“I’m hanging up now. I love you Josey, I do, but I can’t keep doing this with you.”

“Wait, I—”

I didn’t wait. I hung up, tossing my phone to the desk, wanting it out of my hand, which was shaking with anger.

“Eilish?”

I turned at the sound of my name, relieved to find Bryan hovering just inside the door.

“I knocked,” he tossed his thumb over his shoulder, “but you didn’t hear me. Are you okay?”

I nodded. But then, realizing I didn’t want or need to pretend with Bryan, I shook my head. “No. No, I’m not.”

“Then why are you over there?” He opened his arms and admonished me softly, “Come here.”

I huffed a laugh, I couldn’t help it. He sounded so serious. I stood and walked into his embrace, melting against him as he gathered me to him.

“Are you going to tell me who that was on the phone?”

I snuggled closer. “It was my friend Josey.”

“She upset you?”

“She just admitted to being the one who told my mother about you being Patrick’s father.”

I felt Bryan stiffen and then gather a deep inhale. “Wow.”

“Yes. Wow. I had no idea until just now. She heard about the custody case somehow and called to ask what happened.” I filled Bryan in on the rest of the conversation.

When I was finished, and I was marinating in my anger and exhaustion and hurt, Bryan leaned away and slipped his fingers under my chin, tilting my head back. Then he placed a sweetly seductive kiss on my lips, sweeping his tongue out and catching my bottom lip with a soft bite.

When he moved slightly back so he could see me, I gazed up at him and smiled. “What was that for?”

“You’ve been through a lot today.”

“So have you.”

“Yes. We’ve been through a lot together. So we should kiss each other until it’s all better.”

Despite everything, that made me laugh.

“You think so?” I gave him a quizzical smile. I especially appreciated that he didn’t jump in and try to tell me what to do. He just offered his support.

“What’s that look for?”

“It’s just, I’m impressed with you. Instead of giving me unsolicited advice or trying to fix things for me, you listened. And then you gave me a kiss. That’s impressive.”

Bryan stood a little straighter, looking pleased with himself. “One thing we learn in recovery is that no one can fight our battles for us, and we can’t fight other people’s battles either. I’m—or I haven’t been—so great at keeping my nose out of your battles. But what happened this last week, with everyone thinking our business was their business . . .” he paused, his expression growing contemplative, “I’m going to trust you. You let me know if you need my help and I’ll be there.”

A sense of rightness and wonder fell over me, like a gossamer blanket. I couldn’t help my smile, which had grown so large it made my cheeks ache.

“Bryan—”

“Oh!” He released me, stepping away and taking a folded up piece of paper from his back pocket. “I have some good news.”

I accepted the paper, casting him an amused and suspicious glare. “What is it?”

“Take a look.” He dipped his chin toward the sheet in my hands.

Carefully unfolding it, I skimmed its contents. It was a memo from Coach Brian to the entire team announcing that Connors had resigned effective immediately.

My eyes darted to Bryan’s. “What is this?”

“You know how Connors kept stealing people’s lunches?”

“Yes, but I didn’t think it was widely known.”

“It is . . . and it isn’t. Anyway, Alice didn’t know it was him who’d been stealing lunches, so she put dye on her bento box and caught him—literally—red-handed.”

I sputtered a laugh at Alice’s detective work, then said, “But I thought he was related to the general manager? I can’t imagine it’d be easy to have him let go.”

“He is. Connors is his cousin, but Alice is our GM’s niece.”

I shook my head at the absurdity of it all. “So he was fired for taking Alice’s lunch?”

“No. He was fired for threatening Alice because she had the audacity to put dye on her lunch container, waving around red hands like a madman. Coach Brian witnessed the whole thing and gave him two choices: either he’d be fired or he could resign.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Wow. And thank fuck. Not sure I could handle another season with his grubby paws on me,” he said with a shudder and then winked at me. “I’d much rather yours.”

I swiped him on the shoulder, though I had to admit his flirting gave me a little thrill in my belly. “And this all happened while we were gone this afternoon?” I went on, still curious.

“No. This happened on Wednesday, while you had the day off. The resignation just came through today.” His hand traveled from my neck, wandering down my spine to rest on my lower back. I shivered.

“Oh! So, what does that mean—”

“I ran into Coach downstairs,” Bryan gave me a wry smile, “he told me to put my goddamn personal drama on the shelf for the sake of the team.”

I winced. “Sorry about that.”

“No, no. It’s fine. I told him I never wanted you benched in the first place—which is the truth—and now he thinks I’m Mother Teresa. I come out of this smelling like a rose.”