Chapter 34
CHAPTER 34
TAHEGIN ELLINGSWORTH
In the far back of the empty coffee shop, Sullivan sits at a high-top table, a familiar man beside him and even more familiar shoulders in front of him.
I know those shoulders—had kissed and held them only hours ago in bed. The red Rubies hoodie covering their broad expanse serves as extra proof of who the man with his back to me is.
And if I wasn’t already sure, Mathis sitting in front of him would be a dead giveaway.
Sullivan eyes me over his steaming coffee, his grumpy expression clearly displaying his displeasure with my tardiness. When he waves me over, Hendrix’s shoulders stiffen. He peeks over at me with one grey eye, his emotions impossible to decipher.
My sneakers squeak on the wood plank floor as I cross the empty room to the only available chair at their table—beside Hendrix. Clearing my throat in the awkward silence, I subtly try to scoot my chair away from Hendrix for God knows why. If they’ve gathered us here, the cat must be out of the bag.
“Don’t bother,” Hendrix mutters, casting his signature scowl in our coaches’ direction. “They know.”
All the air whooshes out of me in one big rush. “How?” I breathe.
“Someone put two and two together,” Mathis explains, brandishing a manilla envelope from his lap. He sets it on the table and pulls out the contents from inside. Picture after picture is spread before us. “Apparently, you two have been communicating during games using sign language?” He points at a photo of us in our Rubies uniforms last year, our hands mid-sign. “Not smart, guys. It’s been done before, and it’s banned for a reason.”
I stare unblinkingly at the pictures in front of us, each one capturing our hands moving, some from last year and some from the most recent season, but that’s it. “So we broke a rule. Okay. We’ll pay the fine. I don’t think this calls for a secret meeting?—”
Mathis pulls another page from the pile, and it’s enough to make my mouth go dry, effectively cutting off my voice. “This does call for it, though.”
In the picture, Hendrix and I are on the ground together during one of our games this year—it’s impossible to tell which of the three. It looks as if we both took a tumble and are in the process of standing up, but our eyes are locked, our hands coincidentally tangled from the fall, and parts of him are touching parts of me in a way reminiscent of last night.
“Take a picture of any guys colliding in a game, and you’ll see this exact position over and over again. It’s a contact sport. This picture proves nothing. Tank tea bagged a guy last year, and they made a whole meme about it.” I slap my hand on the picture and shove it in their direction.
A hand lands on my thigh, squeezing. “Tahegin.”
Turning, I meet Hendrix’s somber gaze, and he gives me a slow shake of his head. “What?” I ask him, then our coaches when he doesn’t answer.
Mathis lays out more pages, one at a time.
An article, written by some small sports blog about my decrease in salary by signing with the Treasures. It lists all the other offers I received and turned down, each one better than the last. Where they got the information, I’m unsure, but it is scarily accurate.
More pictures of us out in public with red marker circling the times Hendrix and I are side by side. Aleks, Micah, and Kit are in each of them, but the pattern is clear. No matter our companions, we are always together. One picture is from a night out at the club—from when Hendrix and I were still figuring out how we felt about each other. I know that because we haven’t been back, not wanting to risk the exposure after someone posted pictures outing some Miami players visiting that same club a few months back.
God, do people not have anything better to do with their lives?
There are pictures of both Hendrix and me arriving late at the middle house and leaving at the same time the next morning—also a copy of the property information with neither of our names on it, which looks as suspicious as we tried not to make it be.
Shit.
One page appears to be an unpublished article by whoever sent the “evidence” to our coaches. It details everything in a nice little summary, then calls for a?—
“A Super Bowl rematch?” I exclaim. “Without Hendrix or me? Are they insane?”
“That is for the team’s board of directors to decide,” Sullivan speaks gruffly for the first time since I got here. “This person is threatening to go public, and the board is debating whether they will pay for silence.”
I stare at everything, knowing it’s enough to cause at least a bit of a scandal. “But . . . we were going to come out this summer,” I whisper.
Surprise flickers across our coaches’ faces.
“So.” Sullivan clears his throat. “This is a thing , then?”
I raise an eyebrow at him.
“Not just a . . . hookup? A fling?”
Both Hendrix and I remain silent, watching the men across from us squirm in their chairs.
After a minute, Sullivan clasps his hands and places them on the table. “Is there any chance you two would consider breaking up?”
“ Excuse me ?”
“We can get you guys some sexy female models to parade around in public. However many you want. This blackmailer would be discredited, and you two would get to feel up some hot chicks. Win-win,” he presses.
“Dude—” I scoff.
“Not cool,” Hendrix finishes my thought.
From the corner of my eye, I spy Mathis sitting with his mouth in a disapproving purse, but when he notices me looking, he subtly shakes his head at me.
Sullivan gathers the evidence , signaling an end to our unofficial meeting. “Well. That is all we needed to confirm—I mean, clarify. Like I said, the board is considering the payoff, but I can’t guarantee it will help—especially if you two are going public anyway. If there is controversy, keep in mind that the Treasures will do whatever it takes to end bad press before they get it.” He gives me a pointed look.
Hendrix sits up straighter, swelling with anger. “Was that a threat?” he growls.
“A warning.” Sullivan taps the closed envelope on the tabletop before walking out without another word.
“What a dick.” Confused by Mathis’ muttered words, I turn to face him, but he just shakes his head in irritation. “Asshole took my envelope.” He gestures at the empty table. “That’s why I made extra copies. You guys want a coffee? No barista since we bought out this place for the morning, but I made a pot when we got here.” He stands to refill his cup, offering us the pot.
I accept a mug, adding some sugar, and Hendrix refuses. He’s staring at the empty table, lost in thought. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I begin, eyeing Mathis, “but what are you still doing here?”
He sips his coffee, not in any rush. “I’m still here—” He smacks his teeth. “—because Sully is an idiot. Your relationship is going to get out, whether on your terms or the press’ and whether you two fake date models or not. It’s going to be hot news, and everyone will be under scrutiny. I’ll be honest, the Rubies want to look out for themselves. They don’t want to be seen as the team that drops a queer player because of who they date.”
“Okay . . . then what?”
Leaning back, Mathis adopts an air of confident nonchalance. “Having both of you on our team will raise our popularity with allies—who far outweigh those who don’t support the community.”
We stare at him.
“The Rubies’ board of directors is most likely going to invite you back to the team, Tahegin.”
I laugh because he has to be kidding, right? When he doesn’t so much as quirk a smile, I gape. “You guys traded me because you thought I wouldn’t recover from my hamstring injury—didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me to my face. Y’all traded Kit to get ahead of what might have become a scandal. But now you want to use me to look good. No way!”
Mathis stands abruptly. “Our board will not be paying this stalker fan for their silence, so I suggest you two get ahead of this. And Tahegin? When our agent comes knocking with a contract, make the smart choice.” Draining his coffee, he slams the cup onto the table before walking out of the shop, a confident swagger to his steps.
The tension between Hendrix and me is thick, the silence louder than any words could be. We hadn’t planned on this, and I certainly hadn’t planned on my team dropping me because of our relationship. Cautiously, I place my hand in his and hold tight. The thought of rejection—of this hitting him too hard and spooking him—has my stomach twisting in knots. I refuse to let this cause a rift between us, though. Even if I have to take a year off football to let the heat die down, I’ll survive. We’ll survive. “Rix?”
“I want to do it,” he blurts so quickly he practically cuts me off.
“Do . . . what?”
He looks at me, eyes a steel grey, mirroring his resolve. “What we talked about last night. I want to do it. Right now.” He looks around the interior of the coffee shop. “Right here.”
“ Here ?”
Hendrix nods.
I sputter. “W-what?” Looking down, I eye my old college T-shirt and casual joggers, then run a hand over my hair, patting the uneven curls as if that will help. “We were going to— I mean, Micah and Aleks were gonna help— Rix! I look terrible!”
Never mind his messy hair and unbrushed smile, too.
“We’ll do something nice and fancy later, okay? I want to do this. No one else gets to tell the world how much I love you before I do.”
“That’s . . . sweet, I think.”
“And it can be a big ‘fuck you’ to the Treasures and the blackmailer.”
Laughing, I pull him into a hug that he turns into a kiss—one where we lose ourselves in each other, forgetting all about the trials ahead of us. It’s just Hendrix and me in a coffee shop, smiling against each other’s mouths, sharing an odd mixture of morning and coffee breath. His hair is rumpled; my fade is overgrown. My shirt is old and has a hole near the collar; his Rubies’ hoodie has a toothpaste stain from who knows when—but clearly not this morning—on his chest.
One of his hands disappears from my side, but I don’t bother to see what he is doing because a moment later, he slips his tongue inside my mouth. I release an embarrassing moan, and Hendrix laughs—hard. So hard he has to lean back. I’m met with his grinning face, his nose wrinkled adorably, and say the first thing that pops into my head. “I love you.”
He presses his lips to mine, short and sweet. “I love you, too.”
I’m still grinning like a fool when Hendrix’s phone appears between us. He plays around on it for a few seconds, squinting and muttering to himself, then types out a message.
My pulse races. Is he doing it? Now ? Without showing me? “Rix?—”
“There.” He hits one final button. “Done.”
Snatching the phone from his hand, I stare in shock at the post he’s made—and tagged me in—of a video of our kiss a minute ago. He’s cropped it to only show the last few seconds, where we’re smiling at each other and I confess and he kisses me before returning the sentiment. The text portion of the post simply has a blue heart. As I gape at the screen, a notification appears that Micah has given the post a virtual heart of his own before commenting a slew of exclamation points and emojis—lots of hearts and only two eggplants, which I take as a win.
Hendrix watches over my shoulder as Aleks shares the post, and it expands with likes and comments right before our eyes. Almost all of it is positive, and we don’t bother to read the few negative ones that appear.
“We’re out,” he murmurs in my ear.
I laugh, weightless and giddy. “Take me home, Rix. Right now.”