Chapter 2 #2
“It’s not about me,” I repeat, hoping they might just let it go, but all the while there’s a niggle in the back of my head telling me to talk about it with them.
I mean, I’ve never been another man’s boyfriend, or even held a man’s hand . . . and now that I think about it, they’ve both done all kinds of things with men romantically. Maybe they could give me some pointers?
And since they know me, they know how to get me to talk, damn them—though maybe not—and so I spill my guts.
“I’m going to be Cam’s boyfriend,” I declare, not quietly at all.
I cover my mouth as fast as I can, but I still can’t stop the words, and I see them trying to process them while they gape at me.
“You have a crush on your agent?” Derek asks, his voice even gruffer than normal.
“You have a crush on a man?” Tara asks, whispering furiously and leaning almost halfway across the table. “Why have you never told me men do it for you too?” she demands.
“I don’t—they don’t,” I protest and shake my head at least a million times.
“Then what the hell?” Derek leans back, crosses his arms, and looks as worried for me as he’s able to—still somehow looking mad, though.
He’s such a grump.
“Okay, okay.” I raise both palms out to them, and take a moment to fucking breathe and think about what I’m going to say, which isn’t something I always do, but this is important.
I don’t feel alright telling them everything Cam told me—it’s his personal shit and nobody else’s business—but I can’t just tell them I’m going to pretend to be his boyfriend for shit’s and giggles.
“He wasn’t going to go to his high school reunion because of . . . a situation, and having someone there with him was going to help, so I offered and he’s thinking about it.”
There. That’s got to get them to relax, right?
“Why would you even offer?”
“He doesn’t want to go so you just steamrolled him?”
They both talk at the same time, so it takes me a minute to figure out what each of them said, but when I do, I have to cringe at Tara’s question—she has a point about me being pushy. That is part of who I am, though.
“I offered because he’s a good guy and being single is the only thing that was keeping him from going. And I believe me, he does want to go, Tara.”
Maybe it comes out a bit snippy, but she hit a nerve, and of course now I’m thinking about how to make sure Cam actually does want to go to this thing, but that’s a problem for another day.
“He was talking about seeing his old teammates.” I sit up at attention again, and this time I’m the one leaning in, excited to prove Tara wrong.
“Cam played basketball in high school and college and he was really good too. He looked excited when he mentioned catching up with them, and his mom still lives in his hometown too, so I bet it’s a good place.
I’ve met her lots of times, and she loves me too. ”
“Well, duh,” Tara mumbles, but she looks to the side, clearly thinking about the situation.
“So it’s not set in stone yet . . . this isn’t happening for sure?” Derek asks.
“Not yet, but I think it’d be good for Cam to go back home, and maybe he can see how far he’s come and why what he’s built is so impressive, you know?” I shrug.
Derek tilts his head and stares at me for an uncomfortably long moment. His dark eyes bore into me, and I have to stop myself from twitching like I have to stop myself from swiping my toes on the turf before a surprise snap so I don’t give anything away to the defense.
“You really care about him,” he says at last.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Tara snap her head back to me, and again I have to stop myself from twitching.
“Cam is a very important person to me, yes.” I nod once and leave it at that because I don’t think there’s anything else to say. It should be obvious, especially to Derek.
He knows he’s always had a wider group of supporters in the league than I have, because we’ve talked about it before. And I’ve told him how it was only right before he joined the league that I finally let myself make some friends and have a life outside of football.
I for sure didn’t make as many friends in college as he did, mostly because I didn’t really start enjoying myself until about three years into the league—after we’d won the Super Bowl that first time, after I’d won MVP, after I’d finally proven to anyone and everyone that their faith in me and the expectations placed on me hadn’t been misguided.
Cam was really the only person I had in LA when I first moved here.
Of course I could still count on my parents, and my sisters, but only up to a certain point, and they weren’t here.
Some days the pain of not having them close got to be a bit too much, certainly more unbearable than having five three-hundred-pound guys fighting to get to me and destroy me, and on those days it was Cam who made me feel better.
He believed in me before anyone else did. He was my friend from the get-go and my biggest champion.
I wouldn’t be who I am if it wasn’t for him.
I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for him.
I think I would probably have done what so many other quarterbacks from small town America did after they’d made it big; I would’ve married a nice girl-next-door type of woman, we would’ve popped out a few kids, and by now I would probably be sick of everything, including the game I loved more than anything.
Because now I know that I do love some things more—not many things, but some for sure.
I’m not against marriage, not in principle—I think it’s a beautiful thing when two people decide they want to spend the rest of their lives together, and they promise to do it, to work every day to do it—but I also know that I’ve never met a woman that I could see myself making those promises to while being a hundred percent honest.
Maybe that just goes to show that I am lacking something.
Because I think that when I wake up in the middle of the night and feel lonely like so many other people do from what I’ve heard, I do want that companionship, and I do want to have someone there with me who wants me for me and not for what I can give them.
I might not show it as much or as deeply as Cam does—and maybe when I’m thirty-eight I will—but I do want to find that perfect woman for me. I want the kids, the marriage, the promises.
Some days it feels . . . wrong to want all those things when I’m constantly presented with offers from women who just don’t give me that vibe. Like I’m ungrateful, like I’m not really giving them a chance.
But other days I forget about it completely.
I have friends and family who love me just the way I am, and I choose to believe that when I’m truly ready, when the timing fits, when the fates align or whatever, I’ll find it. I’ll find her.
Cam helped me grow up in a way that I didn’t even know I was capable of. He built up my self-esteem when it was at its lowest and has always pushed me to keep demanding more of myself.
He’s a really good fucking person and he deserves to find the happiness I’ve seen him searching for for so many years. If I can help even a little in that search, then I’ll have started to repay the immense debt I owe him.
So yeah, I don’t give Derek or Tara any other explanations, and I change the subject, because nothing is going to stop me from helping Cam.