At least he doesn’t think I’m homophobic anymore. Just closeted. I’m not sure which is worse, actually. Being hated for something I’m not, or being seen for something I am.
Those tattoos though. The abs. The arrogant way he was standing there. All of it — that whole image just —
I grab my pillow and press it over my face.
He looked really good. He looked infuriatingly, inconveniently, explicitly good standing in that doorway and I hate him for it. I hate him for all of it. For the grin and the leverage and the way he saidcrystallike a threat wrapped in silk and the fact that I set my keys down on his table like I was planning to stay.
Fuck.
I press the pillow down harder. If I suffocate before morning I won’t have to see him at practice.
That’s basically a solution.
Chapter 23
Rhys
Much later that night, Blake gets back home. He takes one look at me pacing and stops in the doorway.
“What happened to you?”
“Nothing.” I hold up a hand and continue pacing. “Give me a second. I’m still processing.”
Jamie Nash stood in my living room. Furious. Flustered. Threatening me with one breath and barely holding himself together with the next. And underneath all of it — underneath every single wall he’s built to keep me out since the moment I walked onto this team —
He’s gay. Or close enough to it that he’s driving almost an hour, anonymously, at night, trying to find someone who won’t blow up his life. And he swiped right on me.
I start laughing.
Not the kind I use when I want to get under his skin. The actual kind, the kind that comes from somewhere real, because this is the funniest fucking thing that has ever happened to me and also somehow the most satisfying.
“Okay you’re scaring me,” Blake says.
“Jamie Nash is on Grindr.”
Blake stares at me. “Jamie Nash? The captain? Who punched you—while yelling at you about not being gay?” His eyes are wide in disbelief.
I’m barely controlling my laughter. “He matched with me. Drove here. Saw it was me.” I press a hand to my mouth still laughing. “Threatened me. Then left.”
“Wait—” Blake sits down slowly. “So he’s—”
“Definitely in the closet.” I drop onto the couch and stare at the ceiling with a grin I’m not even trying to contain. “And I have everything. I’m free of his bullshit.”
Because here’s the thing. Here’s the thing I’m sitting with right now that feels like finally, finally getting to the top of something I’ve been climbing since I got here. Jamie Nash has been making me feel like a problem since the day I got here. Something beneath him. He has been on my case every single day for reasons I thought I understood and really didn’t.
Every flinch. Every reddened neck. The yelling and the punch and the hand against my throat — that wasn’t hatred of what I am. That was wanting what I am and hating himself for it.
And maybe even wanting me.
And now I know.
I’m not going to out him. I’m not that person and I never will be. What happens in someone’s closet is theirs until they’re ready. I know that better than anyone. The only reason I’m even telling Blake is I trust him with my life. He doesn’t even know Jamie, but he won’t say anything to anyone anyway.
But making Jamie’s life a little more uncomfortable? After all that happened? Watching him try to hold himself together every time I get close knowing what I know now? That I can absolutely do. And it is a just reward for all he has put me through. He thought he had leverage over me with Eldridge. Even though he doesn’t know anything about what happened, not really.
Now we’re finally even and I intend to enjoy every single second of it.
Blake is watching me with an expression somewhere betweenamused and worried. “You’ve got that look,” he says.
