Chapter 4 #2
So relieved the questions I was sure were coming hadn’t started yet, I tugged my phone out of my jeans and opened it up to my text messages.
I hesitated before clicking on Nate’s name.
He was the one who regularly sent me photographs and short videos, and when I thought about it, it was usually a few times a week.
I touched the photo of Ivy I’d woken to this morning. She had the basketball player plushie I’d sent in her hand, the foot of it in her mouth. “Here.” I handed it over. “Work backward.”
The pair of them did so, heads together and mouths tilted in goofy smiles. I couldn’t help but grin that these two guys, both over six foot five and solid and focused men at that, were all but clucking over the photo.
I got it, though. My niece was the prettiest baby ever, not too dissimilar from her mum.
My and Amber’s age gap had meant I’d looked after her, cared for her a lot from the moment she was born.
It wasn’t till we’d moved in with Gran and Mum had finally up and left—perhaps the nicest thing she’d ever done for us—that I’d come to appreciate my little sister was kinda sweet rather than being a burden.
“She’s a cute kid,” Sutton said, looking at me. “Fortunately, there’s no resemblance to her uncle.”
I flipped him off.
“Hell, your sister’s hot, man. No wonder you’ve been hiding her away.” Jayden bounced his brows up and down.
“Stop doing that. You look ridiculous and gross, man. She’s eighteen, my kid sister.”
“Looks like a MIL—”
Sutton smacked Jayden around the head before I could, cutting him off.
“Hey, I was only saying she’s hot.”
I rolled my eyes at him.
“So, who’s the guy?”
I frowned at Sutton’s question. “I already told you she doesn’t know who the dad is.
” While that wasn’t the greatest thing ever to admit about my sister, I wasn’t ashamed of her.
Despite her falling pregnant, she’d promised she’d been as careful as she could be with condoms, but clearly one just didn’t work out.
The last thing I wanted to think about was her sexing it up either, especially with a couple of guys, but hell, I’d got my cock sucked by absolute strangers in incognito gay bars over the years. I was the last person to judge.
“No.” He shook his head and thrust my phone out so I could see. “This guy here.”
I zeroed in on a photo of Nate cradling Ivy against his bare chest. When I’d opened the text, I’d almost swallowed my tongue at the sight of so much flesh. My gaze had then drifted to my niece, and my heart had flipped that he was stepping up for my sister so massively.
I’d never be able to repay him for all he’d done, was doing.
I cleared my throat and dragged my gaze away, looking up to see both men’s focus was intent on me.
“That’s Nate.” Both sets of brows lifted, making it clear they expected more from me.
“We were best friends growing up. Since I left, he’s been looking out for my sister and Gran.
He, uhm, actually moved in with them just before Ivy was born. ” And wasn’t that something.
Nate was still the best man I knew, and that he was still there, looking after everyone, something I should have been doing, made my insides twist in knots.
“Right,” Sutton said, “and he’s not the kid’s dad?”
The word “No” shot out a little vehemently.
Sutton didn’t respond immediately, staring a little too fixedly at my face for comfort. Unable to stop myself, I shifted, disconcerted under his scrutiny. “What’s his story?” he finally asked.
I shrugged and took a gulp of beer, not quite sure how I felt about telling the guys about Nate.
Since Nate and I had reconnected, with admittedly me being the one chasing the contact and throwing him a text whenever I got the chance, it hadn’t taken long before longing stirred in my chest for the man I expected I could never have.
“We went all through high school together. Had each other’s backs. When I left, we sort of lost contact, and he’s been helping out with everything.” There was so much left unsaid, so much I didn’t share, couldn’t share.
“Sounds like a good guy. He ever been out to visit?” Sutton asked.
Before I could respond, Jayden spoke. “Hang on, when was the last time you visited Down Under?” he said with a god-awful Aussie accent.
I smirked at him and shook my head. “I’m not from South Africa,” I jested.
“Whatever.” He flipped me off. “But when was it?”
My mouth went a little dry before I answered. “Never.”
Sutton’s brows sprang high while Jayden said, “For real?”
“Nah, I just… I brought my sister out once, years ago. I had to organize the whole chaperone thing on the plane for her.” I winced when I admitted, “She ended up leaving early.” It was hard acknowledging just how much I’d fucked up to my friends who only knew me as a kick-ass player.
Unsurprisingly, it was Sutton who indicated with a flick of his hand for me to continue, with a one-word instruction of “Speak.” The guy could be intimidating as hell at times, and while I could have walked away, verbalizing my downfalls and just how much I’d messed up was weirdly cathartic.
I spent the next fifteen minutes or so telling them half-truths.
My homesickness, my distance, my effectively cutting off the three people I cared for.
The only thing I kept close was how I’d admitted, realized, or whatever epiphany I had during that first year in college, that I was gay.
It was that year, when I thought long and hard about my feelings for Nate, that the jigsaw piece I’d struggled to find clicked into place.
Not only was I gay, but my feelings for Nate went so beyond those of friendship that even speaking to the guy pulled at me, made my new life in the US all but unbearable.
“And so you’re back in touch,” Sutton said, indicating toward my phone as he passed it to me.
Even though it wasn’t a question, I confirmed with a nod. “Yeah.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
A whisper of unease unfurled in my stomach.
Talking about Nate, especially now we’d reconnected and he hadn’t seemed to have changed a bit, was tricky, since it would be too easy to gush about the guy.
Somehow I contained the soft smile that had been forming more and more lately, usually when I read one of his texts.
“It is. He’s one of the best guys I know,” I admitted.
“You know, I’ve always wanted to visit Australia,” Jayden said, cutting through the tension that had built by talking about home. “The place where everything tries to kill you. Sounds pretty fucking wild.”
I snorted a laugh. “Not quite sure it’s that bad, but it’s an awesome country.”
“You going to head back in the off-season?” Sutton’s gaze remained unwavering. I had no clue what he was seeing or thinking, but goose bumps broke out nonetheless. The guy was freakily intuitive and good at reading people. I had no desire to be the next person whose barriers he broke down.
“Yeah. While Gran’s on the mend now that they’ve figured out the stuff about her blood sugar, I still need to spend time with her. Plus there’s my niece.”
“And Nate.”
Sutton snagged my gaze, and I swallowed hard. Shit, I really needed to get out of this place and away from the intensity of his gaze. “Yeah.” I offered a too-casual shrug and looked down at my phone. “I think I’m gonna head back. Call it a night.”
Jayden’s groan was over the top and enough to make me smile. Some of the tension in my shoulders drifted away. “You’ve had one beer, dude!”
“I know, dude,” I said with emphasis. He narrowed his eyes at me. “But I’m knackered. I need to get in a good sleep, ready for tomorrow.”
While they were in the same boat as me, and it wasn’t even nine thirty, they said goodbye without too much fuss, and I hightailed it out of there, my mind turning the night over.
I hadn’t told anyone I’d be heading back to Queensland to see them yet, still in two minds, but as soon as I’d answered yes earlier, I knew I couldn’t not visit.
The only difficulty was, after seeing my family again, spending time with Nate, would it be too difficult to once again say goodbye?