Chapter Five #2
“What if I'm sure he'll say no?” Ryan asked, and he hated how agonized he sounded.
“What if he says no?” Tabitha asked with an arched eyebrow. “Frankly I think more people should say no to you.”
The long and short of it was that by the time Ryan slunk back to his house late morning, he was in a shitty mood. Tabitha thought he should experience people saying no to him? Well, she was going to get her wish today.
Ryan wasn’t even surprised to find his house empty of Wyatt, and was even less surprised when he knocked on the addition and was met with silence and a locked door.
He knew he deserved the silence, whether Wyatt was in there or not. Ignoring him or not.
Ryan returned to the house and took a shower, taking a long time with the hot water, wishing that it could wash all his guilt away—and his feelings too, if he was being completely honest. He didn’t want to like Wyatt.
It had seemed so convenient at first, being so attracted to him, and genuinely wanting to know him better.
But now that was backfiring because he wanted him around, he wanted more, and the casualty of being honest probably meant that Ryan was going to miss out on all that.
He walked back into the kitchen, half-considering another beer or maybe even something stronger, even though it was barely one in the afternoon, and nearly shrieked with surprise to see Wyatt there, unpacking a whole bunch of bags on the island.
Wyatt glanced up, eyes a stormy blue, a crease between his brows, and Ryan nearly ran back to the safety of his bedroom.
“I see you’re back,” Wyatt said frostily. And yeah, if Ryan thought he was going to dance around the topic, he’d been wrong. Wyatt was uncomfortably direct.
And honest.
“Yeah,” Ryan admitted.
Wyatt was still staring directly at him, and Ryan shifted uncomfortably. “I see you went shopping.”
“Yeah, I found the credit card and the keys on the counter.” Wyatt didn’t ask if it had been okay to use them; he’d just done it. “I took the Range Rover. I figured it would be better for errands.”
“You can take whatever car you want, just not . . .”
Wyatt didn’t even let him finish the sentence. “Just not the Tesla. Yeah, I figured that out real quick.”
“You’re angry,” Ryan stated. Tabitha was whispering in his ear. His conscience was magnifying her whisper until it was as loud as a scream. Be honest, she kept repeating. “I guess it wasn’t very nice of me to sneak out.”
Wyatt looked away, finally breaking eye contact just when Ryan actually wanted it. “It’s your house. I certainly don’t have any right to be angry about what you do in it or where you go when you’re not in it.”
His conscience's shriek magnified to a cascading cacophony. “I don’t do this very often, to be honest. And I’m not very good at it.”
“Hiring a personal chef or hooking up?” Wyatt asked wryly. “Because I’m not sure which we’re arguing about here.” He still wasn’t looking at him. He was taking those little annoying tags off the bottom of a bunch of kitchen equipment that Ryan didn’t recognize. Pots and pans and some kind of whisk.
“No, I know how to hook up,” Ryan said with a humorless chuckle. “The morning after. And I knew you’d be here, I definitely knew that before I started anything with you. I just didn’t expect . . .”
“For it to be so awkward?” Wyatt’s voice had thawed a fraction.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly non-awkward for me either,” Wyatt said. “You’re technically my boss.”
“Not really,” Ryan reminded him. “We talked about this. Personal and professional staying separate.”
“Does it feel separate now?” Wyatt demanded. “I was handling it, I really was. And then I came to get you for breakfast and you were fucking gone, and you hadn’t even done me the professional courtesy of telling me you didn’t want me to cook for you this morning.”
He glanced up now, and his eyes were blazing, a hot brilliant blue that made Ryan’s chest ache. Wyatt was going to say no. He was going to say no, and Ryan couldn’t do a thing to stop it. But the longer he went on without asking, the worse the ache got.
“I haven’t been entirely honest with you,” Ryan finally admitted.
Wyatt’s expression didn’t change an iota. “Imagine that,” he said bitterly.
When Ryan stared at him in surprise—he’d never imagined that Wyatt would figure it out so quickly—Wyatt continued.
“Yeah, I know you don’t need a private chef.
You don’t even know what to do with me. So what am I really here for, some kind of stud escort service?
You don’t get enough dick on Grindr anymore?
Want someone a little more dependable, with the added benefit that I can whip up some food when you get hungry for something other than cock? ”
Tabitha had been right; he should have been honest from the beginning. If Wyatt said no, it was going to be because he’d lied to him from the first moment they’d met. Apparently dishonesty was a terrible foundation for a relationship, even a fake one.
“Not exactly, but you’re sort of on the right track,” Ryan said and watched as Wyatt’s expression hardened. “Not just the sex stuff. I need . . . help with getting my contract renewed.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to help you with that?” Wyatt interrupted.
“Please,” Ryan asked, far too aware that he was pleading with him.
“Please, let me get this out, and if you want to hate me, if you want to say no, then you can. You can keep the job being my chef. We’ll figure out how to make it work.
I’ll be professional, we’ll work out a job description and everything. I swear.”
Wyatt didn’t say a word, just stared defiantly at the kitchen supplies spread across the kitchen island.
Ryan took a deep breath and continued. “The new general manager of the Dodgers, he’s the one responsible for basically deciding whether to extend my contract or let me try the open market someplace else.
I really don’t want to leave LA. My family is here.
I like it here. I want to keep playing for the Dodgers, but if the status quo doesn’t change, the GM probably won’t choose to extend me.
He’s not . . . precisely homophobic, but he has some fucking wrong ways of thinking.
Like he thinks I’m some sort of flighty gay party boy.
He wants someone who’s serious, who takes baseball seriously, who isn’t going to party and fuck every cute boy who crosses his path. ”
“How on earth am I going to help you reverse that impression?”
Wyatt’s incredulity wasn’t exactly misplaced. After all, they’d met at Temple. Ryan had undeniably picked him up, and then they’d hooked up. Twice.
“I need to have a steady, normal relationship. He needs to feel like I’ve settled down.”
Wyatt’s incredulity bubble exploded. “You were shopping for a boyfriend.”
“A fake one, yeah. But even if the sappy feelings part isn’t legit, I don’t want some stranger. I want someone I would actually like. That I could like. And I like you.”
A dark look passed across Wyatt’s face. Ryan pressed on because he couldn’t stop now. “The sex was great. Fantastic, even. We could have fun.”
“So, we’d just pretend to be together, and keep having sex. Like . . . an added benefit?” Wyatt’s apparent disbelief echoed Tabitha’s when he’d first suggested the idea, and Ryan didn’t like his deep, subterranean worry that they’d both been right. This was stupid.
Would it have been better to just hope that his relationship with Wyatt had turned out? That he could hold down a real boyfriend without becoming bored or boring him? But then if it didn’t work out, Ryan would be right back to square one.
No, they needed parameters and guidelines and a set timeline. It was better to establish right away in cold blood that they weren’t going to fall in love. It was just great sex and Wyatt helping Ryan out of a bad situation. Simple mutual benefits and nothing messy.
“This is insane,” Wyatt said.
“It’s all planned out,” Ryan said. “You were initially just part of the setup—Eric had decided that I needed a personal chef to round out the ‘settled down’ vibe we were trying to portray—and then I recognized you from the photo they sent me with your resume. I met you, and I realized that I didn’t want to fake date some wannabe actor. I wanted to fake date you.”
The expression on Wyatt’s face was terrible.
“That’s all this ever was? You wanting to convince me to fake date you?”
“No, no, no, I never lied. I mean I omitted some stuff. But I never lied. I like you. Last night was awesome. I hope we have a hundred more nights just like it, a thousand.” Even as he scrambled, Ryan had a sick feeling that he wasn’t going to be able to convince Wyatt.
Ryan told himself the nauseous roll of his stomach at the thought was just because Wyatt was going to quit and go back to Napa, out of Ryan’s life before whatever they had together ran its natural course.
It always sucked when you saw the potential of something good and it ended before it ever began.
“I can’t do this,” Wyatt said and there was an ugly finality in his voice.
“What if it’s just like last night, just a few additional and totally harmless pap shots added to the mix?” Ryan begged.
Wyatt’s eyes were two hard blue stones. Opaque and closed off.
From what, Ryan didn’t know. He hadn’t gotten to know him well enough to figure him out yet, and that shouldn't have hurt but it did. “I can’t flounce around with you, fake holding hands for the paps.” He took an unsteady breath that Ryan could hear from across the kitchen.
“I’m not out. Not to my family. And I’m not going to let them find out like this. ”
Ryan had come up with a thousand reasons why Wyatt might tell him no. It had never occurred to him that Wyatt wasn’t out, and that’s why he would turn Ryan’s proposal down. His sexuality felt like such a natural extension of who he was, his personality open and relaxed.
Besides, that wasn’t an excuse that Ryan could ever talk his way around. He knew exactly what coming out before the draft had cost him. Not just in dollars and cents, not even with how good Eric had turned out to be.
It had taken balls of steel to come out the first time to his family and then something even greater to do the same with his friends. And then something even more momentous to do it with the world watching.
He couldn’t ask Wyatt to take that step if he hadn’t chosen to do it before now.
“I’m so god damned sorry,” Ryan said, and he was.
He was sorry he hadn’t realized. He was sorry that Wyatt was in a situation where he didn’t feel like he could.
He was sorry for himself, that he was going to have to find some stranger to fill a void that Ryan hadn’t even realized existed until he’d met Wyatt.
“It’s not your fault,” Wyatt said. “I’m sorry I can’t help you out. It’s bullshit you have to endure that sort of double fucking standard. It’s not fair.”
“It’s not,” Ryan admitted. He wasn’t going to say out loud that it wasn’t fair either that Wyatt couldn’t be honest with his family.
There was a lot of fucked-up shit in the world, and there was a lot of progress to be made with erasing homophobia.
Especially the latent biases of people like the Dodgers’ GM.
“It’s just my nana,” Wyatt said, and he sounded wrecked.
“She’s not intolerant. She’s not mean or rude or nasty.
She just . . . she’s just so religious. Always going to Mass.
We’ve never talked about it, and sometimes I swear she knows, and I never have to say it out loud.
But then she asks me when I’m going to bring a girl around and give her grandchildren, and fuck, I’m sorry.
This isn’t the baggage you wanted to get into. ”
“I don’t care. I’m here to listen.” Ryan walked over to the barstool opposite Wyatt. “Anything you want to talk about.”
Wyatt looked surprised, which killed Ryan. Did he really believe that Ryan was some sort of insensitive asshole? “Why would you even want to listen? You took the hardest road you could and you changed the fucking world.” Wyatt flushed red, and Ryan began to realize that he was actually ashamed.
Ashamed that Ryan had come out of the closet and in such a public way, and he hadn’t come out to his own family yet.
And that was the biggest bunch of bullshit yet.
“I’m not some sort of saint or god or good fucking person because I came out,” Ryan said. “It doesn’t make me any better than you. Any braver. Any stronger.”
Wyatt’s fingers clenched on the edge of the marble countertop, his knuckles going pale.
“It’s different for everybody,” Ryan added.
“I want to tell her,” Wyatt said. “She’s . . . she’s . . .” And Ryan watched as his eyes glimmered with moisture suddenly. “She’s not well. She’s in a home. A mental care home.”
“Oh god. I’m sorry.” Ryan didn’t think he could even express how sorry he was. At least not with words. He slid off the barstool and wrapped his body around Wyatt’s tightly. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured into the cotton covering his back.
“I want to tell her. I just . . . can’t. What if the last thing she remembers of me is that I’m going to hell?” Wyatt choked out a sob and Ryan hung on tighter.
“I don’t know her. But you love her, so I can’t imagine she would think that.”
Suddenly Wyatt shucked Ryan’s grip and he got a single glimpse of wetness shining on Wyatt’s cheek before he was across the kitchen, the back door slamming behind him.
Ryan looked at the brand-new kitchen equipment strewn across the island counter. “Fuck,” he said succinctly, and pulled out his phone because he was going to have to tell Eric.