Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Wesley
I made it to the elevator before my hands started shaking.
The adrenaline that had kept me calm enough to say goodbye to Holloway, to walk out of Griffin’s apartment like everything was normal, to press the button with steady fingers—it drained out of me all at once. The elevator doors closed, and I leaned against the wall as the numbers descended.
We’d been seconds away from disaster. Maybe less.
What if Holloway had shown up thirty seconds later. If he’d heard something through the door before he knocked. If Griffin and I had been too lost in each other to hear the knock at all.
The doors opened to the parking garage, and I walked to my car on unsteady legs. My apartment was only a six-minute drive away, but I sat in the driver’s seat for a long moment before starting the engine, trying to catch my breath.
My hands were still shaking.
I pulled out of the garage and headed toward home, my mind replaying the moment over and over: Griffin’s hands in my hair, our hard cocks grinding together, the sharp knock that had shattered everything.
Holloway.
By the time I reached my apartment, the shaking had gotten worse. I let myself in, locked the door behind me, and stood in my entryway trying to process what had just happened.
We’d gotten careless. I’d let myself get comfortable enough to make out with Griffin in his living room on a Sunday afternoon when any teammate could show up unannounced. The guys had been coming over for video games and bonding; I should have considered that.
What the hell was I thinking?
I went to the bathroom and turned on the shower, stripped off my clothes mechanically. Maybe hot water would help. Maybe if I stood under the spray long enough, I could wash away the sick feeling in my stomach.
The water didn’t help.
I stood there until it started to run cold, then got out. I dried off, wrapped the towel around my waist, and retrieved my phone from my jeans pocket. My thumbs flew across the screen.
Wesley
That was close. You okay?
Griffin
Yeah. Holloway suspects, though.
Suspects. The word made my stomach drop further.
Wesley
Shit. Did you deny it?
Griffin
I couldn’t even get the denial out convincingly. He said he’s noticed how I look at you. If Holloway sees it, who else does?
I sat on the edge of the bathtub, phone clutched in my hand, and felt the panic trying to claw its way up my throat.
He’s noticed how I look at you.
Who else also noticed? How many people were already connecting dots, already wondering, already one observant moment away from figuring out that Griffin Lapierre and his PR manager were involved?
My phone felt heavy in my hand. I needed to respond. Needed to say something reassuring, something that would calm Griffin down when I could hear his panic even through text.
But all I could think about was Nashville.
The memory hit me without warning, sharp and visceral. Charles and me at his house in Nashville, the one he’d bought after getting the broadcasting job. A year ago, late afternoon on a rare day off.
We’d been together for almost three years—secretly, carefully, or so we’d thought.
We’d been on his couch, Charles’s hand on my thigh, my head on his shoulder. Not doing anything explicit, but close enough that anyone walking in would know immediately what we were to each other.
His father—who had a key for emergencies and a habit of dropping by unannounced—had let himself in without calling first.
We’d heard the door open in time. Barely. Charles had shoved me away so hard I’d nearly fallen off the couch, and by the time his father rounded the corner into the living room, we were on opposite ends of the sofa, a prudent three feet separating us.
His father had looked between us, suspicion clear in his eyes, but he hadn’t said anything. Just made an excuse about forgetting something, grabbed it from the kitchen, and left.
Charles had been furious. Not at his father, but at me.
“We can’t do that anymore,” he’d said, pacing his living room like a caged animal. “No touching when we’re anywhere someone could walk in. No staying over when my dad might stop by. We need to be more careful.”
“We were being careful,” I’d argued. “He has a key. How were we supposed to—”
“I don’t care.” Charles’s voice had been sharp, scared in a way I’d never heard before. “We can’t get caught, Wesley. My father—he’d disown me. I’d lose my entire family. My mother. My sisters. My grandmother.” He’d shaken his head. “Or worse, my father would force conversion therapy on me.”
That was the beginning of the end, though I hadn’t recognized it at the time.
The fear that one close call had planted in Charles had grown and metastasized until it poisoned everything between us.
Every time we were together after that, he was paranoid.
Constantly looking over his shoulder. Pulling away from any affection, even in private, like someone might be watching through the walls.
The relationship had lasted another three months, but it was hollow. Charles had already chosen his father over me—over us—that day. I just hadn’t wanted to see it.
And when the relationship finally imploded, when his father found out from a snooping parishioner, Charles had blamed me. Like I’d been the one who’d gotten sloppy, who’d risked everything, who’d destroyed his perfect closeted life.
I looked at my phone, at Griffin’s text about Holloway noticing how he looked at me, and felt the pattern clicking into place with sickening clarity.
This was how it started. The close call. The fear. The paranoia that someone knew, or even suspected, could destroy everything just as quickly as being caught.
Charles had pulled away after our scare. Would Griffin do the same?
Or worse—was I the one about to pull away this time?
I needed to respond. Needed to be the calm one, the voice of reason, the person who could talk Griffin down from the ledge.
But my hands were shaking again, and all I could think was: Why did I say yes to this?
I set my phone down on the bathroom counter and gripped the edge of the sink, staring at my reflection in the mirror. My face looked pale, drawn. Scared.
I’d known better. I’d done this before and promised myself after Nashville that I wouldn’t do it again. I wouldn’t let attraction override wisdom. I wouldn’t risk everything I’d rebuilt for someone who might not choose me when it mattered.
And then Griffin had looked at me with those ice-blue eyes and said he wanted to try, and I’d said yes like I hadn’t learned anything from Charles at all.
What was wrong with me?
I recognized this pattern. I was an optimist, always looking for the next adventure, convinced that this time would be different. But there was a shadow side to that optimism—a tendency to ignore red flags, to jump into situations because they felt exciting without fully calculating the cost.
I’d done exactly that with Griffin. Let myself get swept up in the attraction, the connection, the way he made me feel seen and valued in ways I hadn’t felt since before Nashville fell apart.
I’d ignored every warning sign—the power dynamic, the workplace violation, the fact that he was closeted and terrified and years away from being able to acknowledge me publicly.
I’d known all of that. And I’d said yes anyway.
Was this self-sabotage? Some unconscious part of me that wanted to prove I couldn’t have good things, that every relationship was doomed to repeat the same pattern?
Or was I just an idiot who kept choosing men who couldn’t choose me back?
The panic in Griffin’s last message was palpable. He was spiraling, and I needed to help him. That’s what you did when you cared about someone—you showed up, even when you were terrified yourself.
But all I could think about was Charles doing the same thing and the slow collapse.
My fingers hovered over my phone keyboard, and I started typing before I could stop myself.
Wesley
This is too risky. I can’t do this.
I stared at the message. Read it three times. My thumb moved toward the send button.
Then I deleted it.
Tried again:
Wesley
I’m sorry, but I need to protect my career. Tonight proved this can’t work.
Deleted.
Wesley
We should end this before someone gets hurt. Or fired. Or both.
Deleted.
Wesley
I can’t keep hiding. I did this in Nashville and it destroyed me. I won’t do it again.
Deleted.
I sat on my bathroom floor, drafting and deleting breakup texts for what felt like hours but was probably just minutes. Each version more honest than the last, each one articulating a different fear:
I can’t risk my career again.
I can’t be someone’s secret again.
I can’t watch you choose your career over me when it matters.
I can’t survive another Charles.
All of them true. All of them terrifying. All of them reasons to end this before it got worse.
But I couldn’t send any of them.
Because underneath all the fear and the logic and the career calculations, there was one undeniable truth: I didn’t want to end it.
I wanted Griffin. The way he looked at me when he thought no one else was watching. The vulnerability he showed me that he showed no one else. The possibility of something real, even if it was complicated and risky and years away from being public.
I was attracted to him—physically, yes, but also to who he was underneath the captain’s mask. To his intensity and his competitiveness and the moments when he let himself be soft with me.
That attraction was stronger than every logical reason to walk away.
I deleted the last unsent message and typed something different:
Wesley
Hey. Breathe.
Then, before I could overthink it:
Wesley
Holloway’s observant but that doesn’t mean everyone is. We’re okay. We just need to be more careful.
Griffin
I know. I’m sorry. This is harder than either of us expected.
Wesley
Not your fault. I knew what I was signing up for.
Griffin
Doesn’t make it less frustrating.