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“It’s just something I’ve wondered. Vinnie mentioned you had a hard time there…”
I let out a breath, nodding. “I realised the secrecy and stress from being scared if I was going to be outed wasn’t how I wanted to live for the next twenty years.”
He lets out a humourless laugh. “Yeah, it’s really not a fucking picnic.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not shitting on you for doing that.”
“I know.”
“I know who I am and what I’m like. I’m a blurter. And closeted people don’t stay that way if they’re always blurting out which guys they think are hottest and stuff like that,” I say wryly. “I wasn’t going to be able to do it, so during preseason I decided to just tell everyone.” I pause for a moment to gather myself, because even though things have worked out for the best, this next bit is still one of those shitty things I’d rather not dwell on. “I told one of my teammates first, so I’d have someone in my corner. He seemed okay about it, so I went to training the next day feeling pretty good about the situation. But as soon as I stepped inside the locker room, I knew everything was wrong.”
“He told them?” Tom asks, his voice a low, fierce growl. “Outed you?”
I shrug. “Either he did or someone may have overheard us. But I was coming out that day anyway so I imagine the result would have been the same.”
“What happened?”
“As soon as I entered the locker room, it was like all the sound was suddenly sucked out of the room. All the talking and laughing just stopped, and the guys who weren’t changed yet all rushed to cover themselves, as though my gaze was lethal to their bare skin or some bollocks like that.”
“Fucking pricks,” Tom growls, his expression hard.
“I didn’t even get the chance to get the words out,” I tell him. “No one wanted to come near me. They definitely didn’t want to listen to anything I had to say. But, you know me, glass half-full guy and all that. I thought if I just gave it a couple of days things might blow over, they’d realise I was still me and I wasn’t going to jump them or make them all watchDrag Raceor whatever the fuck it was they were all afraid of. But, of course, it didn’t.”
“What about management? Didn’t they step in?” Tom asks.
I let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, yeah. They stepped in. On the third day, management asked for a meeting with me. I was told that for the comfort and…safety of the other players it would be best if I got changed in a separate room. They made it sound like being a gay man made me some kind of predator. I rang my agent as soon as I left the meeting and put in a transfer request, which they accepted straight away. I still had to go to training for about a week and listen to passive aggressive remarks on the training pitch while getting changed in an old storage club cupboard.”
“Fucking hell,” Tom spits out.?
I shrug my shoulders. “It is what it is. And it’s worked out for the best anyway.”
“I hope the fuckers get relegated.”
I smile. “Thanks, Tom. I’m way happier at Pride now, though. And hopefully there aren’t any other queer players on my old team, or at least not while they have the homophobic higher ups anyway.”
He's staring at me as though I’m a puzzle he’s trying to solve, and I can’t say I hate it. I want his eyes on me all the time.
“Enough about my depressing tale,” I say brightly. “Tell me something about you that no one knows.”
He’s thoughtful for a moment, that sexy frown line back between his brows, then his expression clears and he smiles softly. “Keegs is named after Kevin Keegan,”?
I let out a snort. “Tom, that’s not a secret. Everyone knows you grew up supporting Newcastle.”
“Ah, right, I forgot I was talking to my number one fan,” he says wryly. “Okay, well I’m not sure there’s anything Courtney doesn’t know so you might have to settle for something you haven’t managed to dig up yet—I have no idea who my father is.”
I stare at him for a moment, stunned by the revelation and the fact that he’s confiding something so personal in me. I remember his gruff response to my question about his family the night he told me he’s gay—that Courtney and Keegan are his family—and I’d been curious, of course, but the bombshell of his orientation had overridden all of that. Now my heart is pinching at the vulnerability flickering across his features; I know there must be a story there.
“What about your mum?” I ask carefully, trying not to sound too curious.
A strange, inward expression crosses Tom’s face, something bordering on wistful but also tinged with regret. I know before he speaks what the answer is going to be.
“She died,” he confirms. “When I was sixteen. I was already signed with Newcastle at that point, so I went to live with George Dunley and his family for a few years.” Then he gives a wry shake of his head. “Oh, right, you weren’t born yet—he was the Newcastle mana—"
“I know who he is.” I cut him off with an eye roll. “What about other family?” I ask gently. “There wasn’t anyone else who could take you in?”
He shrugs. “It was always just Mum and me growing up. Like I said, I never knew my dad, and Mum was on the outs with her folks. I met them a couple of times, but they were arseholes. Even when I was really little I could tell how anxious and upset Mum would get whenever she had to see them. I never found out what the full story was, but I hated them for making Mum feel like that. She was always so happy the rest of the time.”
“She sounds pretty great,” I say with a soft smile.
