We headed back inside, got our stuff. Unfortunately, there were issues with the plumbing that were being worked on, so we had to head to the team hotel, stinking like a bunch of sweaty pigs. Luckily, it was only a couple of miles away. Security kept things on lockdown while we were there so fans didn’t get in and guys didn’t sneak women into their rooms. They always said women gave you weak legs, which was sexist as fuck. I wondered if guys did the same.
The team was all on the eleventh floor. Once we got our keys and room numbers, Garrett and I headed up together. The hotel had been remodeled since last year, redecorated in earth tones, and our room had a large window on one wall and a balcony on the other.
“You can shower first,” I told him. Wasn’t I just a gentleman? “Then we’ll meet Coach and the team to eat, and the rest of the night is ours.”
“You planned it this way, didn’t you? Wanted me all to yourself.” Garrett waggled his dark brows.
“Damn. You figured me out. Annoying-ass people are my kink, and you’re top of the list.”
“I live to serve.” He tossed his bag on one of the beds and started pulling things out. “Want to save time and shower together?”
“No comment.”
“No comment? Not even for the environment? Water conservation is something we all need to start taking seriously.”
Not gonna lie, I was struck speechless for a minute, trying to think of some witty reply, but nothing would come to me. I landed on, “What in the hell is wrong with you?”
Garrett chuckled. “Straight people are so boring.”
I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t know why I kept my sexuality to myself with him. I trusted Garrett. Maybe it was just because sometimes I didn’t feel like I had the right to claim the bi label since I’d never experimented with a man. Logically, I knew that was bullshit, but I still felt it.
I pulled Denver Rush track pants and a tee from my bag, then searched for my toiletries. Garrett’s shower was quick, and less than ten minutes later, he came out wearing a towel.
“You’re up.” He walked to the bed, where I noticed he’d left his clothes, and dropped his towel.
“Jesus.” I averted my eyes, but not before I’d accidentally gotten a peek at his soft cock. What would he taste like? How would the soap smell on his skin there?
“See? Not a little man, am I?”
“Not sure. I looked, but I must have missed it.”
He laughed, the sound still drifting through the closed bathroom door when I fell against it. I needed to up my game. Garrett McRae was going to be the death of me.
4
GARRETT
Everything hurt, and my life was a lie. Play for the NFL, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. And we hadn’t even started the physical practice yet, where we dressed out and had full contact on the field. But that was today, and I knew a couple of the seasoned players were gonna get a lot of enjoyment out of trying to take me down. Jason Nance in particular. He’d been a wide receiver for the Rush for three seasons now and had been side-eyeing me since the start of camp.
Ramsey, like a damn sadist, laughed at my groan when he pulled the hotel-room curtains wide and bright morning light poured in. “I told you camp was going to tear your cocky ass up.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I rolled onto my back, trying to get my dick to ignore the tear-your-ass-up portion of that sentence because over the past couple of days I’d caught glimpses of what Ramsey was working with below the belt, and it definitely fell into the could-tear-an-ass-up camp.
I’d done, I thought, an impressive job of ridding myself of my crush on him in the intervening months between the draft and the start of camp. I was pretty fucking proud of myself, actually. I’d attacked it methodically, similarly to how I’d approached learning plays or studying for a test. I’d cataloged all the things about Ramsey that had annoyed me over the years, and if some of those things were also things I’d liked, well, whatever. The random nicknames, for one. Or how organized he was. That was definitely annoying. The way he rubbed his thumb along his jaw sometimes when he was about to disagree with something someone said. How his calf muscles were more defined than mine even though I ran my ass off every day. Unforgivable.
And since there was a huge mental component to football, I figured I was doing myself a solid by practicing that kind of sustained willpower and fortitude.
Because I was also rooming with him, it meant I had to run through that catalog several times a day, especially when he walked around shirtless. But again, I was looking at it as another opportunity to test my mettle.