Chapter 18 #2
My gut loosened. He wasn’t just curious or experimenting. He was trying to understand this part of himself.
“And?” I asked. “What have you learned?”
“That bisexuality is valid. It’s not a phase or confusion. Being attracted to both men and women doesn’t make me greedy or indecisive or any of the other things people say.” He looked at me. “That there are other people like me. A lot of them.”
“Yeah. There are.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“When did you know? That you were gay?”
I leaned back against the couch, thinking. “I was fifteen when I knew for sure. There was this guy on my junior team. I couldn’t stop looking at him. Couldn’t stop thinking about him. And I realized I’d never felt that way about girls. Not really.”
“What did you do?”
“Panicked.” I smiled without humor. “Prayed about it. Tried to make it go away. Dated a girl to prove to myself I wasn’t gay. That didn’t work, obviously.”
“When did you accept it?”
“Accept it? Maybe never. I acknowledged it. Learned to live with it. But accepting it—being okay with it—that’s still a work in progress.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Do you think you’ll ever be okay with it? Really okay?”
“I don’t know.” It was the most honest answer I could give.
“A lifetime of being told it’s wrong is hard to undo.
Even when I know intellectually that it’s not wrong, that I didn’t choose this, that I deserve to be happy—there’s still this voice in my head.
My mother’s voice. The Church’s. Everyone who taught me that being gay meant being broken. ”
“You’re not broken.”
“Most of the time, I know that. But sometimes…” I gestured vaguely. “It’s complicated.”
“Yeah.” He closed his laptop. “My father’s never going to accept this. Accept me.”
“Probably not.”
“Does that bother you? That my father won’t accept us?” he asked.
“Does it bother you that mine won’t either?” I replied.
We looked at each other, the weight of our families’ disapproval sitting between us.
I needed to lighten the mood. “Come on,” I said, grabbing my crutches and standing. “I’m going to teach you how to make proper Italian food.”
The subject change was abrupt, but he went with it. Followed me into the kitchen, where I’d already laid out ingredients earlier.
“What are we making?” he asked.
“Osso buco. My mother’s recipe.” I pulled up the recipe on my phone. “It takes a while, but it’s worth it.”
I walked him through it step by step. Browning the veal shanks, sautéing the vegetables, adding the wine and stock. He followed my instructions carefully, asking questions, getting flour on his shirt, laughing when the wine splashed.
And watching him there in my kitchen, concentrating on the recipe, trying so hard to get it right—I felt it again.
I wanted this forever.
Not just the sex or the intimacy. This. The normalcy. Teaching him to cook. Sharing meals. Building a life together.
But I couldn’t have both. Couldn’t have this and hide who I was. Couldn’t have forever and keep my family.
The realization made my gut churn.
We ate dinner at the kitchen bar, the osso buco rich and perfectly cooked. étienne was proud of himself, and rightly so.
“I can’t believe I made this,” he said between bites.
“You did a good job.”
“Your mom would approve?”
“Maybe. If she didn’t know I was teaching my boyfriend to cook instead of finding a nice Italian girl to marry.”
The word “boyfriend” still felt foreign, but right. étienne smiled at it.
“Marco.” He set down his fork. “What if we didn’t have to hide?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean—what if we could just be together? Openly like Griffin and his boyfriend. Go to team events as a couple. Not worry about who sees us. Actually live like this instead of just pretending in private.”
The longing in his voice matched the longing in my chest.
“We could go to charity events,” he continued. “Together. As dates. Could hold hands in public. Could kiss without checking over our shoulders. Could just… be a couple.”
I let myself imagine it. Walking into charity events with étienne beside me. Introducing him as my boyfriend. Dancing with him where everyone could see. Going home together without hiding.
It was like in my romance novels, just a beautiful fiction.
“We could live together. Not hide in separate homes or pretend we’re just roommates.
Actually live together,” he said. “We could talk about our relationship like teammates talk about their wives and girlfriends. And post photos together in each other’s social media.
We could be real outside of this house.” His voice was wistful.
We sat in silence for a moment; the fantasy hung between us.
Then reality crashed back in.
“My father would disown me.” étienne’s voice was flat. “If he knew the truth, he’d never speak to me again.”
“My family would tell me I’m going to hell. My mother would cry. The priest would want to pray over me. My sisters—except Gia—would probably stop talking to me.”
“The team might not care. Some guys probably wouldn’t. But some would. And we don’t know which ones.”
“Our careers could be affected. You know what the hockey world is like, and we’ve seen the kind of hateful comments Griffin still gets. It could be the tipping point and management might trade you.”
“What?” He stared at me. “They can’t do that.”
“They can. You don’t have a no-trade clause.” I kept my voice factual. Easier that way than letting him hear the fear underneath. “If our relationship affects team chemistry, if it becomes a distraction, if it causes any issues with sales or sponsors… they’ll deal with it.”
“By trading me for coming out?” His face had drained of color.
“By doing whatever they think is best for the team and the franchise. And if that means splitting us up…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
étienne looked like I’d hit him. “So, we could come out, be together, and then they could just… separate us anyway?”
“Yes. We’d only see each other when our teams played in the same city, and during the off-season.”
“That’s—” He stopped, searching for words. “That’s bullshit.”
“No. That’s hockey.” I met his eyes. “If it comes down to the franchise or keeping us together, management will choose the team. Every time. And they wouldn’t have to say a word about the relationship.
They’d just point to your stats, say they need to shake things up.
You’re already having an off season, that’s excuse enough to avoid any discrimination concerns. ”
étienne was quiet for a long moment, processing. “Griffin,” he said finally.
“What?”
“Do you think… do you think management knew he was gay? Is that why they traded him?”
“There’s no way of knowing,” I said carefully. “The trade could have been exactly what they said—roster development. Or…”
“Or they knew and wanted him gone before it became public.”
“Maybe. But we can’t know for sure.”
“Putain.” He dropped his head into his hands. “I’ve got to start playing better.”
“It would help our case,” I said gently. “A lot.” The weight of it all pressed down on me, suffocating. “I don’t see a solution,” I admitted. “I want what you described. Want it so badly I can barely breathe when I think about it. But I don’t know how we get there without losing everything else.”
“Maybe we can’t.” étienne reached for my hand. “Maybe there’s no way to have both. To be together and keep everyone else happy.”
“So, what do we do?”
“I don’t know.” He squeezed my hand. “But I know I’m not ready to give you up. Not yet. Maybe not ever.”
“Even if it means hiding forever?”
“I don’t want to hide forever. But I’ll hide for now. Because losing you would be worse than anything else.”
I pulled him closer, kissed him hard. Tried to convey everything I couldn’t say. The fear and the want and the desperate hope that somehow we’d find a way.
We cleaned up dinner in silence, both lost in our own thoughts.
That night in bed, we didn’t talk about the future. Didn’t talk about families, hiding, or the trade.
We just touched.
étienne’s hands were bolder than the night before.
More confident. They roamed across my shoulders, down my back, over my sides with a purpose that made my skin feel too tight.
He explored my body like he was trying to memorize it—the dip of my collarbone, the curve of my hip, the sensitive spot just below my ribs that made me jerk and laugh breathlessly.
He palmed my ass and discovered what made me grip the sheets and beg without words for more.
I did the same, mapping the topography of him with desperate hands.
The hard planes of his shoulder blades. The peaks of his nipples, down his ridged abs, to the valley of his belly button.
The divot at the base of his spine. The spot on his neck just below his ear that made him shudder.
He pressed into me with a groan that vibrated through both our bodies.
Made his breath hitch and stutter. Made him say my name like a question and an answer all at once.
His hands found the hem of my T-shirt and pushed it up, the fabric dragging across my over-sensitized skin.
I sat up to help, and he stripped it off in one fluid motion before his mouth found my collarbone, my chest, trailing heat everywhere he kissed.
The feeling of his bare chest finally pressed against mine—skin to skin, heart to heart—knocked the air from my lungs.
I could feel every inhale he took, every exhale that ghosted warmth across my neck.
We fumbled with each other’s sleep pants and boxer briefs, clumsy with want and shaking hands, until they landed somewhere on the floor, forgotten.
Nothing between us now. No clothes, no barriers, no distance.
Just skin and heat and the terrifying, exhilarating vulnerability of being completely exposed to each other.
Of being seen and touched and wanted exactly as we were.
I could feel the length of him pressed against my thigh, hard and insistent and already a little wet.
The knowledge that he wanted me this much—that his body was responding to mine with the same desperate need I felt—made my head spin.
Made everything sharper, brighter, more real.
His leg slid between mine and the friction made us both groan, made my hips rock forward, seeking more contact, more pressure, more everything.
“Marco,” he breathed against my mouth, and the sound of my name on his lips—rough and reverent—nearly undid me.
étienne raised up to his knees, his arms shaking with what looked like anticipation and something deeper—fear, maybe, or wonder.
He moved to straddle me, hovering over me for one suspended breath.
I watched him, my heart pounding, taking in his dark, dilated pupils, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, his parted lips as he waited for…
something. Permission, maybe. Reassurance.
Then he lowered himself slowly, settling his weight onto me, and the world narrowed to the points where our bodies met.
Chest to chest, the coarse hair on my pecs rasping against his smoother skin. Stomach to stomach, our abs flexing and releasing with each ragged breath. Hip to hip, groin to groin, the insistent pressure of him against me making stars burst in my vision.
I shivered—a full-body tremor I couldn’t suppress—and groaned, the sound torn from somewhere deep and primal and completely beyond my control.
I was overwhelmed by the bulk of him, the heat of him, the reality of him, all of him pressed against me with nothing between us.
No barriers, no distance, no pretending.
The man I’d wanted for years. The man I’d tried not to want, tried to keep at arm’s length, tried to hide from. The man who’d broken through every defense I’d ever built.
His mouth followed a burning path down my neck and across my shoulder, raising goosebumps, drawing sounds from me I couldn’t control.
He rocked against me and the friction, the heat, the reality of it—I lit up inside like arena spotlights had been turned on, everything bright and exposed and impossibly right.
I slid my hand down to his ass. “Raise up a bit,” I whispered.
He levered onto his elbows without hesitation, his trust in me complete. I reached between us and gripped our cocks together, my large hand barely encompassing us both. “This okay?”
He gasped and only nodded.
Still, I didn’t move. “I need the word, babe.”
“Yes.” It was a plea.
I slicked my palm with precum from the heads of our cocks and then stroked.
Another groan escaped from deep within my chest. The need, the want, the emotions were intense, and I was going to shoot like a teenager having sex for the first time.
I gritted my teeth to hold back, my molars grinding.
I wanted this to last, but the hard, hot length of his dick against mine nearly overwhelmed me.
It was like nothing I’d ever experienced with anyone else, and desire swamped me.
Unable to hold back, I set up a desperate, urgent rhythm.
French curses exploded from étienne’s mouth, which just spurred me on.
“I’m… so… close.” His voice was low, husky. Wrecked.
I gave my wrist a twist as I stroked us, and lightning streaked down my spine. My eyelids slammed shut and my vision sparkled as I shot hot ropes of cum onto my abs. étienne came with a shout, pumping his cock into my tight hand.
I released him and he collapsed at my side as we both gasped for breath.
“That was…” He trailed off, breathless.
“Was that okay?” My heart was still hammering, my body still trembling with aftershocks.
“Okay?” He let out a shaky laugh. “That was fucking amazing.” He turned his head and captured my mouth in a kiss that tasted like gratitude and wonder. I poured everything I felt—everything I couldn’t yet name—into kissing him back.
He broke the kiss after a moment. “Wait here.” He climbed out of bed and disappeared into the bathroom. I heard water running, and then he returned with a warm, damp washcloth. His touch was gentle as he cleaned my hand and dick. He tossed the cloth toward the hamper.
It missed by a yard.
He shrugged, completely unbothered, and climbed back into bed with that easy confidence I loved.
“Come here,” he murmured, reaching for me.
I went willingly, letting him arrange us so we were spooned together, his arms wrapped around me, his chest against my back.
Safe. Warm. Home.
“I meant what I said earlier,” he whispered into my hair. “I’m not giving you up.”
“Even if there’s no good solution?”
“Even then.”