Chapter 24 #2
The first call was with Ray, a defensive back from Seattle. I watched Gryff's face soften as Ray nearly broke down on the other end.
“I can't,” Ray was saying, his voice tinny through the phone speaker. “My grandmother, she's religious, she won't—“
“Hey, breathe,” Gryff said gently. “No one's forcing you to come out. We're stopping her from forcing you. There's a difference.”
“But if she releases the photos—“
“Then we'll deal with it together. You won't be alone. I promise you that.”
“Why do you care? You don't even know me.”
“We met at the combine,” Gryff reminded him gently. “In the hotel bar afterward. You told me you wished you could be as open as I was.”
“I was drunk.”
“You were honest. And you asked me how I did it, how I came out and kept playing.”
There was silence on the other end, then Ray said, “You told me that courage wasn't the absence of fear, it was playing through it anyway.”
“Still true.”
“I'm not ready to come out.”
“You don't have to be. Ever, if that's your choice. But it should be YOUR choice, not Sloane's.”
The next call was with Jamie, the center from the Beagles. I remembered him from Gryff's stories about the All-star game.
“Kingman?” Jamie's East Coast accent was thick with stress. “That really you?”
“Yeah, man. You okay?”
“Fuck no, I'm not okay. This crazy woman has photos from college. My boyfriend... ex-boyfriend... shit, I don't even know what we are anymore.”
“Deep breath,” Gryff said. “Tell me what happened.”
“She showed up at practice. Said she was doing a segment on rookie life around the League, as part of the new season of Rookie Rising. Then afterward, she pulled me aside and showed me the photos on her phone. Said she knew about Treyvon, about us, about everything.”
“When does she want an answer?”
“Friday. Same as everyone else apparently.” Jamie laughed bitterly. “At least I'm not special.”
“You're not alone,” Gryff corrected. “There's seven of us that we know of. We're handling it.”
“How?”
“Together. As a team. Same way we play.”
“You’re their lifeline,” I said between calls.
“I was just someone who understood,” he replied. “Sometimes that's all you need.”
I got home from rugby practice that evening to find Gryff on the couch with his laptop, still making calls. He looked exhausted.
“How many more?” I asked, dropping my gear bag.
“Two. But Jamie from Philly is melting down. Might call him back.”
I curled up next to him, and he immediately pulled me closer, like he needed the contact to stay grounded.
“You're incredible, you know that?” I said. “These guys are lucky to have you.”
“I just fucking hate that anyone has to be that scared to be who they are.”
“You never worried about that?”
“No. I have you. I have my family. I have everything.”
Holly chose that moment to jump on his laptop, ending the video call he was on.
“Holly Goatlightly,” Gryff scolded, but he was laughing. “You’re a poop.”
“She's helping,” I said. “Forced break.”
“I love you,” he said suddenly. “Sorry, I know I keep saying it—“
“Say it again.”
“I love you.”
“Good. Because I love you too, and I plan on saying it annoyingly often.”
We were laughing when his phone rang again, another scared player needing reassurance. But this time, I stayed curled against him while he talked, my hand in his, grounding each other through the storm.
Later that night, Penelope and I worked on coordinating schedules and responses while she grilled me about my relationship.
“So, Edinburgh was pretty romantic, huh?”
“It was... significant.”
“Significant enough for a ring?”
“Penelope.” Since she’d just gotten married, she was one of those beautifully annoying people who wanted everyone else to get married and have their happy ever afters too.
“What? I'm just saying, you two have been dancing around each other for six years. Now that you're together, why wait?”
Here we go. “We've been officially together for like three weeks.”
“After six years of foreplay,” she pointed out.
“That's not—“
“Isn't it though?” She tilted her head. “The trust exercises? Living together? Raising goats? That's all relationship building. You just finally added the physical component.”
She wasn't wrong, which was delightfully annoying.
“When did you know?” I asked her. “With Everett?”
“Honestly? About five minutes after meeting him. But it took us a while to get there too. The knowing and the doing are different things.” She studied me while rubbing her belly absentmindedly. “You've known for a while, haven't you?”
“I... maybe. I don't know. It's all mixed up with friendship and not wanting to ruin things and thinking I was too much for anyone—“
“Too much?” Penelope interrupted. “Honey, have you seen how that man looks at you? You're not too much. You're exactly enough.”
“Kelsey says the same thing about Declan looking at her,” I admitted.
“Because it's a Kingman thing. They don't do anything halfway. When they love, they love with everything.” She grinned. “So you better be ready for a proposal sooner rather than later.”
“We just got together.”
“And he's probably had a ring picked out since Edinburgh.”
“He does not have a ring picked out.”
Penelope just smiled knowingly and returned to her spreadsheets.
On Wednesday, just before the boys left for practice, Tempest and Flynn burst through the front door.
“We found it,” Tempest announced, and held up her laptop that showed Parker on the screen. “The smoking gun.”
“What kind of gun?” Bridger asked.
“Sloane Mitchell was sued by three of her USC tennis teammates for invasion of privacy. She secretly recorded them in the locker room kissing and tried to sell the footage to a gossip site. They settled and it got buried.”
“Holy shit,” Flynn breathed.
“It gets worse,” Tempest added. “She was an assistant producer on two other reality shows. Both were canceled after participants complained about coercion and blackmail. There's a pattern.”
“But here's the really dangerous part,” Parker said from the video feed. “I've been digging through her old social media posts. She genuinely believes she's helping. She thinks forcing athletes out of the closet is a noble calling. That she's saving them from themselves.”
“Villains who think they're heroes are the most dangerous kind,” Tempest said quietly. “They'll justify anything in service of their 'greater good.'”
By Wednesday night, tension filled the house like a living thing. Gryff couldn't sit still, pacing while fielding texts from increasingly anxious players.
“What if it doesn't work?” he said suddenly.
“It will work,” I said firmly.
“But what if—“
Vincent, apparently fed up with the pacing, positioned himself directly in Gryff's path. Gryff tripped, barely catching himself on the coffee table.
“Even the goat thinks you need to calm down,” Flynn observed.
“I can't calm down. Seven guys are counting on me—“
“On us,” I corrected. “They're counting on us. All of us. You're not carrying this alone.”
Holly chose that moment to eat Penelope's color-coded index cards, scattering carefully organized chaos everywhere.
“Your goats are agents of chaos,” Penelope said, trying to save her system.
“Chaos is what we need,” Bridger said from the dining table. “Sloane thinks she can control the narrative because she's used to people being isolated, scared, alone. She's never faced a united front like this.”
“A family,” Tempest added via video call from her place.
“Exactly. And families protect each other.”
We had our plan. Friday morning, we would confront FlixNChill's executives with everything. All seven players would stand together, either in person or via video. The evidence against Sloane would be presented. And if they didn't act...
“We go nuclear,” Gryff said. “Full press release. Social media blast. Everything.”
“They'll cave,” Bridger said confidently. “No company wants this kind of scandal.”
I looked around our living room—at Bridger who'd stayed to help, at Penelope with her color-coded spreadsheets, or what was left of them after Holly's snack, at Sean and Ren who'd become our strategic advisors, at Flynn and Tempest ready for war, at Gryff who'd become the unofficial leader of a coalition of closeted athletes.
This was what family looked like. Not just blood, but choice. Not just acceptance, but protection.
“We're really doing this,” I said.
“Together,” Gryff confirmed, pulling me against his side.
Vincent chose that moment to hop onto the coffee table and knock over Penelope's carefully reorganized papers, because even in crisis mode, goats were gonna goat.
“Your children are agents of chaos,” Penelope informed us again.
“They learned from the best,” I said, looking at my beautiful, chaotic, protective family.
Friday couldn't come fast enough.
Sloane Mitchell was about to learn what happened when you came for the Kingmans.