“You say that, but I still worry about you,” he responded. He scooted close enough to me that I felt the heat of his body against my leg. “There’s something else on your mind and you need to talk about it. It’s okay to miss him.”
“Mason, I’m fine,” I insisted. “Eric got a bum deal, I was upset that I let him leaving throw me off my game, and I got over it. Now, are we going to blow some shit up or what?”
I leaned forward to grab the controllers and looked down to see Mason’s hand still on my leg. I sunk back into the cushions, handing him his controller as I settled in beside him.
A chill raced through my body when he removed his hand. He had only placed it there as a way to reassure me that he was there for me, but I missed the contact. The pressure reminded me that he had strong hands that’d feel like heaven on other parts of my body.
Every once in a while, I’d see Mason glance over at me, but the look on his face wasn’t that of a concerned friend. His eyes wandered down my chest, once landing on the slight bulge growing in my jeans.
His cheeks flushed when he realized I’d caught him.
“Um, Mace…” I set my controller back on the table and turned to face him. His chest rose and fell unsteadily and his pupils were dilated to the point I barely saw the ring of emerald around the edge of his irises.
My body had reacted the same way to him in the past, but never expected to see such lust radiating from him.
“Yeah?” He turned to mirror my position, not balking when his arm rested on mine and he wrapped his fingers around my forearm.
I had to still be sleeping.
There was no way in hell that my best friend, who happened to be very much straight and I had the memories of nights spent listening to women scream his name to prove it, was flirting with me.
Rather than ask what was on the tip of my tongue, I looked down at my arm, to where his thumb was lightly tracing circles near my elbow. His eyes followed, and then he looked back up at me.
“I’m beginning to wonder if you’re the one who has some explaining to do,” I said, trying to keep my tone casual.
When Mason tried to move away from me, I placed my free hand on his leg. He looked down and back up at me and he seemed nervous.
Mason Atley never got rattled.
If he did, he never let anyone see it, and yet he sat inches away from me picking at lint on his pants while still rubbing his thumb over the hair on my arm.
“Fuck, I promised myself I wouldn’t do this, but I don’t think there’s any other option right now,” he groaned. He tried to pull his hand away from my arm, and I reached up to still him.
“Wouldn’t do what?” I pressed, needing to hear from him that I wasn’t delusional.
“Look, there’s something I haven’t told you. I don’t know why, since you would have understood, but I didn’t. And now, part of me thinks I’ll go crazy if I don’t tell you, but the other part of me is freaking out that you’ll be pissed,” he said quickly. “I don’t want to ruin our friendship, which is why I haven’t said anything.”
“Good God, man! Spit it out already. If it helps, I promise I won’t hit you, no matter what it is that you’re trying to decide whether or not to say.”
As I waited for him to speak, I wondered if it was possible that he was getting ready to blow my mind. The juvenile part of my brain got stuck on the thought of him blowing parts of my body and decided there were much better places he could blow. “Mace, you know every skeleton hiding in my closet and you’ve never judged me for any of it, so what makes you think I’d get upset with you?”
“Because this is some pretty major shit,” he admitted. “Okay, but you have to remember that you promised you wouldn’t hit me. And if youdowant to relocate my jaw, remember that you have to pitch again in a few days, and it’d suck to have to go on the DL over me.”
“Got it.” I briefly released his hand to make a cross over my heart. It was such a stupid gesture, but we’d long ago passed the point of acting like adults around one another.
“So, it’s like this…” he paused long enough to get his thoughts in order. “You’ve met my parents. You know that they’re old hippies who’ve kind of refused to grow up.”
I did know that. It was part of what I loved about Bill and Virginia Atley. They were completely opposite of everything I thought parents were; they were cool, easy-going, and Mason loved spending as much time with them as his schedule allowed, where it was like pulling teeth for me to spend more than a few hours with most of my own family. I nodded and squeezed his fingers, urging him to continue.
“When I was younger, my dad always told me that it didn’t matter what package love came in, as long as the heart inside that package was good. Looking back, I wonder if he knew about me long before I ever did, because he was constantly reminding me of that.” He huffed out a weak laugh.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is…I’m bi.” The energy it took for Mason to utter that one sentence drained the color from his face.
The part of my brain that had lusted after him for years longed to reach for his hand, to bury his face to my chest and tell him that it’d all be okay. Unfortunately, that voice was silenced by the confusion and anger that he’d kept something like this from me.
Had I been standing, I’m sure Mason could have knocked me over with a feather. Not once in seven years had I thought of him as anything but strictly straight. As I sat there replaying his words, I repeatedly clenched and released my fists.
He was right to make me promise I wouldn’t hit him, because that was exactly what I wanted to do. I was pissed, not because of what he said, but because he hadn’t mentioned anything in all the years we’d known one another. If he had, everything might have been different. Then again, that could have been good or bad.
