Chapter 5
CAM
MARCH
With football season over, it’s time to focus more intently on all other sports, and I do that with a laser focus I don’t think I’ve had in at least half a decade—that’s the reasonable bi-product of having something to avoid thinking about.
Drafts are coming up, some players are deciding whether to retire or not, get traded or not, and this year—because some deity seems to be on my side—there have been no scandals to deal with . . . yet.
That means I have a good amount of time to hang out with AJ and for us to figure out just how much PDA we want to show at the reunion. Those conversations have been frustrating but somehow always end with me laughing my ass off.
It’s something that AJ does so freaking well, and I don’t think he even realizes what a gift it is.
But when I think we have the plan done—we’ll hold hands occasionally and maybe some hugging—he throws me a curveball.
“We’re going to dinner with Derek and Hawk,” he declares. “Hugh and his boyfriend are also going.”
It doesn’t take fucking Einstein to connect the dots—two other same-sex couples connected in one way or another to the sport or the limelight. Hugh and I have known each other for a very long time, though we’ve never worked together.
He’s also an agent and represents some of the best players in the league, as well as a couple of really good baseball players, but he works solo. He didn’t want to open an agency and become everyone’s boss like I did when I left my previous agency.
And boy there are some days when I envy him that, but then I think about how I have Lindsey and so many others who I work alongside every day, and I get over that envy real quick.
“Why?” I ask AJ uselessly. I still want to hear his reasoning.
“They’re gonna coach us.” His excited smile and the way he bounces lightly on his toes is adorable enough to have me smiling.
“We don’t need coaching, we’re ready.” And in all honesty, I don’t want to spend the next two months thinking about this constantly.
I already did that while AJ was away, and I had my phone ready to go a dozen times to call it all off and confess my lie to Mom, but I couldn’t bring myself to follow through.
“I think we just need to test things out with them,” he insists, and I give in.
At the very least we’re going to have good food with good men, so it’s not like it’ll be wasted time, and I can tell it’s going to be a great dinner when we walk up to the table in the private room of the ridiculously exclusive sushi restaurant in the Hills.
Hawk and Ollie are bickering while Hugh and Derek look on with amused smirks. All conversation stops when we walk up to them. We get the greetings out of the way, and I have to snort when Hugh’s slap on my back is a bit harder than necessary.
“Still salty about how I got Liston?” I taunt him about the rookie pitcher who’s now in the minors, playing for Boston.
“I won’t stop being salty until you tell me what the hell you said to the kid to sign with you.”
An enigmatic smile is the only answer he’ll get. I’m not giving away my secret—get to know them before you put the offer on the table.
Hugh knows this, so it would be moot anyway, but I found out that what Liston really wants is a long career.
He doesn’t care about money and sponsorships, at least not right now, so that’s what I focused on the most during our first meeting.
As long as he’s smart and takes care of that spectacular arm, he should go far. Very far.
I snap back to the present when the waitress asks what I want to drink, and since AJ and I drove over together, I relax and order my favorite, gin and tonic.
“Dee told me you wanted to talk about something important today?” Hawk says after the waiter leaves, and I level AJ with a look that tells him to go ahead and tell them all.
I enjoy sitting back and being able to take in their reactions.
Ollie is open-mouthed the whole time, Hawk gets a dangerous glint in his eyes the longer AJ talks, Derek is frowning—harder than normal, but that could mean anything from his chair is uncomfortable to he’s planning on murdering me tonight—and Hugh starts shaking his head and chuckling after the second sentence.
So it’s no surprise really, that the first thing he says is, “This is fucking insane.”
Yeah, I know.
But AJ didn’t explain the why of it all, and though I know all of them would back me up and understand the whole thing better if I did, I keep quiet.
“It’s not that weird,” AJ protests, pouting a little. “We have everything figured out, but I want you guys to give us some tips on how to seem like a couple without, like, kissing in front of all of Cam’s classmates.”
“Huh,” Hawk says and leans his chin on his closed fist.
“Holding hands, definitely,” Ollie says and nods decisively at himself. “Hugh always puts his hand on my side or my lower back when we’re walking.”
“Yeah, we’ve got those things already, but I just want it to be obvious, you know?”
“I totally get it,” Hawk says. His eyes shift to me with that mischievous glint before they’re on AJ again.
“You should definitely make sure you’re looking at him as much as you can, and smile like you do when you think about horses!
” He shouts that last word and I have to smile at how Derek leans away just a tiny bit.
Even loving Hawk more than is possible to explain, he’s still human, and the decibels Hawk can reach when excited are unmatched.
“Look at him, and think about horses,” AJ mumbles as he writes it down studiously on his phone, and he too is nodding at himself.
“Lastly,” Hawk says and leans in, again looking at me for only a fraction of a second. “You really need to wear that tight blue button-down you wore to the ESPYS last year.”
Derek gets all growly, while his friend’s jealousy goes right over AJ’s head and he writes that down too . . . It’s not the worst idea. AJ does look great in that shirt.
APRIL
“You know about the reunion?” Mom asks as soon as I finish saying hello.
In the end, she wasn’t able to come visit this month because all her friends decided they needed to go on a cruise next week, but since I’ve known I was going to visit her for months now, I wasn’t too bummed out about it.
Besides, she’s coming for a whole two weeks in August, so I’m planning more than a few fun surprises for her.
By then, AJ and I will be dealing with telling her about our breakup so having her here, seeing us, will probably help with that as well.
“Yeah, about that—”
“Are you bringing AJ?” she demands.
“Yeah, we’re going, and before you—”
“You’re staying with me,” she declares. “I’ll make up your room, and I won’t hear a single word about it.”
I open my mouth to protest, to tell her . . . What the fuck can I say?
If this were a real relationship and I was confident enough in it to bring the man to my hometown, staying with her would be so obvious and there’d be no question about us sleeping in the same bed.
And AJ has never been particularly shy—no one in the world believes he’s a prude—so how am I going to get out of this?
For now . . .
“Thanks, Mom, we’d love that.”
“So what?” AJ asks a few days later when we get a chance to catch up. He looks concerned for me, and I can’t understand why he’s not even slightly worried about this.
We decided to go out since that would mean more pictures of us out and about, but now we’re back at his place and I can finally talk to him about this without the risk of anyone overhearing.
“This is way too much for us, AJ. I’m your agent for fuck’s sake! We can’t sleep in the same bed, share a bathroom, we can’t—”
He stops me by wrapping his arms around me and hugging the life out of me. The strength of his arms is exactly what I need to take a deep breath, and after I do, he sways us from side to side and pats my head soothingly—as if I were a fussy baby or something.
“It’s fine,” he croons without stopping our movement. “I mean, my sisters always told me I talk in my sleep, but what do they know? We only slept in the same room for about twelve years.”
AJ using sarcasm is always funny, and since I can’t feel my heartbeat in my head anymore, I realize he knows how to calm me down better than I do.
I have to close my eyes.
Maybe I am acting like a fussy child, dammit.
AJ knows me. He’s the best person—the only person—I can do this with.
The mental reassurance helps me, but I realize he’s way too still a moment too late.
“I’m not going to do anything embarrassing,” he mumbles as he steps back, looking down at his shoes.
That right there is more disarming than a toddler with tears in its eyes.
“That’s not why I’m freaking out, AJ. Not at all,” I rush to set him at ease.
“Why, then?”
“Because I’m a gay man, and well . . .” I hesitate.
This is going to be embarrassing to admit, but I have to.
I won’t have AJ thinking I’m in any way ashamed of him.
It’s the complete opposite. “I’ve spent way less time than you’d think sleeping next to other men.
Especially ones who I’m not actually involved with. ”
The fact that he snickers at my use of words tells me he’s back to his old self and feeling just fine.
That’s nice for him. I, on the other hand, am blushing harder than I ever have.
“Cam,” he starts, deadpan. “I bunk with guys all the time. Every time we’re on the road for a game.”
“Really?” That surprises me. I can’t believe I didn’t know this about him. “You? You’re the quarterback of an NFL franchise and they make you share a room?”
“Nobody makes me,” he mumbles. “I like hanging out with my friends, talking late, just . . . hanging out. I don’t like to be alone.”
Oh, AJ.
Again, I melt at his adorableness.
He acts more like a little kid than a thirty-three-year-old man, and though sometimes that can be frustrating, it’s also surprisingly refreshing on him. I have no idea how he manages it.