Chapter 2
Miles
My phone rang at one a.m. I groaned, checked the screen, and answered. “Hey, woman, is there a reason you’re waking me in the middle of the night?”
“Fuck!” Rachel’s voice blasted my ear. Then at lower volume, “Fuck, I miscalculated the time zones again, didn’t I?”
“Yeah.” But I stuffed a pillow behind my shoulders and sat up. “How are you doing? How’s Japan?”
“Japan’s great. How I’m doing is humiliated and worried and so, so sorry. What the fuck was Avery thinking?”
“I’m not sure she was thinking. You know Avery better than I do.”
Rachel groaned. “Yeah. She dives into everything, sure it’s the best idea on the planet. I love her spontaneity but…”
“I’m not the biggest fan of that right now.”
“I bet.” She sighed. “Why didn’t you head her off? Tell her it was a terrible idea to pretend to be engaged to a gay man who came out— with a hell of a lot of courage, I might add— barely a year ago.”
“Didn’t take that much courage,” I hedged. “I’m not a pro player anymore, just a high school teacher.”
“Not arguing about that again,” Rachel said in a tone that suggested she was prepared to argue, if I pushed her. “But Miles, what the fuck? You went along with Avery’s ridiculous idea?”
“It was that or call her a liar to her father’s face.
” I closed my eyes. “She didn’t ask me first. We were at that stupid pretentious party, her doing the dutiful-daughter act and me cadging donations for my afterschool program.
Her dad came over with a couple of his friends, guys just like him, all ten-thousand-dollar tuxes and piggy faces, and he started introducing her with ‘my lovely single daughter, so scatterbrained, needs a husband to settle her down, my sole heir.’ Not sure if he was trying to peddle her to them directly, or they had sons the right age. ”
“She hates that. But if she doesn’t go to those events, he gets nasty.”
“I know. You should’ve persuaded her to take some of my money and move out.” I’d played eleven seasons in the NFL. I could afford to subsidize Avery until her art took off.
“She won’t take your charity.” Rachel sighed. “She wouldn’t come on tour with me either.”
“Well, she practically lives in her studio.” The big mixed-media pieces Avery created would be impossible to work on in hotel rooms and planes and trains. Her studio was a separate custom building on her dad’s estate.
“Yeah. Um. I asked her to marry me. Before I left.” Rachel hesitated. “Don’t judge. I know she’s ten years younger and a thousand times more attractive and could—”
“Shut your face,” I interrupted. “You’re a catch and perfect for her. Uh, she did say yes, right?”
“She did.” I could hear the smile in Rachel’s voice.
“Congratulations!”
“But that’s probably why marriage and weddings were on Avery’s mind. Her dad will disown her the moment he finds out about us, of course.”
“Yeah. So she said.” I frowned, thinking of that mean old man and how he tried to crush the individuality out of Avery. I’d had a friend, growing up, who’d lived under the thumb of someone like her father. That guy hadn’t come out undamaged and I wanted better for Avery.
Rachel continued, “So she just, what, asked you to marry her right there at the party?”
“Did you ask her about it?” I hedged.
“Her phone’s off. Has been the last twenty-four hours. I assume she’s in her studio…” Rachel’s voice went thin.
“You want me to check?”
“Would you? I worry. Although she should be safe. Her dad’s probably thrilled to death about the engagement.”
“Maybe. I did come out as gay last year, so even though I have a dick, which he insists on for his daughter’s fiancé, he spent the whole night eyeing me as if I was going to whip out a rainbow top hat and yell, ‘April Fools!’”
Rachel snorted, and a little satisfaction warmed me.
This whole thing was a clusterfuck, but at least I’d cheered Rachel up.
Although… she was engaged to the love of her life, while mine had vanished into the woodwork, so who needed cheering was an open question.
I wondered if Logan had seen the announcement pictures, and what he thought.
I shouldn’t care anymore what Logan did or thought, but it was hard to shut that part of my brain off.
Rachel said, “Tell me the whole story so I know what to yell at Avery about when she emerges from her artistic frenzy. Or retreat.”
“Don’t yell at her. But okay.” I settled more comfortably on my pillows.
“So there we were, her dad going on and on about how he was going to make sure she settled down, this one guy in his forties looking her over like she was a piece of meat and saying his divorce was final now. Avery had maybe had too much champagne.”
“Girl cannot hold her liquor,” Rachel noted.
“Yeah. I was standing next to her, trying to be silently supportive.”
“And glaring at the douchebags from your six-foot-five vantage point,” Rachel suggested. “I always liked that part of having you around.”
“You only love me for my body,” I teased.
Rachel was a lesbian who, as far as I knew, had never even kissed a man, and had zero interest in me that way.
“Anyway, Avery was getting more and more uncomfortable, so she said she was going to the bathroom. Her dad took hold of her elbow and said, ‘You can wait. Clint asked to meet you.’ He nudged her toward the middle-aged asshole. Avery looked like she was panicking. She grabbed my hand and said, ‘Well, Clint’s too late, because I’m engaged to Miles.
We’re getting married in the spring.’ Then she went up on tiptoes and kissed me. ”
“Ouch.”
“Right?”
I didn’t mind the kiss. I’d kissed a lot of women on my way to figuring out my bisexuality was so tipped to men I might as well say gay when I came out.
But Avery had put me on the spot with the engagement thing, for sure.
“I couldn’t contradict her without either making her look bad or looking like a douche myself.
So I said, ‘I thought we were keeping that a secret, babydoll.’”
“Babydoll?”
“Well, I wasn’t pleased. It was the most irritating pet name I could come up with on the spot. I thought it might make her take a breath.”
Rachel laughed. “Avery? Take a breath?”
“My mistake. She just began running with her story, babbling about dresses and venues and cakes and such.”
“We’ve been planning…” Rachel admitted.
“I thought she was surprisingly well informed. Anyhow, her dad’s friends took off pretty fast, so her ruse worked.
But then her dad called over the event photographers and announced our engagement, had them take pictures.
When he got up for his speech, he told everyone that it was an extra-special day because his lovely daughter had just become engaged to the local football hero.
The photos were already going up on social media, and we were stuck. ”
“You mean you were stuck. I’m so sorry, Miles.”
“Not her best idea,” I admitted. “Although by the end of the party, her dad said he’d put ten grand in her bank account to shop for a wedding dress.”
Rachel sounded pissed. “Ten grand. Just like that, when she’s been begging for money for her art supplies for months. Fuck, why are all the wrong people rich?”
I cleared my throat.
“Oops,” she said quickly. “Except you. You’re the exception.”
“And yet, neither of you will take my money. You know, if she had, I might not be fake-engaged to her. Frankly, I’d far rather have given her the money. I mean, I don’t object to her conning art funds out of her dad, but this is not the con I’d have chosen.”
“I’ll point that out to her. It’s not the con I’d have chosen either. Although I bet she can liberate a pretty sum with this stunt. Maybe she can get our whole wedding paid for in advance.” Rachel sighed. “What do you want to do? She’ll have to take the announcement back.”
I’d done a lot of thinking during the last twenty-eight hours, since Avery had rocked my world in a very non-romantic way.
“I say, let the engagement ride, for now. If she can tap her dad’s wallet in a way that won’t be a disaster, go for it.
You’re in on the game, and I’m not with anyone right now, so no one gets hurt with the fakery. ”
“No one who doesn’t deserve it. You think Logan knows?” Rachel chuckled.
“We’re long over. You know that. Fuck, I hope he sees the announcement and freaks out. I hope his head is exploding.”
“Um. That doesn’t sound like over, babe.”
“Over. Dead. Not even a random thought in the back of my mind.” Maybe if I said that enough I could make it true.
Except in the shocked moment after Avery’s kiss, my first thought had been, I hope Logan doesn’t think I’m cheating on him.
Which, yeah, was not the definition of over.
Which was also stupid, because I’d fucked other guys since Logan.
Multiple guys. Eagerly. There was no reason my engagement picture in the local media had anything to do with Logan, except for that tiny splinter of him embedded in my heart that I somehow couldn’t dig out.
“Okaaaay.” Rachel was definitely humoring me, but she dropped the subject. “So you’ll keep up the pretense how long?”
“Till you’re back in the States, maybe?” Rachel’s tour would end in a month. “Then you can persuade your wayward fiancée to move out of her father’s dungeon, and I can break up with her.”
“I’ll tell her she has to break up with you publicly. That’s only fair.”
“I don’t much care. I don’t have a reputation to protect.”
Rachel snorted. “Says the schoolteacher. This may be a blue part of Oregon but they still have some narrow ideas about teachers and coaches.”
“I guess. Whatever works. We can figure it out when you get back.”
“Take care of my girl until then, okay?”
“You know I will.” I liked Avery a lot, and I’d take care of anyone Rachel loved.
“You’re the best. I’ll call you sometime when it’s not ass o’clock to tell you my sad stories about the shit-show of this tour.”
“Do that,” I told her. “I want to hear all the details. When I’m awake.”
“I’d send you an apology fruit basket but I’m broke and you hate fruit.”
I chuckled. “Tell your fiancée to buy me good chocolate if her dad actually opens his wallet.” I was still careful about what I ate, determined not to pile on the pounds like lots of retired players did, but chocolate was my weakness.
“Mocha truffles. I promise.” Rachel lowered her voice. “I love you, Miles. You know that, right? And you’ll find a good man, someday. Better than Logan.”
My stomach knotted. “I’ve forgotten him already.” A lie I wished was the truth.
“Okay… Sleep well, babe.”
“You have a good evening. Don’t drink too much sake. It gives you headaches.”
Rachel murmured, “You are such a good guy, Miles. I hope you find a man who appreciates that. Good night.”
“’Night.” I set the phone back on my nightstand but didn’t flatten the pillows and lie down.
Envy was a bitter tang in the back of my throat.
Rachel and Avery might be hiding their relationship, might be broke and facing family opposition, but they had each other.
I’d had that once too, till Logan Valliere broke his word and threw us away.
I shouldn’t want him back, at all. Shouldn’t, but I sat there in the dimness, staring at the shadowy recesses of my room, and clenched my teeth against how much I missed Logan.