Illegal Contact (The Barons)

by Santino Hassell

  I didn’t call Gavin until I had my shit together. And the fucker didn’t pick up. He didn’t pick up the ten times I called on my trek to the subway through the calf-deep snow, and he didn’t pick up once I’d gotten to Sutphin Boulevard to wait for the late train into Westhampton. There was absolutely no response to any of my pleas for an explanation until Joe called me while I was on the LIRR.

  “Are you on your way?”

  “Yes! Joe, what the fuck is going on?”

  A lady in the row next to me sent me a hateful look and put an arm around her child. I rolled my eyes. My voice carried farther than a megaphone, but there was no way in hell I was censoring myself on public transportation.

  “Gavin will explain himself. I’m not speaking for him.”

  Well, that was . . . different.

  “Why is he coming out now? What happened?” A thought occurred to me, slicing clean through the mix of nerves and excitement that had welled in my chest for the past two hours. “Is he being forced to do this or is this his choice?”

  “Somewhere in the middle. Once he’s off the phone with Spence, I’ll tell him you’re on your way.”

  The call ended with as little ceremony as it had begun, and I was left reeling. I had no idea what it meant, but I knew above everything else there was a large chance it wouldn’t end well. And part of me hoped, prayed to the higher power my parents believed in that he wasn’t doing this because we’d parted ways. The very notion that he’d walk into this shitstorm for me made me want to throw myself over him to protect him from the flames. But there was also a smaller part that wished his feelings were that strong, even if I didn’t want him to ruin his career for me—someone who was starting from scratch at a youth center downtown.

  I got off the train at the station and found a black Lincoln waiting for me. Goddamn Joe and his fancy shit—he’d hired a car. It was more spacious than I’d expected, but I couldn’t enjoy the luxury. I chewed my nails to the quick and stared at my phone during the drive. It didn’t take long, but even twenty minutes was enough when my guts were twisting into painful knots. A gentle snow began to fall outside, but my turmoil prevented me from enjoying a sight that normally brought me peace.

  I’d half expected Joe to meet me in front of the mansion, but my heart swelled when I saw Gavin. Gavin in jeans and a black hoodie with the Barons logo on the front, his blond hair longer than I’d ever seen it and stubble shading his jaw. He was gorgeous. I threw myself out of the car in my rush to get to him.

  It occurred to me too late that the driver was watching, and I walked right into Gavin’s personal space to wrap my arms around him. He wasn’t shy about returning the embrace. Strong arms encircled me and squeezed so tight. His lack of regard for the audience was made apparent as he kissed me.

  With his large hands digging into me and his tongue in my mouth, everything I’d been craving since Thanksgiving came rushing back. All the missed moments had been replaced by a raw ache for his touch on my skin.

  We pulled apart as the Lincoln drove away. I didn’t take my eyes off Gavin, and tilted my forehead heavily against his.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  He walked backwards towards the house, still carrying me, as if my weight was inconsequential to him. I may as well have been one of the drifting snowflakes.

  “Max is outing me. I figured I’d beat him to it, on my own terms, since I already regretted choosing another sixty-million-dollar contract over this big-mouthed kid from Queens who I’m in love with.”

  Outrage warred with relief warred with a supernova burst of happiness. We didn’t make it into the house before I kissed him again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Gavin

  Sex hadn’t been part of the plan for the night, but having Noah in my arms with his lips against my own couldn’t lead to anywhere else. Not after weeks of being unable to touch him.

  We wound up in my bed within a minute of getting in the door, and the hours that should have been spent with me pacing or working out until I got sick ended up being enjoyed with Noah pressed against me. Skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, and our bodies connected in every possible way. When the clock chimed to announce it was eight o’clock, the time when the hastily thrown together article was set to go live, I was coming off the high of an orgasm so powerful my toes were still curled and my body was tingling.

  “Damn,” Noah breathed, rolling onto his side. “We’re a mess.”

  “Figuratively or literally?”

  “Both. You came so hard I’m surprised you can still see straight.”

  I snorted. “Someone’s feeling himself.”

  “After that greeting, I sure as hell am,” he said with a laugh. “Part of me wondered if you were over all this.”

  The words caught me wrong and took me out of the warm glow of my contentment. I rolled onto my side so we were facing each other.

  “Tell me something.”

  Noah’s teasing smirk sobered, and he propped himself up on his hand. “What?”

  “What do you think all this is to me?”

  “I don’t know. You’ve never been straight with me about it.”

  “You mean we’ve never been straight with each other.”

  I could see an automatic denial getting ready to pop out of his mouth, but Noah cocked his head. After a moment, he nodded.

  “Yeah, that’s fair,” he said. “We let it happen and never talked about it. I know you care about me. I know you want me in your life. And I hope you know the same is true for me even though I left.” A trace of a smile reappeared on his face. “Marcus came by with Jasmine, and he acted like I’d broken your heart into pieces. Dead serious talking about how him hanging out with me was against ‘Bro Code.’”

  This was a story I hadn’t heard, and it brought a hoarse laugh bubbling out of my throat. Marcus was one of the most loyal guys I’d ever met, and I could perfectly picture him giving Noah the business about leaving me cold. Except, he hadn’t left me cold. I’d let him go.

  “I think they both know I want you here with me, and that I never want you to leave.”

  Noah slowly nodded, but otherwise his expression was still. “When you say never, you mean . . .”

  “I mean I want to be with you. Be the Lois to your Clark, as Simeon said.”

  “I love the fact that you’re Lois.”

  “I knew you would.” I kissed the corner of his mouth, and loved how his eyes slid shut at the contact. His little sigh of happiness. This was how it should have been all along. “Seriously, though, I want us to be together, Noah. No fitness models. No mechanics. No paparazzi or media scaring me off and making me doubt us. Just you and me, and our nosy-ass opinionated friends.”

  Noah’s mouth twitched, but he kept searching my eyes as if looking for a sign that this wasn’t for real. That I’d change my mind, or I wasn’t one hundred percent sure about what I was saying. There was a time when him not automatically buying into my claim would have pissed me the hell off, but now I wondered if he was being cautious because he was worried about whether he’d be safe with me. Maybe, like Marcus’ ex-girlfriend, wondering if there would come a point when I’d inevitably break his heart.

  “I wouldn’t say this if I wasn’t for real,” I said. “I’d have just let you go. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “Then why did you change your mind? Why now, of all times, did you choose to come out?”

  “Couple of reasons.”

  Noah gave me his impatient eyebrow raise. The one that was almost as bad as him actually shouting at me to get the fuck on with it.

  “First off—I’ve been regretting our conversation since the moment you walked out the door. It’s just this thing where . . . I had to realize this doesn’t happen to people like me.” I brushed my fingers along his face, grinning when he leaned into it. “I don’t click with people, let alone have feelings this strong. Wanting you to be mine and all of this over-the-top, mushy shit. But I feel that for you. I want those t
hings with you. And I let you walk because I’m afraid of losing football because it’s been part of me for so long. Since I was a kid, it was all I had.”

  “And that’s not the case anymore?” Noah sat up with his legs folded beneath him, body still sweaty and covered with red indents from my grasping fingers. “When we met, you said football had saved you. Even a couple of months later, you seemed like you were in withdrawal without it. Climbing the walls and ready to drive out to Jersey to get a real practice in even if it meant you violating your house arrest.”

  “I was, but that doesn’t mean things don’t change.” I lay on my back with him hovering over me, pale body naked and lean under the lamplight. “I don’t know if I’d have been saying this a few years ago, but right now if it’s a choice between someone I want in my life indefinitely and a sport I’ll have to retire from in a couple of years, I’d be a fucking idiot to choose the NFL.”

  “You shouldn’t have to choose at all. You love football.”

  “I’m not denying that.” I grabbed the back of his neck and guided him back down to me. “I do love football, but I love you more. And your ass is less likely to decide I’m too old once I hit thirty-three.”

  Instead of laughing, Noah gave me that skeptical eyebrow again. “You’re really going to drop the L word in between profanity and jokes?”

  “Baby, I dropped it earlier and you didn’t even react,” I said, kissing him again. “Besides, you cursed a paparazzo to hell for wandering down the wrong part of the beach one time. I’m pretty sure I knew I loved you right then and there.”

  “You had a funny way of showing it.” Noah pressed his thumb against my mouth, stroking my lower lip. “You know I feel the same way, right?”

  “Wrong.” I nipped at his thumb. “I wanna hear it. In detail. In fact, I want a sonnet.”

  “Screw your sonnet. You get words.” Noah kissed my forehead with a touch far gentler than anyone had ever used on me before. “I love your mean ass.”

  The part of me that still expected people to give up on me or let me down unwound from the tight knot of tension. I relaxed against the bed, grinning up at him.

  “Will you stay with me?”

  “Uh. About that . . .” Noah scrunched up his face. “I love you, Gav. I do. But I can’t live in this house out in the boonies. I got a job as a counselor at this place in lower Manhattan, and I’m not doing the five-hour commute thing.”

  “You could use one of my cars.”

  He gave me a look. “Gavin.”

  “You’re so stubborn. It’s not a handout if it’s from your man.”

  “Gavin . . .”

  “Fine.” I rubbed the back of his neck, watching him from beneath my lashes and smiling at the way he still flushed. “How about if I move to Manhattan?”

  “Don’t move because of—”

  “It’s not just because of you, dumbass. I hate this house. It’s too big for one person, and living here makes me feel like an asshole.”

  “That’s the only thing that makes you feel like an asshole?” he wondered.

  I swatted his thigh. “For real. What if I moved back to the city?”

  Noah was obviously fighting a smile. “What about Queens?” He burst out laughing in response to my flat stare. “We can talk about it, but I’m down as long as you’re sure you want to flaunt it to that extent.”

  “Flaunt it? You clearly have no clue what I said in that article.” Glancing at the clock, my stomach did a flip. “Speaking of, that shit should be live.”

  Noah shot up so fast his spine must have snapped. He half dove off the side of the bed to grab his phone, but I grabbed his wrist before he could tap the screen.

  “Don’t.”

  “Why not?” he asked. “I want to see what you said!”

  “Because the response is gonna be ugly, and it doesn’t matter tonight.” I eased the phone out of his hand and tossed it onto the thick carpet. “What matters is that we’re together, and you just said you’d move in with me, which pretty much blew my mind with happiness. Can we just leave it at that for now?”

  Noah glanced over at his phone.

  “Please?”

  He melted against me, and I immediately curled around him with our limbs locked together and my face buried in the crook of his neck. With warm air blowing on us from the vent above my bed and his fingers idly sliding through my hair, it was the most peace I’d had in weeks. I pretended there was a wall of D-men between us and that damn phone, and all the hate I knew would be flooding out of it should he open Twitter or Facebook, and let myself doze off.

  Maybe the morning would be awful, but I wasn’t about to let one of the best nights of my life turn into a nightmare.

  ***

  Noah

  Dawn came with faint rays of sunlight streaming through thick clouds and more flurries. Gavin’s bedroom was practically encased in glass, so in those first sleepy moments of blinking my way awake, it felt like we were in a snow globe.

  When the consistent buzzing of a phone cut through the silence, I wished it was true. Thick, impenetrable glass would have come in handy right now, because Gavin had been right. Whatever the reaction to his coming-out story had been, at least seventy-five percent would be ugly.

  Beside me, Gavin was breathing deep and even. He was curled onto his side, hair messy around his face like a golden halo, and lips parted in his sleep. How someone so gruff could look so sweet and innocent was beyond me, but I took that moment to slide from his arms and grab my phone.

  There were notifications several hundred deep from various forms of social media, along with texts from Jasmine and my dad, but I bypassed them to find the article. The headline was total clickbait, but it couldn’t have been more fitting.

  Gavin Brawley Comes Out and Doesn’t Give a Fuck About Your Opinion on the Matter.

  I sat on the floor in my underwear and didn’t bother to search for my glasses before scanning the rest of the article, which was only a few paragraphs long. Spence had detailed his evening of eating edibles with a friend in D.C. before getting a mind-blowing, but unsurprising, phone call from Gavin Brawley.

  He said, “I need to make an announcement, a big one, and I only want to do the story with you. But you have to post it right away or I’ll post the shit on Instagram.” How could I say no? I also had an idea what this announcement would be, after spending a day hanging out at his Westhampton mansion. I guess you could say, after some of the things he said in our previous chat, I wasn’t too shocked when he came out as bisexual.

  For the next few paragraphs my heart was in my throat as I slowly read Spence detailing what he’d observed during his brief visit to Gavin’s house. The way Gavin looked at me, the way we teased each other, and the soft expression on Gavin’s face when he talked about me.

  I reassured Gavin that he’d already pinged my gaydar so he didn’t have to worry about explaining why he’d hidden this for so long. Any queer person would know why Gavin Brawley hid his bisexuality—coming out puts a target on the average person’s back. For a professional football player, it paints one on your back for the entire nation’s target practice. I have no doubts, and neither does he, that the consequences of this article will be brutal.

  Slammed by football fans, by other athletes, a cause of debate about queer men in the locker room, and an analysis about everything he’s ever said or done. But Gavin doesn’t give a shit about that. He’s even ready to lose his spot as a starting tight end. There’s two reasons he’s coming out now—a scorned lover is planning to sell the story of their affair to a tabloid, and he’s in love.

  Gavin doesn’t go into detail about his scorned lover or the man he loves (although I can guess who it is), but when he speaks, I can picture his golden eyes fiercely flashing the way they probably do during a game.

  “I know people are gonna come for me. At this point I’m like . . . fuck it. Everyone went gaga over my smile, but they never stopped to wonder who caused it. Why I was suddenly so happy.
They just know I looked good, and it gave them something to fantasize about. Let’s see how long it takes them to flip-flop when they realize DatBrawleySmile was so big because of a guy. But you know what? I’m ready for them to drag me just like I’m ready to live for something other than football.”

  I pressed my mouth against my knee and stopped scrolling. There was literally no point in reading the comments so I started to close the tab, but paused when I saw short updates at the bottom.

  Update: Simeon Boudreaux just came out as gay on Twitter in support of his teammate.

  Update 2: Boudreaux states that Gavin’s now infamous cell phone beat down was about him. The man Gavin assaulted had intended to blackmail the Barons QB after a club hookup.

  My breath came quicker, but I followed the links and scanned Simeon’s Tweet stream. It was short and sweet, starting with Guess what beautiful people? Gavin’s bi, and I’m gay! Before ending with Let’s see if my team releases me even though my sweet ass is planning to win the Super Bowl.

  They’d both come out and openly challenged the organization that had paid them millions of dollars. I didn’t know if it was smart or foolish, but there was no way they’d done it without Mel’s support. Which meant they had a plan.

  I scanned social media, saw the expected wrath of homophobes, but some of my fear abated as other players in the Barons showed up to tell haters to fuck off. Marcus, unsurprisingly, was the most vocal.

  It was a brilliant show of support, more than I’d expected, but it was a text message from Joe Carmichael, of all people, that calmed my panic.

  Gavin won’t pick up his phone. Tell him Mel already had a phone conference with Billy, the owner. And ESPN wants a cover story with both Gavin and Simeon. We’re feeling positive. Still too early to tell, but releasing them both would be too obvious. I’ll keep you in the loop.