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“In the NFL?” There’s hope in Beau’s voice. “Who?”
“I’ll give you a number,” Doc answers. “It’ll be anonymous at first. Trust needs to be built. But he can be trusted. You just have to earn his.”
“So what do we do in this group?” I ask.
“You talk,” he answers. “You support each other. You share how it feels so you don’t feel so alone. Look. Everything changes, but it doesn’t change fast enough. Most players come out after they retire, if at all. But together, you can get through. It’s always your choice, your life, your career.” He pauses. “Your love.”
I’ve been thigh-tackled. Like the truth has attacked me, grabbing my legs, and I’m trapped as it rolls, slamming me to the ground, flipping my world before I can even react.
“So whatdawedo?” I ask Doc.
“Nothing,” Beau answers. “We stick to our plan.”
“So, we lie?”
My life is a fumble pile. One lie is piling on the other, and I’m at the bottom, trying to breathe.
“Gentlemen,” Doc eases, “perhaps ‘lie’ is not a fair word. If your truth isn’t safe, it’s not a lie to protect it. To protect each other, and that’s all I ask. You’re some of the best players in the league, but you’re even better friends. You don’t have to lie about that. So, be best friends on the field and remember… it’s just a game. It always ends, and life goes on. Right?”
“Right,” Beau answers while gently reaching for my thigh. It’s odd because it’s new, but it’s affirming.
So is Doc. So is knowing we’re not alone. So is the woman waiting for us on a sun lounger.
On our last day, Blair writes, Beau studies our playbook on his iPad and I read Blair’s book, their book.
I need a love story with a happy ending because I sure as hell don’t know if we’ll get one.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“So you’re marching in the poly parade, too?”
BLAIR
“Did he read these books, or did his interior designer buy them?”
“They’re Beau’s. He can read.” I mock my twin, “His favorite book is Dick Fucks Jane and Tom.”
Vale laughs, shifting Beau’s books to the bottom shelves in his office, per his insistence, while I load the top and middle shelves with mine.
“He has all the dead white men classics.” Vale lines them up neatly. “But I’m impressed with his contemporary authors: Morrison, Ishiguro, Lee, Hollinghurst, Díaz. My literary panties are wet.”
“Suck a bag of big books,” I tease her, but I’m impressed, too.
Beau’s home—correction: his seven-bedroom mansion on an immaculate golf course—belongs on one of those reality shows about luxury real estate and nepo-baby agents.
My new closet is the size of my former bedroom. His kitchen looks like a Michelin chef’s dream. I keep expecting pink dolphins to leap from his giant pool. And last night, I discovered the thrill of a bidet and why the French say, “Ooh, là, là.”
Beau even insisted I take a guest bedroom for my “overflow.” He did the same for Colt, who’s neatly arranged his Air Jordans in a guest closet like a shrine.
My bedroom? It’s a shrine to dildos, of course. Ones that will collect dust because Beau’s bed feels like a cloud. Every night, I sleep in man-body heaven.
But it’s his office, now mine, according to Beau, that makes me want to start writing Hallmark Valentine’s cards, not paranormal romance books.
There’s a white marble fireplace in here. The white shelves have two frickin’ ladders like a vintage library. In addition to a desk for ruling the world, there are two cozy ivory velvet chaise lounges where I can sit for a decade.
And my favorite?
In the week it took me to get home and move my life to Atlanta, Beau made me an acrylic desk plaque.
