by Beth Bolden
He’d always known Jemma was on his side. That’s why he’d wanted so much for it to be her. He trusted that she wouldn’t twist his words, or him. But Colin knew when he’d been called out. He knew how to win over an offense to his side. How to take control of a locker room.
“Maybe I’m not as familiar with you as Helen.”
“Nick Wheeler. 31 years old. LA native. Gay.” Nick listed the points of perfunctorily, like there was some sort of checklist. And maybe there was.
But whatever Colin had expected, he didn’t expect the last point.
“Ah,” he stuttered, unsure what to counter with after Nick had dropped that particular bomb. “Well, it’s nice to meet you.” After the stupid phrase was out of his mouth, Colin remembered that they’d already fucking met, and he sounded like a first-class idiot.
“Likewise, Mr. O’Connor,” Nick said smoothly, not pointing out his mistake.
Colin simmered at his end of the table as Helen took over the meeting.
She outlined a general time table. Talked about leaking hints to certain reporters. Talked about LGBTA+ friendly programs that the Piranhas were going to introduce in the next year.
When she finished the “prep” phase, as she’d called it, her sharp gaze found Nick’s. He’d been as silent as Colin during the last fifteen minutes, though clearly taking some sort of notes. Not that Colin had been watching him or anything.
“Let’s talk about your feature, Mr. Wheeler,” Helen said.
“I’d like a few weeks in Miami with Mr. O’Connor. Access to his residence, to player facilities at the Piranha compound, to his schedule, to his charitable enterprises. To all football and non-football activities, essentially.”
Colin forced himself not to make a face. He’d completely avoided these sorts of “in-depth exclusives” for his entire football career. He’d let Jemma write the one article while he was still in college, but other than that, he’d tried to keep his private life private, and not just because he was afraid of what a nosy reporter might find.
He didn’t like the spotlight, even if it loved him back.
“That’s a lot of access,” Mark piped up. Mark was probably seeing dollar signs, because more press meant more prominent exposure, which in turn meant more sponsorship deals. But Mark was also on a short leash, and knew what Colin didn’t like.
Nick spread his hands out. “It’s a very important story. I want to do it justice. Not just for Mr. O’Connor. Think of the impact it will have.” For people like me hung unspoken over the conference table.
Maybe that was what decided him. Later, Colin wouldn’t be able to point to why he’d given in so easily. But he folded like a terrible hand of poker.
“Fine,” Colin said. “It’s fine.”
He tried to ignore how pleased Nick looked, and also tried to ignore the jolt of awareness that shot right through him when Nick smiled. He had a gorgeous mouth, especially when he let some sunshine through the bitter, world-weary clouds.
It turned out the former was far, far easier than the latter.
“You didn’t want it to be me.” Nick leaned back in his chair, sipping his latte, and seemed pleased about throwing out such an unapologetically blunt conversation starter.
Colin was already on edge because he hadn’t wanted to have this meeting. This man had essentially invited himself into Colin’s life, and then had the gall to issue more demands. Like that he needed Colin meet with him to finalize details of the profile while he was in LA.
Colin had nearly sent Mark. The only reason he hadn’t was because he wasn’t sure he trusted Mark with this, and he definitely didn’t trust Nick.
“Of course I didn’t.” Colin had cautioned himself in the car about letting Nick get to him, and already he was off-balance and snappish. And more painfully honest than he normally was with reporters. He tried to pull back. “Jemma’s my best friend. She’s already written a very successful profile of me. It made sense.”
Nick smiled, but Colin was under the impression he wasn’t very amused. “Yeah, it was a good profile. I mean, I hired her because of it. But a profile of a potentially Heisman-winning quarterback that nobody knows at all because he won’t really give interviews, and a life and career-changing coming out interview of an NFL star? Yeah, those are two different beasts.”
It wasn’t so long ago that the pulse of anger Colin felt on Jemma’s behalf would have been driven by very non-platonic feelings. He took it as a win that all he felt in that moment was loyalty towards his friend. It had been a really long year, but he didn’t think he was in love with Jemma anymore.
“Doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have done a good job,” Colin defended, because Nick got under his skin and made him a lot more expressly argumentative than he normally was. Normally he’d just give a vague smile and let the reporter’s questions glide right over his placid surface.
Nick Wheeler churned up the water, and Colin didn’t like it.
“She would have done the best she could, but it wouldn’t have been what you needed. You and Jemma, you’re too good of friends. She’d be more interested in protecting you,” Nick said. “Those sensitive spots, she’d let you keep them hidden.”
Colin opened his mouth, nearly on instinct, to argue.
“Don’t sit there and tell me you don’t have them,” Nick said, his words precisely dismantling Colin’s peace of mind. He reached into the bag under the table and tossed a glossy magazine between them.
Colin gazed down at the print version of himself, vapid-eyed and half-naked and no doubt photoshopped to hell. He didn’t regret anything the way he regretted agreeing to pose for Sports Illustrated. And here it was again, rising Banquo-like just when he thought he’d left it behind for a serious sports career that had nothing to do with how hot his abs looked.
He wouldn’t rise to the bait. He wouldn’t.
“This,” Nick said, jabbing a finger at the cover, apparently unconcerned at Colin’s mutinous silence, “is what I’m talking about. You’re like a cardboard cutout of a person on this.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s at least sixty percent excellent graphical manipulation,” Colin said stiffly.
“Not just the picture,” Nick corrected. “You never let anyone in. All anyone ever gets is this smooth, flawless persona. There’s more to you than what meets the eye. And there’s more to you than just football.”
From a young age, Colin had prided himself on his self-control, but Nick was chipping away at it, one hefty chunk at a time.
“I’d think you might understand why I want to keep my personal life private.”
Nick leaned forward. “Your personal life? That can stay private all you want it to. But you? Who you are? The essence of what makes Colin O’Connor tick? That’s what I want.”
Colin was speechless. He couldn’t even form a sentence as fury raged through him.
“There,” Nick concluded with a smirk in his direction. “Now you’re pissed, and that’s good. That’s really good.”
“Good?” Colin bit off.
Nick waved a lazy hand. “All that smooth, calm exterior, doesn’t it get boring? Exhausting? Horribly tedious?”
“Not really, no.” Colin fantasized about punching Nick in the face.
“Well it does for me,” Nick retorted. “And that’s really why I wanted to meet with you.”
Colin leashed in his temper, barely. “So you could tell me I’m an emotionless, boring, cardboard puppet?”
Nick laughed, a startled, sudden sound. Like he hadn’t expected the sarcasm to come from Colin’s mouth. Which made sense because Colin hadn’t expected it, either.
“No,” Nick said, and now he was amused, “I’m not just going to need to be able to accompany you and meet you with you a lot, I think we need to get a lot…closer than that. You’ll block me out otherwise. I need to be with you.”
Colin was pretty sure he was going to hate where this was going.
“I’m going to need to stay with you,” Nick f
inally concluded, and yes, Colin really hated it. Big surprise.
“No,” was all Colin said. With all the finality and certainty that he’d learned while dealing with slippery Mark.
“I don’t have to tell you how important this is,” Nick began, and Colin was way too familiar with this tactic, because Mark used it often. He shut it right down.
“Really?” he said, more sarcasm dripping from his words, “you don’t need to tell me that my coming out profile is important?”
Nick laughed again, less surprise this time around. “What I mean to say is that this article is going to change people’s lives. It would have changed my life.”
Colin didn’t know how he felt about Nick using his sexuality as a bargaining chip. He said so.
“It’s the truth,” Nick said, with very little guile. “I don’t really want to burden you with my life history. That’s not why we’re here. But I guarantee an NFL quarterback, a Heisman-winning quarterback, admitting publicly he was queer, that would have changed the game for me.”
“I'm not doing it for those reasons," Colin said. "I'm not doing it to be a pioneer or to change lives. I'm doing it for selfish reasons."
Colin took it back; Nick hadn't looked surprised before. Before he'd merely looked amused. Now he looked floored, but it still only took a moment for him to gather himself and cycle back to his point. Whatever Colin thought of him, Nick Wheeler was a formidable opponent if you decided to oppose him.
Colin didn't know if he should. Didn't know if he wanted to.
"Regardless of your reasons, I want to do the best job I can on this. I think you want that, too. Give me the chance to do that."
"You're asking?"
Nick had only demanded before, and now, he was asking. Colin told himself it didn’t matter, but he knew he was lying.
Nick had the grace to look a tiny bit contrite. "It is your life,” he said. “I can draw you a map, but you’re in the driver’s seat.”
“And why can’t you do what you need like this?” Colin asked, gesturing between them. “I’ll answer anything within reason.”
Nick grinned. “Is that a promise?” he retorted and then gave a sweeping gesture with his cardboard cup. “It’s not about questions, it’s about getting to know you in your natural habitat.”
It didn’t make sense, but Colin wanted to say yes anyway, even though the idea of this nosy reporter constantly digging made him queasy.
“Fine,” Colin agreed. “But don’t be irritated if I put you in the worst room of the house.”
“Believe it or not, I think that might tell me a lot about you.” He paused, his face growing softer, and there was a conspiratorial gleam in his grey eyes. They were even more hypnotic in person, and Colin had to force himself to look away. “Sort of like how you flirted with me during our first interview. That told me a lot about you, too. At least that you have good taste in flirting partners.”
Colin gaped at him. “I didn’t even remember you,” he said, which might not have been the most tactful way to phrase the confession, but he was too surprised to do anything else.
“…wow…” Nick seemed equally surprised. “I...well, that does explain why you weren’t as happy to see me as I thought you might be. I thought we’d had a really friendly chat the first time around.”
It was obvious Nick was looking for an explanation, but Colin didn’t feel obligated. So he just shrugged and said, “Sorry.” He’d let Nick win a stay at his house for the profile. Let Nick dig a little harder and work up a sweat for this one.
It was the first time since he’d sat down that Nick looked uncomfortable. He shut his pad with a decisive click, and gathered it and the Sports Illustrated that Colin had spent the better part of their conversation attempting to ignore, and slid them into his leather satchel.
“I’ll be in touch about when I’ll be flying out,” Nick said, clearly signaling that he was done. “If there’s a better time for you, let me know, you have my email.”
Colin remembered two-a-days in Alaska, where it was either cold or freeze-your-balls-off. He remembered the sickening pressure of his first college start at quarterback. He wasn’t a stranger to dealing with unpleasant things if there was something bigger at stake. Even then, Colin nearly told Nick to forget it, that he couldn’t let him in as deeply as he clearly wanted to go.
Nick was going to want the whole damn iceberg, and Colin had spent too long lurking underwater.
But then Nick paused, his hand on the table, his butt nearly out of his chair. He leaned over and caught Colin’s gaze, those piercing gray eyes pinning Colin back to his seat. “I want you to know that you can trust me. With everything. But especially with this. I promise.”
Then he was up and gone, leaving Colin with an indelible impression of a solemn sincerity that Colin hadn’t even known Nick possessed, and a faint echo of butterfly wings in his stomach.
It turned out that a serious and engaged and trustworthy Nick Wheeler wasn’t going to be someone that Colin could forget so easily.
“I thought you’d want to talk,” Colin said again, barely holding back a whine, as he closed the car door behind him.
Jemma’s head whipped around, her long, dark ponytail nearly decapitating him. “I can’t believe you’re pouting that I’m taking you to a sporting event,” Jemma said darkly. “And a sporting event you can participate in. That’s normally your jam.”
The whole problem was that Colin wasn’t normal right now. He was on edge and anxious over the upcoming profile and the publicity blitz of the next six months. He wanted to pour out all his fears and let Jemma laugh them off. He wanted Jemma to tell him that he wasn’t being stupid or naïve or foolish to trust Nick to tell his story. He wanted Jemma to tell him that he wasn’t any of those things for wanting to tell it at all.
Normal Colin would have been thrilled at the prospect of a team sporting event. He was an athletic nerd and he also really liked the challenge of winning something he’d never tried before. But today he wasn’t himself, and admitting that was harder than he’d expected. Even to Jemma.
“You’re gonna love it,” Jemma said with finality. “Gabe and I play all the time, and I don’t even hate it. So I can only imagine how you’re gonna feel about it.”
Jemma had asked him before he came to LA if he had a problem spending time with her and Gabe, her boyfriend of just over a year. Colin hadn’t prodded that particular wound in months, and to his surprise when he’d tested the scab, it had felt almost completely healed. He’d known he was getting over it. The very fact that he wanted to date again had been evidence enough, but when he’d pressed on it, imagining spending time with Jemma and Gabe, watching them be disgustingly in love, all he felt as a faint bit of regret at the loss of normalcy.
If Jemma had ever loved him instead of Gabe, he might not ever have to throw his closet doors wide open and let everyone see inside. It wasn’t so much the idea of being honest that bothered him, but the painful loss of his privacy.
Colin could only imagine the amusement on Nick’s face if he ever realized that the one woman Colin had ever remotely been interested in had never cared about him that way. It was a really good thing that he was almost certain that Nick, despite at one point being Jemma’s boss and now her co-worker, had no clue.
“Isn’t it sort of cheating to bring along a professional athlete to a pick-up game?”
Jemma shot him an evil smile. “Keep your hat on and don’t take off your shirt and we’ll be fine. You’re my cousin, John Smith.” She paused. “Besides, only half of this game is throwing. You’re only a ringer for that half, really. I’m being downright generous to everyone else.”
“Yes, I’m sure that everyone will be perfectly okay with that logic,” Colin said with an eye roll as punctuation.
But Jemma had spotted Gabe, and it turned out that even after a year of dating, they were still really passionate greeters. The good news was, the longer and harder that wound got poked, the less it seemed to hurt.
“Yes, they’re always like that.”
Colin was almost a hundred percent sure he knew who had that deep, slightly sardonic voice. But he really didn’t want to turn around to verify. Before he could, that voice spoke again.
“Let me guess, the hat is supposed to be a disguise, and Jemma thinks nobody will be pissed that she brought a Heisman-winning quarterback to a pick-up dodgeball game.”
Colin turned around and tried really hard not to look sheepish.
Of course Nick was standing there, dressed down in black basketball shorts and a ratty LA Clippers tank top. Colin tried not to check out his newly exposed and surprisingly toned arms and legs, and mostly failed. It was getting harder and harder not to notice how attractive Nick was, even as he continued to be a persistent pain in Colin’s ass.
“It’s not a good disguise?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.
Nick shot him an incredulous look. “You’re rather distinctive looking.”
“I’ve never heard that before.”
Nick smiled, and it was just as transformative as the first time Colin had witnessed it. It was becoming impossible to deny; Nick Wheeler was really, really hot. And Colin was afraid of what that might mean for him. “You should copyright that innocent expression. I know a lot of people who’d like to borrow it.”
“Who said anything about borrowing?” Colin scoffed. “Mark would skin me alive for losing out on the revenue stream selling it could bring.”
Every nerve ending on Colin’s body pinged at Nick’s slow, leisurely perusal. “I wouldn’t blame him; it’d be worth a damn lot.”
Colin might be able to claim he didn’t remember them flirting before, but he wouldn’t be able to do that again.
“You two done flirting yet?” Jemma piped up, and Colin experienced for the very first time what it might be like having her only as a friend. Apparently, she had passed right over supportive and landed right on annoying younger sister. She was a meddling pain, and he was going to accidentally send more than one ball her way tonight for that particular comment.