’re seventeen and stupid, this makes sense. In retrospect, I’m guessing she came early on purpose.”

Scrubbing my face, I take a deep breath. “This all meant Veronica and I ended up spending way more time together than we should have. Because I adored Clementine. Worshiped the ground she walked on. And I suppose I was just being an insecure jackass because one night while she was over waiting for Clem, Veronica told me it was all one-sided. That Clem didn’t feel the same about me that I did about her, but that she didn’t know how to break it to me. Veronica pointed to the fact that Clem committed to BU early action and never considered attending BC with me even though it has a great writing program, which is what she wanted to do. Now, you might say that our schools are only forty minutes away on the D-line, but Veronica seemed to think this meant something. That this was Clem’s way of letting me down easy because she didn’t know how to break up with me.”

I venture a glance at Maddie, half wondering if she’s asleep because she’s so quiet. But she’s wrapped around a pillow. Her large blue eyes, which look black, widen. “Sounds like Veronica was manipulating you.”

Shrugging, I sigh and roll onto my side to face Maddie. “Yeah. But it doesn’t matter. I was stupid. A smart person would have realized Clem had a lot on her plate and would have expressed what I was feeling to her, but I guess I just started shutting down too. Whatever the case, I suppose the bigger issue was the fact that Clem was not into public displays of affection. I mean, the girl would barely let me hold her hand. Knowing her family, none of this should have surprised me. Her mother is an ice queen, so I couldn’t blame Clem for not being affectionate. From reading her book, you know she was a virgin, too, and I didn’t want to be an ass and pressure her. She said she felt weird because she obviously knew a lot of the girls I had slept with before we dated, and she felt inexperienced. It kind of bugged her out. But I gotta say that after a while, after months of her growing more and more distant, it got me thinking about what Veronica told me.”

Memories flood back to me, stinging with a bittersweet ache. “Anyway, that spring everything went to shit.” Thinking about it makes me mildly nauseous. Clem and I may have worked through the past, but if I could visit my high school self and kick my own ass, I would.

Maddie brushes my hair out of my face. “What happened?” she whispers.

What happened? I nearly ruined one of the best friendships I’ve ever had.

I blow out a breath. “It was a strange week. Every time I saw Clem, she was busy. She wasn’t calling me back. She seemed preoccupied when I did see her. Of course, Veronica was around, and she suggested that Clem liked some other guy because we saw them talking in the hall. It was all probably innocuous stuff, but our distance had been growing, and it was starting to get under my skin. I missed Clem, my best friend. I missed hanging out with her. Being around her. Not worrying about hugging her. That’s what’s so strange. Before we were dating, I hugged her all the time. We goofed around. I’d carry her on my back. We’d laugh at everything. But that all stopped senior year. It was like she was a different person when we were dating. I guess I was too. I was training really hard and talking to coaches at different colleges, but it sucked that our dynamic changed so dramatically.”

I’m quiet, letting the memories wash over me. Maddie threads her fingers through mine. “You don’t have to tell me any more if you don’t want to.”

“Nah, babe. You should probably hear this. You know Clem, and I don’t want shit to be weird between us. It’s just… I’ve never talked about it before.”

She stills. “Really? Not even with Jax?”

“Especially not with Jax.” He had a front row seat for most of it. I’m sure he doesn’t want a blow-by-blow.

I rub my chin, the scruff scraping my palm. Closing my eyes, I can see the whole thing in slow motion. “It was late spring. After school, I had to see a doctor to get the results of a physical so I could participate in a summer training camp. As I was going over the results with him, I noticed my blood type, which is B. And for some reason that caught my attention. Because I knew my parents were both type A.”

It was a moment that rocked my world off its axis, and I’m sure the man had no idea. “I mentioned that to the doctor, and he laughed and told me that was impossible. That I must be mistaken because there’s no way two type-A parents could have a type-B kid.”

“Oh, shit.” Maddie’s hand tightens in mine.

A weak laugh escapes me. “See, the reason I remember Clementine not being around at the time is because I was going out of my mind trying to figure out what that all meant. I mean, who the fuck were my parents? Did my mother cheat on my father? Was she even my mother? I tore through damn near every photo album in the house looking for similarities. Looking for some sign that I was who they claimed I was.”

I haven’t thought about this shit in so long, it feels foreign. Like I’ve come home to a closet full of clothes I haven’t worn in years that don’t quite fit anymore.

Maddie whispers, “Why didn’t you talk to Jax about what was going on with your parents?”

“Dating Clementine had changed the dynamic for all three of us. So Jax and I weren’t tight that spring. And Jax had some girl drama of his own at the time.”

“He never told you what that was?”

I shake my head. “Which made me think it was pretty bad because he went from dating one girl senior year to sleeping with everything in a fifty-mile radius. But he was pretty pissed at me for what went down with his sister that spring. We didn’t talk again for almost a year. If he and I hadn’t ended up at the same college, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be friends now.”

I’m quiet, feeling sucked into the past, something I try not to think about.

A few minutes later, Maddie rolls closer until her lips press into my shoulder. She doesn’t say anything, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t expect me to continue, except now I need to. Now, I want to get it off my chest.

I clear my throat. “That week, I asked my mom what her blood type was. I lied and told her it was for a project at school, a genetics assignment where we had to analyze our traits to see which parent was dominant genetically. I was trying to gauge her reaction. Well, she looked like I had just set our house on fire. She mumbled something about being late for an appointment and almost sprinted out the door.”

“Ugh. That’s rough.” Maddie scoots closer, and I lift my arm to tuck her against me.

“My dad runs a Fortune 500 company. This isn’t shit you can just go around talking about. I was a mess, trying to figure out which of my parents was the liar. Which one let me think I was theirs. I was so fucking pissed. My dad was always talking about me inheriting the hotel that he inherited from my grandfather. Who, it turns out, is not really my grandfather.”

“Jesus. Daren. I’m so sorry.”

While every part of me loathes this story, it’s strangely comforting to finally tell someone. I hold Maddie a little tighter, knowing what comes next.

“All I knew that day was that one of my parents had lied to me my whole life. I walked around in a daze. You know how you can space out when you’re driving familiar roads? End up at a certain spot with no recollection of getting there? My whole day was like that. I didn’t remember going to class, but I must have. I don’t remember getting in the car, but obviously I had. All I remember is sitting at a traffic light. It was raining, pouring. And for some reason, I glanced to the side and saw Veronica waiting at the bus stop. She had an umbrella, but it didn’t help much. She looked like a wet cat. So I rolled down my window and told her to get in.”

I press my lips together, wondering if shit would’ve turned out differently if I hadn’t given her that ride. “I should have just driven away, let the girl catch the bus. But I felt bad for her. And, really, deep down, I think I wanted to destroy shit. Burn everything down to the ground. You know Newton’s Law of Motion? For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction? I had always had a great life. Been on top of my shit. Been the star athlete, made my parents proud. This, this moment was the rubber band snapping back. Because it all felt like a fucking joke. So when I pulled up behind Veronica’s house, and she gave me those big puppy-dog eyes and told me how much she missed me, how she wouldn’t treat me the way Clementine did, I thought fuck it. Fuck it all. And I lit the match.”

* * *

Maybe it’s been easier to talk about this because we’re lying in bed in the dark. But now, I want to see Maddie’s face, to gauge how much I disgust her. So I loosen my grip on her shoulder and wait.

She sighs. So much can be said in a sigh.

I imagine the worst is going through her mind. But then she surprises me and tightens her arm on my chest.

“How long did this go on?” she asks quietly.

“Few weeks.” I blow out a breath. “I felt like shit every day I didn’t tell Clementine. And in those rare moments I forgot and then suddenly remembered what I was doing, it was like the air got sucked out of my lungs.” Groaning, I shake my head. “Veronica and I only slept together that one time, and then there were a couple of partial hookups that always began with me intending to do the right thing and break things off. I needed to come clean to Clem. I planned to tell her everything. When I told Veronica we had to stop, that I had to tell Clem, she freaked out. Threw a vase at my head and swore she’d tell her first. But it didn’t matter because Clem found out anyway.”

“I know. It’s in her book.”

“Yes, it is. So in case I want to think it wasn’t as bad as I imagined, I can flip that fucker open and confirm how big of an asshole I was.”

Maddie laughs softly, and I’m surprised she finds any humor in the situation. Because I feel nauseous walking down memory lane.

She rolls onto her stomach and leans up on my chest. “Yes, you were an asshole. But I can see you were going through a lot.” Silence lingers between us, and I take a strand of her silky black hair between my fingers. “Maybe you didn’t handle it well, but we all do dumb things in a crisis.” She’s quiet again, and I’m still reeling from the fact that she hasn’t run out the door yet. “So what happened with Veronica? You guys obviously stayed together.”

“Yeah. For all the wrong reasons.”

“What do you mean?”

“When our friends found out what happened, people hated her. Even though I was just as responsible, no one gave me shit. Well, no one but Jax, but I welcomed that with open arms. Every bit of it.” I tell her about the fight we had, how he almost broke my jaw. How he managed to avoid me our entire freshman year in college. “But it sucked anyway because he and Veronica never liked each other, so we couldn’t all hang out once he and I worked through some of our issues.” And not being able to hang out with your friends and your girlfriend blows.

Taking a big breath, I continue. Because I know I haven’t answered Maddie’s question. “We shouldn’t have stayed together. But Veronica didn’t have any friends at BC. And her home life was really bad. Alcoholic parents who bordered on abusive. At the very least, they were negligent. I felt like she needed someone, so I guess I was that someone. The only problem—well, there were a few—but the main one was she never trusted me. Since we had hooked up while I was dating Clementine, Veronica had me pegged as a cheater even though I never considered it. No matter how ugly our fights got, it never crossed my mind. I won’t do that again to someone. But she just didn’t trust me. And that shit gets exhausting. I got to the point where I needed someone who believed me, who believed in us.”

Maddie rubs my chest, just over my heart, like she knows it hurts having to talk about the past. “It must have been a relief to finally talk to Clementine and tell her what happened with your parents.”

I close my eyes, tilting my head back. “I never told her.”

“What?” Maddie jerks against me, and I look up at her. Even in the darkness, I can see her frowning. “Why didn’t you tell her what happened with the blood type?”

“I didn’t want to give her excuses. I needed to own what happened and let her know it messed me up all these years not being friends with her. And I wanted to apologize for not being there for her in college when all that shit was going down with that professor.” I sigh. “Truth? Before we talked last fall, I really had no idea Veronica was probably lying to me when she said my relationship with Clem was one-sided. All this time, I assumed it was true.”

Maddie sits up more, pulling the sheet tighter over her chest. Is she leaving?

Her head slants to the side, and in the dim light, I can tell she’s biting her lip. “You guys got engaged last fall, right?”

“Yeah.” My gut burns at the thought.

She looks at me for a long moment. “So why get engaged if all you did was argue?”

I stare back, wishing I had a thousand different answers than the one that leave my lips. “I figured that’s what you do when your girlfriend tells you she’s pregnant.”

Silence.

Long minutes stretch between us before she speaks. “What... What happened to the baby?”

The words feel bitter on my tongue. “There was no baby. She lied to keep me from breaking up with her and then later faked a miscarriage. She finally came clean about it the night of the draft.”

“Jesus.”

Maddie immediately wraps her arms around me. We lie there in silence, and then she swallows. “So you wanted a family?”

“Of course. You know, not right out of college, but at some point. But I never would have let her carry my child on her own, especially not with the shit that I went though with my parents.”

Maddie nods, and I thread my fingers in her hair, loving how having her here dulls the pain of the past and makes me believe that I can have so much more in the future than what I had with Veronica.

“You’re a good man. Maybe people don’t tell you because they focus on your moves on the field, but you’re a good person, Daren.”

She presses a kiss to my chest, and I realize I’ve never had anyone like this, a woman in my life I could be so open with.

“I proposed to her before I realized how so much of our relationship was built on lies. So many fucking lies. It wasn’t until talking to Clem, after we were already engaged, that I started really piecing it together.” I laugh, humorlessly. “We probably never would’ve lasted, but I was willing to try for the sake of the baby. But between the deceit and Veronica hating football, it was too much. In college, maybe she initially liked the attention she got from dating me. But it wasn’t all positive. Girls gave her a hard time. Told her all kinds of lies to get close to me. I know that wore her down. But at the end of the day, while I thought I loved her, the truth was I loved one thing more, and we never got past that.”

“The game.”

Nodding, I let out a breath, relieved that Maddie gets what I’m saying. “Yeah, she hated that I always put football first. It’s not as though I ever promised her anything different. She knew my priorities.”

“Hmm.” Maddie runs her finger over the edge of the sheet. “Jacob hated how much I worked. He didn’t understand that about me, which is crazy because he spent most of his days in the gym. But for some reason, it wasn’t okay that I was as committed to my career as he was to his.”

“How did you guys meet? What’s the story?”

She groans and flops onto her back next to me, and I roll to face her. “My coworker got food poisoning. He sounded like he was on death’s door, so I helped him cover his segment. I didn’t know much about mixed martial arts, aside from the fact that they beat the hell out of each other in the ring. Anyway, I filmed Jacob’s match and interviewed him afterward. And as soon as the camera stopped rolling, he asked me out.”

“Didn’t waste any time, did he?”

“No, he didn’t. I guess I liked that. In college, guys never really asked me on dates. I was always working and not at the bars with my friends, so my social life was non-existent. Anyway, I liked that he was confident. We both grew up in Southie, so we had similar backgrounds. He’s a few years older than I am. I didn’t know him growing up, but once we started dating, I realized how our friends all kind of knew each other in one way or another.” Blowing out a breath, she curls up on her side, and I brush the hair out of her face. “We had fun going out. But I was always taking on last-minute assignments, which would ruin our dates. He hated that. I can’t say that I blame him, but it would’ve been nice if he had just broken up with me instead of banging girls behind my back.”

I run my finger over her cheek. “I’m sorry he hurt you.” Pulling her closer, I kiss her forehead. “But I have to say I’m glad you guys broke up. Because now you’re here.”

A smile tilts her lips. “With you?”

“Yes, with me.” I stroke her hair. “And you haven’t run out of here screaming after hearing all my baggage, so I figure that’s a good thing.”

Her soft laugh strums my heart a little faster. “Everyone has baggage, Daren.” Looking into her eyes, I don’t see judgment. I don’t see disdain. I see a friend. “It’s learning not to make the same mistakes that matters.”

“Maddie?”

Her eyes widen. “Yeah?”

“I’ll try not to be one of your mistakes.”

She arches up and gives me the sweetest smile before placing a kiss on my lips. “I have a feeling you won't be."

Reaching for a blanket, I pull it over us before I grab her and fit her to me. This girl has no idea, but I think I just fell for her a little harder.