Page 58 of Puck Me Twice

“My mom offered me her diamond ring, and I... well, I freaked out,” he admits. “I couldn’t handle the pressure of getting married. It was overwhelming. Especially with the league looming over me.” He blows out a breath. “For two weeks, I convinced myself it was just cold feet. I planned this perfect proposal.”

My eyes widen. “What?”

“I planned to propose on your birthday,” Robby blurts.

“And instead you dumped me.” My voice is hard. My heart is harder.

“I thought it was just the idea of marriage in general,” he continues. “It took me about a year to realize it was the thought of marrying a woman that terrified me.”

My eyebrows go up.

“I never really… I wasn’t interested in guys, or so I thought. I admired them, and I looked up to them, but I never wanted to fool around with them. And everyone looks in the locker room, even if they say they don’t.” He blushes. “I… well, I had this teammate, and we… well, I figured out pretty quickly that I was into dudes, and after a bit of soul-searching, I put the pieces together.”

“But we… I mean, you and I…” I wave my hands.

“We had sex. We had a lot of sex,” he says bluntly.

“Yeah. That.”

“All I knew was something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what it was,” Robby says.

“So you’re gay? You’re not bi?”

He blows out a breath. “I had those two girlfriends in high school, and you and I were together, but I wasn’t… women never caught my eye the same way. And now that I’ve been with a few men, I can see the absence of a real connection with anyone previous.”

I swallow. “Is this because of me? Because of something I did?”

“Nessie, no. No, no.” He reaches for my hand, and to my surprise, I let him take it. “I’ve always been gay, I just didn’t know it yet. It has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

“But—“

“I was born this way. I always have been, and always will be gay, and there’s nothing anyone can do to change that.” He shakes his head. “It’s not a bad thing. It’s kind of a relief, really, to figure out this part of me that was missing for so long.”

My throat is dry, and I take a sip of my latte, but it’s too hot and it burns my tongue.

“Larsson is a good guy,” Robby says, shifting the subject.

I look away. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“He and I had a chat the other day, and it made me realize you needed to know my truth,” he continues. “I don’t have romantic feelings for you, but a part of me will always love you, and now that I have you back in my life, I don’t want to lose you again.”

My stomach lurches. “Uh, what?”

“We were good together. As a couple, yeah, we had our faults. But if I were attracted to women, you’d be everything I’d want. Fuck, you were everything I wanted.”

“But that changed.”

“But I realized what I needed in a partner,” he corrects. “And it has absolutely nothing to do with you or anything you did, it was all me. It just took me some time to figure it all out.”

“So… what now?”

“Larsson loves you,” he says.

I roll my eyes and look away.

“He loves you, and I saw the look on your face when he started talking about marriage on the plane last night.”

“Yeah. You’re the one that brought it up.”