“We can get you guys some sexy female models to parade around in public. However many you want. This blackmailer would be discredited, and you two would get to feel up some hot chicks. Win-win,” he presses.
“Dude—” I scoff.
“Not cool,” Hendrix finishes my thought.
From the corner of my eye, I spy Mathis sitting with his mouth in a disapproving purse, but when he notices me looking, he subtly shakes his head at me.
Sullivan gathers the evidence, signaling an end to our unofficial meeting. “Well. That is all we needed to confirm—I mean, clarify. Like I said, the board is considering the payoff, but I can’t guarantee it will help—especially if you two are going public anyway. If there is controversy, keep in mind that the Treasures will do whatever it takes to end bad press before they get it.” He gives me a pointed look.
Hendrix sits up straighter, swelling with anger. “Was that a threat?” he growls.
“A warning.” Sullivan taps the closed envelope on the tabletop before walking out without another word.
“What a dick.” Confused by Mathis’ muttered words, I turn to face him, but he just shakes his head in irritation. “Asshole took my envelope.” He gestures at the empty table. “That’s why I made extra copies. You guys want a coffee? No barista since we bought out this place for the morning, but I made a pot when we got here.” He stands to refill his cup, offering us the pot.
I accept a mug, adding some sugar, and Hendrix refuses. He’s staring at the empty table, lost in thought. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I begin, eyeing Mathis, “but what are you still doing here?”
He sips his coffee, not in any rush. “I’m still here—” He smacks his teeth. “—because Sully is an idiot. Your relationship is going to get out, whether on your terms or the press’ and whether you two fake date models or not. It’s going to be hot news, and everyone will be under scrutiny. I’ll be honest, the Rubies want to look out for themselves. They don’t want to be seen as the team that drops a queer player because of who they date.”
“Okay . . . then what?”
Leaning back, Mathis adopts an air of confident nonchalance. “Having both of you on our team will raise our popularity with allies—who far outweigh those who don’t support the community.”
We stare at him.
“The Rubies’ board of directors is most likely going to invite you back to the team, Tahegin.”
I laugh because he has to be kidding, right? When he doesn’t so much as quirk a smile, I gape. “You guys traded me because you thought I wouldn’t recover from my hamstring injury—didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me to my face. Y’all traded Kit to get ahead of what might have become a scandal. But now you want to use me to look good. No way!”
Mathis stands abruptly. “Our board will not be paying this stalker fan for their silence, so I suggest you two get ahead of this. And Tahegin? When our agent comes knocking with a contract, make the smart choice.” Draining his coffee, he slams the cup onto the table before walking out of the shop, a confident swagger to his steps.
The tension between Hendrix and me is thick, the silence louder than any words could be. We hadn’t planned on this, and I certainly hadn’t planned on my team dropping me because of our relationship. Cautiously, I place my hand in his and hold tight. The thought of rejection—of this hitting him too hard and spooking him—has my stomach twisting in knots. I refuse to let this cause a rift between us, though. Even if I have to take a year off football to let the heat die down, I’ll survive. We’ll survive. “Rix?”
“I want to do it,” he blurts so quickly he practically cuts me off.
“Do . . . what?”
He looks at me, eyes a steel grey, mirroring his resolve. “What we talked about last night. I want to do it. Right now.” He looks around the interior of the coffee shop. “Right here.”
“Here?”
Hendrix nods.
I sputter. “W-what?” Looking down, I eye my old college T-shirt and casual joggers, then run a hand over my hair, patting the uneven curls as if that will help. “We were going to— I mean, Micah and Aleks were gonna help— Rix! I look terrible!”
Never mind his messy hair and unbrushed smile, too.
“We’ll do something nice and fancy later, okay? I want to do this. No one else gets to tell the world how much I love you before I do.”
“That’s . . . sweet, I think.”
“And it can be a big ‘fuck you’ to the Treasures and the blackmailer.”
Laughing, I pull him into a hug that he turns into a kiss—one where we lose ourselves in each other, forgetting all about the trials ahead of us. It’s just Hendrix and me in a coffee shop, smiling against each other’s mouths, sharing an odd mixture of morning and coffee breath. His hair is rumpled; my fade is overgrown. My shirt is old and has a hole near the collar; his Rubies’ hoodie has a toothpaste stain from who knows when—but clearly not this morning—on his chest.
One of his hands disappears from my side, but I don’t bother to see what he is doing because a moment later, he slips his tongue inside my mouth. I release an embarrassing moan, and Hendrix laughs—hard. So hard he has to lean back. I’m met with his grinning face, his nose wrinkled adorably, and say the first thing that pops into my head. “I love you.”
He presses his lips to mine, short and sweet. “I love you, too.”
I’m still grinning like a fool when Hendrix’s phone appears between us. He plays around on it for a few seconds, squinting and muttering to himself, then types out a message.
My pulse races. Is he doing it? Now? Without showing me? “Rix—”
“There.” He hits one final button. “Done.”
Snatching the phone from his hand, I stare in shock at the post he’s made—and tagged me in—of a video of our kiss a minute ago. He’s cropped it to only show the last few seconds, where we’re smiling at each other and I confess and he kisses me before returning the sentiment. The text portion of the post simply has a blue heart. As I gape at the screen, a notification appears that Micah has given the post a virtual heart of his own before commenting a slew of exclamation points and emojis—lots of hearts and only two eggplants, which I take as a win.
Hendrix watches over my shoulder as Aleks shares the post, and it expands with likes and comments right before our eyes. Almost all of it is positive, and we don’t bother to read the few negative ones that appear.
“We’re out,” he murmurs in my ear.
I laugh, weightless and giddy. “Take me home, Rix. Right now.”
EPILOGUE
HENDRIX AVERY
“Look,” I say, tilting my phone for Tahegin to see. “Tucker Baird shared our post. You played with him in college, right?”
