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“You know I don’t kiss and tell,” Joq winked and the guy chuckled, rolled over with a groan.
George snorted. “Since when?”
“Since I’m still lookin’ at the guy’s ass.” He watched the guy’s body shake with a laugh, his face buried in the pillow.
“I’ll let you go then,” George said.
“I’m kidding. What’s up?”
“Nothin’, just delayed.”
“Hmmm,” Joq went for the mini-bar. “You’re nervous.”
“I’ll talk to you when I get back.”
Joq got out a beer, slammed the fridge shut. “He doesn’t know who I’m talking to.”
“Joq, don’t.”
Joq cracked the beer open and took a swig. The guy rolled over and raised an eyebrow.
“Fine, I’ll talk in code. You meet him yet?”
He could hear George breathing down the line. Joq knew he’d either end the call or take the offer.
“Tomorrow,” George said after a while. “I don’t envy him.”
Joq shrugged and drank his beer. “You been through it, he’ll be fine.”
“Yeah,” George sighed. Joq knew he wanted to talk about it. George’s own entry to the league as the most promising rookie of all time had gone well, obviously, but it hadn’t been easy; the pressure, the expectations, the terror that he’d fuck it up before every game. When Joq met him that first season, George had been a scared eighteen-year-old kid hyperventilating in the locker room after everyone else had gone home for the day. Joq was new himself, but there was a pretty big difference between working security in the surveillance room as a twenty-one-year-old uni grad who couldn’t find anything better and playing to hundreds of thousands of opinionated, asshole fans.
“Babe, come on, it’s different now—
“It’s worse,” George said, clipped.
Before Joq could reply, George cut him off. “We’re boarding. I’ll see you at home.”
He hung up before Joq could reply. Joq shook his head and tossed his phone on the bed.
“Boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” Joq said and got back on the bed, rested his head against the headboard. The guy sat up and took the beer from his hand.
“You gotta go?” he asked after he had a swig.
Joq took the beer back and sipped. “I got time.”
“Nice,” the guy said and Joq smiled down at him.
He finished the beer and decided to make good use of that time. This guy was a lot of fun, easy, when things with him and George had been anything but lately, if ever. Joq finished the beer and rolled over so he was over the guy again.
“Hi,” the guy said.
Joq quirked his lips and kissed him instead of answering.
2
He knew they were coming down the tunnel before he saw them, the sound of so many voices Joq couldn’t make out any individual words. It was accompanied by the kind of amped laughter that meant the press conference was done and had gone well. Joq rounded the corner and saw George smiling broadly, his head slanted to look at the rookie beside him, the Great Finnegan Flynn.
