Page 89 of The Play

He was so much more than that.

“And you’ve only wanted to date him for a hell of a long time,” Darcy continued for him. “It’s not like either of you are going anywhere, not now that you’ve finally got your shit straight.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Grant paced in front of the windows. “But wouldn’t confirming it just give everyone more room to talk about it?”

“Honey, they’re going to talk about it no matter what,” Darcy said sympathetically. “If you don’t tell them the truth, they’re gonna speculate, until the story’s bigger than it really is.”

Grant raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, it’s pretty damn big, anyway,” Darcy conceded. “But the point is valid.”

“I’ll think about it,” Grant said. “But for now, no comment is how we’re proceeding.”

“Alright,” Darcy said.

“What’s next?” Grant asked.

Chapter 13

“Here’s the big man of the hour,” Carter crowed as Deacon jogged onto the field for practice.

For a second, he wanted to demand what Carter knew—and then he realized that Carter was just talking about the fight at the Pirate’s Booty, not everything that had happened with Grant after.

“It’s no big deal,” Deacon said. Like he got into bar fights all the time, even though honestly, he couldn’t even remember the last one he’d participated in. He’d surely never started one.

Which reminded him—he’d better call Kieran today and make sure he was all squared away. Pay for any damages, though he hadn’t seen any before Grant had shown up and demanded Micah take him to his car.

And well, after that, he hadn’t been thinking of Kieran and the bar at all.

He’d stop by after practice. Make sure Kieran was taken care of and apologize in person.

“You punching some Neanderthal guy who wouldn’t stop talking about Mr. G? I’m sorry, Deac, but that was pretty fucking epic,” Beck chimed in when he walked over.

Ugh, was the whole team going to talk about this?

It seemed likely.

He still wasn’t sure if he should tell any of them—even though they were his friends—what had happened after the fight. Not because they wouldn’t be thrilled for him, because they would be. But because Grant was their boss. The owner of this team. Maybe Deacon saw him as a man. Very much a man, after last night. But they shouldn’t, necessarily.

Grant might not want them to. And they hadn’t had any time to discuss it yet, so until Grant gave him the go-ahead, he’d keep quiet.

“He was being unbelievably rude,” Deacon said.

“We know,” Beck said. “You were just doing what you had to do.”

Beck would see it that way.

Hadn’t he told him to fight for Grant, just a few weeks ago?

He probably hadn’t meant it literally, but there he’d gone, taking it exactly that way.

“Don’t try to minimize, make it less than the super romantic, in your fucking face, gesture that it is,” Carter insisted, waving his arms around.

Deacon shook his head. What did Ian see in this guy? And even more than that, what did the long, long line of men and women see who’d visited his bed?

Deacon didn’t get it.

The first—and the second, and the tenth—time Carter had hit on him, he’d had trouble not laughing.

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