“Call my foundation. I’ll set up a meeting for you.”
“Really, Stefan, you don’t need to do that.”
Stefan waved that consideration away. “Do you need any help with producers?”
“No. The story sells itself.”
“Indeed.”
Chuck shifted from foot to foot. He was already halfway to hell’s door, he might as well knock on it. “How is he?”
“Would you like me to tell you that he’s lost? That he’s distraught without you?”
Chuck scratched at the spot on his chest where he’d inked a black-lined star into his skin a year ago. A reminder that he had to walk away from Adalric for good this time, no matter how much Adalric begged him to come back.
He hadn’t needed the reminder at all.
“It wouldn’t be the truth.”
“It wouldn’t. Adalric is, in fact, done with basketball and living with that reiki healer in upstate New York.”
“At least he’s happy,” Chuck remarked without a touch of irony.
Stefan wrapped an arm around Chuck’s waist, his head barely reaching Chuck’s shoulders, and steered them toward the coatroom. “Now tell me. How are you really?”
“I live out of a suitcase that is meticulously organized.”
“Of course you do. But you know that’s not what I meant.”
Chuck eyed Stefan. “Who I’m with is none of your business anymore.”
“Hmm. That bad then.”
“Not bad,” Chuck answered honestly. His conversation tonight with Jesse had been bad, but everything else between the two of them was good. And tonight…. Chuck inwardly cringed. He’d lost his cool. Mostly because he’d known that conversation was coming and he’d pushed it off longer than he should have, allowing his own questions and frustration level to build. “It’s just…complicated.”
“One would think you’d want to be past that by now.”
Chuck patted Stefan’s back as he stepped up to coat check. “Give your son my best, Stefan.”
“I wouldn’t for anyone else, but for you I will. Call my foundation tomorrow. I’ll get you in to speak to a program officer while you’re still in town.”
“Thank you.”
Chuck handed over his ticket and Stefan stuffed a substantial bill into the attendant’s hand when he handed over Chuck’s wool overcoat. “Allow me to hail you a cab.”
“You’re gracious, but you know I walk.”
“Stubborn.”
“I’m inclined to keep my girlish figure,” Chuck countered.
“I’ll be long dead and buried before that disappears,” Stefan said. He rested his hand on Chuck’s arm. “Now, Charles. About your complication….” Stefan’s gaze bored into him. “Try to remember that not everyone was born a fighter like you.”
He pushed away his discomfort at Stefan’s ability to concisely articulate the simplest truths, and leaned down, kissing the old man on both cheeks. “Have a good evening, Stefan. It was wonderful to see you.”
“Cheers, my dear, sweet Charlie.”
Without a parting glance, Chuck lifted the thick wool hood over his head and strode through the door. The wind bit against his skin, immediately chilling him to the bone. Microscopic snowflakes drifted to the ground, dissolving before touching the concrete. He hadn’t been able to hold back thoughts of Jesse tonight, but after seeing Stefan, thoughts of Jesse and Adalric swirled together.
Adalric hadn’t wanted to come out either, but he’d had a sizable financial reason for his secrecy. Jesse’s only reason seemed to be fear. Or, even worse, shame.
Chuck gritted his teeth. Could he really do this again?
He hadn’t hidden that he was gay since his blue-blood parents had disowned him, and he wouldn’t ever step back into the closet. But he, better than some, understood just how much terror was tied to the phrase I’m gay. He couldn’t judge anyone for being afraid to take that step. He just didn’t know if he was willing to wait for someone who hadn’t already made the decision to accept who they were.
Chuck sighed, his breath billowing out and his teeth aching from the cold.
The last time he’d been truly warm he’d been lying in bed with Jesse. It wasn’t like he and Jesse were even dating, though. Being with Jesse was fun. Just like Jesse had said.
For now, maybe that could be enough.
Jesse slanted across the racquetball court, feeding his anger and frustration into a violent swing. The racquet creaked in protest as the ball blasted off the wall and back at Danny.
Danny cringed, ducking away from the missile threatening to debrain him. “What is it? Work or women?”
“Neither,” Jesse gritted out, and served the ball with just as much force.
His conversation with Chuck replayed in high-definition in his head, not any less confusing this morning, even though he’d spent sleepless hours last night thinking about nothing but it. He couldn’t talk to Danny about that, though. Danny might have been on paternity leave from both work and the Kensington boys’ ubiquitous league games, but that didn’t eject him, or his wife Lila, out of their gossip circle.
He shouldered Danny out of the way and slammed his paddle into the racquetball again, sending it careening at the white wall and ricocheting directly at Danny’s head.
Danny backpedaled and stationed his racquet in front of his face to deflect the shot. “I haven’t seen you this pissed off while sober in a long time.”
“Fuck you.”
He hit the rebound at just the right angle to send it flying into Danny’s thigh, where it hit with a hard thwack.
Danny scooped up the ball and turned on Jesse, his nostrils flaring. “Ow, fucker! Chillax. Is it your parents? Sister? I just want to know what I’m going to tell Lila when she asks why I’m covered in round welts that look suspiciously like hickeys.”
Jesse avoided answering that it was himself he was more pissed at than Chuck and diverted the question. “Yeah, right. Like Lila would ever worry about you cheating.”
“I’d totally cheat on her if I had the chance.”
Jesse twirled his racquet and pointed it at Danny. “No, you wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, I would.”
“Shut up. You’d hyperventilate and crawl to Lila begging for forgiveness if some chick even tried to touch you.”
Jesse lunged, trying to steal the ball back from Danny’s white-knuckled grip, but the tiny Irish fucker darted away, taking the ball with him. “It’s gotta be work. You never get this riled up over a one-nighter. Or is it an ex? Rachel?”
Jesse glowered at Danny and didn’t answer.
Danny put up his hands. “All right, just try not to maim me today and I’ll let the topic and the ball go. Deal?”
Jesse swiped the ball from Danny and took one more cheap shot that glanced off Danny’s shoulder, pulling another ripe swear from his mouth. Jesse smiled. That definitely made him feel better. “Deal.”
Danny fell into an easy stance at that and kept his trap shut for once as they played. Jesse couldn’t shut his brain down.
Chuck hadn’t wanted to hear it last night, but Jesse didn’t know if he was gay. Maybe that had been unfair to say out loud, but it didn’t make it any less real. Sure, he’d been screwing around with guys since college, but he’d been screwing around with just as many women. And while men could handle him in ways women never could—or didn’t seem to want to—Jesse still appreciated a pair of tits every now and then.
So did that mean he was bisexual? Jesse frowned. Every movie he’d ever seen with a character who swung both ways had them going through conquests like Veruca Salt in the chocolate factory—unable to contain their urges because they wanted what they wanted, and one taste of each thing was enough, leaving them craving something new and different.
But that wasn’t him either.
Fuck. Regardless of a label, his list was beginning to rival the voter rolls for a small village and that was exactly who he hadn’t wanted to become when he was younge
r.
Despite his mom’s nightmare first marriage, her second one had been the right match. Jesse’s relationship with his dad wasn’t perfect, but Silas was a good father and husband. Jesse had always hoped to be the rock for his family that his dad was, but that was hard to do when his longest-standing relationship was with the Trojan brand.
Why was he even thinking of relationships? Chuck was a one-night stand too. One night of some of the hottest sex of his life, but still only one night.
Jesse sighed. Even in his practiced state of perpetual denial he knew it was more than that. It had also been seven days of getting to know Chuck as a man. A man that he was physically attracted to and he wanted to have an actual conversation with after he came.
Jesse slammed his racquet against the ball, scoring the winning point for the third game in a row despite that his head wasn’t in the game. He surveyed Danny’s pale skin now splotched with red and scoffed. “You can’t be that out of shape yet. It’s only been six weeks since the twins were born and you dropped out of league games.”
Danny shrugged and swiped his shirt over his upper lip. “My demons are sucking the life out of me and Lil one hour of sleeplessness at a time, but it seems like yours are feeding you fire, brimstone, and ‘roids for that vicious backhand.”
Jesse had to chuckle. “Let’s hit the showers.”
Danny headed for the locker room and Jesse glanced at his cell before following. He frowned at the lack of notifications and threw his cell into his bag. Silence was supposed to be golden, but this felt more like storm clouds looming on the horizon. Jesse trudged into the locker room and cleaned up for work with Danny steering clear of him until Jesse threw on his suit jacket and they were headed side-by-side for the parking lot.
“Try not to smash into anyone else today, okay?” Danny said. He gripped Jesse’s shoulder. “Sollie smash balls later.”
Jesse smacked Danny on the back of the head, using the leverage to pull his friend into a bear hug. “Unlike you, I know how to handle balls. Especially yours.”
“I’ve missed our personal love language,” Danny said, clutching his hand over his heart. He knocked a closed fist on Jesse’s belly. “Come see Lila and the kids again soon, okay?”
Jesse nodded. “I will.”
“And when you decide to talk about whatever’s bothering you….” Danny smirked as he backed up toward his car. “Call Lila.”
Jesse flipped off a cackling Danny as he climbed inside his company sedan.
Before he could think twice about it, he pulled his cell out of his suit jacket and typed out a text to Chuck—Can I call?
He drummed his fingers on his leg, turned up the radio, and tried to distract himself with some Katy Perry. Two minutes later his phone rang, and he picked up his cell expecting the first of many soul-sucking calls about software he’d have to answer to today. He jolted when he saw it was actually Chuck calling him.
Jesse wiped his sweating palms on his pants, picked up the call and skipped the hello—going right for the jugular. “Just listen while I’ve got this all fresh in my head. I’ve been with other guys before. But I’ve never been in anything that could be called a relationship with a man. Never. And I never planned on being in one.”
There was silence on the line for a heartbeat that seemed to drag on into eternity. Then Chuck gave a pained, audible exhale. “You made that point clear last night. Why did you want to call to tell me that?”
Wasn’t that just the question of the day.
Jesse banged his skull against the headrest and gritted his teeth. “Because I like you. And I’d like to see where this goes. Beyond just, you know, the bedroom. Or the couch. Or wherever. Whatever.”
“Jesus, Jesse.”
“Well?” Jesse asked, his tone perilously close to begging. “What do you say?”
“I’m coming back early. Flying in next Friday. Take me out and woo me. I liked being wooed.”
Jesse fell silent. Chuck wasn’t serious, was he?
Chuck scoffed. “Dude. I’m fucking with you. You buy me flowers and I’ll gut punch you. Really though, let’s just hang out at your place. Have some fun.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “Sounds good.”
“No, it sounds fucking perfect.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, okay, fucking perfect. I’ll see you in a week then. Next Friday. But I’ll text you before then.”
“Cool.”
“Cool,” Jesse repeated, relaxing into his seat.
“I should get back to work.”
Jesse could hear the smile on Chuck’s face. “Me too.”
Jesse listened to Chuck’s breaths on the other end of the line. This time, the quiet that surrounded him felt a hell of a lot more golden. He didn’t want to hang up either.
“Technically,” Chuck finally said, “I’m walking to a meeting. If you’re in your car and have some time now…. You could tell me about your morning.”
Jesse smiled. “I’ve got time.”
4
“The loser is picking up the tab tonight,” Jesse announced to the waitress as Kam high-fived him from across the table and Matt glowered.
Even though their game had been on a Thursday and not a Friday this week, they’d all ended up back at McLoughlin’s after Kam and Jesse’s team had pulled off another victory. Now, they were all hunched over glasses of beer, with makeshift baggies of ice propped on the aging elbows, shoulders, and knees of the boys who didn’t want to admit they were getting older.
Matt groaned and handed over his credit card. “After Danny telling me about how you went Hulk on him in the racquetball court, I thought for sure you’d be picking up penalties all over the field tonight.”
Jesse smirked. He’d had fewer reasons to be mad this week. Especially since he and Chuck had introduced FaceTime jerk-off sessions into their nightly calls. “You made a bad bet, admit it.”
“Betting on your anger is usually solid odds.”
Jesse glanced across the table at Kam. “Apparently, I’m a teddy bear.”
“Fuck.” Kam smirked and took a sip of his beer. “I knew that you and Chuck becoming friends was a bad idea.”
“You’ve been talking to Chuck?” Matt asked Jesse. “I was worried we’d driven him off because of that asshole.”
Jesse grimaced and glanced over his shoulder at Ryan, who’d spent all night in front of the steering wheel of the racing simulator instead of joining them at a table. With their numbers at fifteen Kensington boys, it was natural there would be factions within the overall group. Ryan wasn’t as close to Matt, Kam, and Danny as Jesse was, but he and Ryan had rushed the same fraternity in college and had spent four years living in the house together.
Ryan’s dad had been the screaming parent on the sidelines of their childhood soccer games. Never satisfied, no matter how well or hard Ryan played. Growing up, Jesse had heard just about every slur come out of Ryan’s dad’s mouth, but he’d never heard one from Ryan. That the lingering animosity from that night was splintering their group—even fractionally—made Jesse’s stomach turn.
He downed the rest of his beer. “I don’t know what Ryan’s deal is.”
“I don’t care what it is,” Matt responded. “I don’t want to hear that shit coming out of his mouth again.”
“I get the feeling it’s not the worst thing Chuck’s ever heard,” Kam said.
Jesse winced and refilled his glass. “Ryan didn’t drive Chuck away, he’s been out of town.”
“Oh yeah, the New York trip. He telling you anything, Kam?”
Kam nodded. “It looks like he’s going to get us that feature on ESPN.”
Jesse froze with his beer at his lips. A feature on ESPN?
But before Jesse could ask the question out loud, Matt chuckled. “Of course he is.”
Jesse furrowed his brow. “Why?”
“’Cause he’s Charles Dunnbradley—the biggest sports photographer in the business.”
Jesse’s jaw dropped. “What?�
�
Kam tapped his fingers against his glass, studying Jesse. “He didn’t tell you that?”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
Kam shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “You remember that shot of the Hail Mary pass that won the Cougars their first championship ring in decades?”
“Who doesn’t?” Matt said.
Jesse nodded. It had been plastered everywhere for weeks after the game. “It’s fucking iconic.”
“That was Chuck’s. Skim through your issues of Sports Illustrated and you’ll see his professional name everywhere. Even with quitting his gig to come home, he probably has more contacts in the sports industry than most agents.”
“You were channeling some of Danny’s luck meeting him in Chicago,” Matt added.
“No shit. Having the kids with me is what sold it, though. I’m paying him next to nothing and he doesn’t even care.”
Jesse set down his glass and rubbed his temples as the pieces clicked into place. Kam had paid thousands out of pocket so the kids from the boxing club could attend that title fight in Chicago. Then all of them had met the fighters because of a photographer who’d started asking Kam about why the kids were there. The pictures of that meet-and-greet were all over the walls of the club.
Pictures taken by Chuck.
Chuck Dunn—professionally known as Charles Dunnbradley. Jesse’s head swam. Chuck’s coy smile when Jesse had asked if photography was his thing made a hell of a lot more sense. Jesse was off-kilter, and he couldn’t blame the beer for this.
“Jesus, Sollie. Why the fuck do you look so pale?” Matt asked with a laugh.
“Too much to drink?” he tried.
“That calls for shots. Mary!” Matt motioned for the waitress. “We’re going to need shots all around. They’re on me, boys!”
A collective roar filled the bar, drowned out by the static roar in Jesse’s ears. Jesse pushed his beer aside.
“None for me. I’m tapping out guys,” Jesse said, standing.
“What the fuck?” Matt protested.
Kam’s gaze bored into him, but Jesse ignored it and headed for the back door.
Out of the Shade Page 5