by Eden Finley
About one hour and countless thoughts of “What the fuck am I doing?” later, there’s a knock on the front door, and Talon’s voice drifts down the hall as Mom lets him into the house.
He appears in my bedroom doorway looking sheepishly hot.
Can’t he look devastatingly exhausted just once in his life?
Double ugh.
“Hey,” I say sleepily even though I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t with everything running through my head.
“Hey.” His tone and demeanor make my blood turn cold.
“What’s wrong?”
“So, uh, after I threatened to fire Alan louder than I intended to, he’s already been onto his legal department and is trying to keep me locked to his firm.”
I sit up. “Instead of talking to you about it, he got lawyers involved?”
“Yup.”
“What an asshole.”
“I think he’s trying to scare me into stepping back, which is pretty stupid considering I’m doing that anyway because of you.”
“Because of me?”
Talon glances away. “I was wrong earlier. When I said I was going to do it with or without you. It’s both of us or nothing.”
My lips form a thin line, because I don’t know what to say to that.
“I don’t mean that in terms of us. Just … yeah … maybe we do need more time before taking the next step, and we should do it together. We should both be ready. We’re good, right? You and me?”
I know Talon’s waiting for me to respond, but I’ve got nothing. We are good. Everything up until this morning is what I’ve wanted with him for years. Then why does it feel like the beginning of the end? I’m scared to take the next step because it’s going to make us face obstacles we might not be able to survive.
I force myself to nod, but it doesn’t appease him. If anything, his concern line across his forehead deepens.
“I’m gonna get the next flight to L.A. tonight and set up meetings for tomorrow to sort this shit.”
“L.A.?”
“I’m going above Alan’s pay grade for this one. He’s creating more drama than what he’s worth.”
Impulsive as always. “Talon … You owe your career to that man.”
“I owe my career to years of training and hard work. All he did was paperwork.”
I sigh. “I understand you’re mad, but maybe you should think about this. Creating a rift between you and your agent isn’t the best way to spin positive press when we’ll have so much negative coming our way.”
“I’m not the one who has to think anything through. I know what I want. While I’m sorting this agent crap, you should take the time to work out what you want. Because up until a few hours ago, I thought we were on the same page.”
“We are,” I argue. “I just want you without having to defend to the outside world why you’re everything to me. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
Except we both know that it is.
Talon approaches and kisses my forehead. “I already had to decide if what we have is worth facing that. Now it’s your turn. I’ll text you when I land.”
Waking up without Talon next to me is already weird and unnatural.
My body is in training mode, telling me to get up and go for a run even without Talon being on my ass about pushing harder.
Days of running does little to clear my head, but my leg feels good, and even though it has taken an obscene amount of time, I’m finally getting back to my old self—the one who knew he had to train to stay on top of his game.
Talon and I text back and forth, but it’s mainly agent related. He doesn’t push me to make a decision, and I don’t tell him my fears are still the same.
He’s getting the runaround and is about to lose his shit. He refuses to tell me what they’re saying in those meetings though, and if I had to guess, I assume they’re telling him that I’m right. He shouldn’t come out. Only their reason would be pure greed over Talon’s lost endorsements. Because Talon has to know that this will lose him some campaigns. It’ll probably gain him some too, but I can see some of them walking. They’ll use terminology like “negative publicity” to describe it instead of “we’re homophobic assholes,” but it won’t change the outcome.
College Miller wants to slap current me upside the head and tell me to chase after him and be there for him through all of this, but I don’t listen to that voice, and I can’t even say why.
When I’m with Talon, it’s not only that everything is right, it’s like everything else I’ve ever done without him was wrong.
But I’m scared being put under a microscope will be too much, and then I’ll be left with nothing and the entire world wanting to know every sordid detail of my and Talon’s sex lives. Not to mention all the shit that will follow.
Women from our past will come out of the woodwork telling their story, and there’s nothing we can do to refute those claims, but telling the media it was all harmless fun and shouldn’t have an impact is being naïve. Being on the queer spectrum will bring all the sexual deviant slander out, and add in threesomes and orgies? It’ll perpetuate a stereotype that doesn’t even fit who we are as a couple.
As friends, we were fine with sharing and having fun, but what we have together is so much more.
There’s no way to positively spin that, and we’re going to be a PR nightmare. I like my life being private. I’ve loved being the one in the background of paparazzi shots. I don’t want my mom, sister, or niece to be dragged into this.
How do I get over that fear?
How do I tell myself to jump all in and have that blinding faith Talon has and I’ve always been envious of?
It takes a knock on my door for me to gain some real perspective.
When Lennon and Noah stand on the front porch of my mother’s house, Lennon with a tentative stare and Noah with a somber expression, I seem to lose all my proper manners Mom ingrained in me from birth.
“Who is it?” Mom calls out.
“Some friends.”
“Can we come in?” Lennon asks, still hesitant.
“Sorry. Of course.” I step aside and lead them into the kitchen and dining area.
“You’re probably wondering why we’re here.”
“Little bit. Are you going to try to get me to talk publicly?”
Lennon shakes his head. “No, I won’t pressure anyone to do that before they’re ready. I … I actually wanted to share with you what I wrote about Talon.”
My eyes widen. “I thought he didn’t do the interview?”
“He didn’t. Not a proper one. He sat there and talked about you the whole time. I won’t publish this unless both you and Talon sign off on it, but I wanted you to read the words he said about you.”
Lennon reaches into his laptop bag and slides papers over to me.
Mom comes into the room to introduce herself, but I’m too busy staring and focusing on the article in front of me:
Blindsided.
A one-twenty-yard patch of turf is the last place Marcus Talon thought he’d find love. He reserved all his affection on the field for the game, the glory, and his love of football.
That all changed this past season when he signed with the Warriors.
Shane Miller’s job is to protect Marcus Talon’s blind side, but it’s their friendship off the field where they started seeing each other as more than teammates.
“Miller and I clicked the second we met,” the three-time Super Bowl winner says of his college roommate. “It took me six years of missing him to realize I loved him—even back then.”
Marcus Talon didn’t understand his urge to follow Shane Miller and sign with the Warriors last season. He describes it as a gut feeling—the same instinct he has as one of the most successful quarterbacks in the league right now.
The move to Chicago led him to question a lot about himself and his life.
“Miller’s been super patient with me while I’ve figured it all out.”
Talon and Mil
ler are teammates with Matt Jackson—the first out player to win a Super Bowl. When asked about Matt Jackson’s influence over his relationship with Miller, Talon has only one thing to say.
“All Jackson has done has paved the way for others to explore what was already there. My feelings for Shane have been there for years. Jackson having the courage to be one of the first ones in this industry to speak out only gave me the motivation to go for something I’ve always wanted but never knew it.”
Statistics show similar situations in other industries throughout the world. In supportive and accepting environments, it’s more likely people will be open with their sexualities. It’s why we see families with many LGBTQ members and schools with clusters of queer students coming out at similar times. Just one person with the courage to come out can cause a domino effect, similar to what we have seen in the NHL in recent months with the simultaneous outings of Caleb Sorensen and Ollie Strömberg.
“Miller and I became friends over a shared dream. We always planned on winning the Super Bowl together, and that’s still the goal.”
The Warriors won this year’s Super Bowl, but with Shane Miller out for the season due to a hamstring injury and missing twenty games, that’s not good enough for the couple.
“A win where we’re both on the field or it doesn’t count,” Talon says, his eyes shimmering with determination.
It’s the kind of drive only a winner possesses, and with three Super Bowl wins in six years, this quarterback has the talent to pull off another trophy alongside his boyfriend.
In the past year, the NFL has seen its first out player since Michael Sam in 2014, and now it’s facing the new dynamic of welcoming teammates in a relationship.
“I never saw this coming, but there’s no doubt in my mind that Miller and I were meant to be. We were made for each other.”
The article goes on and mentions our stats and the highlights from our careers, and the entire article reaffirms everything I’ve already known but has been drowned out by doubts and other people’s negativity, but it’s the last paragraph that kicks me in the ass and in the gut.
“It’s not easy—loving someone you know other people will have opinions about. It’s not easy being anything society doesn’t expect you to be. But when you’re with the person who was literally created with the sole purpose of being your other half, there’s no way to fight it. There’s only the choice to hide it or face it together, and I want to fight every battle and overcome every obstacle with Miller. I want us to help pave the way for others to be who they want to be and love who they want to love.”
Talon’s words are everything I’ve wanted to hear for so long, but my cautious side hasn’t allowed me to believe it. Waiting for him to freak out, to change his mind, to tell me we don’t belong together after all … I’ve been held back by my own disbelief.
But there it is in black and white. The thing I needed but hadn’t realized.
Talon loves me.
Is that a fix to the problem? No. Are we still going to have to face everything I’m freaking out about? Yes.
Only, facing it doesn’t seem as daunting now.
One L-word shouldn’t change anything, but in my head, it changes everything.
Noah clears his throat, bringing me out of my revelation. “Matt’s not handling this well.”
My stomach sinks. “The Henderson stuff?”
“He thought he was making a difference and that there were no problems with the team. He had buried his issues with Carter and thought everything was fine. Now Henderson is making him question everyone. I don’t want to put pressure on you to come out—that’s not what this is about—but on the off chance you guys are still worried for his sake, I want you to know it might actually be good for him.”
It doesn’t have anything to do with Jackson, and I can’t help feeling guilty and selfish over that. He needs our support.
“Is he okay?” I ask.
A coy smile crosses Noah’s face. “I’m there to comfort him. Constantly.”
“It’s true. I live directly below their bedroom.” Lennon turns to Noah. “Why do you think I’m spending most nights at Ollie’s?”
“Like you’re not doing the same thing over there,” Noah says.
“True, but he doesn’t have any roommates.”
The pang of jealousy that hits me at them casually talking about their relationships makes me realize I’m a fucking coward. But being closeted isn’t the coward part. I’m running away from what-ifs, and that’s no way to live.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
TALON
The idea of coming to L.A. to sort this shit between my agent and me is proving to be useless. I’ve probably spent more time on the phone with them than sitting in their offices, and every time I’ve spoken to one of Alan’s partners about the situation, they’ve expressed their concerns about me coming out. One even called a publicist and put them on speaker phone so I could hear their thoughts on a hypothetical NFL superstar coming out.
They said after Jackson another coming out might be pushing our luck. One is something that can be handled, but two could cause boycotts.
Whoever says the world is different now is full of shit.
One of the agents decide to lecture me for an hour on sports not being the only fucked-up industry. Musicians, actors, and the whole entertainment industry is still full of closeted stars.
Anyone in the public eye is open to scrutiny, which is why coming out is still a big deal when it shouldn’t be.
The one young partner who isn’t over the age of fifty sees where I’m coming from and sympathizes, but even he expressed concerns.
I’ve been in contact with Damon, and he hasn’t been able to find any escape clause in the contract, but he suggested I get a contract lawyer out here to go over it too.
It seems the fight’s already begun, and I haven’t even officially come out yet.
And this is exactly what Miller is worried about. I understand it, I do, and being out here on my own has kind of driven his point home.
So even though I miss Miller like crazy, my slightly crushed ego is preventing me from calling him and telling him he was right. I don’t want to call him until I have a solution.
“How much can I pay them to go away?” I ask my newly appointed lawyer.
He sits behind his big desk in his fancy law firm and purses his lips. He looks as frustrated as I am. Then again, he’s about to make a lot of money off me, so maybe he’s happy they’re fighting this and feigning sympathy.
Miller’s voice echoes in my head: Everything comes easy to you, and you’ve never had to fight for anything.
Now, here I am, trying to pay off my problems, and I want to take it back immediately. If Miller’s going to have faith in us, then he needs to know I’m not going to do the easy fix.
“There’s nothing in your contract saying you can’t get outside representation, but any jobs your second agent gets you, you’re obligated to pay ten percent to Alan’s firm until your contract with the Warriors is up.”
My five-year contract that still has four years on it. That’s millions of dollars to the assholes who are trying to get me to stay quiet about me and Miller.
A true agent who had my best interests at heart would’ve stayed and talked to me that day instead of bolting and lawyering up over the contract. That only made me want to get out of it more.
I have to report for training camp soon, and Miller and I haven’t even sorted our shit out yet either.
For the first time in my life, I’m not in control, and I have no idea how to handle that.
Leaving the meeting dejected, I begin to think Miller’s right. Maybe this is too much. It’s not like he’s here telling me to fight this. He’s probably happy they’re trying to put a stop to me coming out.
And maybe that’s what I have to do? Just … keep it to myself. Even if I’ve never felt this way about another person in my whole life and I want nothing more than to celebrate that.
I thought being a celebrity was invasive enough—I could handle that—but this … the only way I see Miller and I surviving this is if we’re in it together.
I’m distracted by my thoughts as I enter the hotel room, and I don’t notice it right away. My shoes and socks come off, and I dump my phone and wallet on the table in the entryway before freezing at the sound of someone in my bedroom.
Why the fuck is there someone in my room?
I should totally run away, right?
“Hello?”
Shit, I totally just became the stupid chick in a horror film.
It’s probably housekeeping or something, but now, all I can think of is some masked serial killer is going to kill me.
Because I’m completely rational when I’m confused. Clearly.
It’s not a maid in a hotel uniform or a serial killer who steps out of the bedroom door.
No, all six-foot-five and wide-as-fuck Shane Miller stands there, his impressive arms folded as he leans against the doorjamb.
“How did you … where were … and … you’re here?”
He grins. “You’re not the only one who can flirt their way into somewhere.”
I itch to go to him. I’ve never missed someone so fucking much in my life. We may have spent most of this year apart, but being stuck here has been the hardest. Before, it didn’t really matter where we stood with each other. But now … now, everything is different because the man standing before me is my world. He’s all that matters.
Miller takes tentative steps toward me. “I came to tell you—”
“Don’t,” I say and rush him. Within a second, my mouth’s on his, and my tongue pushes past his lips.
