by Frey Ortega
I definitely was in over my head.
He turned to look at me over, and regarded me with a smile. “You’re from The Stylish, right?”
To top it all off, his eyes were moving over me like I was a piece of meat, which was totally not a bad thing at all. I didn’t think so, anyway.
It kind of made me intrigued. Just what exactly did he see in front of him? I mean, I tried my hardest to show that I was put-together, but I wasn’t as succulent a peach as, say, one of those Instagram models with the twelve-pack abs.
I adjusted my glasses, cleared my throat, and tried to stand with my posture straighter than before. It took me a moment to remember to reply, but then I nodded. “Right. Yeah, my name is Emmett Yang, I’ll be interviewing you for The Stylish today.”
He reached out his hand for me to shake. I took it and shook his hand as firmly as I could.
“Come right in. Sorry, it’s a mess.”
I wasn’t about to ask him what he thought a mess meant, because if he could afford something that wasn’t cramped in the city, it meant he was raking in the big bucks…and probably hired someone to help him keep his home—his homes—clean. I merely plastered on the nicest smile I could, and nodded.
“Sure,” I hedged. “I don’t mind how messy it is, if you don’t mind that I record our interview. Strictly for posterity’s sake, so I don’t make mistakes.”
Joe nodded and smiled. He also muttered something underneath his breath. “Sure. That sounds right. Can I get you anything to drink, maybe?”
“How about just water for the both of us? It’ll also give me some time to set up and get settled in, if that’s okay with you.”
“Right. Let me go get that for us.”
It was so odd to have the person I was interviewing also be the one trying to serve me water. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I certainly didn’t expect this.
I moved into the living room and immediately found it spacious, for a lack of better word. Sparse and spartan would be another one. It felt like Joe didn’t really spend much time in this part of the world. Although I guess for a photoshoot where Joe wanted to portray himself as some normal family man with the two-and-a-half kids and one dog, this was the perfect place to do it. He just seemed kind of at his element here, even though he wasn’t. I couldn’t quite explain it except that maybe it was the ease by which he carried himself.
Joe arrived with a couple of coasters and glasses filled with water. He set them on the table to the side just as I’d finished setting up—that is, I had my notebook out, I had my tablet out, and my phone was on the table with the recorder set to start as soon as I tapped the button.
“Ready?” I asked.
Joe nodded. “Ready.”
I pressed the button and smiled.
“Well, thank you for agreeing to this exclusive with us. But just to ask, can I start with an obvious question?”
Joe grinned. I tried to copy his self-assured confidence and smiled right back. “Sure, go ahead.”
“Why exactly did you want this interview to happen this way, like this? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I don’t play by the rules,” Joe said. I don’t know how he had the gall to make some kind of sports-related pun at the moment, but I let the smile on my face freeze there. “And I wanted someone happy and cheerful to do this interview with me because I don’t want my coming-out story to be this big deal. I just want everyone to relax a little, you know? Is it even such a big deal, anymore?”
“I think it’s a very big deal,” I replied. “But I also understand where you’re coming from, I guess. Homophobia is still a big thing in sports, or so some of the many articles I’ve read in the past twenty-four hours suggested.”
Joe flashed me this smile, showing off a single dimple in his lopsided smirk, and for some reason, it hit me like a train. The impact was instantaneous, and it made me shuffle uncomfortably in my seat.
Fuck. I never once thought I’d be impervious to this guy’s charms, but I didn’t think he would be so…vibrant. So alive. He’d eyed me so openly earlier, too, and it made me feel a little bit more than just slightly self-conscious.
Joe Kaminski was the total opposite of me.
“Anyway, I wasn’t as courageous as some people. Coming out like this when my career is already over isn’t the kind of legacy I want to leave, but…I was afraid of coming out. I was afraid of being who I could be.”
“There aren’t many athletes who come out while at their peak. I’m sure people will understand.”
“Oh, definitely. People will understand,” Joe said. “But I don’t want people to think I’m a hero or an idol. I’m just a guy who thought it was high time to put all the rumors to rest. And also to stop mothers from sending me email telling me to marry their daughters.”
I had to crack a grin at that. “And a lot of ladies do that, do they?”
Joe shrugged. He lifted his glass from the coaster and took a sip. “More so than the average gay man, I assume.”
True. He was a person in the public eye, after all. But I was impressed by the ease by which he carried himself. He exuded an easy confidence and it kind of emanated from him like some kind of…therapeutic presence. Maybe it was just because this was the first time I could be near someone who was so at ease with who he really was, and had no illusions about what he was doing.
Maybe that’s why he wanted an easy, breezy, fluffy interview piece.
But then again, I could have been overanalyzing him.
The conversation had been a fairly breezy. Aside from why he chose to come out now, we had softball questions like if he was dating anyone—which was no—or what were his plans now that he was living comfortably—and he said he wanted to maybe learn how to coach a team of his own, which was admirable, I guess—and what kind of man he wanted to be with—which he answered in detail as a man who was kind and loyal, with a sense of humor, and who could go toe-to-toe with him on just about everything—and then off-the-record, I gave him a little lip about that.
“You don’t believe me?” he asked.
I shrugged. “We all say those things but the truth is that most guys like to look at the physical stuff first. I guess that’s why I reacted, because your answer was pretty safe and bland, almost. I hope you don’t take that the wrong way.”
Joe smirked at me and raised an eyebrow. “You’re right, but I don’t really want to tell people exactly who and what I want. I don’t want a slew of people messaging my manager about how they’re perfect for me. I don’t need that kind of heat.”
I could understand his point of view a little better. Hell, wasn’t that the point of the entire interview? It was all about soft, non-hard-hitting questions which ultimately led to a piece that didn’t demonize his coming out or sully his reputation—not that we would do that, considering who our magazine’s target audience was—and maybe to soften the perception of his sexuality and who he was as a person a little bit. It was a fine line to toe, and I guess he knew exactly who he needed in his corner to make sure he got what he needed.
It was a smart decision, I had to give him that.
“I guess you’re right,” I hedged, and nodded. “An army of twinks will come barreling down your doorstep any day now, I suppose, trying to win your heart.”
“Or to try and to get me to fuck them, more likely,” Joe muttered almost snidely, and the little barb of wit made me smirk.
He was looking at me so intently then, and it stifled me into silence. I fiddled with my phone, turned off the recorder now that I’d gotten all of the information I needed from him—like his daily routine, his other plans now that he was out, and what else he wanted to do aside from coaching, what charities he supported—that now we were just silent, looking at each other while an awkward silence settled between us.
Well, I was looking at him awkwardly. He was looking at me with some kind of intent.
“So,” Joe started to say, crossing his arms and leaning forward with all th
e confidence in the world. “Now that the interview is over, I want to ask you some questions.”
Me? I blinked. I was sure the confusion oozed off of every movement I made at that very moment. It felt like I was suddenly in one of those old-timey movies, at a police precinct, a harsh light being shone down on me to get me to spill the beans, so to speak.
“So, Emmett Yang…What’s your damage?”
Chapter Five
Damage?
What damage?
That was a bald-faced lie. I knew I was as dysfunctional as they came. Still, it was nice to pretend to be indignant for about half a second.
I gave a cold little smirk at his words, though perhaps it was more because my defensive, sarcastic side was coming out.
“Why do I have to have damage?” I asked, and slowly crossed my arms over my chest.
Joe leveled a look at me, raising an eyebrow. “Who doesn’t have some kind of crap they’re going through?”
So, I sighed and bit the inner lining of my cheek, trying to think of the right words to say, to summarize whatever I’d been feeling. It wasn’t often that a total stranger asked you how you were doing, and wanted to know more about you. Even if we weren’t going to see each other again after today, it would have been worth it just to have someone impartial know more about me.
I mean, Chase and Rye weren’t going to be impartial, no matter how cutting their words would become. And apparently, the very popular, very hard-to-say-no-to Joachim Kaminski wanted a conversation of some sort, and I was the only one here.
Besides, if I didn’t talk, maybe he’ll diva out and push me out of the interview…not that he can do that now, since it was over. But he could say all sorts of things, right? Not that he would. He seemed like a good guy.
I looked down at my glass and saw the cold water sweat out of the sides, and down onto the coaster.
It looked like it felt much like I did at the moment, put on the hot seat the way I was.
There was still the off-chance that all of my hard work would be for nothing. That seemed worse than baring one’s soul even if only just for a moment. So, I sucked it up, sighed, and just let the first thing that came to mind fly out of my mouth.
“It sucks to feel like you’re being led on, you know? Even if the guy says he doesn’t mean to,” I said, my voice becoming surprisingly tiny and shaky.
“Tell me about it,” Joe muttered. So, although it was a rhetorical statement, I went ahead and did. I told him everything.
“When my sister was pregnant just a couple months ago with her baby, I was so happy,” I said. I was aware I went immediately on a tangent, but it wasn’t like I could rein it in now that I’d started. Word vomit didn’t quite work that way, after all. “I thought I wasn’t going to be alone anymore. My sister was here, and she was a very real presence in my life for the first time in about… five years. I helped take care of her for the nine months of her pregnancy because it was her first, you know? She almost miscarried on her first trimester from stress in her job. She’s a doctor.”
I couldn’t stop the avalanche of feelings and emotions that came, and a little part of me didn’t want to stop. “But then we got to talking, and I realized that she had future plans that didn’t include me in them. And that’s natural, right? She has a life of her own, just as I do. It only includes me in its orbit because I’m her brother. The most important people in her life should be her kid and her husband.”
Joe nodded. He was looking at me so intently, it made me feel like he was truly listening. That only strengthened me, and let me say what was on my mind.
It’s a bit of a recurring theme with me. Once I’m comfortable, I become horribly candid.
It’s the worst, really.
“It just dawned on me that I’m alone. People say that I’m not, because I have friends, and I have family, and there are people who are more alone than I am now. But I can’t help but feel alone because I don’t have people to turn to with these thoughts. They have their own stuff to handle. I only have myself, and I have to be okay with the solitude I made for myself.”
I took a deep breath, aware that if I said any more than that I might let loose tears that I didn’t want to let out. “So, I guess that’s the reason why uncertainty is unsettling to me. This uncertainty with dating, with life, with…everything. I like everything to be neat, orderly, and semi-permanent. I guess that’s why I want to find someone, but at the same time, I’m afraid of taking that leap. I just don’t want to be an afterthought, the way that I would make whoever was with me my main priority. I don’t want to be alone, but everything in my life is pointing towards spinsterhood.”
“And that’s why I hate it that I felt led on, even when he didn’t mean to. I was ready to do all sorts of things for this guy I was talking to. Not just sex things, mind you, but actual…live your life together, forever, sort of things.”
Joe regarded me for a few moments, looking me up and down and blinking. At first, the silence was comfortable, but slowly, it seemed as though he was discerning me. It made me deeply discomfited, and I shifted in my seat, and adjusted my glasses. I laughed awkwardly.
I hated feeling this vulnerable. I could feel the heat begin to form at the back of my eyes. Instead, I took another deep breath, even as a little droplet of perspiration trickled down my temple.
“Well, I’m no psychologist or therapist or shrink,” Joe said casually, taking a sip of his drink and breaking the tension. “But it sounds like you’ve got a problem on your hands. You’re right. We all have them. We all have problems. Hell, I do too.”
Somehow, I couldn’t really believe him. Joe Kaminski looked like he had it all figured out.
But who actually did, really? I looked up at him, giving the slightest nod, as if trying to tell him to go on and speak. Thankfully, he did.
“Old boyfriends of mine told me I was too clingy. They didn’t expect that of a closeted athlete. They said that they wanted something low-key, something casual, and you know what? I respect those words for what they truly mean, which is a relationship where you’re casual with one another. The expectation is to be together, but you treat each other more like friends than more romantically.”
He continued. “But what most people think they actually mean is that they want either a friends-with-benefits situation, or they’re discreet, or on the down low, and just want to fuck someone famous. They want to be able to say they’re banging a quarterback without me getting angry that they’re fucking other people, or the fact that they have a cover-up for who they really are.”
I gave a bitter little smile. I thought it was funny how horrible other people could be. We had very different problems, and yet they were essentially the same. We were on both ends of one very real spectrum, where his looks, his fame, and where he was in the world had people falling over themselves just to be with him, and yet I couldn’t get a single person to look at me the same way because of where I was, of how I looked, and how little I probably brought to the table.
But at the same time, we were two very different people. Joe was so unafraid to live, so self-assured, so intoxicating in his confidence, and it kind of drew me like a moth to a flame. Except, of course, I wouldn’t have used those words out loud. They were cliché, and I didn’t want to seem cliché.
“Also, it doesn’t help that you don’t think of yourself as attractive. Because you are. Have you never heard of chubby chasers before?” Joe asked. “They’re everywhere. Lots of people love to chase the chunk. There are apps out there specifically for this purpose. If other guys can find love, or at the very least a one-night stand, why can’t you?”
I raised my eyebrow at Joe. To hear those words come out of a star athlete’s mouth was unprecedented. I was probably charting new territory. I was like Columbus heading into the Americas…or something. I didn’t know anything about that. Sue me, I wasn’t a historian. I was a writer. “When did I ever say I didn’t consider myself attractive?”
I felt that pr
ickle of self-defense begin to turn on in full force once more.
Joe regarded me carefully. “I could sense it from our entire conversation, you know. And your body language.”
“My body language? You can read body language?” I raised a single eyebrow at him. Now his perfection was reaching magnitudes of creepy, and that was kind of an immediate red flag. No one was that perfect.
Danger, Will Robinson!
Joe smiled. “You’re always kind of hunched over with your arms close to your body, kind of like you’re using your shoulders and arms as wings, or parentheses, to wrap around your body like some sort of defensive cocoon. You never quite meet my eyes, and when you do it’s never for more than maybe four or five seconds. Lastly, you’re always exceedingly polite.”
I looked at him like he’d grown a second head, because that’s how it felt. I was in awe at how he had read me…well, pretty perfectly. I hadn’t even realized these little behaviors, and yet Joe apparently watched me like a hawk.
“It’s kind of something you need to be good at in sports, even if only a little bit, so that you can have a better feel for the enemy players. Not everyone says it’s important, but I think it is. Also, it’s just good to pick up when you’re dating, just to see when a person doesn’t like the topic. Just like right now, your arms are crossed over your chest. You’re trying very hard to be guarded.”
I looked down at my crossed arms and slowly placed them, awkwardly, to each side. He was right. Part of the reason I was still here was because of Joe, after all. Though it would have been easy enough to just up and leave.
“You don’t need to be guarded. I like you. I also like what I’m seeing,” Joe said. “Some might say I’m one of those chubby chasers.”
I stared at him. He what? What even? I didn’t know how to process anything coming out of his mouth at that moment, so I just made for a very good expression of a fish.