by Beth Bolden
Sitting on Ellen’s couch didn’t feel like the fight; it felt like the victory lap.
He hadn’t realized how light he would feel like when he could say on a show soon to be televised internationally, “I like women and I like men, and I want to make sure everyone knows there’s no shame in that fact.”
Nick had inferred, but not outright stated in his profile, that he believed Colin fighting his own inner demons of shame and anxiety over his sexuality had led to his ability to persevere in football. Colin had never believed that was true, but feeling the weight lift off his shoulders as he said the words, he realized he’d been wrong. Nick had known him better than he’d ever known himself.
“Have you spoken to Michael Sam?” Ellen asked, her eyes warm and supportive. Colin wasn’t stupid; he knew part of why this felt so easy was that she and so many others, especially the man she was asking about, had paved the way.
“I’ve never met him,” Colin admitted, “but if I did, I would thank him for being the first. For being a trailblazer, and for giving the game of football the jolt it needed. We can’t continue pretending that heterosexuality is the norm and shouldn’t change. Growing up feeling different is tough enough. We need to let kids know they’re not alone.”
That had not been the answer he’d practiced with Nick, or with Helen. Or with anyone. But as Colin spoke, it felt right. If he had been on TV, telling himself at the age of twelve that there was nothing to be afraid of, that he would be alright, his life might have been so different.
Maybe he wouldn’t have gone around with a burning need to prove he was good enough to belong.
“Is that why you’re taking this step now?” Ellen asked. A question that had not been on the list. Something else he’d not practiced ahead of time, but it still felt easy. The rest of his life had been the fight. Twelve, when he’d started noticing boys, that had been the fight. Sixteen, when the boy he’d liked had told him they couldn’t see each other anymore, that had been the fight. Eighteen, when he’d seen Jemma for the first time and realized he didn’t just like boys. Twenty-two, just about to be drafted into the NFL and the look on his brand new agent’s face when he’d told him he was bisexual.
“Actually,” he laughed a little self-deprecatingly, “I’ll be honest. I started this because I want to be able to date. Like, really date, and not worry about who sees us. Not sneak around. And that’s going to be either men or women, and so it seemed sort of important to tell everyone.”
Ellen laughed. “So really, this is Colin O’Connor being selfish.”
He gave her and the camera a wide smile. The widest he could. He knew Nick was watching, after all. “Absolutely.”
“And are you dating anyone?”
He blushed and even though he knew hiding it was probably impossible, he didn’t even try. “No comment?”
“Oh, that’s cute. You’re cute,” Ellen gushed. “I like you.”
When Colin returned to the dressing room, Mark and Helen were back, this time with a bottle of champagne Mark was currently opening.
Nick was leaning against the chair, eyes on the phone in his hand, when Colin opened the door. His head snapped up instantly, a smile breaking over his features, an undeniable pride in his eyes.
“I would like to know,” he said, throwing his arms around Colin with no hesitation, “why when you finally decide to be an open book with an interviewer, it’s Ellen DeGeneres? If it hadn’t been so brilliant, I’d be a little jealous right now.”
“It was brilliant?” Colin asked, because he couldn’t help it. Nick’s praise was so sweet and if he was being selfish, he might as well keep it up.
“You fucking know it was brilliant,” Nick scoffed. “Maybe I am jealous.”
“You shouldn’t be,” Helen soothed, a big smile on her face, too. “Your article is going to get plenty of praise. The best written piece on Colin that’s ever been done. You know that.”
“Right. I do,” Nick said smugly, and Colin couldn’t love him more than he did in this moment.
“Let’s have some champagne and celebrate,” Mark said, handing out glasses.
Usually this close to training camp, Colin didn’t drink, but he took a glass anyway. He already felt like the bubbles rising through the liquid; light and effervescent with freedom.
“Happy coming out,” Nick said, raising his own glass and giving Colin that charming, slanted half-smile that had owned him since they’d first met.
The next morning, cuddled up in bed together, Colin murmured into Nick’s shoulder, his bare skin soft and warm and perfect, “I showed you all over Miami. I think it’s time you return the favor. What do you like to do here?”
Nick gave a muffled giggle. Colin’s heart stuttered in his chest. He’d never known it could feel this way, your happiness expanding every moment you spent with someone. But he felt it every second he was with Nick. “You do realize Los Angeles is the seventh level of hell, right?”
“Then why do you choose to live here?” Colin asked incredulously. “You work from home at least three quarters of the time.”
Nick shrugged, his body moving under the weight of Colin’s. Colin, who was at least semi-interested in his answer, tried to ignore the way that felt against his dick.
“I’m serious,” Colin insisted again. “Show me around. You were so afraid I was a recluse when we were in Miami, you always wanted to go out. Now we’re here, and I discover you’re practically a hermit.”
“Traitor,” Nick scoffed. “I think you’re conspiring with Gabe.”
Now that was hilarious. Gabriel still looked at him like he was a tiny bit afraid Colin was going to punch him in the face. Before, it had been because of Jemma. Now, it was hard to say if it was because of Jemma or because of Nick. Basically, Colin despaired of ever getting on the man’s good side.
Colin thought his pointed silence was a good enough answer, and it must have been, because Nick let out an amused little chuckle. “Okay, point taken. Probably not going to happen. Um, well, we haven’t been going out because it’s so nice here with you.”
“And because Helen probably told you not to be seen with me,” Colin said before he could stop himself.
He felt Nick take a shaky breath, and then another. “I guess we should talk about it,” he finally said quietly. “But you should know, I do agree with her. We don’t often agree, but I do think right now is not the best time to be out when the whole world is shortly going to be speculating on who you’re dating.”
“What if I really don’t care? I mean, the world is gonna find out eventually. Why can’t it be sooner?” Colin was definitely aware he was pleading; begging even, a little. But he wanted this. He wanted the whole world and to get the whole world, they couldn’t hide. He was done hiding.
“It just...it looks bad, okay? I wrote your coming out profile. I’m a journalist. Albeit one that isn’t known for objective commentary, but still. We’ve got to be smart about this.”
“What about Samantha Ponder?”
Nick made a cute laugh-groan, and buried his head in the pillow. “Please don’t compare yourself to Christian Ponder.”
“Okay, what about Jack Bennett? He married the woman who was the sideline reporter for his own team.”
“That’s baseball,” Nick said dismissively. “Everyone knows there’s no objectivity there.”
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I.” Nick paused, and Colin could feel his hesitation in the air between them. “It’s not that I don’t want to do this, I do. Very much. All I ask is we take a breath after you come out, and think about the best way to approach the situation.”
Colin reached out and turned Nick over, maybe not as gently as he could have. Nick’s gray eyes blinked blurrily up at him. It took a split second longer for him to speak his mind, because while not a professional athlete, Nick still had a chest and abs that were defined enough to tie Colin’s tongue right up. “We are not a situation,” he gritted out. “I want to be abl
e to go jogging or go get food. Or just...hang out. We don’t even have to touch, for god’s sake, even though I always want to touch you. I’m not going to pretend the world isn’t out there until you and Helen can figure out how to turn an announcement of our relationship into advantageous PR!”
Nick’s expression grew thoughtful and a little sad. “I didn’t mean to coop you up,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I do like you here. I’m selfish, too. Like keeping you where I can still touch. Where you’re mine.”
If Colin ever needed evidence that he was weak in the form of Nick’s persuasive charm, he had it. He melted, like a goddamned snowstorm in the middle of summer. “I’m always yours,” he said, pulling Nick closer, his arms moving lower, cradling his hips. “I don’t want to fight about it. But I do want you to know how I feel about it.”
“I know,” Nick admitted, his breath warm against Colin’s chest. “It might seem easy now, but it won’t always be easy. There will always be dicks. Especially if you end up dating a guy, and not a girl.”
“Isn’t that what bisexual means?” Colin asked, mystified.
Nick laughed, but didn’t seem very amused. “It’s a different story; you announcing you might date a man, and then actually dating a man. I know it shouldn’t. But the world is dumb.”
Colin groaned. “This is why I let you deal with the hard stuff, and I just throw a ball around a field.”
“The hard stuff?” Nick asked slyly, his hand slipping down Colin’s chest and cupping his dick in his palm.
Colin let his fingertips dig harder into Nick’s hips. “Are we going to have make-up sex now? I’ve always heard it’s great.”
“I think you’re gonna like it,” Nick said confidently, shimmying down the bed, his lips coasting down Colin’s abs, making the muscles twitch. “In fact, I think you’re gonna love it.”
“First time outside in what feels like a week, and you take me jogging,” Colin complained as Nick maneuvered his car into a parking spot close to the beach.
“No, we’re going to the beach. I asked you what you normally do at the beach, and you told me jogging. So jogging it is.”
“I’m pretty sure that was a trick question,” Colin insisted, like he didn’t jog on the beach just about every single morning. Like he didn’t enjoy jogging on the beach.
The trick wasn’t to outsmart Nick, because Colin had discovered that was nearly impossible. The trick was to make him smile, maybe even laugh, while holding his own against Nick’s tricky, witty brain.
“I’m pretty sure you knew that when you answered.” Nick flashed him a particularly filthy smirk as they climbed out the car.
“And if I’d said I like to hold hands on the beach?” Colin asked, because he couldn’t seem to help himself. One little taste of freedom and he wanted it all, damn the consequences.
Colin fully expected a hint of impatience, or even annoyance from his boyfriend. They’d come to a truce of sorts, but he couldn’t stop pushing. That was his problem; spend your whole life being told to push for what you wanted and the instinct was nearly impossible to contain. But instead, Nick just glanced over, serious as he’d ever been. “Then I’d find you a beach we could hold hands on.”
Swallowing away the sudden lump in his throat, Colin said, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Nick said, as they crossed over to the boardwalk. He’d brought them to Venice, which he said was great for a casual workout and serious people-watching. “I’m only sorry we can’t do it yet.”
“But I keep...pushing.” Colin leaned over and braced his hands against the stone wall edging the wide concrete path, stretching his back and his calves.
But Nick just laughed. “It’s like you think I don’t know you at all. I’ve spent years studying you. I don’t expect you to change. I’d be pretty stupid to be angry.”
“Years?” Colin had suspected that he’d jumped at the chance to interview him. He vaguely remembered some pretty blatant flirting in that first sit down, but to hear that Nick had studied him was different. Flattering, but also troubling, because how could Colin ever hope to live up to the man Nick had formed in his head?
Maybe Nick had come to Miami primed to fall into Colin’s bed. Maybe he hadn’t had to do much at all to win Nick’s attention. He’d just had to be Colin O’Connor. A thread of doubt he’d never expected wormed its way into thoughts it had no business infiltrating. Colin knew it and he still couldn’t stop it.
Nick’s sideways glance was confused. “You did read the article, right?”
“I mean, of course I did.” He had, but he’d done it in a haze of anxiety over whether he might have fallen alone. Most of what Nick had written, besides the few passages that really proved he hadn’t, blurred together.
They’d finished stretching, but instead of beginning their jog, Nick just stared at him incredulously. Like he suddenly wasn’t sure. Anxiety bloomed in Colin’s stomach. He’d never have considered the worst case scenarios flashing through his head, but then, he’d never really thought through Nick’s admitted obsession with his career.
Now, he couldn’t help himself.
“I told you,” Colin said, “what all this comes down to for me. Someone. That was what I wanted. So maybe I read the article wondering, with a pit the size of the Pacific Ocean in my stomach, if I’d been wrong about how you felt.”
Nick openly gaped now. “That was what you read it for? Clues about how I felt about you? Didn’t you care about coming out at all?”
“You’d just left me in Miami!” Colin said, both more defensively and at a much louder volume than was probably smart if they were trying to not fight and not let the greater Los Angeles area know they were involved in more than just a platonic relationship.
“For the greater good,” Nick retorted. “I told you why us becoming involved was a bad idea. It’s still a bad idea.”
For the last few years, Colin had heard a thousand times how much people must want to be with him. He’d been propositioned more times than he ever wanted to remember. People looked at him and saw a handsome man, an accomplished man, a rich man. A man everyone wanted. But the funny thing seemed to be, he thought with a bitter sense of irony, that only people who he’d ever wanted could never just accept him and be with him.
“And yet, here we are,” Colin retorted. “So forgive me if I want to find some happiness in a brand new relationship, instead of constantly worrying that it’s going to fuck up everyone’s plans.”
“Are you saying I’m not happy about us?” Nick’s voice edged upwards.
“I’m saying you can’t seem to make up your mind! One minute you’re happy, the next, you’re worried that you’re going to ruin my career. Guess what, you don’t have that much power.” Colin knew that thread of doubt was talking, but he couldn’t quite shut it up.
“Well next time, do me a favor,” Nick said in clipped tones, “and don’t reduce yourself to a romantic relationship. You’re way more than that.” He spun on his heels and started stalking down the Venice boardwalk like it had done something to personally attack him, his feet slapping insistently on the concrete.
“Dude,” a man panhandling near them said, his long limbs arranged on a ratty blanket, his dreads swirled in an enormous bun on his head. “You should probably go after him.”
“Yes, thanks,” Colin snapped in the man’s general direction.
“Just saying,” the man said, holding his hands up. Colin knew the second he recognized him, because his eyes widened comically. “Dude, you’re Colin O’Connor.”
Colin gave a short, clipped nod, hoping to cut this whole interaction off. Normally he might have chatted with him a bit, left him a few bills. Instead this time, he jabbed a hand in his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and peeled off two twenties and leaned over, stuffing them in the chipped tin cup on the blanket and turned to leave. Not so he could go after Nick. Not yet. But so he could go somewhere. Maybe in Nick’s general direction. The man’s voice stopped him in his tra
cks.
“I hate your guts, you know. Went to Stanford so of course that was brutal every year. And then you came out here last year, kicked the Rams’ ass. First home game back in LA and you couldn’t even let us have that.”
Colin sighed. That Rams’ game would forever haunt him. Not many games where he’d thrown three touchdown passes also made him want to crawl in his bed and never leave. “You’re not the only one.”
“You mean, snotty boy over there, trying to pretend he isn’t trying to listen to what we’re saying?”
Nick glanced up and saw that Nick had stopped walking away, and was currently loitering under the next palm tree down.
“I think we just had our first fight,” Colin admitted, because fuck it.
“Here’s the thing,” the man said, leaning over and poking his finger into the cup filled with change and Colin’s bills, “he wouldn’t give a shit if he didn’t care.”
“I...I...I hadn’t thought of it that way before,” Colin said. He hadn’t. Whether or not Nick had come to Miami, wanting to hook up with Colin or not, it was difficult to argue that Nick didn’t care.
Nick cared enough that he’d locked himself in his apartment after he’d left Colin in Miami, drowning himself in bad coffee and a hideously bad mood. Cared enough that he’d given everything he had to write the best possible profile he could about Colin. Cared enough that he’d find a beach where they could hold hands if that was what Colin really wanted.
“You gave me money. It would be shitty to give you bad advice, even if I hate your guts.”
Colin laughed, the sound startled right out of him. “I appreciate that.”
The man waved a hand. “Go get your boy before he has an aneurism.”
When Colin approached Nick’s palm tree, the anxious look on his face went a long way to soothing Colin’s anxiety. Nick cared about him. He wouldn’t be so worried if he didn’t.
He wouldn’t get so frustrated if he didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” Colin said. “I got...I don’t know if I’d call it cold feet exactly. I’m not really proud of being afraid, but I was. I am.”
