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All of sudden, Noah announced, “I feel dizzy. I need to get out.” Then he flung himself over the side, like a fish that had been reeled into a boat and was making a break for it.
I called, “Are you okay?”
He bolted for the door as he called, “Fine. You guys just stay there and enjoy yourselves.” Then he disappeared inside the cabin.
As soon as he was gone, I turned to Hudson and blurted, “I think that was my fault.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was totally staring at his cock when he took his clothes off, and I bet I made him uncomfortable. If I was a cartoon character, my eyes would have bugged out of my head, and heart shapes would have replaced my pupils. Or maybe dick shapes.” I made circles with my thumbs and index fingers and pantomimed my eyes bulging and receding, three times in quick succession.
“I don’t think you scared him away,” Hudson said, as he shifted and got comfortable. “This water’s pretty hot, and we’ve all been drinking. It’s easy to believe he really did become light-headed.”
“I hope that’s all it was. I’d feel terrible if I freaked him out.”
When I started to get up, Hudson asked, “Where are you going?”
“To check on him and make sure he hasn’t passed out.”
“Maybe give him a minute. I can hear a shower running, so he’s obviously not unconscious or anything.”
“Okay.” I turned to him and sighed before saying, “How did we think we were going to do this? Like we’d just take off our clothes, and I’d be like woo yeah, come and get it!” I accompanied that with an exaggerated hula motion, and Hudson chuckled.
“Well, hey, that’s how you got me, so I say stick with what works.”
I grinned at that and took his hand as I sat back down again. Then I asked, “How did I get you, exactly?”
“What do you mean?”
“Tell me the story of when we met and what made you fall for me. I want to hear it from your perspective.”
He leaned back and nodded. “Okay. Well, our timing was great, because we met at one of the lowest points in my life. I’d just had surgery on one of my ankles—again—and I knew it was the beginning of the end for my football career. I was lost and scared, but I’d been taught fear was a sign of weakness, so I replaced it with anger. I was mad at everything and everyone, including my brother Harper, even though he’d been kind enough to open his home to me.”
I said, “You were staying with him because it was too difficult to handle the stairs in your apartment after that surgery.”
“Actually, I was staying with him because he’d just hired this absolutely beautiful guy named Kellan Cho to look after his ridiculous menagerie. I wanted to be close to you, so I made an excuse about needing to stay there, when I could have just as easily stayed in a hotel.”
My grin got wider. “I never knew I was the reason you chose to stay with your brother.”
“And I’ve never known why you gave me a chance. I was totally shut down at that point. Hell, I was shut down for the first year, year and a half of our relationship. You came into my life just as my career was ending, and football was the only thing I knew how to do. It was the only thing I thought I was good for. I started scrambling for a career in broadcasting because at least it was something, a way to keep myself tied to the game. I’d been playing all my life, ever since I was a little kid in the peewee league. I didn’t know who I was without football. I was worried maybe I wasn’t anyone at all.”
I squeezed his hand and told him, “You’re so much more than that, Sonny.”
He studied me for a moment before admitting, “I was sure I lost you when Noah came into your life. I wouldn’t have blamed you either, if you’d decided to leave me for him. I’ve never understood why you put up with me and all my shit—the ongoing career panic, the refusal to leave the closet, the family drama—it goes on and on.”
“I’ve stayed because I love you, Hudson.”
“I love you, too. And things are going to change.I’mgoing to change. I have one final obligation, that pregame show on New Year’s Day, and then I’m walking away from broadcasting, and from the game. I want to concentrate on building a life with you—”
I finished for him. “And with Noah. He’s a part of this, and of us.”
Hudson nodded. “He is. I never would have predicted it, or sought out a third. And if it was anyone but him, I’d never want us to go there. But there’s just something about the three of us. It feels…right.”
“I know. I feel it, too. Now we just need to figure out how to tell him, in a way that doesn’t send him running for the hills.”
He sighed and told me, “I think we can cross drunk naked hot tubbing off the list.”
5
