SULLIVAN
Chapter Thirty-Four
Knight’s got himself all worked up about coming out to his friends.
After our gym session with Deandre, he’s even more convinced that now’s the time.
He says it gives the twins a week to process before heading home with him to Sunrise Point, and it gives Deandre plenty of time to also process, but he’s likely to have a lot of questions, too, and Knight wants to be around to answer them all.
I don’t think it’s his best idea, so if he’s got the one flaw, it’s this. Putting the gay cart before the NFL horse. But, I also don’t hate the idea of the NFL having to reckon with their first openly gay player—who also happens to be one of the best players and part of a goddamn football dynasty.
It’s not technically my business how and when Knight decides to come out.
I wouldn’t choose this for him since he’s already a public figure, but he has been for a while now, and he knows his own life.
I just don’t want him doing it for me. Or for him to do it to be with me because no one can predict the future, and as committed as my heart is to him, our lives constantly want to pull us in entirely different directions.
Mine currently seems to want me in a padded room, and his—well—I don’t know where he’s going to end up once all this is out in the open.
True to his name, he’s being brave as hell, and I’m not going to stand in his way anymore than I’ve already subtly hinted that I’d like to. “No one’s forcing you to do this, you know?”
In reality, I’m far more nervous about it than he is.
Not of what his friends will say—okay, they’re my friends too by now—but more of what it means for us.
How much more pressure it puts on me to be the boyfriend he comes out for.
Who he risks literally everything for. I can’t even give him a blow job for fuck’s sake, and those were my bread and butter for over a year.
To be fair, I think I could get through one if he’d let me try, but he won’t.
We kiss, we cuddle, we spoon, and I think we’re getting closer to dry humping if I can get a little better about being smashed up against him with the breathing and his hands on me and all.
I haven’t panicked recently, but he says he can feel me stiffening up, and apparently the way I kiss changes when I’m starting to get triggered.
He’s gotten way too good about knowing exactly when to stop, but I would argue I probably need to be pushed.
That it’s not going to get any better if we don’t try.
And I desperately want it to get better. It’s all I think about.
We drove out to the edge of the woods a few nights ago with blankets and pillows and a cooler and his bluetooth speaker in the back of his truck—everything good and beautiful about the time last year where I knew I’d fallen for him.
We talked too much about this summer and next year, and what it would be like to be together in the real world—in the wide open for anyone to see.
And I felt music pulsing through me, not from his speaker, but from the love and longing between us.
From the stars and the unforgiving bed of his truck.
The equally unforgiving wall of his chest. Our love is shaped like a dahlia.
Round and fluffy with too many petals and so much shade and color.
It’s also shaped like a snake with thousands of scales that wrap around us and constrict, shedding old layers to become bigger and stronger.
And it’s shaped, too, like the bed of his pick-up truck.
Strong, rectangular and contained, as soft as he makes it, and as safe as a vault.
Anyway, it makes for an amazing symphony in my head.
A dark, romantic, atmospheric piece in the form of a rhapsody or a fantasia.
Obviously we didn’t have sex, though if I’ve ever wanted to since coming back from Detroit, I very much wanted to that night.
Knight stopped us after a good, long, heated kiss because my hand was on his chest, as it usually is, slightly holding him back.
He broke the kiss with a whispered “I love you.” And I’m having to learn how to take his love for an answer.
It doesn’t feel like enough. Not for either of us.
Meanwhile, he’s not going anywhere, and having him around so much is good medicine.
Deandre’s response after Knight’s stumbling and stuttering, “The thing is—what I wanted to bring up with you—here’s the thing—Sullivan is—I’m—he and I—Listen. I’m gay,” is, “Yeah, I kinda put that together before spring break.”
To which, Knight responds with plain shock, “You what?”
Deandre, who’s emptying the dishwasher at the same time as I’m pre-washing the dirty ones in the sink, pauses with a stack of bowls in front of an open cabinet and looks across their small kitchen island at Knight whose eyes are as wide open as I’ve ever seen them, those lips I love parted in shock.
“I’m not saying you were obvious about it—don’t get me wrong, but you kinda—well, you never take your eyes off him.”
I snort.
“You’re worse,” Knight informs me, shutting me right up. Then to D, “Have you told anyone?”
“Nah, of course not. It was just a theory, and no one else seemed to pick up on it, so I’m not gonna be the asshole who starts a rumor like that. But also—why the hell are you telling me this?”
Knight is still shell-shocked, and I can tell his brain is practically exploding, so I answer. “He’s thinking he might want to come out officially before next season.”
“Oh.”
Silence falls over the whole house after Deandre’s quiet utterance. Even the A/C is in its off cycle, so there’s nothing except the running water of the tap, which I go ahead and turn off so I can give the developing situation more attention.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, QB,” Deandre says seriously.
“Why?” Knight finally asks. “Because of trolls? Because of assholes on the team?”
“Because of your endorsements. Because—and pardon the expression—but because dudes who watch football don’t want to imagine their team’s quarterback taking it up the ass. Not that I’m saying you do that—it’s just—you know—”
“What people would say,” I finish for him.
“What would you say?” Knight asks Deandre evenly, almost coldly.
D puts the bowls in the cabinet and leans back against the counter with his arms crossed. To his credit, he doesn’t look away or shirk the question. “Honestly? If I didn’t know you personally, I might not have kind thoughts about it, either.”
Knight’s brows draw together. His lips form a pout. He’s wounded by this.
“But I’m also not an asshole, and I think sex is great, and you should get to fuck whoever you want to fuck, however you want to do it, more power to you. And, if I were a fan, I guess if you and the team were doing well enough, I’d get over it.”
Then, before Knight can say anything, Deandre shifts his attention to me, backhanding me across the chest. “Why the fuck did you not tell me you were gay? I thought we were friends.”
I almost laugh. The fact that it’s okay for me to be the same thing Knight is and have it affect very little about my life isn’t just not fair. It’s bullshit. “Because I’m with him,” I gesture.
Deandre’s face loses a shade of color as he examines me more closely with a scowl deepening between his eyes. “Your wrist. The bruises.”
Immediately I’m transported back to that night.
The pounding on the door. The threats. The crack of pain shooting up my arm as I tried to keep Quinn’s hand off me by taking hold of his own.
Knight is next to me quickly, and I realize I’m crouched down, and that we’re now all crouched down.
Knight’s hand is softly resting on my lower back, and D is in my face.
“That wasn’t me,” Knight says in a low, deadly voice.
I shake my head, agreeing with him, but I think I’m doing it wrong. “That’s over,” I say quickly, and so I say it again. “That’s all over.”
“You fucking thought I did that?”
Knight is angry. This isn’t going the way he wanted it to, and my being here strangled by my own anxiety isn’t helping.
“I had to ask. Everybody keeping secrets. Sully, hey. You want a glass of water?”
“I’m fine. I’m…I think I need to go home.”
“Let’s go,” Knight says.
I try to reel myself back from the edge. “No. Wait. Talk to him. Talk to each other. I’m okay.”
“You’re obviously not.”
“Then I’ll go to your room,” I snap, annoyed with him and myself. I love how protective he is, I really do, but I shouldn’t need someone to protect me. Certainly not the guy who just did a huge thing and came out to one of his best friends.
“Let me walk you up,” he says.
I shake my head again. “I wanna talk to D. I know where your room is.”
Knight reluctantly lets me leave the kitchen with Deandre. He and I walk up the stairs together, and when we get to Knight’s room, I close the door. D sits at the desk in Knight’s chair, and I sit on the bed facing him.
“I was in a bad situation for a while. That’s all I really feel comfortable saying.”
He nods thoughtfully, but he’s looking at me like he can see through my pores.
“Knight’s telling you all this because he wants us to have a chance at a real relationship.”
“Is that what you want?”
Swallowing hard, I make myself maintain eye contact. “What I want, really, is to tell you that if it weren’t for you—all the health and fitness shit you shoved down my throat last semester—I don’t think I would have come out of that one night the way I did.”
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“The break and the bruises were kind of a fuck you and farewell, but before that happened, I had the nerve to end things. And I don’t think that would have happened if you hadn’t helped build up my confidence the way you did.
By being my friend. By staying my friend.
Knight can explain it better, but thank you. ”
He’s still frowning, like he’s not sure what to do with my gratitude. “Are you really all right?”
“I’m getting better.”
“And in terms of what I asked before—do you want a future with Knight?”