Page 66 of The Play

Deacon met Kieran’s eyes and the bartender just shrugged.

“I don’t make the decisions,” he said.

Deacon sighed.

“This is great,” Nate enthused after taking a long drink of his beer. “What is it?”

“New brewery, up in the Toronto area,” Kieran said. “Glad you like it.”

“Do you wanna dance?” Nate asked after a moment of silence passed.

Deacon internally winced. Okay, so this was going to be the moment. “Nate,” he said kindly, “I like you a lot, you’re a great kid—”

“A kid,” Nate repeated, a little bitterly.

“And I’ve really loved helping you, coaching you up a bit. But that’s all it’s going to be,” Deacon finished.

Nate looked resigned, but not upset. “You’re into Mr. G, aren’t you?”

Ugh. Maybe it would be easier to get over this—eventually, anyway—if everyone didn’t keep bringing it up. “Did someone tell you that?” Deacon asked.

“They didn’t have to,” Nate said. “It was obvious when he showed up here, last Friday. Your face . . .I don’t know what I’d do to have you look at me like that, but something.”

Deacon patted him on the shoulder. “You’re gonna find someone and they’re gonna be great for you, I promise. But I know you don’t really want to get into it with me. I’m . . .” A mess. A hot garbage fire mess, who’s in love with someone who probably feels the same, but won’t give into it, no matter how much I push him to do it.

“Hot as hell? Charming and funny and a damn good football player?” Nate grinned.

“Unavailable,” Deacon said instead.

“I get it. It was a long shot, but worth the try anyway.”

If only the situation with Grant had turned out like that.

He’d told Deacon no, and yet it had felt like the shittiest no he’d ever heard. Worse than any other.

Nate took another drink of beer, and Deacon nearly reached for his own drink, if only to do something with his hands that wasn’t awkwardly touching Nate again on the shoulder, but then at the last moment, he remembered that it was a gin and tonic.

And Grant drank gin and tonics.

“Oh my God,” an excited voice exclaimed behind them. “You did come. And thank God you did.”

“Carter,” Deacon said reasonably, turning his body towards Carter as he and Ian joined them at the bar. “I did come. What’s up?”

“Did you see this?” Carter waved his phone. “No, scratch that, you didn’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t be here, you’d be at—”

“Carter,” Ian interrupted before Carter could keep going.

“What?” Carter said, exchanging a mysterious but clearly meaningful glance with his boyfriend. “He needs to know. I might as well be the one to tell him. Someone else is going to do it in the next five minutes, if I don’t. And I want to.”

“Tell me what?” Deacon asked flatly. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like this. Anything that had Carter this excited was probably not going to be good news.

“Did you not see it?” Carter said. When Deacon shook his head, he turned to Ian. “Oh my God, he didn’t know.”

“Know what? And where would I be if I’d heard this mysterious, magical news?”

“You’d be at Mr. G’s penthouse, of course. Getting down on your knees—”

“Carter,” Ian admonished again.

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