Page 37 of The Brotherly Shove

"Not here. Meet me up in my office in twenty minutes," he says as he starts to back out of the doorway, taking his wife along with him.

"Half an hour," she whines as she elbows him in the stomach, and the grin returns to James's face.

"Half an hour," he repeats and closes the door. I swear I hear the woman say "I told you so!" with a palpable amount of glee as their footsteps retreat.

"So much for our secret romance," I chuckle without humor as Breaker finally gets his pants to cooperate. There's no rules against teammates hooking up, but we probably just violated something by attempting to do it publicly—in a storage closet of our home stadium no less. Anxiety swirls in my stomach as I worry about what James is going to say to us. We could possibly be fined, suspended, fuck what if he gets mad and hurts us?

I picture us walking into the big office upstairs and James wearing a luchador mask and launching himself off a turnbuckle and slamming us to the ground, Lucha libre style. That thought makes me smile as much as it strikes fear into my heart. I'm quite confident in my ability to tackle grown men on a football field, but I don't know if I have the strength to wrestle a jacked up billionaire with the element of surprise on his side.

Breaker pulls me from my ridiculous line of thought with two hands on my shoulder and playful shove towards the door.

"C'mon, big guy. Let's hit the showers before Adler shitcans us."

CHAPTER 23

BREAKER

Now

Santa Clara, California

I lead Lennon through the maze of hallways and corridors that make up the administrative floor of the stadium. I waited until I was sure we were alone before lacing my fingers with his and giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. I'm almost positive that we're not going to get in trouble for the whole closet thing. At the very least, there's no way of proving what Lennon's intentions were when he brought me in there.

Unless the closet has cameras, of course. Then there would be no denying that Len was seconds away from choking on my dick and that I was a willing and desperate participant.

I knock on the door of James's office, thinking back to the last time I was called up here. When I was informed of Luke Cannon's injury on the first day of training camp, I never would have imagined that the season would play out the way it has and I'd be the guy on the field every single game, helping the team find win after win.

The door swings open and Georgie Adler is on the other side of it, her skin glowing but her slightly mussed. Her red lipstickis bleeding a bit around the edges of her mouth. I suppose these two actually got to take advantage of their half an hour.

Lucky them.

Lennon tries to drop my hand, but I only grip him tighter.

"Hey! You guys go right in," she says, stepping aside. "Breaker, make sure you get my number from James before you leave today. You've got to come over for dinner sometime. My little bunny rabbits will not stop talking about you." I nod as we step past her and into the office. An invite to their home is a good sign. Bosses and their partners don't usually tend to dine with employees they've recently fired.

"Anytime. I still have to meet those twin kittens of theirs," I say, and she beams up at me before skipping out, closing the door behind her. James is standing behind his desk, and gestures towards the chairs on the other side of it.

"Have a seat," he says with all the authority one would expect from a man with his stature. We do, and as he sort of slouches into the seat next to me, Lennons knees start to shake and bump together. I place a palm on his thigh in attempt to calm him. James clocks it, raising an eyebrow at us while he takes his own seat. He leans forward, placing his elbows on top of his desk and his chin into his hands.

"So, boys. Is there anything you'd like to share with the class?" he asks with a tilt of his head and a knowing smirk. I almost start to laugh at his casual mocking, but Lennon bursts out into an anxious flurry of needless explanations before I can.

“It's not what you think it was Mr. Adler, sir. And even if it was it's not our fault. Like believe me I didn't know I was going to fall in love with Breaker. I didn't even know I was into guys, but I am. Breaker at least. And I'm getting really good at all of the sex stuff, in case you were wondering. It's not weird at all and I think Breaker likes it unless he's a really good actor and I saw him in his theater class's production of Much AdoAbout Nothing back in college and hedefinitelyis not. He enjoys what we do together, so like that's not an issue. Our chemistry translates on and off the field. And you can't fire us for being queer or being in love and if you can't prove anything was going on in that closet—” Lennon says it all so fast, it comes out sounding like one endless word and not a coherent sentence. I shake my head at his rambling, and it's only cut off by James holding up a hand and interrupting.

"Griffith," he booms, that CEO voice shaking the room. "Jesus Christ, man, take a breath. Who said anything about getting fired?"

"I think Lennon is nervous that you might be upset about finding us in a…possibly compromising, sort of public situation," I say, pausing to choose my words carefully. James looks back and forth between us, and then leans back in his chair, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Do you think I was letting my pregnant, insatiable wife drag me into that room so that we could knit a sweater together? I'm not a hypocrite," he says with a snort and a roll of his eyes. Beside me, Lennon visibly relaxes, but I can still see him pressing his lips together as if he is physically keeping the word vomit on the inside, trying to swallow it down.

"Are we in trouble?" he asks, looking up at James through glassy eyes. Oh fuck, I hope he doesn't start to cry. I won't be able to take it, and I'll be forced to make this situation all the more awkward by pulling all three hundred pounds of him into my lap to soothe him.

"Guys, you're fine. I just want to know what we're dealing with here. Are we out? Are we telling the team? The press? I'm going to go ahead and assume you two have something serious happening considering Lennon just dropped the love bomb on us. Just tell me how you want to proceed here."

I look to Len and give him a reassuring smile, hoping my eyes give him the comforting 'See? I told you it wouldn't be so bad.' message that I'm trying to convey. I turn back to James, who is looking at us expectantly.

"It is serious," I tell him. "And we're sorry for keeping it a secret. We weren't trying to be deceitful, we just thought that it would be best to keep the press focused on the good stuff happening with the team and not the hot gossip that two players are in love. We were going to come to you, and the staff, when the season ended, or when I was benched again. The closet…well you know what that was. Adrenaline and all, but I promise we won't do anything that will get us—or the team—in trouble like that again."

James nods, and then picks up his phone and starts to tap away.

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