“Me?” he squeaked. “No one would pay me for sex.”
I laughed. “That’s patently false. Hundreds—no, thousands—of men would pay to watch you do a simple slow striptease.”
His wide brown eyes blinked at me slowly. “Wha?”
I laughed again. “You have no idea, do you?”
Mikey shook his head. “It’s just that… I heard a rumor about you…”
Laughter time was over. I remembered the game in Green Bay a year ago when I’d made a joke about being so hard up I was willing to pay for company to come suck me off in my hotel room. It had turned into a big joke on the team. The only way Mikey could have heard about it was from a teammate.
“Saris,” I growled. “Fucking asshole.”
“Not gonna argue with that,” Mikey said.
“What did he say to you?”
“That you paid for it on the road. I knew better than to believe him, but…”
“But what?”
When he didn’t answer, I reached out to tilt his chin back toward me. “But what?” I asked more softly.
“I never see you with anyone,” he said, looking sheepish. “I just… I don’t understand. You’re so… um… you, and I just thought you’d have…” He seemed to struggle with his thoughts.
“Complete a thought, Mikey,” I urged gently.
“You’re sexy as fuck, and I thought you’d have a revolving door of men in your bed, okay? You happy now?” He threw up his hands, splashing both of us with warm water.
I was. I totally was.
“Three years and four months,” I said. Mikey blinked at me with spiky lashes.
“Huh?”
“You heard me. I got a drunken blow job on the road during preseason from an old college teammate. He approached me in a hotel bar and told me he’d always envied my being out. Said he’d fantasized about sucking me off for years.” I shrugged. “So I let him.”
That wasn’t the whole truth. The whole truth was that we’d played the Seattle Seahawks in that preseason game, and Nelson Evangelista had found a way to tell me he’d fucked Mikey V. for almost a year behind Coach’s back. I must have given him the reaction he’d been looking for because he’d spent the rest of the game taunting me with details about Mike’s tight ass, his hunger for cock, and his willingness to be humiliated in the bedroom. He told me over and over again I should tap that.
It was one of the rare times I’d gotten drunk in the past decade, and as soon as I’d run into Trae, I’d let him do whatever he wanted. Thankfully, that hadn’t included bringing him back to my room for anything more. He’d sucked me, I’d finished him off with my hand, and we’d gone our separate ways when we’d left the lobby men’s room.
I’d never asked Mikey about Nelson. I’d known, of course, that Mikey had worked for Nelson, lived with Nelson, before coming to work for me. But I’d decided to believe the part about them sleeping together was all made up. For three years, I’d shoved down the thoughts of the giant linebacker and my… Mikey whenever they’d reared their ugly heads.
But now I couldn’t stand not knowing.
“You and Evangelista?” My voice was rough, and it got Mikey’s attention. His eyes widened comically.
“Who told you that?”
Now it was my turn to look away. I didn’t want to see the truth in his eyes. “Never mind,” I said, standing up and reaching for my towel. “Sorry I asked. That was inappropriate.”
Mikey swallowed but didn’t correct me, didn’t tell me it was okay that I’d asked a personal question. Instead, he let me go.
It was for the best. We didn’t do personal questions. It was one of the unspoken rules between us that kept our relationship platonic. Safe.
I walked through the frigid air and into the house, trying hard not to crush my back teeth to a fine powder. After stopping by the kitchen for my requisite couple of bottles of water, I made my way to the master suite. The king-sized bed mocked me from its place in the center of the room.
The second hot shower was quicker than the first, just enough soap and water to get the hot tub chemicals off my skin. I followed it with a thorough tooth-brushing before pulling on my flannel pajama bottoms and a soft T-shirt and sliding into bed.
Alone.
In the morning, I found Mikey adorably sleep-tousled and flustered, trying to figure out the fancy coffee machine in the kitchen.
“Morning,” I said, deciding to pretend like our awkward conversation the night before had never happened.
“Nnfh,” he grumbled. “Fucking espresso machine. Why didn’t I bring my french press? If this was my bed-and-breakfast, we’d have a french press. What kind of gourmet kitchen doesn’t have a french press?”
I could totally see him running a bed-and-breakfast. He’d be amazing at it. I walked up and nudged him out of the way so I could take over. “The kind that has a state-of-the-art, twenty-thousand-dollar Mastrena espresso machine made by Swiss manufacturer Thermoplan instead.”