Page 44 of The Play

Grant obeyed because eating the wings killed two birds with one stone: one, he ate something, because just like Darcy said, when he was caught up in something he often forgot to do that, and two, because his fingers were messy, so for at least fifteen minutes, he couldn’t look at his phone and see if Deacon had texted.

About this mess.

Or about the kiss.

But of course, when he finally finished eating and washed his hands in the bathroom, his phone was full of messages, emails, and missed calls. He’d need to put out a statement to the team, immediately. He could draft that after he’d helped Darcy gather the hard drives.

But after sorting through the avalanche of notifications, Grant realized Deacon was still silent.

Shit.

Deacon was pretty sure he was going out of his mind.

“Don’t do it, he’s got his hands full with this Rex bullshit,” Beck said very reasonably as Deacon paced across their patio.

“Yeah,” Micah echoed.

“What if someone had told you that you couldn’t do a goddamn thing to help him,” Deacon said, pointing right at Beck’s husband. Micah held up his hands in mock surrender.

“But I don’t need Beck’s help,” Micah pointed out.

“Yeah, not his help, maybe,” Deacon grumbled.

Grant had just sent out a statement to the whole team and staff on the Rex situation. They’d all seen the interview, of course. It was impossible to be on any fucking channel even tangentially related to sports and not see it, flashing across the bottom of the screen.

It made Deacon fucking sick.

He knew Rex was a liar. And it was bad enough he was lying about the Condors. But lying about Grant?

It made Deacon want to demolish his face.

Grant had made it clear he had this taken care of, and he’d gone into brief detail about what steps he was taking to remedy the situation. All the admin personnel would be having their hard drives copied, minus any sensitive personal information, and sent to the NFL offices so they could exonerate themselves, once and for all.

Beck might be right; Grant might have everything under control.

But Deacon couldn’t just stand by and do nothing, either.

Especially not after . . .Deacon clenched his fists.

Especially not after Grant kissed him.

Especially not after Grant’s kiss had brought him so much clarity on his own feelings.

This wasn’t a crush.

This was so much more than that.

This was I’d do anything for him.

“I’m just saying,” Beck said, “sit down. Hang out. We’re gonna grill out later. You don’t need to go down there and create more problems for him.”

“How is me making sure he’s okay—that the team is okay—creating more problems for Grant?”

Beck and Micah exchanged knowing glances.

“What?” he barked.

“I’m just saying . . .you charging in there like his knight in shining armor—”

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