Page 135 of Studs Up
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I didn’t want to do this. We couldn’t just give up like this. His worst nightmare was coming true and he was pushing me away.
My heart was pounding so fast I couldn’t breathe. I almost ignored the text.
The highway stretched before me—one long, straight path to the man I loved.
My eyes burned, and my hands gripped my bent steering wheel so fucking hard I was going to rip it in half.
Possibilities, outcomes, and solutions spun wildly in my mind. It would all be exposed if I went down there and showed up. It would make it worse for him, and we had a game to play. After the game, I could fix it. And that thought became my lifeline.
I hated leaving him like this and letting him hang. But it was all I could do.
I turned my car around and drove back to Seattle as slowly as I could.
…
“Sit down, shut up.” The room got quiet. “We all saw it, and it is what it is. I don’t know if it was one of our fans or some jerk looking for fifteen minutes, but the timing was meant to mentally fuck with the Rovers.”
I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was supposed to be with him. I needed to be the fortress he asked me to be.
There were some murmurs. I glared at every single person who looked like they had a hint of homophobia in their whispers. But I was in the back row, so my efforts went largely unnoticed.
“You okay?” Marcel leaned in and nudged my knee.
“Fine.” The effort it was taking to contain myself had me clenched tight and nearly vibrating. He needed me, and I wasn’t there. I didn’t want to be here, and the most peculiar thought floated through my head.
Quit.
Shockingly my knee-jerk reaction wasn’t fuck no. I sat with that as Coach continued.
“Okay,” Marcel gave me a look that clearly said he didn’t believe me.
“We all need to keep our heads in the game,” Nelson continued. “We won't be speculating on their locker room or their mental status. We get on that field, and we are there to play.”
There were some snickers and more whispers.
“Shut the fuck up,” I snapped, and the room fell silent. Coach glanced at me but didn’t say anything. I had no idea what they were saying, and for the first time, I cared. I cared because if they didn’t accept what I was, there was little hope for Holden. I sent another text, but it went undelivered. He had blocked me. Oh god.
I would rather suffer the pain of each of my bones being snapped in half than to see my text go undelivered.
“That being said,” Nelson said loudly to redirect the room. “I don’t want to hear a single fucking comment about anyone’s sexuality. On this team or any other.” The room fell silent. “Who a person goes home to doesn’t make a difference to the play on the field.”
He heaved a deep sigh and looked every single one of us in the eyes.
“Look,” he leaned on the edge of the table. “I’m not perfect. And because of my ignorance, I lost an outstanding player long ago. I should have stood up for him, and I didn’t. It’s a regret that sticks with me. On this team, everyone has earned their place, and we will conduct ourselves accordingly. Is that clear?”
A clear, ‘Yes Coach’ rang through the room.
Everyone cleared out, and I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure when he finished his little pep talk, but my brain was racing. Quitting, giving up my career, saying fuck it, and going to Portland wasn’t as terrible as I imagined. It didn’t even hurt.
My body jerked like it had made up its own mind. But I had enough sense to stay where I was. If I did that, if I gave up my career before the final, the guilt would haunt Holden, and I would never be able to right this sinking ship.
The Portland Rovers announced a press conference for that evening, and I found myself in the conference room at the training center, still trying to process everything.
I put the press conference on the big TV and dropped down into a chair to watch.
Marcel came in with a few others. Quinn leaned against the wall with intense eyes, ready to analyze everything. That would typically be me, too, if the man I was in love with wasn’t about to show the whole world his nightmare.
“You want to watch that?” Marcel asked.
