I was trying hard not to take it personally. Anson was in the closet. I understood what that was like. You couldn’t push anyone to come out before they were ready. It was wrong, hurtful, dangerous. I would never expect him to risk his family or his career for me, but fuck if it didn’t hurt too. Emotions were so confusing sometimes, how you could feel two opposite things. How you could understand something but still be broken by it.
Because I loved him. Because I wanted to be a part of his life in all ways. I wanted to be enough.
I wasn’t in the bedroom long when my phone dinged. It was on the nightstand, and I picked it up to see a message from Anson.
Bashful: Can you come into the living room, please?
Well, well, well. He really had gotten rid of his brother quickly. I tried to focus on that—on Anson wanting to spend more time with me—rather than the fact that he’d done it so Elias wouldn’t know about me.
I made my way back toward the living room. “I was going to make you blow me once for every fifteen minutes that—” I froze when I stepped around the corner. Anson was there, sitting on the couch, his brother beside him. They both whipped around at the sound of my voice, knocking my heart to my feet. “I’m sorry…I thought…”
Why hadn’t he told me Elias was still there?
“Holy fuck. Holy fuck ,” Elias said. Anson had buried his face in his hands, his legs bouncing with nerves. “You’re…Senator Calloway.” The light in his eyes changed, and I saw the pieces coming together in his head. He turned, looked at Anson, then back at me before his gaze settled on his brother. “Ans?” There was no mistaking the question in his voice.
Anson looked up, legs still jumping, hand against his mouth. “I, um…fuck…well, obviously. You heard what he said, but I just… I’m…”
I couldn’t hold back anymore. I went to him, his brother’s eyes tracking me the whole time. “He’s mine,” I said to Elias, by way of explanation. I pulled Anson to his feet and wrapped my arms around him, my mouth close to his ear. “You could have warned me so I didn’t come out talking about sucking cock.”
My voice was light, and his soft chuckle made it clear he understood what I was doing.
“You didn’t have to do this,” I added quietly. “Not for me.”
His back straightened, and I felt it, the change in him. “Yes. I did. I wanted to.” Anson pulled away and looked at Elias. “I’m gay.” He shrugged. “I’m gay, and I’ve always known, but I spent my whole life lying to everyone around me…until I met West, and then I couldn’t…I can’t lie anymore. Not to you, at least. I’m gay, and I love him, and he deserves for you to know him.”
My knees went weak, my legs almost buckling under me. I looked at Anson, who watched his brother, but I couldn’t tear my stare away from him. I was a lot of things to a lot of people. I was a means to an end, a tool used to get what someone wanted. I was the guy men wanted to fuck and some women wished was straight, a thorn in the side of those who didn’t agree with me, and a fierce ally for what I believed in. I was a disappointment to my parents; to them, I was wrong, but to Anson…fuck, to him I was worth it. I was worth telling his secret to the person who meant the most in the world to him, and damned if that wasn’t the best thing to be.
I grabbed his hand, held it tight, hoped he could feel everything I couldn’t currently say with words in how I squeezed him.
Elias said, “I don’t care about that. Jesus, Ans, did you really think I would? I don’t care who you love or who you fuck. I care that you’re the best person I’ve ever known, and loving a man won’t change that.”
It was then that I finally let myself breathe.
“I had a crush on the boy whose house we were at when you had your accident. I went there because I liked him, and I wasn’t watching you because I was too busy wanting him.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Elias and I said in unison. He looked at me and grinned, then continued. “Stop being a fucking martyr. We’ve gone over this. It was an accident. It doesn’t matter that you were babysitting me or that you had the hots for that guy. It wasn’t your fault. Nothing has changed. God, bro. Did you think I’d blame my accident on the fact that you’re queer? I’m more pissed at you for thinking that about yourself and—again, even if inadvertently—for making it seem like something’s wrong with me because I’m in this chair. It happened. I’m over it. I’m happy, and I live a fulfilling life. Stop stressing over something I wouldn’t change. It’s who I am.”
In that moment, I understood why Anson was so close to Elias, why his brother meant so much to him.
“I’m sorry. You know I don’t think—”
“Then stop feeling bad about it. This is it. That shit ends now, okay?” Anson nodded, and Elias smiled and studied the two of us. “You didn’t know he was at the Super Bowl, did you? You were being weird when I told you about seeing him. I didn’t get it, but now I do.”
Anson finally looked at me, so much damn emotion in his stare, it stole my breath. “No, I didn’t know, but I wasn’t surprised. West is always there when I need him.”
Jesus, this fucking man. How was I ever going to survive him? “Stop trying to embarrass me, Bashful,” I said, and he grinned.
“Holy shit. He just called you bashful. And the look on your face right now. You really are in love. I think I see cartoon hearts floating around your head.” Elias laughed.
“I am,” Anson answered. “I don’t know how in the hell we’re going to make it work, but I love him.”
“I’m going to need you guys to start at the beginning. My mind is a little blown here, and not because you’re gay, but fuck, man, leave it to you to fall for a goddamned senator. How did this happen?”
I laughed. Elias was great.
We went to the kitchen table. “Do you want a drink?” I asked them.
“I’m fine,” they both replied, and I kissed the top of Anson’s head before sitting down beside him. Anson and I shared the story with Elias—the hotel bar, talking, his sunglasses, the game. How we began calling and texting after that.
“So when you’ve been out of town?”
“I was in California, yeah.”
“Does anyone else know?”
“Mia figured it out at the event the other night, and West’s friend Jeremy knows. Other than that, no one. West was the first person who ever knew about me.”
“I’m so pissed at you for holding this in. I get it because of football, but from me? I’m your brother. I’ll always love you. I hate that you’ve been alone in this.”
My eyes met Elias’s, silently thanking him for what he’d said. For making this okay for Anson because I didn’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t been. His simple nod told me he understood.
“I wanted to change it,” Anson admitted. “Saying it would have made it real, and I didn’t want it to be until now. It’s a fucking mess, though. I can’t come out because of football—maybe eventually, but not this year, not following a Super Bowl win and during the last year of my contract. West is in California. He has a year and a half of his term left, but even then, who knows where I’ll get signed, and it’s not like being a senator is a job where he can just transfer somewhere else.” Anson looked at me sheepishly. “Not that you’d want to. I know we haven’t talked about that.”
I wasn’t sure there was anything I wouldn’t do for him, but I answered with, “I know what you meant.”
“Do you really think it will matter? Football and being gay, I mean,” Elias said.
“I know it will. I’m not saying I’ll lose my whole career, but things will be different. It won’t be about how good a player I am. It’ll always be about me being the gay player—the only out gay player in the NFL. There are men who will have a problem with it in the locker room, and there are fans who will have a problem too, which means no matter how good I am, I’m a liability to any team that signs me.”
“Fuck that. Jesus Christ, how is this the world we live in? Why do people care who someone else loves? I’ll never understand it.” Elias’s hands were fisted. He was upset for his brother, for me. Words stuck in my throat. I didn’t have siblings, so I didn’t know if they would have loved me as much as Elias loved Anson, but maybe things would have been a little easier for me if someone had.
“You’re a good brother,” I finally managed to say. “A good man. I… Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done if he’d lost you because of me. My own family… Let’s just say they aren’t as accepting.” My eyes darted away because fuck, this shit was hard.
“Hey.” Anson pulled me in with that one word. I turned to him just as his hand wrapped around and held the back of my head, tugging us together until our foreheads met. “They don’t deserve you,” he said softly. I rolled my eyes and pressed a quick kiss to his lips before pulling away.
“I guess it’s good you have a new brother now. If you’ll have me.” My gaze snapped to Elias and held. “You make him happy. He wasn’t ever truly happy before. I never saw it, but I do now. And…well, you’re a senator, and that’s really fucking cool.”
The three of us laughed, a world of weight falling off my shoulders and chest. “Thank you. I’d like that.”
We hung out and talked some more after that, then went into the living room to play a game. Holy fuck, they played more video games than any people I’d ever met. When lunchtime rolled around, we ordered food and ate out back in the sunroom. Elias and I talked about the government and politics. He showed me a photo of Carly, whom he’d gotten a ring for, having decided he’d waited enough time to propose.
It wasn’t until later that afternoon, when Elias said he was getting fatigued and needed to go, that Anson asked, “What about Mom? Do you think…do you think she’ll be okay?”
I frowned. I had no idea if that meant he was planning on telling her right away. If it was important to him, I wanted Anson to have that, but I didn’t want him to do it for me.
“I think she’ll struggle to understand,” Elias said. “I know that sounds ridiculous. What’s there to understand? You’re attracted to who you’re attracted to, and you love who you love, but she’s from a different era and has outdated ideas. It’ll come as a surprise, and it might take her some time to wrap her head around it, but she loves you. Mom would never walk away from you. She’d never disown you. She wants you to be happy, and she’d only need to see you with him to know he does that for you. Even though it might not be what she saw for you, ultimately that’ll be all that matters. Are you thinking of telling her soon?”
My heart stopped dead at Elias’s question.
“I don’t know. I just… Maybe?” Anson wouldn’t look my way, as if he’d somehow disappointed me.
“It’s not a race, Bashful. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Okay, the nickname thing is great. My big, tough brother gets all soft every time you say it.”
“Fuck off.” Anson gave him the finger, but there was no heat behind it, just brotherly affection. He flicked Elias’s ear, and his brother punched him in the arm.
I liked seeing him with his family, being a part of this with him.
“Anyway, I’ll leave you guys to it. I know you have limited time together. I’d like it if we could talk some more, though, Ans…about your guilt and what that says to me.”
“Yeah, of course.”
Elias looked at me. “It was really great to meet you…and not in the way we did at the Super Bowl. I’m glad dumbass over here has you, and I meant what I said about you being my family now.”
I’d somehow swallowed a damn rock or something, my words getting stuck in my throat. There was no way to express how much what he’d just said meant to me. “Thank you,” was all I could manage, and that was only after Anson rested his hand on the back of my neck in support.
“I’ll see myself out,” Elias said, and left.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I admitted to Anson when we were alone.
“I think…I think this was maybe the best day of my life.”
I pulled him close and held him, then dropped to my knees to blow him and show him just how happy I was too.