“Positive.”
Doubt lines his eyes. “I care about you. I want you to be happy. You looked so damn happy in that picture from the other night.” He means the shot of Grant and me flanking a fan, a social media post he texted me about the next day.
Dragging a hand down my face, I groan. “Dad, I was happy because I was at a hockey game. It’s that simple. You’ve got to stop spinning things into what they’re not,” I insist.
He scoffs. “Come on. Grant Blackwood. He’s a good-looking guy.” He taps his sternum. “Look, I’m straight, but I can tell. You’d be foolish not to like him.”
Hearing him breathe Grant’s name chills my bones.
I’m back in time to every occasion he came home drunk, all the times he wouldn’t let go of a topic. Was your mom messing around with her co-worker? Is that why she’s so happy? Did you see anything fishy? Tell me, please tell me. Just please fucking tell me.
No, Dad. There’s nothing going on. Just stop.
There was nothing going on.
“Stop. Just stop,” I beg. “Just tell me why you’re here. Tell me what you need.” My voice trembles, this close to snapping. I cannot let him breathe Grant’s name anymore. I cannot let this shit rain down on the man I love. If word gets out that we had a spring training fling, I don’t know what it’ll do to Grant’s gameplay.
I don’t give a flying fuck that people know I date men. I don’t care if someone prints in a gossip rag that I went out with a TV star, a blues singer, an Internet exec.
Coming out is the best thing I ever did, but it doesn’t make me Teflon. It isn’t a sword that’ll save me or save Grant.
Being out doesn’t make it okay that I fucked a teammate. That’s a line you don’t cross, no matter your orientation, no matter whether you live in or out of the closet.
I crossed it, and now the consequences are knocking on my door—and Grant’s.
A rumor would look bad for me, but it’d be ten degrees of horrible for the rookie who’s not even on the roster yet. I have to stop it.
And I know how.
“Do you need money?” I ask. I know what shuts him up, but my gut churns at what I’m about to do—enable him.
My father winces like he’s embarrassed. But he’s not. This isn’t the first time he’s asked me for dough. I doubt it’ll be the last time I give it to him.
“Kara kicked me out,” he says, his voice wobbly. “Because I went drinking with Cousin Barry a couple of weeks ago. But it was just once. One night. It was because we got some bad news about our tow truck business.”
I brace myself. “What’s the news?”
“I owe some money, and Barry and I are going to lose the shop if I don’t pay up. If I can just get it back up and running, I’ll return to AA. I swear.” Now he’s the one begging. Our roles—they change on a dime.
I lick my lips, swallow roughly. “How much do you need?”
He gives me a figure. Five figures. A very high five figures.
I don’t blink. “I’ll help you out,” I tell him, hating myself, but doing it anyway.
His haggard face lights up. “You will?”
I nod. “I will.”
Relief floods his features. “I love you.”
I’m quiet for a few long seconds, then I find the will to speak. “I love you too,” I manage to say, unsure if it’s true. “Do you have any place to stay tonight?”
“Motel down the street.”
“Let me get you a nice hotel. I’ll stay with you.”
On its surface, the offer seems generous.
Kind.
Like a good son.
A grateful smile lights up his face. I’m grateful too—that I can be his probation officer tonight. That I’ve got an ankle cuff for him now. A muzzle too, one that’ll buy me enough time and distance that he can’t hurt Grant or me.
He has no evidence of the affair, so all I have to do is keep denying it, and eventually, Dad will drop it.
We finish eating, and he doesn’t mention Grant, or a boyfriend again.
At the hotel, I check him into a room, and after he showers, he collapses on the bed, chats about Barry and their plans, talks about the steps he needs to work on in AA, and the amends he wants to keep making, including for how he handled my coming out.
Soon enough, he talks himself into sleep.
Alone with my thoughts, I text Brady, tell him I’m crashing with family, then I stare at my phone for thirty minutes.
My fingers tap out a message that feels like a guillotine.
I am putting my own head under the blade and letting it fall.
Can I do this?
With my dad snoring away, I stare endlessly at the screen, at the message.