I scraped my top lip with my bottom teeth. “Well, thanks. It was really good. How was your mom? Did you see her when you dropped off at the Niberts’?”
He shook his head and smiled. “No. Mrs. Nibert insisted on besting me in, like, ten games of backgammon while catching me up on all the drama from Bible study which included, but was not limited to, several people coveting their neighbors’ wives. At one point I thought I heard Mr. Nibert walk by muttering something about Proverbs 21:9, so I might have to dust off my Christianity and look that one up. Suffice to say, by the time I got out of there, I didn’t have the mental fortitude to visit my parents, despite their repeated attempts to get me to stop by.”
I leaned in and kissed his lips, taking my time to refamiliarize myself with the taste and feel of him. The conversation ahead of us wasn’t going to be nearly as easy and enjoyable as this.
When the kiss turned heated and Mikey’s hips started pressing into my lower belly, I pulled away. “I need to talk to you,” I said, before I could convince myself sex would be way, way better than discussing his dad.
His forehead creased in concern. “That sounds ominous.”
I shifted us up so we could talk face-to-face instead of in a tempting snuggle. I decided to throw out the bad news quickly before I had a chance to talk myself out of it. “Your dad knows about us.”
Mikey blinked at me. “That’s not possible.”
I saw his face drain of color as my words sank in. “I’m sorry,” I offered. “It’s my fault. When I grabbed a Riggers shirt out of your room this morning, I didn’t realize it was anything other than one of the many team shirts we have.”
“Warren’s retirement,” he muttered, putting the pieces together. “He was Dad’s mentor. Fuck. But, wait… that doesn’t mean anything. Why would that mean anything? I do your laundry.”
I ran a finger along a rip in his jeans without looking up at him. “I tried that. It didn’t work. He asked me point-blank if I was sleeping with you.”
He slapped my hand away from his jeans and pulled his legs closer into his body. “And you denied it. Right?” His voice sounded frantic, almost manic. “Tell me you denied it. Please.”
His reaction surprised me. “Of course I didn’t deny it. I’m not going to lie to my boss’s face. But I didn’t confirm it either. I told him he was crossing a line.”
Mikey’s laugh was humorless. “I’m not sure he gives a shit about crossing lines.”
“No,” I agreed. “He definitely didn’t appreciate that.” His brown eyes flashed with worry. I wished like hell I could reassure him, but I couldn’t.
“What happened next?”
I swallowed around the lump of nerves in my throat. “I told him I had feelings for you.”
The silence that followed wasn’t reassuring. My heart began to thud dully in my chest. Say something, I urged silently.
“What was his response?” he finally asked. I could see mixed feelings warring in his eyes. On the one hand, he wanted to assert his independence from his parents, say his dad’s opinion didn’t matter. On the other, he always wanted their approval after decades of being treated like the one who never did anything worth noting.
“He wasn’t happy,” I said, clearly hedging.
Mikey picked at his fingernails. “And did he… say anything about trading you, or…?”
I laughed. “Other than threatening to send me to the losing-est team in the league?”
His eyes flashed to me with worry, so I tried reassuring him. “Babe. He’s not really going to send me to Buffalo. It was just his way of telling me he wasn’t happy.”
He moved away from me to the other end of the sofa and hugged his knees. “You don’t know my dad. He’ll do just about anything to keep me from being happy.”
I wanted to touch him, to hold him and reassure him everything would be okay. But I couldn’t deny he knew Coach V. better than I ever would. “Why?” I asked. “Because you’re gay?” I was still unsure about where Coach stood on it. He’d been very accepting of me these past five years, but I couldn’t deny some of the times he’d seemed to gently discourage me from being public about my sexuality. It was almost done with kindness, like not wanting me to be bullied by naysayers or hounded by the media. Like he was looking out for me.
But maybe I’d been wrong about that all along.
“He doesn’t come right out and say it,” Mikey explained, waving his hands around as he got more heated about the subject. “He says all the right things and is supportive on paper. But whenever Mom talks about me finding someone or mentions wanting to plan another wedding for one of her kids—since I’m the one most likely to involve her in the planning—my dad says things like, ‘There’s no need for a big wedding. Mikey doesn’t need all that.’ Or he’ll say, ‘Can you imagine the media firestorm? Coach’s gay son gets married in lavish wedding? I’m not sure that’s a good idea. It’ll only bring Mikey under attack by those hooligan reporters.’”
That was similar to my own experience with him. “So it’s the publicity factor he’s most worried about.”
He sighed. “Which is why he can’t stomach the idea of me dating a player. What will the media say?”
“He’s not wrong, you know. Not only would the media be all over a gay player with an actual, real-life boyfriend, but they’d also lose their shit over a Riggers player dating the coach’s son.”
I watched him for his reaction, and it was pretty much what I expected. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said with a pitiful note of pleading in his voice, as if he couldn’t bear to stop and was hoping I’d have the strength to stop it for him.
He was going to be wildly disappointed. I didn’t have the strength to stop it, and moreover, I didn’t have the desire to.
“I strongly disagree,” I said as calmly as possible. “We’re two consenting adults.”
He lifted an eyebrow at me. “We’re boss and employee.”
“You’re fired,” I said between tight teeth.
Mikey barked out a surprised laugh. “You can’t fire me. I quit. And anyway, I’m going to be a famous cookbook author now, so I don’t need no stinkin’ personal assistant job.”
This wasn’t a total surprise. I’d been dreading and hoping for it since he’d talked about his dreams back in Aster Valley.
It was odd that he hadn’t mentioned the job opportunity in Aster Valley, but maybe he didn’t want to jinx it. Hearing him talk about flying out there to talk to the Civettis had both crushed me and made me proud. I wanted him to be happy, and I knew turning that lodge into a B&B was his dream come true.
But I didn’t want to lose him. If he was going to pursue his dream that far away, I wanted us to figure out a way to do it together, to make the distance work until I could retire and join him full-time.
I couldn’t wait any longer to touch him again. I crawled across the leather sofa and forced myself between his bent legs until I was propped on top of him. “Please don’t leave me,” I said softly.