Page 18 of Locked & Loaded

Fuck it.

I could lie. I could give him something easy, something that sounds reasonable and doesn’t expose me.

Instead, I say, “Fine. But you need to swear you’ll keep this a secret.”

Mads frowns, looking even more confused now. After a second, he nods. “Okay?”

“You swear?”

“I swear,” he says, impatience creeping into his voice. “Jesus, Rodriguez, just say it.”

I know he’s not homophobic. Roman is his best friend, and Roman is as out as it gets in this league. Still, the prospect of saying it out loud makes my stomach twist, because once I say it, I can’t take it back.

But if I’m going to explain why Mads has been making me lose my mind for three months, this is the only safe place to start.

“I’m gay,” I say.

The words hang in the cold air between us.

Mads blinks once, then again. His expression doesn’t change much, but his eyes widen a little, and for a second he goes completely still.

Then he says carefully, “Okay. That’s cool.”

He’s waiting. I can see it in his face. He’s waiting for the rest. The part where this explains why I’ve been avoiding him, why I can’t talk to him like a normal human being, why my face is currently hot enough to heat the entire compartment.

I pinch the bridge of my nose.

Okay. Here goes nothing.

“And I sort of used to have a crush on you,” I say in one breath.

The compartment goes dead silent.

“That’s why I’ve been avoiding you.”

I keep my eyes on the floor because I cannot bear to look at his face right now. The silence stretches, filled only by the rattle of the train, the whistle of the wind, and the soft sound of Mads breathing three feet away. Every second feels like its own small, precise torture.

Then Mads says, “Used to?”

I look up at him.

He’s still sitting on his bunk, his expression unreadable. He doesn’t look disgusted or angry. He’s just watching me.

“Yeah,” I say, because it’s safer than the truth. “Past tense. Not anymore.”

The half-lie lets me keep one small piece of my crumbling dignity. The crush is very much present tense, has been for months, and shows no signs of going anywhere. But telling him that would be suicide.

Mads doesn’t answer right away. He keeps watching me like he’s trying to decide what to do with the information I just dropped on him.

His eyes don’t leave my face, and I feel every second of his attention like a physical touch.

“Huh,” he says finally.

That’s it.

Huh.

Chapter 3. Mads