The Endgame (Atlanta Lightning 1)

Darren was already in a room. We didn’t have much time and needed to get back to the hotel.

Melinda’s hand went to mine, and I let her take me down the hall. I closed the door behind us.

I couldn’t sleep.

We’d been back at our hotel for close to two hours. Darren was passed out in the bed beside mine. He slept like the dead, and I knew he wouldn’t wake up when I got up, pulled on jeans, socks, shoes, a hoodie, and tugged the hood up over my head. I’d gotten a new pair of sunglasses since Weston still had mine. He’d offered to send them to me, but I’d said he didn’t have to.

I told myself to go back to the room, but I didn’t. I told myself I didn’t know what I was planning to do, but I did.

I took the elevator to the ground floor. The hotel was quiet and the lobby nearly empty. A door near the reception desk was slightly open, and when I looked inside, I saw it was a meeting room. I slipped in and closed the door tightly behind me.

My heart punched against my chest as I dialed, my feet taking me back and forth across the room.

Don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this kept running in circles around my brain, but I didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. Nausea twisted up my stomach, but I bit it down.

“Hey.” Weston’s voice was scratchy and hoarse from sleep. I opened my mouth, but my voice wouldn’t work. I couldn’t figure out how to form words, and if I did, what they would be. “Anson? Are you okay?”

I wasn’t sure what it was about that question, but it unlocked everything inside me—anger, rage, hurt, all of it was there, bubbling to the surface, and Weston was the only person I could unleash it on. “Fuck you,” I gritted out. Logically, I knew my feelings weren’t his fault. He’d done nothing wrong, but there was no one else in the world I could talk to, no one I could be angry with other than him. “Fuck you,” I said again.

Weston cursed, and I heard him shifting around, maybe sitting up in bed, which made the stupidest question drift across my thoughts: what does he sleep in?

“Do you plan on telling me what I did wrong?” His coolness made me even more angry.

“Fuck you for knowing, for taking one look at me that night and somehow fucking knowing. Fuck you for asking me to leave with you like it was nothing. For contacting me, for being able to— Goddamn it.” I fell into one of the chairs, dropped my sunglasses on the table, and rubbed the palm of my hand over my eyes. “Fuck you for having what I can’t. For being stronger than I am.” For making me want you. For making me see those photos of you with a man and making me wish I were him.

He was quiet, but I heard him breathing, and I wondered what he was thinking.

“I was with a woman tonight.” My words came out so softly, I wasn’t sure he could hear them. Weston’s curse told me he had. My eyes darted toward the door, making sure it was still closed. I figured when the door was shut, it would be locked from the outside.

“It wasn’t your first time, was it?”

Humorlessly, I laughed at his question. “No. I wanted this time to be better. I wanted it to change me. Fuck, I wanted so badly to want her, to crave her, but it was…” Nothing but a physical response. I could perform with women. That had never been a problem for me, but it wasn’t what I wanted.

“There is nothing wrong with being gay.” There was so much kindness in his voice, it made my eyes well up. I didn’t try to correct him. I didn’t tell him I wasn’t because, fuck, it felt good to hear someone say it, to acknowledge they knew. It made me feel less alone.

“I know.” And I did. “That doesn’t mean I can let it be true. I would lose my career. Everything would change. Football is who I am.” It wasn’t the first time I’d told him that, but I didn’t know who I would be if I lost it.

“No, it’s not. You’re a son, a friend, a brother. You’re the guy who takes care of his family, who works hard to be the best. A guy who doesn’t know how to eat a steak.”

I chuckled softly. He was good at making me laugh, but I sobered quickly. “I felt like such a piece of shit tonight. Like I took advantage of her, even though I know she didn’t expect more than sex. I hate myself for using her to try to forget who I am, to forget the photos of you with that guy, for wishing it were me, for spending half an hour in the shower trying not to lose my shit over sex. It’s fucking sex.”