“Hi, Joey.” A buxom redhead sidled up between Joey and Kyle. She had one of those loud grating voices, which made Kyle cringe. “You looked good out there today.”
“You were at the diamond?” Joey wore a dopey expression, and Kyle had to turn away to hide his laughter.
The woman tried to be patient. “I saw you before the game started.”
His gaze dropped to her chest, and a smile broke out on his face. “Oh! Yeah, I remember now. Here, let me get you a drink. What are you having?”
“Pomegranate martini,” she said, ego soothed by the promise of a free drink.
“A Frankie froufrou drink.” Joey smirked in Forrester’s direction.
Forrester rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Joey.”
“He does love his froufrou drinks,” Kyle agreed. “You should see what he does if you buy him cotton candy vodka shots. Isn’t that right, Frankie?”
Forrester tossed up a hand irritably. “Perché io?”
Kyle chuckled, and Joey laughed, nudging Kyle in the arm. “You’re a funny guy.” He looked at Forrester. “I like him.”
“That makes one of us.” Forrester gave Kyle a playful scowl.
Once the redhead, Marla, had her martini, Joey switched places with Kyle so he could be closer to her. Thankfully, Kyle could escape her loud voice and the way her boobs kept accidentally brushing his arm.
Thrilled to be on a winning streak, Forrester’s teammates made toasts and liberally handed out congratulatory backslaps—Kyle taking a few more opportunities than necessary to pat his boyfriend on the back. Forrester took all the accolades with grace, buying drinks and never failing to praise the other men’s game. He introduced Kyle to the guys, making him feel a part of it all.
Kyle couldn’t really tell a difference between this Forrester and the one he played darts with at Reverends or the fun-loving man in the bookstore. Aside from the occasional laughing agreement when one of his friends or brothers made a joke about chicks, one would really have to know both sides of Forrester to know he wasn’t so much agreeing with the observations, just laughing along.
Kyle ordered a second beer, and Forrester a third froufrou drink—his boyfriend progressively getting more and more animated the greater his alcohol consumption became. Yet never once did he fail to face Kyle as he spoke.
A guy named Larry, married to one of Forrester’s cousins, raised his beer for yet another toast. “To Frankie’s grand slam!”
Kyle clanked his beer to Joey’s and those of a few other players he didn’t know, unable to wipe the proud grin off his face. He thoroughly enjoyed watching Forrester be the center of attention.
“It was Tony’s pitching that made the difference,” Forrester argued.
“That’s right, pipsqueak. Don’t be stealin’ my glory,” Tony laughed, pulling Forrester into an affectionate headlock for a noogie, overturning his drink in the process.
“Hey! Watch it, ya big meathead.” Forrester elbowed him out of his space. “These things are ten bucks!”
Kyle gestured to the bartender to get Forrester another.
“Just have a beer like the rest of us.” Tony laughed and slapped Forrester on the back again.
“I like my froufrou drinks.” Forrester dried his arm off on his jersey.
Tony glanced in Kyle’s direction. “Hey, Benson. I saw you sitting with Ma during the game.”
“She was trying to set me up with your cousin Gina.”
Tony grinned, his white teeth perfect and even. He was attractive in a bear sort of way. Kyle could just picture him in leathers. “Figures. But trust me, you don’t wanna call Gina.”
“I don’t?” Kyle asked, enjoying the way Forrester scowled at him.
“Because once she finds out you’re a lawyer, she’ll be after your money,” Tony said seriously. “She’s always been that way.”
“Don’t be a fool, wrap your tool.” Joey burst out with over-the-top laughter, acting just as goofy as Forrester did the more he became lubricated with alcohol. He and Marla had been doing tequila shooters. “Hey, Kyle. What you drinkin’? I’m buying this round.”
Kyle held up his bottle. “Beer, what else is there?”
“You could learn something from him, Frankie,” Tony said seriously.
Forrester made a stupid face, accepting another fancy green drink from George. “I’ll stick to my liquid candy, thank you very much.”
“Beer’s better for you than that junk. It’s like a nutrition drink,” Joey insisted. “It has barley and hops.”
“This has apples in it,” Forrester countered, holding it up with a smirk before he took an elaborate sip. “Yum.”
“Hey, boys!”
Kyle smiled at the familiar sound of Amanda’s voice. This joint was just like Cheers. He kept waiting for Cliff or Norm to come in.
Amanda had pulled her blonde hair into a ponytail, tucked under a Buckeyes baseball cap that matched her snug red Buckeyes T-shirt. Her tennis shoes and white short-shorts made her look like an off-duty, albeit pregnant, cheerleader. With a wide, red-lipped grin, she walked up and gave each of the three Giordanos a punch in the arm.
“Ow!” Forrester flinched, laughing. “What was that for, Preggo?”
“Because you guys won, duh. Dino’s right behind me. He just dropped Ma off at home.”
“She okay?” Forrester asked.
“Yup,” she said casually. “Hi, Kyle.” To his surprise, she followed up her greeting with a big hug.
“Hey, Amanda. I wondered if you would be here.”
“I had clients all day,” she explained, clicking her nails behind his head. “Then I had to go home and change.” She pulled back with a wince.
“I’m sorry,” Kyle said, instinctively looking down at her belly.
“It’s not you.” She pressed a hand into her side. “This little shit has been kicking me all day.” Totally shocking Kyle, Amanda grabbed his hand and placed it on her stomach. “Get a load of that kick. I swear she’s gonna be a soccer player.”
Kyle had never touched a pregnant woman’s belly before, and it felt strangely intimate to do in the middle of a bar. When the skin under his hand rolled and tapped against his palm, a smile spread across his face. He gave her a squeamish giggle when he realized he could see the baby moving. “Oh my God, that’s so freaky. It’s like Alien.”
She swatted his arm. “Don’t be talking about my daughter like that.”
Kyle laughed. Forrester watched the two of them with a curious expression. Happiness, maybe?
Then Forrester’s gaze drifted above and behind Kyle just as something hard tapped Kyle’s shoulder. He pivoted, coming face-to-chest with a giant, scowling Italian.
“Who are you? And why are you touching my wife’s stomach?”
“Um,” Kyle sputtered. Mrs. Giordano had pointed out all her sons, but Kyle hadn’t appreciated how wide Dino really was from a distance.
Thankfully, Amanda pushed her belly between them. “Back off, Dino. It’s Frankie’s friend, Kyle.”
“Frankie’s friend, huh?” He raked Kyle with another glare, then looked back at his wife. “How is it you know him well enough to let him touch your stomach when I never met the guy?”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Jeez, jealous Italians,” she muttered to Kyle, who wisely kept his face neutral. “Kyle was the stripper at Patty’s bachelorette party. And he gave me a couple of lap dances.”
“Amanda!” Kyle cried, his jaw dropping in shock. Hadn’t the woman ever heard the phrase don’t poke the bear?
Dino looked just shy of murderous, but Amanda and Forrester busted up laughing. “I’m just kidding, ya meathead,” she said, resting a placating hand on his chest. “I met Kyle the other night at Patty’s bachelorette party. He was there with Frankie and his friends. It’s their fault I was out till three and my feet were swollen like sausages.”
“Sure that wasn’t all the times you and Holly kept saying, ‘This is the best song ever,’ and dragging us back out to dance?” K
yle teased.
“The DJ was amazing,” Amanda insisted.
“And those CFM shoes had nothing to do with your sausage feet, did they?” Forrester said.
“What are CFM shoes?” Dino demanded.
“Come-fuck-me shoes,” Amanda said. “Now, aren’t you gonna kiss me hello?”
Dino threw Kyle another suspicious glare, and then his entire face softened with happiness as he reached out to embrace his wife. “Hey, beautiful.”
Then to Kyle’s surprise, he gave her an enthusiastic kiss with a whole lot of tongue.
Apparently height, tongue action, and jealousy came honestly to those of the Giordano bloodline.
Arm still hooked tight around Amanda’s neck, Dino kept her close, similar to the playful way Forrester did with Kyle. But he stared right at Forrester.
“What?” Forrester wiped at his face. “I got food in my teeth or something?”
Dino kissed the top of his wife’s head, then took Forrester by the arm. “C’mon, shoot some nine-ball with me.”
“Hey, George!” Amanda called out as Dino dragged a protesting Forrester away. “Get me a Diet Coke! I’m dying out here.”
“Comin’ right up, sweetheart.”
“This bartender likes you,” Kyle observed.
“And here I don’t have to pay for it.”
“Good. A man could go broke buying you Diet Coke.”
“You offered,” she reminded him with a smile. Then she looked at him in the same curious way her husband had just been studying Forrester. “And you didn’t even know me. That’s the sign of a good man. You’d make a good boyfriend.”
“That’s it,” Tony announced with a slap of his hand on the bar. “I’m out of here before you start playing matchmaker, Maria Junior.”
Amanda stuck her tongue out at him, then turned back to Kyle. “You sat with Ma during the game, huh?”
He picked at the corner of his beer label. “Yeah, I got to hear all about your beautiful cousin Gina.”
Amanda groaned. “Jesus Mary and Joseph.”
“Did you know it’s a good thing Gina has two kids with two different men, because it means she’s fertile?”
“For crying out loud.”
“She did thank me for introducing her to Chuck,” he whispered.
Amanda’s pretty face softened. She placed a hand on Kyle’s forearm. “Thanks for pulling strings. And the list. Very thorough.” She spoke in half sentences so Joey and Marla couldn’t hear, though they were engrossed in each other. “I don’t know if”—she jerked her head to the side of the bar where Forrester stood by the pool tables—“would’ve remembered all that.”
“Anytime,” he assured her, putting as much meaning into his smile as he could. “It’s what people do when… you know…?”
Amanda heard the rest of his unspoken words and raised her brows. “You do, eh?”
It pleased him that Amanda understood he and Forrester were seriously devoted to each other, not just playing around. “Oh yeah.”
“Lucky bastard.”
He pointed his bottle at her on point. “That would be me, actually.”
Feeling absurdly happy hanging out, and better yet fitting in, with Forrester’s family, Kyle took a long pull on his beer, glancing across the bar to where his boyfriend had disappeared. He did his best to keep his smile under wraps when Forrester leaned over the pool table to rack, his ass stretching those snug white uniform pants perfectly.
Ahh, thank God for Lycra.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“YOU RACK. I’ll put the quarters in.”
After downing the rest of his third drink, Forrester set the glass down and gathered all the balls under nine. He put them in the diamond-shaped rack. “We playing slop?”
“Sure,” Dino replied, chalking up his cue.
The John Fogerty song “Centerfield” came over the jukebox. “I love this song. Hey, George!” Forrester called out, feeling more than pleasantly buzzed. “Turn it up!”
The bartender happily obliged, and a few people, already well on their way to being hammered, cheered. Joey was one of the loudest, at which Forrester observed, “Joey better get a ride home.”
“Amanda’s already on it,” Dino said as he took the break. He sank the seven and the four.
“Nice,” Forrester told him as he chalked his own cue. He sniffed a laugh. Chalking his cue. Where was Lucas when he needed him? He never got tired of that joke.
Dino nodded and studied the red felt, looking for a clean shot at the object ball. “So who’s the guy?”
Forrester planted the end of his stick on the ground, the sharp crack of the balls smacking each other and then whizzing around less startling than the cryptic question. His eyes darted to Kyle, but he played casual. “A friend.”
Dino lined up his next shot. After nailing the two-ball into the corner pocket, he asked, “A friend you go to gay bars with?”
Forrester blinked a few times to make sure he’d just heard what he thought he had.
Then it hit him.
The conversation with Amanda….
Fuck!
Dino knew where his wife had been Thursday night. How could Forrester have been so stupid? All the blood in his body rushed to his face, heating it until he surely looked as red as his baseball cap. He swore his tongue swelled to twice its size too.
Just tell the truth. This is Dino. He’ll understand….
His brother didn’t say anything else, just took his next turn. When he lost the shot, he indicated the table was Forrester’s.
Bending over, his entire body on edge, Forrester took his turn, not making contact with a single ball.
When Dino approached him, he stepped back to give him room, but his brother leaned in to whisper, “I know them girls went to that gay bar because of the strippers. And Amanda told me about dancing with drag queens. What the hell were you two doin’ there?”
Tell him!
But his throat tightened and his jaw clenched as if his body had some sort of self-preservation instinct, warning him to keep his mouth shut, no matter what Dino said next. He’d spent years trying to find the right time to tell Dino, and now was not the right time. Not in the middle of Smitty’s.
But dammit, he didn’t want to lie.
They both faced the table, sticks planted on the floor in front of them, staring down at the red felt scattered with balls. To anyone else, they appeared to be studying their next move, not standing on the precipice of a life-altering conversation.
Whatever path he chose, nothing would ever be the same. He took a shaky breath.
It’s time….
“What do you think we were doing?” Forrester heard his mouth say.
Dino gave him a playful elbow in the side. “Were you guys cruising for chicks? Joey said a lot of hotties hang out there. Was it ladies’ night or something?”
At one time, Forrester would’ve laughed along, taken the out his brother provided. But he just wanted to be himself. Didn’t he deserve that? Keeping the two parts of his life separate, the misdirecting, the outright lying at times, had taken its toll.
If he wanted a chance at a real future with the man he loved, it was now or never.
“No, Dino. We weren’t there to pick up chicks,” he said softly.
“What?”
“We… Kyle and I were… together.” The words sounded like someone else had taken them from inside him, using his body as a puppet and making them stumble out. “Like together, together.”
Forrester held his breath, refusing to meet his brother’s eyes. His heart pounded, his veins spreading the alcohol through his body faster than the pistons of an engine. Absurdly he noticed the jukebox changed songs. Now “Sweet Home Alabama” blared from the overhead speakers.
Racist fucking song.
Dino let out an awkward chuckle.
Forrester’s gaze shifted back to him.
“Fuck,” Dino exclaimed in a whisper. His head dropped under the weight of the discove
ry, and then he stared openmouthed at Forrester. “You serious?”
Clutching the cue tighter, he forced the words out, though he didn’t know where the oxygen came to form them. “Yeah. I’m gay.”
Dino laughed.
The sound was a sucker punch, and for a second Forrester couldn’t breathe, the blood thumping hard in his ears. “Why are you laughing?”
“Are you shitting me?” Dino laughed even harder.
Forrester’s whole body went hot, and he stood there, breathless and unable to move as his brother laughed at him. “This isn’t funny, Dino,” he said, tamping down the hurt.
“Like hell it isn’t!” he insisted, wiping at his eyes.
“Dammit, quit laughing.”
Dino squinted at him, his face incredulous with hilarity. “You’re into dudes?” He barked with more laughter. “That’s so messed-up.”
Pain lacerated Forrester at the cruel sound, and he couldn’t disguise the desperation in his voice. “Please, just stop laughing.”
Still chuckling, Dino raised his hand to concede. “Okay, okay,” he sniggered. “Guess I’m out a hundred bucks.”
“What?”
Dino’s humor disappeared, and he fidgeted like someone caught in a lie. He lined up his cue instead of answering.
Forrester’s stomach contorted when it dawned on him. “You sons of bitches took a bet on me?”
Dino looked up at him, cue still in position. “Yeah, so what if we did?” He shook his head in disbelief once more, and then he chuckled again. “Tony bet me and Joey that you were a….” His gaze darted to Forrester, then quickly away, his amusement fading.
“A fag?”
Dino flinched.
Temper sparking, Forrester set his cue on the floor, hard. “That’s the word you’re looking for, right? Fag?”
The word felt like some bizarre benediction. Whether it was appletinis on an empty stomach and that tequila shot Joey gave him, or a lifetime of pent-up rage, he didn’t know. But he wanted to scream the word right there inside Smitty’s. It had been stabs of a dull blade each time someone he loved had said it, but now something intensely freeing came over him using their own ignorance against them.
La Famiglia Page 26