Exposed King (Boys of Brisley 2)

I could hear the anxiety in her voice, but also the fear and something else entirely ... I couldn’t place it, and it made me nervous as hell to answer.

Okay, Mia. Gonna hand you my heart on a silver fucking platter here. Please don’t stab it.“Uh ... yeah,” I admitted, voice almost as shaky as my traitorous, sweaty hands. I wanted to run, to drink, to gamble, to sleep until someone else worked this out for me, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Not this time. “I don’t want to leave you. I want you to come with me to Brisley.”

Unfortunately, the look on her face wasn’t what I wanted to see, and to make matters worse, a table called her over before she could respond.

The whole time she waited on them I could see her glancing at me, and with me as a giant distraction, she spilled their drink on the way back. She was flustered and nervous and everything that pointed to her saying no.

I gripped the edge of the table to ground myself and begged myself to keep a straight face when she did. “Just say it, baby. It’s okay, I won’t be mad.” Just a little dead inside, but that’s my problem.

“I can’t,” she whispered it like she was saying some sacred secret. “I can’t leave my family.”

Tears welled in her eyes when she took my hand, but hope swelled in mine. “So we’ll take Dinora, too. All the kids. Everyone,” I rushed out. “You don’t have to leave them. I wouldn’t ask you to.”

“I can’t do that to the boys. Jago’s ... he has some things going on. I don’t know what they are and things have been getting better, but I’m worried to relocate him at a time like this. Ollie I—”

“Camilla!” her boss Ed yelled, waving her into his office angrily.

“Fuck. I’m sorry. We’ll talk more. Don’t go.”

She rushed off to get scolded, and I found myself wanting to hit her fucking boss for still not bothering to learn her name.

But beyond that, I was devastated. If she really wouldn’t go because of Jago’s secrets, I could fix this. I could fix all of it by telling her what that secret is — being gay certainly isn’t a reason to keep someone in the same town, after all, and if she knew, she’d agree to go.

It just wasn’t my secret to tell and that would never change. I’d rather break my own heart a million times than betray Jago’s trust and take this from him. I’d given him my word that I wouldn’t even hint at his secret to anyone, including Mia ... and if I couldn’t keep my word even when it was hard, I wasn’t worth a damn.

I settled in that booth to wait for her and bit my nails, which was a habit I thought I’d broken fifteen years ago. Three of them were shredded and way too short by the time I saw her again, and she looked completely exhausted and stressed, nothing like she looked when she first saw me walk in. When she finally brought me my plate of food she squeezed my hand before she went back to work, and I knew this conversation wouldn’t continue until she was off the clock.

All I’d done was make her day worse, and that fact hurt me more than anything. I was Ollie Bishop, I dealt in laughter and ridiculousness, not sadness, but that was all I brought her today.

The thing that bothered me the most was that she wanted to come, she wanted to be with me, she just genuinely felt like she couldn’t. I didn’t know how to fix that without ruining the relationships I’d built with her family, so there wasn’t much I could do but cross my fingers and pray Jago came out sooner rather than later.

And yet, as I ate my sad huevos and watched Mia in my periphery, I had a nagging feeling that she hadn’t told me the whole truth. Jago was a teenager and teenagers were angsty, fucking all of them.

That couldn’t be the reason. It didn’t make any sense, which meant there had to be another reason, something she wasn’t telling me or couldn’t tell me.

The problem was ... I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I wasn’t sure I could handle knowing, and as much as I hated myself for being a coward, I stood up. I dropped some cash on the table next to my half-finished meal, then tugged my shirt down to straighten it out. I couldn’t have this conversation, not today. I needed a drink and some space, some time to figure out what to do before I made a rash decision.

So I waved awkwardly to Mia and mouthed an apology to her ... then walked out and didn’t look back.