Home Plate (Easton U Pirates 2)

“Thank you for this.” I twisted toward him, and feeling brave, reached for his hand first. When he leaned toward me, my breath caught.

“I want to kiss you so bad right now.”

This time, I didn’t look around us or even over his shoulder. It didn’t matter if two guys sitting in a car together kissed—or it shouldn’t. Nobody knew us, and we’d be driving away in another minute anyway. “Then do it.”

His fingers took hold of my nape and he brought our foreheads together. Our breaths mingled in the small space, my heart throbbed, and when our lips met, I was completely adrift. His hand tightened in my hair as our tongues tangled, and I moaned against his mouth.

I was just about to draw back and say something about driving with a painful hard-on when there was a sharp rap of knuckles against my window. “Mason?”

Startled, I turned toward the familiar voice and was met with a look of stunned confusion on my stepdad’s face. My stomach bottomed out as my trembling fingers stabbed repeatedly at the button in an attempt to unroll the window.

“Dad, what are you doing here?” I asked around the boulder stuck in my throat.

Girard cursed under his breath.

“I could ask you the same question.” He looked between us, his face screwed into something akin to repulsion. No doubt my lips were shiny and my hair a wreck. “Is this where you come to meet your…boyfriend?”

“No, I… He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Looked that way to me. Unless this is…something else.” He looked away like he couldn’t bear to consider me having a hookup with a guy.

Dad waved toward a gentleman dressed in a suit, who seemed oblivious as he paced near the restaurant door, motioning with his hand and talking to someone on his cell. Most likely Dad was meeting him here for business. Fuck my life. No way I thought Dad would come to this restaurant for anything other than a midway point to meet me every few months.

Though I knew he enjoyed the food. Still, my head was swimming with confusing thoughts and feelings—fear, denial, anger, and shame.

“I… It’s not what you think. We…we’re…” What in the fuck did I think I could possibly say to make anything better in this scenario? It wasn’t lost on me that had I been with a girl, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Hell, he’d probably invite us to join them.

“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” Girard said through a tight jaw, but his support didn’t stop the burning feeling in my gut that this would likely be the last straw for my stepdad and he’d finally cut ties. I was dead weight anyway. I swallowed the warm bile crawling up my throat.

Fuck. My. Life.

When Girard tried to place his hand on my shoulder in support, I shrugged him off. “Don’t, Girard.”

Was he insane? My stepdad just caught us making out like horny teenagers.

“Your teammate, huh?” Dad folded his arms. “What would your coach say?”

I stared straight forward, the anger eating away at me. “Probably nothing since he has a gay son, so…”

“Besides the fact that we’re consenting adults,” Girard muttered as he clenched his fingers, his knuckles turning white.

“You know how I feel about…” Dad waved his hand, his lip curled.

“Pretty sure we weren’t flaunting anything inside a parked car alone.”

Dad stared at me a long minute, and I saw the instant he decided he’d had enough. Of me and this tenuous connection we still shared. Besides, he was moving on with his life. He’d have a new family and everything this time next year.

I felt gutted, like someone had carved my insides out and left me a shell of my former self. I could barely find the strength to grip the steering wheel properly, but I kept trying, if only to ground myself.

“Like I said in our phone call, you’ll need to pack up your things.” He arched a brow, pointedly. “The sooner, the better.” Then he walked inside the restaurant without even a glance back.

After another full minute, I finally mustered the courage to back out of the lot—instead of running in there to try and convince him of…what? This was my truth. It was part of me, and I needed to get used to it. Denying it would be like denying the very core of myself. And Dad had already done that enough for both of us.

We were quiet the whole way home as I tried to sort through my thoughts.

What happened with my stepfather was my worst fear realized. It came earlier than expected, but despite knowing it was bound to happen, it still stung like hell that he could toss me aside so easily. If this was what coming out was like, then screw that. I would wait a million more years if I needed to.