Page 94 of Heartless As Puck

This could be exactly the help I needed.

“Can we talk in private?” I asked, glancing down at my meal and deciding that I wasn’t hungry enough to bother finishing it right now.

Alec’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah, okay. How about outside? There are too many people who could listen in here.”

“Sounds good.” I rose from my seat, and together, we made our way out of the bar. There were still a few guys lingering outside, most of them smoking, so we waved at them when they stared at us and then put enough distance between us to be able to speak privately.

“What’s up?” Alec asked.

I jiggled my leg, then almost laughed. That was such a Jane thing to do. She was already rubbing off on me.

I drew in a deep breath, hoping I wasn’t about to make a terrible mistake. “This needs to stay between us.”

I held his gaze, so he’d know I was serious.

He drew a cross over his heart. “Unless you tell me anything that I think Jane needs to know, then no one else will hear it from me. Well, except perhaps my girlfriend, but she’ll keep your secrets.”

I stared at a patch of dirt on the wall that looked kind of like a face. “When our team made the announcement about our relationship, it wasn’t real. Jane and I were only pretending to be together. It’s real now,” I hurried to add, “but at first, she agreed to help me become a more attractive prospect for the team’s management to choose as captain.”

Alec’s jaw clenched, but he exhaled roughly and didn’t hit me, so that was a positive start. “Seems like it worked. Jane actually agreed to that?”

“It took a bit of convincing. She was scared about getting negative attention or losing progress with her stutter.”

“She always hated attention.” He shook his head. “I’m honestly amazed she went along with it.”

“But you aren’t shocked about what we did? Just that she participated?”

He gave me a look. “Haven’t you heard about how I got together with my girlfriend?”

I shrugged. I’d never paid much attention to gossip, especially when it had to do with people’s personal lives.

He snorted. “Figures. So, Tally’s cheating ex was going to her cousin’s wedding as one of the bridesmaid’s dates. I pretended to be her boyfriend to shield her from embarrassment and we ended up falling in love. Although, actually, in hindsight, I think I had loved her all along. I just didn’t realize it.”

“Wait, seriously?” Why hadn’t Jane mentioned that before? It was the kind of thing that might be relevant.

“Yep.” He leaned against the wall and crossed his legs at the ankles. “So, to answer your question, no, what you did doesn’t shock me, and I’m guessing that Jane was a willing participant because, despite how quiet she can be, she’s stubborn as hell when she puts her foot down.”

I chuckled and rubbed at the back of my neck. “You can say that again.”

“It’s real now, though?”

“Yeah.” Perhaps it should have been strange to talk to Jane’s brother about our relationship, but oddly enough, it felt natural. “I care about her in ways I never have for anyone else before.”

“Good. I’ve seen that photo—it fucking scarred me—and if you’d done that with her and left her high and dry, we’d have some serious issues.”

“You mean we don’t already have a problem because I dragged her into this mess?”

“How do you mean?” he asked. “How is it your fault?”

“If I hadn’t convinced her to pretend to date me, then none of the bad shit would have happened to her and she’d still be going to classes and leaving the house without a care in the world instead of sneaking around, constantly afraid of being recognized and humiliated.”

Alec tilted his head from side to side. “I get it. In your shoes, I might feel the same way, but she agreed to the plan, and Jane doesn’t just go along with things without thinking them through. She knew the risks and was prepared to take them. Things went wrong, but that isn’t just on you. The way I see it, the only thing that matters now is what you intend to do next.”

My lips quirked. “Did you just ask me what my intentions with your sister are?”

“Come on, you had to have been expecting that.”

I joined Alec at the wall, leaving a safe distance between us in case he didn’t like what I had to say. “My future is up in the air. I don’t know if I’ll still be captain in a month, or if I’ll get a contract next year. If I do, it might not be with the Chaos.”