Page 59 of Over the Line

Liam was nodding as I spoke. “And they took it well?”

“Oh yeah. After everything I put them through already, coming out as bi barely registered on their radars.”

He inclined his head. “So it might play out that way with Chris, too.”

“Hopefully.” I chewed my lip. “And maybe it would play out that way if I told him you and I were… If something was going on between us. But it could also blow up in our faces, and I…”

“Garrett,” he said softly. “It’s all right. I understand. I’m not sure about it either. He’s kind of been my protégé for a while, and we’re teammates. So if anything happened between me and his dad…” He grimaced.

“Exactly.” I paused, then laughed. “Are we overthinking this?”

“Probably. But you’re trying to make up with your son. I’m trying to be careful of my team’s locker room dynamic.” He half-shrugged. “Maybe there’s worse things than overthinking the situation.”

“Good point.”

We held each other’s gazes on the screen. I wondered if his ears were ringing like mine were with all the things I wanted to say. Or I wanted him to say.

We both obviously want each other.

We’re two grown adults.

Chris would understand, and so would the team and the fans… right?

It was Liam who finally broke the silence, clearing his throat and glancing off-camera. “I, uh… I should probably let you go. And I need to hunt down some dinner.”

I glanced toward the kitchen where my own dinner still had a few minutes left in the oven. “Me too. Good luck tomorrow.”

His smile made my toes curl.

God, I want you…

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Sounds good. Have a good night.”

“You too.”

We ended the call, and I closed my eyes as I tipped my head back against the couch. Some part of me wanted to scream that I shouldn’t have told him about cheating on my ex-wife. Then again, we’d already established we weren’t going to do anything—did it really matter if he also wrote me off as a cheater?

Maybe, maybe not. I hoped I’d at least conveyed to him how much I regretted what I did, and he didn’t think I was a complete asshole for everything. Even if I did kind of feel like one sometimes.

But even if he did think that, how much difference would it really make?

I laughed humorlessly at my own thought as I got up and shuffled toward the kitchen. If anything, I’d just given Liam one more in an already lengthy list of reasons why nothing could or would happen between us. I doubted it changed much, though he might look at me differently going forward.

Ah well.

Wasn’t like anything was going to come of this anyway.

CHAPTER 16

LIAM

For a long time, I sat on the hotel bed and turned my phone between my fingers. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that call.

It was weird enough that we kept talking as much as we did. We’d both backed off on anything beyond being friends, but we kept texting. We kept talking. We kept FaceTiming whenever we were both free. Tonight, the conversation had dipped into some heavily personal stuff. Danced around the elephant in the room—we couldn’t be anything more than friends, but Jesus fucking Christ, it was obvious we both wanted to. Or maybe I was projecting because I wanted to.

And I still wanted to after our conversation, which was… weird. The admission that he’d cheated on his ex-wife had been a rock straight into the pit of my stomach. I didn’t abide by cheating. I didn’t even like open relationships; a lot of queer guys didn’t care much about monogamy, but I preferred it. And cheating? That was a fucking dealbreaker. Once a cheater, always a cheater.