Unfortunately, he was married to my oldest sister, a fact I didn’t think about until minutes after I sent my text and my phone began to ring.Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est. It was an inside joke between me and my sister, a song she sang at me when people acted scared of me due to my size. Of course, I’d set it as my ringtone for her when I first got a cell phone, and I’d made sure to keep it with every upgrade.
I heaved a heavy sigh and answered the call. My sister and best friend’s faces appeared on the screen, smushed together in front of the familiar warm yellow walls of their living room. A pang of homesickness washed over me.
“You know, when I texted you, I didn’t expect a two-for-one combo,” I teased Troy in lieu of a greeting.
My sister made a face at me. God, I missed her so much. I missed both of them. “You think I’m letting Troy handle this one alone? You’re havingboy problems,” she cooed. “I’ve been waiting for you to have partner problems for years. Girl problems, boy problems, nonbinary problems, not at all picky. It’s just about time.”
“Fuck you, Rai.”
“Ignore her. Tell us what’s going on. Who is this guy?” Troy cut in.
I drew in a deep breath and braced myself for the fall out of telling them what had happened. “Milo Tobitt. He’s—”
“Your teammate,” Troy interrupted sharply. “Please tell me you’re not freaking out because you have a crush on your teammate.”
“I’m not freaking out because I have a crush on my teammate.” I looked up, meeting his eyes from across the country. “I’m calling you because I kissed him.”
Raina let out a snort of laughter while Troy’s mouth fell open in shock. I didn’t blame him. In all the years he’d known me, I’d stuck to appropriate partners. There’d been the cheerleader I’d been dating when we met. There was the girl I’d dated from junior year until halfway through my second year in the ALF when it became clear that she was more interested in being a WAG than being my girlfriend. There’d been the across the street neighbor, a single father who had been my first boyfriend. We’d broken up a few months before Rusty Sinclair came out, because he didn’t want to be kept a secret and I didn’t want to risk my career. I’d had a few other short-term relationships, but they’d not been with someone like Milo.
I’d barely even had a crush on anyone that wasn’t appropriate, barring a few innocent crushes on teachers, older babysitters, or celebrities I’d never met.
It was no wonder Troy was shocked.
“You kissed Milo Tobitt,” Troy repeated after the shock wore off. “Why?”
“Because he likes him. Duh,” Raina answered for me.
“He’s your teammate. Do I need to list the number of ways this could be a disaster?”
“No,” I told him as I laid back against the leather couch in my living room. “I know the number of ways this could go wrong. We could fuck up the vibes of the locker room. We could be distracted during the game. We could fall in love and then one of us gets traded, which fucks over both of us and our teams.”
“You could get traded to teams that have to play one another, and then you’ll have to deal with playing against each other,” Troy provided. “Or get traded to teams that only play each other once every four years, and then you’d never see each other.”
I’d thought about all these scenarios. None of them ended well.
“What about Johan Jones and Liam Lowe?” Raina asked after a few beats of silence. “They’re teammates, right? Your teammates.” I nodded. “Well, everyone knows they’ve been dating for a long time. They have to face the same stuff, but it hasn’t stopped them from being happy.”
“And they’re idiots who probably didn’t think it through when they decided to give into the temptation,” Troy pointed out. He groaned. “As your agent, I have to advise against this.”
“As your sister, I have to tell you to ignore your agent.” Troy opened his mouth like he was going to argue with his wife, but she cut him off with a withering glare. “And asyourwife, I’m going to advise you not to discourage my brother from finding happiness because of fucking football. Otherwise, you’re going to find yourself very lonely tonight.”
I snorted. “Kids in bed?” Raina only talked like that when there weren’t prying ears about. Her children were, unfortunately, fond of repeating. I’d contributed more than my fair share to the family swear jar when I’d lived in Fayetteville. I had probably paid for a good part of their family trip to Disney the previous summer.
“Nope, they’re out for the night. Staying with Auntie Riley.”
I had a hard time imagining that. Riley was too much like me—abrasive and brash and not always the greatest with children. I wasn’t even sure she liked kids, outside of Troy and Raina’s pair.
Troy looked between his wife and the phone screen before sighing. “Tell me what happened with Milo. Maybe we can figuresomething out that won’t be a disaster for the team or your career.”
I started talking. I started telling my sister and best friend everything that had happened between me and Milo since I’d come to Tucson. I told them about how annoying I’d found him when I’d first met him and how that had slowly shifted. I told them about the night I found him sitting on the floor outside of his apartment and how that had been a turning point for our friendship. I told him about the bar after our first victory and all the times we ended up in the gym together, and I ended the story with Ethel’s visit, brunch, Ray, and how I came to be kissing him in that elevator. I wasn’t sure I’d talked that much in years, but Raina and Troy were a captive audience.
They asked the right questions that made me keep talking. They poked and prodded in the right ways, and every time I’d pause, they’d encourage me to tell them more.
“You need to talk to him,” Raina said when I’d finally finished.
That was the obvious answer, but not a helpful one. “Where do I even start?”
Troy looked pensive, tapping his index finger against his jaw the way he always did when he was deep in thought. When I’d first met him, I’d thought he was exaggerating the movement to be humorous. Once I’d gotten to know him better, I learned it was genuine. After a few taps of his finger, he spoke again. “Start by figuring out what you want,” he began. “It won’t help either of you if you go in blind.”
