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He turned on his side and propped his head on his hand. “And if other people find out?”
My stomach dropped. “Is that a threat?”
His forehead crinkled. “What? No. No! Jesus, Bett.”
A wave of relief made me dizzy, so I moved over to the edge of my bed and dropped my ass down. “Okay. Good.”
“Hey.” He sat up like he was going to come over to me, but then stayed where he was. “Hey. I wouldn’t do that. I promise. I was only curious how you were feeling about it. We’ve never talked about… I don’t know. About your sexuality. Or whatever.”
I rubbed my face with both hands before inhaling and standing back up to continue my warm-up. “I guess I’m not straight? I don’t know. I’ve never really been into guys before you. Never really thought about it because I was always dating a girl or…” I shrugged. “I mean, I’ve noticed guys. I’ve been around good-looking guys in locker rooms and shit, but I never really thought about doing stuff with them. Not really. Not until…”
Vaughn’s grin was enough to make me stop talking and roll my eyes.
“Fuck off,” I muttered.
“You don’t want anyone to know,” he said after a moment of basking in his ability to “turn” the straight guy.
“I mean, my father’s in the middle of a pretty big political campaign.” My stomach churned, just thinking about it. “So, no. I don’t want anyone to know. He’d fucking kill me, and that’s if his campaign manager didn’t murder me first.”
“What would he do? If he found out you were sleeping with another guy.”
I moved into the stretching part of my routine. “He would think I was doing it deliberately to antagonize him or ruin the campaign. I mean… he’d probably also cut me off to try and get me to fall in line, but there’s only so much you can cut someone off, and I’m already there.”
Vaughn tilted his head at me. “Why do you still campaign for him? Show up for the happy family shit and everything.”
I thought about my dad coming to the game today. How I wished I could just do my job, enjoy the game, without having to deal with being Senator McNeely’s son at the same time.
“I don’t want my daddy issues in the press,” I muttered. “I do the bare minimum to keep the media from asking where I am and making a big deal of me not being there. I don’t want to impact his campaign either way, positively or negatively. So I show up occasionally. I answer questions but don’t talk him up to people. I don’t talk to people about him at all, if I can help it.”
“Do you want him to win?”
I moved through a few more stretches with the warmth of his attention on me before responding. “No. I don’t agree with his position on most things. However, the idea of being the scapegoat for his loss makes me want to throw myself off a fucking bridge.”
Vaughn stood up, finally, and approached me, moving my body out of the stretching position it was in and folding me into his strong arms and larger frame. His nakedness turned me the hell on, but the comfort he was offering was even more seductive.
“Your father might blame you, but don’t take that on,” he said softly. “It’s not up to you anyway. It’s up to the rest of us to decide.”
The rest of us. It was a reminder that even Elliot Vaughn had a say in whether my father got to continue to represent Georgia in the Senate for another six years.
“You’re the only person who’s ever said that to me,” I admitted in a hollow voice. “Thank you.”
His voice when he spoke was rough but certain. “You’re not the only person with warm feelings, McNeely.” He cleared his throat and shoved me away. “Now, go play your little football game. And have fun out there. If you’re lucky, I might reward you later.”
Then he grabbed up his shower stuff, threw a towel around his waist, and disappeared out the door.
I stared at the back of the door in shock. And then I grinned like an absolute fool for half the day.
Everything seemed to be going well. The sun shone. The team played killer football. Even my father was being complimentary and supportive. When I met him in the box after the game, he was warm and welcoming. It was enough to make me feel a sliver of guilt for saying bad things about him to Vaughn earlier.
“There he is! Great job today, son. Come over here and have a beer with us.”
He clapped me on the back and shook me affectionately, turning to brag about me to his friends. “I remember his first game-winning kick back in ninth grade. Remember that, Corbett?”
The crowd of people in the box with him were already flushed and happy from tailgating and celebrating a good game, and they grinned as he continued. “What was it, against Powell High School? I knew then my son would make a name for himself. Not only does he have a championship leg, but he’s also on track to graduate with honors. Demere pre-law, just like his father and grandfather, isn’t that right?”
His laughter was easy and familiar, and it reminded me of how he’d been years ago, before his political career had edged him further away from sincerity and closer to corruption and greed.
I let myself believe it the way I always tended to. It was easy when the father he was on days like this was the father I wished he were all the time.
