Page 82 of The Play

“Just . . .I’m happy it’s happened. Wish it had happened differently.”

Grant sighed. “Me too. I wish we could tell everyone. I’d walk out with you onto the field next Sunday, to the fifty-yard line, and kiss you without a hint of shame.”

“You’d do that?” Deacon’s chuckle was a deep rumble against his arm.

“No, exactly. I wouldn’t. I would want to, but I’m not going to. I’m responsible for too many people, their livelihoods, their families, their lives. I can’t risk all of that, just because I want to tell the haters of the world to fuck off.”

“I know you already said everyone knowing wasn’t why, but you meant it, didn’t you?”

Grant turned to him. “You told me you loved me. And I knew I loved you. Why shouldn’t we have this? If we can keep it compartmentalized, keep it safe and secret and just between us when we’re here? We were already a team in every way that mattered, outside, in the real world, why not make it real, solid, unassailable, when we’re in this apartment?”

“We can’t keep it a secret forever,” Deacon said, and Grant hated how he was frowning. Was he saying this poorly? He probably was. He was smart, some people would even say he was brilliant, but he was so fucking shit at emotions. At deciphering his own. At expressing them to others.

“I’m not asking you for that.”

“And I’m not asking for you to waltz out with me to the fifty-yard line and kiss me there,” Deacon retorted softly. But there was heat there, in his voice.

“I’m probably fucking this up,” Grant said.

“No, you’re not. That—what we’ve been doing for hours—sex, that’s easy. This is a lot harder. A lot shittier. I know you’ve got responsibilities. I don’t want to ever get in the way of them.”

“You don’t. In fact, you make them easier to carry,” Grant said seriously.

“Good.”

“’Cause you take the weight, too. Not all of it. I wouldn’t expect that. You’re not the owner of this team. Or the CEO of InTech.”

“God forbid,” Deacon teased.

“But you make it easier for me to be Grant Green. And having this here?” Grant pressed a palm against Deacon’s chest. “It makes it even easier. And it makes me lighter. It makes me happy.”

“I get that you worry about everyone else. It’s who you are, and you should do it. But your happiness matters, too.”

“There’s only a few people who feel that way,” Grant said. Realizing, with a tight throat, that was true.

And also, that there was one more.

“Add someone else to the list,” Deacon said, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “I love you. Probably always have. Probably always will.”

Grant’s heart splintered in his chest. “You really mean that.”

“Yeah. I do.” Deacon sounded very sure.

But how could he be? What if he got tired of hiding? What if he got tired of Grant working twenty-hour days?

What if he got tired of Grant putting all his responsibilities ahead of him?

“I can see you thinking way too hard over there,” Deacon said, a thread of amusement in his voice. “Don’t, okay?”

Grant forced himself to relax. “Okay.”

“Now,” Deacon said, “it’s my turn to tell you to come ’ere and relax. Close your eyes.”

Grant did it. “What else?”

“Tell me you love me, too.”

“Always,” Grant said.

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