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Then apparently, all my impulse control vanished. We’d been hooking up in secret for almost a year. My life ran on stolen nights, hidden texts, and increasingly ridiculous excuses for why I needed to disappear without Jude or Wyatt attached to my hip. I was obsessed with him. There wasn’t a less pathetic word for it. Everything about Rhodes fascinated me. I couldn’t get enough of him, even if I was his dirty, slutty secret.

“Or maybe you were fucking all of them on the side,” Wyatt shot back.

“Nope.”

“We all see you sneaking out all the time,” he continued. “You’re not that good at keeping a secret.”

My stomach dropped as half the guys turned toward me, scrutinizing me in their own way.

“Theo’s not dating anyone,” Jude interjected. “I’d know.”

“You don’t know everything about me,” I scoffed, not helping myself out of the conversation.

“Bullshit,” Sam cut in with a laugh. “You two do everything together. You’re practically dating at this point.”

“They’re an old married couple,” Rodney corrected.

“We are not!” I protested.

“I thought you two were dating for a few months,” Cody chimed in. My attention snapped toward him, and he just shrugged, completely oblivious to the bomb he’d launched in my direction. Did he know? “I mean, cool, you two do you, but I wouldn’t have guessed either of you were straight.”

My pulse stumbled violently. Did I seem gay to them? To anyone? Had I done something? Maybe I’d looked at someone too long? Or said something wrong? Had I let something slip without realizing it? That was the last thing I wanted right now. It wasn’t like I planned to hide forever. I didn’t. But someday and right now were two very different things. It didn’t feel right. I hadn’t figured out what being out would mean for me. For football. For my dad.

Hell, I hadn’t even figured out what half of it meant inside my own head. I wanted to do that before anyone else decided for me.

“Excuse you, motherfucker,” Jude said, getting annoyed before I could come up with anything. “I’m straighter than a goddamn board.”

“Boards can warp,” Rodney teased.

“I will prove it right now,” he snapped, getting to his feet. I slammed a hand to his chest and shoved him right back onto the bench.

“Taking your dick out won’t prove you’re straight,” I told him, making him frown. “It might do the opposite. You know… considering everyone here is a guy.”

“Right,” he muttered as laughter rolled through the locker room. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” I said. That was the benefit of being Jude’s best friend. There was rarely enough time for a conversation to become emotionally uncomfortable before he did something profoundly stupid. Most of the time, I felt like he did it intentionally. I didn’t handle attention the same way he did. I didn’t like it. Jude, on the other hand, had no problem being the center of attention.

The conversation moved on around us as Jude rotated enough to face me.

“I don’t look gay, do I?” Jude asked, making me frown.

“What does gay look like?” I replied.

“You know… gay.” He gestured to himself vaguely. Everything about Jude screamed gym bro—muscles, swagger, crude jokes, and enough confidence to fill a room. Most people never looked much deeper than that, but I did. And the last year with Rhodes had taught me more about their father than growing up across the street from the Kennedys ever had. Mr. Kennedy’s homophobia had shaped both his sons in completely different ways. Rhodes had run as far from it as he could and never looked back. Jude, meanwhile, sometimes seemed to lean so hard into masculinity that it bordered on parody.

I couldn’t blame him. My dad could be hard on me too, especially about football and how I presented myself, but I’d always understood where it came from. He wanted more for my future, even when his way of showing it made me crazy. It shouldn’t matter if I skipped a day of drills or liked the color pink, but he was quick to explain why neither could happen.

Mr. Kennedy was different. The more I learned about him, the less I understood how either of his sons had survived growing up under that kind of expectation. I did understand why Rhodes never came back to visit and why Jude practically lived at my house in his downtime.

“Enlightening.”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I can’t have a gay vibe when I’m trying to push my numbers up.”

Right. His numbers. And unfortunately, he wasn’t talking about his quarterback statistics. He meant the number of women he’d slept with, something he chased with almost competitive dedication. The more I learned about the Kennedys, the more I wondered if this was just another piece of armor Jude had built for himself—one more way to perform the kind of masculinity he’d been taught would keep anyone from questioning who he was.

Whatever anxiety had wove its way through my chest had vanished with the change of topic, and I leaned into it. Less eyes on me were always better.

“Keep talking about your magic tongue, dumbass,” I told him, deliberately keeping my tone light. “The ladies will line up.”