Page 85 of Tangled Up In You
Possible career options
I underlined it like a million times before doodling on the ends of each word, which meant I still had no fucking idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Austin had said he wanted to go into sports broadcasting, but that didn’t interest me. I had a degree in business organization. Maybe opening my own sports themed store would be fun. Or like a sports bar.
Fuck, I didn’t know.
***
After school, I told Hunter where I was going, and I headed toward the weight room. Knowing Daniel like I did, I knew he’d be there. And I was right.
“Hey, kid,” I said after entering the room and seeing him doing bicep curls on one of the weight benches.
“What do you want?” he snapped, not looking at me.
“To talk.”
He tossed the weight down before standing up. Sweat caked in his dark hair and his gray shirt was darker in some spots, which told me he’d been in there a while.
“Look, Dan, I’m sorry. Okay?” I said. “I shouldn’t have kept it from you. Not after you confided in me. But I’m here now.”
Daniel barged toward me with balled fists, causing me to take a step back. “Where were you when I needed you? My dad found out, Corbin! He walked in on me kissing Joel.” Tears pooled in his eyes, and he became even more riled up. “He kicked my ass and told me if he ever caught mebeing a fagagainthat he’d take me out back and put a bullet in my skull. I needed you. And you weren’t here.”
My heart was in my throat, and I stepped toward him.
“Kid, I—”
“Stop fucking calling me a kid,” Daniel said, falling back on the bench and hanging his head. “I’m tired of adults saying one thing and doing another. I’m tired of being disappointed all the time.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” I asked, sitting beside him. “I gave you my number.”
“I was too pissed at you,” he answered before wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “And I didn’t think you’d even care. Not with everything else goin’ on in your life.”
God. Was I that stubborn as a teenager?
“Well, Idocare,” I said, gently nudging his side. “I’m not going anywhere either. Are you still staying with your dad?”
Now that I knew for certain that his dad was an abusive asshole, I wasn’t going to let him stay in that environment.
Daniel shook his head. “No. When mom found out, she told me to come stay with her. They divorced like five years ago.”
“How does she feel about you being gay?”
Daniel shrugged and wiped at his eyes again, finally having calmed down enough to stop the tear flow. “She’s struggling with it because of her faith, but she said she loves and supports me no matter what.”
“So…you and Joel, huh?” I asked with a sly grin.
Daniel buried his face in his hands. “Yeah. It’s been going on for a while.”
“You know, that’s how it started with me and Hunter, um Mr. Walsh.” I smiled at the memory. “We were best friends for so long, and then one day…it just clicked. The time spent with him started to mean something different. I began focusing on how the edges of his eyes crinkled when he smiled, how his voice would get this higher pitch when he was excited, and how he’d grab my arm when he was scared. One day, he grabbed my arm and I didn’t want him to let go.”
Daniel regarded me before nodding and averting his gaze to the floor. “That’s how it is with Joel. Even when I’m not conscious of it, I reach for him. Like instinct or something.”
Minutes of silence passed, but I got the impression that’s what Daniel needed—for me tobethere, but not to try to give him advice or tell him what to do. He just needed me so he didn’t feel like he was going through it alone.
And it was within that silence that the answer to my question screamed in my head.
“It’s sort of hard to be passionate about the game when your own coach doesn’t give a fuck,”Daniel had said a while back when I first started helping him train.
With the realization of what I wanted to do after pro-football, I felt so damn stupid for not figuring it out sooner. The answer had literally been right in front of me the entire time.
