by Jerry Cole
On the other hand, it wasn’t like everyone needed to know his relationship status. He didn’t know what everyone’s love life was like on the team. He had been inclined toward not telling anyone about him and Jason, keeping it on a strictly need-to-know basis. That was until Elliot’s confession. He didn’t want anyone to have the wrong impression of him. If he made it official in front of all his other teammates, then maybe Elliot would find it easier to let go of him. Or rather, of the idea of him.
After food was over, the coach would talk them through the announcements and then he would announce the schedule for the next few weeks. Taylor was the reason for the meet-up in the first place. He was supposed to be announcing that he would be returning to football in the next few weeks, which didn’t seem fair to George. Taylor had told their coach that he didn’t mind holding off until the season was over so he could train properly, but his coach didn’t want to hear it, though Taylor doubted that he was expected to do much when he went back to the game.
Everyone knew who he was. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, exactly, but somehow Taylor Henshaw had become the name on everyone’s lips a few weeks into the first season of football and, for some reason, it never seemed to drop off. He had expected it to, but it hadn’t, and he had never under-performed. As far as Taylor could tell, that was what had made him acquire a sort of legendary status among both his peers and the people that surrounded them, not that he really paid much attention to it. He just knew that his being back on the team was a kind of popularity play. He didn’t mind it, really. He would do anything that he needed to do in order to keep his scholarship. Ultimately, that was what his worry came down to. If he was going to be some sort of popularity beacon for the team, was he allowed to have — well, he didn’t even really know what to call what he had with Jason. That was something to talk to him about.
But some members of the team had jokingly told him that he should stick to not having relationships with anyone, that it would be better if he just kept things casual. Which he had absolutely no problem doing.
But that had been Before Jason. All of that had been before Jason. He looked at George. Words were coming out of his mouth, but he wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying or to him. He needed to go up there and just make the announcement.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder, which indicated that they were waiting for him to make a speech.
He went to the middle of the room, and cleared his throat. A few people shouted appreciatively and he waited for the noise to die down before he spoke.
“Hey, guys,” he said. “So as some of you probably already figure out by the fact that we’re all here, I’m going to go back to playing in a few weeks. My arm is doing a lot better and the physical therapist and the doctors already cleared me. I still have to do a physical right before, but things should be pretty good from now on.”
Taylor waved off more appreciative hollering from the crowd.
“Now, guys, I’m really excited to do this. I’m really happy that my arm is better and you guys know that I love playing. First, I want to thank George for being such a wonderful stand-in. So if you could all give him a hand.”
The applause lasted less time than Taylor wanted it to, though it was obviously sincere. Taylor knew that he was stalling, but the more he talked, the more he dreaded saying. He took a deep breath and clenched his fists, looking at the ground before he spoke. “Lastly, there’s one more thing I wanted to talk to you all about. And this one is kind of personal, so if you guys could bear with me for a bit while I try to get my thoughts in order.”
“Ohh,” he heard someone say.
From the corner of his eye, he could see Elliot. He was standing nearby, with a red cup in his hand. He was staring at him, with something like a mixture of worry and annoyance in his eyes. But Elliot couldn’t really be someone that Taylor thought about as he tried to say the rest of what he needed to say. This needed to be about him, just about him.
“There’s — I met someone,” he finally said, as loudly as he could. He took a breath to steady himself as he kept talking, but one of his teammates shouted from the back.
“That’s it? That’s your big announcement? Is she some sort of playboy bunny or something?”
“No, it’s — it’s not that,” Taylor finally replied. “It’s a guy.”
The sound of murmurs spread around the room as everyone took the news in. Taylor looked around, trying to gauge whether the reaction was good or bad. He really hoped that he had done nothing that would put his scholarship in jeopardy. He could feel a cold sweat coming on when another team member shouted from the back. “That’s it? That’s your big announcement? Is he some sort of playgirl model or something?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jason was looking at his phone, trying to decide whether to send Taylor a text. They had agreed to meet at seven o’clock at the restaurant, but Jason had gone way too early and he was sitting outside wondering what to do. They had seen each other after class on Thursday and they had exchanged a couple of quick kisses outside, in the parking lot, that couldn’t — shouldn’t have been — turned into anything else. Mostly because it was right outside where Jason worked, but also because Jason didn’t want things to go any further then and there. He wanted them to have a repeat of their first night together on a bed. Despite that wish, he still found it difficult to keep his hands off Taylor. It was only the neon sign with the gym’s name and logo on it towering over them that stopped Jason from pushing Taylor back into his car and fucking him right then and there.
But he hadn’t. He had waited patiently until it was time for their date. Well, not that patiently, since he had left almost an hour before he needed to. There was also the fact that Taylor had texted Jason to tell him that there was something that he needed to talk to him about. He had assured Jason that it wasn’t a bad thing, but he couldn’t help but worry about it. Their relationship — if Jason could even call it that — was so new and already there had been so much drama.
Taylor seemed just as invested as he was, but Taylor was out of Jason’s league. Jason knew that and the moment that Taylor figured it out, he would probably be out of there. He would find someone better, their gender notwithstanding. Jason was still pretty convinced that something had short-circuited in Taylor’s brain when it came to Jason.
He was sure that Taylor’s brain would right itself eventually, the fault would be worked out and Taylor would become uninterested in him. Taylor didn’t seem like the kind of person who thrived on drama either, at least according to what Jason could see. But Taylor was willing to put up with a lot more from Jason than Jason had thought possible. And it was obvious that Jason had his own insecurities about how things were going to develop, since he had been worried about what his roommate had told him.
As the weeks progressed, it was Jason who was starting to worry about what Taylor’s roommate had confessed to him. Even if Taylor had been attracted to Jason in the first place, now Taylor’s roommate knew that he was into guys, too.
Taylor could do anything to reassure him, but the threat was still there. And despite Jason’s best efforts, that was the only way that he could see Taylor’s roommate.
He was busy worrying when he felt Taylor softly tap him on the shoulder. He looked back up at him and smiled. “Hello,” Jason said.
“Hello,” Taylor replied. “Have you been waiting long?”
“No,” Jason said. “I just came by a little earlier than I had to and, I don’t know, I’ve just been hanging out.”
“You haven’t gone in to ask for a table yet, have you?”
“No,” Jason said. “Was I supposed to?”
“No,” Taylor replied. “It’s actually good that you haven’t, because I kind of wanted to do this outside. Do you want to go for a walk?”
Jason looked at him, cocking his head. “Sure,” he said. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“A little. Look, it can wait, I kind of just wanted to do this s
omewhere private.”
“Do — do this?” Jason looked around. Maybe this was the moment he had been dreading. Taylor had come back to his senses after all and things were about to end before they had really started. Jason had tried to brace himself in the event of something like this happening. He knew that it was likely that it would happen, he just hadn’t wanted to believe it.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Taylor said, sitting down next to him and grabbing his hand. “It’s not a bad thing, I promise.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” Taylor replied, rolling his eyes. “Remember that thing I said I wanted to talk to you about?”
“Yup, I remember,” Jason said. “Is it about that?”
“Yes, but not here,” Taylor said, looking around. “This is kind of embarrassing so…”
“Okay, sorry,” Jason said. He was trying to put whatever it was that Taylor was trying to tell him off, mostly because he didn’t want to hear it. He just wanted them to stay in the same happy and safe cocoon that Jason was happy to be in, but it seemed like Taylor didn’t want the same thing. If only Jason had been more prepared for it, maybe things would have turned out fine.
But Jason hadn’t been prepared for it at all. He thought that it might happen, sometime, in the future. Not right then. He thought he could at least get a few more weeks of Taylor, but obviously, that wasn’t going to happen. He just had to find a way to get over it.
“Seriously,” Taylor said, tapping his foot on the floor. “I promise you it’s nothing bad, so will you wipe that worried look off your face?”
“Yes,” Jason said, quite aware that the worried look was still on his face. “Sorry, I’m just not very good with surprises and I’ve been kind of on edge all day.”
“Sorry,” Taylor replied, looking a little bit embarrassed. “God, I’m sorry, I legitimately didn’t think about anything like that happening. I’m such an idiot.”
Now that Taylor was standing, he held out his hand and offered it to Jason, who took it without thinking. They walked in silence on the sidewalk, toward a small wooded area near a lake. Taylor opened his mouth a couple of times to say something but decided to keep whatever he was going to say to himself. They stopped on the bridge and Taylor turned toward Jason, to smile at him.
“Are you ready?”
Jason swallowed, looking away. “You said I shouldn’t be scared, right?”
“That’s right,” Taylor replied, laughing. “Don’t be. I promise, it’s only a good thing.”
“Okay,” Jason said, raising his eyebrows. Now he really couldn’t think of what Taylor was going to say. If he wasn’t going to break up with him, then what could he say? That he had researched positions on the internet? That he had found his own prostate?
Taylor took a deep breath before he spoke. “So, you’re probably going to think that this is a bit full on or whatever, but you know I play football, right?”
“Yeah,” Jason said, nodding. “Which, by the way, I still have no idea what the rules of the game are.”
Taylor laughed, shaking his head. “That’s cool, I’ll explain them to you some other time. But do you know that the reason I’m here is because of a sports scholarship?”
Jason glanced at Taylor for a second. He knew that Taylor was young, but he had forgotten how much younger than him he was, exactly. He was still a student, on a scholarship, and there was a chance that he would get recruited by a professional team. Jason had looked Taylor up. He hadn’t realized how good he was — he needed to call Sara, who walked him through Taylor’s stats and the season highlight section of the team’s website.
“Have you been recruited by someone?” Jason asked before he could stop himself. “Are you moving?”
“What? No,” Taylor replied, smiling. “No, I’m not even in my senior year yet.”
“Oh, my God, how old are you?”
“Relax,” Taylor said, laughing this time. “I’m twenty-one. That’s not too young for you, is it?”
Jason shrugged. “I guess not.”
“I’m sorry,” Taylor replied. “I’m kind of torturing you, aren’t I?”
“I figure you’ll tell me when —”
Taylor kissed him on the mouth softly, then moved away from him and smiled. “I told them.”
“You told who? You told them what?”
Taylor shook his head, as though he couldn’t believe that Jason didn’t know what he was talking about straight away. “The guys.”
Jason cocked his head. He was trying to understand what Taylor was trying to tell him, but he was finding it kind of hard to extract any meaning from Taylor’s words. He knew that Taylor’s words were probably being colored by his own insecurities, but Taylor wasn’t doing that much to help him. “Which guys?”
“The guys on the team, Jason,” Taylor said, a little more impatiently than Jason had expected. “I told them about us. Don’t you get it?”
“Wait,” Jason said, shaking his head. “You’re — you’re saying that you came out to the rest of the guys on your team?”
“Yes,” Taylor replied. “Well, I told them that we’re together. Well, not you and me, because they don’t know who you are. But they know that you’re a man and they seemed very supportive of that, so that was pretty cool.”
“They — they did?” Jason asked, cocking his head. He couldn’t imagine a bunch of burly and scarily big men going around the room and congratulating Taylor on his new — well, whatever Jason was. He wasn’t sure how to think about it yet. But whatever they were, it was obviously a big deal to Taylor if he had just come out and told his teammates about it.
Jason finally understood what Taylor had been trying to tell him earlier.
Other than his father, his teammates were the most important people in Taylor’s life. So coming out to them had been a huge deal to Taylor. And it had just reaffirmed what Taylor had said after he had told Jason he didn’t want anyone to know, at least not at first.
He wasn’t ashamed.
He was all in.
Jason looked at Taylor, wanting to tell him all these things. But instead, he found himself leaning up and kissing him on the mouth, softly at first, then a little more desperately as the effect of Taylor’s always intoxicating kisses started to spread all over his body.
Taylor kissed him back, wrapping his arm around Jason’s waist and bringing him closer to Taylor’s body so their cocks were rubbing against each other even under their clothes. “Yes,” he said. “They all took it really well. I think they’re a little less happy about it now, though.”
“Less? Why?” Jason said, covering Taylor’s lips with his own before Taylor could answer him. Taylor kissed him back again, just as hungrily as before, until Jason’s legs were wrapped around Taylor’s waist. Taylor seemed to have absolutely no problem carrying Jason, though it was a shame that both of his arms were occupied. One was wrapped around Jason’s back, holding him steadily at the waist, and the other one was on Jason’s leg, moving up and down over the fabric.
Jason moved back for a second. They were mostly covered by trees, Jason thought, and the area they were in wasn’t particularly trafficked. But he had wanted to keep things to a proper bed, because he had wanted something real with this man. But now that Taylor had gone out and told everyone about them, that was real. That solidified things, as far as Jason was concerned. But having their second sexual encounter on a bridge, where someone could see them, that probably wasn’t the wisest idea either one of them had ever had.
“Because,” Taylor replied, taking the break as an opportunity to speak. “I kind of wouldn’t shut up about you.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“No,” Taylor said, shaking his head. “But, why would I? I have so many things to tell everyone about you.”
“Like what?”
“Like how wonderful you are,” Taylor said, kissing the tip of Jason’s nose. “Like how you’re so athletic you probably put me to shame and you do it all with a smile on you
r face.”
Jason smiled. “You’re so sweet.”
“I’m not,” Taylor said. “You just bring out the best in me.”
He leaned in for another kiss and Jason groaned as he had to physically restrain himself from kissing him back. “If I keep kissing you,” he said. “I’m not going to stop at just a kiss. And this is —”
“What you want,” Taylor interrupted him, kissing him on the mouth, letting his soft lips linger against Jason’s. He kissed him so softly, so gently, so many times, that Jason was completely unsure about why he had wanted Taylor to stop kissing him in the first place. He felt as if he was drunk when he kissed Taylor, not holding anything back. His hips were moving of their own accord, thrusting and jerking against Taylor. Despite the fabric between them, he could feel Taylor’s erection and the friction was driving him insane. He hadn’t done this kind of thing since high school because he hadn’t needed to. But there was something about Taylor that brought a primal side out of him, and he had to admit that he loved it. He would admit it, once he was done breathlessly writhing against Taylor’s body.
He reached down and undid Taylor’s zipper. It was hard, from the position he was in. But Taylor was strong and he carried him to where the railing on the bridge was, setting him down just enough so that he would access to Taylor’s pants. Still, he had a steady, reaffirming arm around Jason’s back. Jason had never been a fan of heights, but he only thought about that for a split second as he returned all of Taylor’s kisses. His hands fumbled with Taylor’s jeans until his zipper was open. Then he undid his own pants. Taylor took a second to take a break, looking at him questioningly.
Jason knew that there was a good chance that Taylor was familiar with frottage, though he doubted that he would know the name of the practice. Frotting, however, was probably something completely new to him.
Taylor whispered in his ear when he saw him undoing his own zipper. “Do you want me to drop to my knees or —”
