We were 2–0 so far. We were playing really good football, and while that should have been enough to keep me busy and distracted, my thoughts kept going back to that night at the hotel bar with Weston. Fuck, I wished I knew his full name. What I thought I would do with it was beyond me, and each time I tried to tell myself I would have used it, I usually just worked out harder or watched game film or anything else I could think of to distract my body from what it wanted.
Him.
Well, maybe any man. Just a man.
I was stuck between wishing I’d never met him and wondering what it would have been like to just…say…yes. Only once. I deserved that, didn’t I? To know what it was like. Every time my thoughts went that way, I began to panic because holy fuck, it wasn’t as if I could trust the guy. All he had to do was talk to one person, and I was screwed. That was always the point where I went back to wishing I’d never met him.
“Hawkins! Where the fuck are you right now?” Coach Jones yelled at me, and shit, I’d been spacing out. I was doing that a whole lot lately.
“Sorry. I’m good.” I returned my attention to what I was there to do.
After practice we hit the showers, then got dressed. “What the hell is up with you, Hawkins? Spacing out during practice is more my gig than yours,” Darren teased.
“I was savoring the quiet time away from your voice,” I ribbed him, getting a laugh from a few other guys.
“So you’re funny all of a sudden, huh?” He popped me with his towel.
“Ouch, damn it. You fucker.”
We playfully wrestled around a bit before pulling apart. “Wanna grab some food?” he asked. “I could eat a fucking house.”
“Sure.” I didn’t have anything else going on anyway.
Darren and I went out and grabbed dinner, and then I headed home. Elias wasn’t there. I found my laptop, turned on SportsCenter, and logged in to my email. When I didn’t see anything interesting, I set my computer aside and used my phone to scroll through Instagram. The picture I’d posted of Darren eating a lettuce-wrapped burger that was bigger than his head already had hundreds of thousands of likes and comments.
My DMs and requests were out of control. I rarely checked them, but every once in a while I scrolled through to see if anything jumped out at me. I was just about to close the app when I saw something that made my heart stop.
You have a message request from Senator Weston Calloway.
Weston…Weston . No, it wasn’t fucking possible, was it? His face was there, staring back at me, but maybe this was a sick joke. My hands began to shake, my skin going clammy. I flung my phone onto the couch as if it had electrocuted me, then immediately picked it up again. It couldn’t be him… Christ, how in the fuck could it be him? Still, there he was.
A goddamned senator?
I wanted to puke.
I wanted to open the message.
“Fuck.” I set the phone down again, this time more gently. With my elbows on my knees, I sat forward, hands in my hair. “Breathe, man, just fucking breathe.” I’d told him no. If he said anything, he had no proof. I could pretend he’d been barking up the wrong tree, that there was no way I had ever, would ever… I’d said no…
How the fuck had he figured out who I was?
I paced the living room, shaking my hands out. Blood rushed in my ears. My head throbbed, and the deep ache in my gut spread through my body like some kind of vicious virus.
“No.” No, no, no, no. It had to be a coincidence, but it wasn’t. I knew it fucking wasn’t. Why in the hell would a senator direct-message me, and oh, he just so happened to have the same name as the man I’d spent hours talking to in a bar?
It was ridiculous, so fucking ridiculous, but I felt dizzy, like I was going to pass out. I took a few deep breaths, then grabbed my laptop and my phone, eyes scanning the space like there were journalists behind my couch and the large plant in the corner, all ready to pounce, mics out, and ruin my career.
I stumbled over my own feet as I rushed to my room. Fuck Weston. Fuck this night. Fuck that night two weeks ago. All we’d done was talk. But he’d known, he’d seen it in me, or he wouldn’t have asked me to leave with him.
Once I was behind my locked bedroom door, I set my laptop on the mattress and sat beside it. I stared at the phone for who knew how long before my shaking fingers typed in the code to unlock the screen.
I clicked on Instagram.
My messages.
The one from Weston.
Hey. I don’t know if you remember me. I sat next to you at dinner in DC. I’m the guy who knows how to eat a steak…unlike you. I’m telling you, it’s much better my way. I just messaged to let you know I have your sunglasses. That’s it. No other reason. I just thought you might want to know they’re safe.
I stared at the message, reading it over and over. Was he mentioning the steak to make sure it was really me? That I didn’t have someone else controlling my social media accounts? And safe…was he telling me my sunglasses were safe but really meant to say I was? It might have been a stretch, but his wording led me to wonder. To hope.
Another few minutes passed before I could reply. My hands were still trembling, and my heart was trying to punch through my chest. Fuck, I hated how weak I felt. Eventually, I typed: I said it then and I’ll say it again, I like my steak to be dead when I eat it. It’s me. I’m letting you know it’s me . Christ, why was I doing this? Why was I messaging with him rather than pretending he didn’t exist? Is this a hostage situation? My sunglasses?
LOL. No, but listen. I’d really like to get these glasses to you, but I want to make sure everything is legit. These are pricey, and I don’t want to send them to just anyone. Is there a way we can video chat or something? I swear I’m not a stalker or crazy fan.
My pulse skyrocketed, and I tossed the phone again.
My leg was bouncing up and down, electric pulses shooting through it. I couldn’t keep it still. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I whispered.
I wanted to block him. Forget he existed. Go on with my life where it felt safe, where no one would figure out my secret. I didn’t want to be the first gay, active, professional football player. I just wanted to play. Hell, I didn’t even know if I could ever let myself actually be gay. It was like this abstract piece of my identity, one I knew was there but couldn’t make out. I’d been hiding it, denying it to myself for so long, I didn’t know any other way.
But it was also…fuck, it was also killing me. I wanted someone to know, like maybe that would make it so it wasn’t so distorted inside me, so I wasn’t alone.
I shoved my phone under my pillow, as if that would change anything, as if it were some great hiding place from the pretend reporters skulking around my house.
My feet automatically carried me to my home gym. Some of Elias’s equipment was in the corner. We liked to work out together sometimes. I ignored it, went to the treadmill, and ran until sweat burned my eyes and my muscles felt like they were disintegrating, and then I ran some more. When my heart nearly burst, I cooled down and went back to my room. Showered. Changed. Sat on my bed. Grabbed my phone. Looked at the message.
Nothing had changed. It was still there, only now there was one more.
I didn’t mean to push. If you don’t want the sunglasses back, just don’t reply. No harm, no foul. You’ll never hear from me again (though I can’t imagine why anyone would want it that way). I was smiling. Goddamn it, this cocky, conceited man made me smile. I was around confident guys every day of my life. I played football, for fuck’s sake, but none of them made me smile the way he did. If you want, let me know how we can chat face-to-face so you can get your glasses back.
I sat there staring at my phone for an eternity. When Elias got home, I shoved it under my pillow again, went out to the living room for a few minutes, and told my brother I wasn’t feeling well. He’d been at Mom’s, he said, and I nodded, told him I loved him and was going to bed early, then locked myself in my room again.
I sat on my bed in the dark.
Looked at Weston’s page. He was from California.
At three in the morning, I turned on the bedside lamp, picked up my phone again, and clicked on the message. I finally replied.
I messaged only so I could make sure he didn’t think I was gay, I told myself.
It was a lie.