“But you can’t. He’s a grown man and he’s going to make his own choices. The only thing you can do is make sure he knows he’ll have your support, even if you’re biting your tongue the entire time. He’ll be fine. Now, get up there and get dressed,” I told him as I stood.
I held out a hand to help him up. When he rose, I pulled him against my chest, wrapping my arms around his waist and burying my face in the crook of his neck. “I’m sorry I pushed you.”
“I’m not,” he admitted. He cupped my face in his hands, tilting my head up to stare into his eyes. “I needed to let that out, but I couldn’t force myself to talk about it. And did you really say you love me in the middle of all that, or am I delusional?”
The tip of his tongue poked between his lips as he smiled for the first time in too damn long. I playfully smacked his chest, grateful that we’d found our way back to more solid footing. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
To prove I was yanking his chain, I slid my hands up his back. “Yes, you ass, I love you. I have for a long time, even if I suck at saying the words. I still can’t believe this thing between us is really happening.”
“Well, it is, so get used to it.” He closed the distance between us, sealing his mouth over mine, forcing my mouth open. I ground my hips against his, earning a swat on my ass as he pulled away. He chuckled as he took off up the stairs. “None of that now. You’re the one who said we had to get out of this house.”
“Yeah, we’ll I’ve been known to have a lot of shitty ideas,” I yelled after him.
Now that the air had been cleared between us, I allowed myself to hope we’d be okay. Until I’d given voice to my fears, I hadn’t even acknowledged to myself how worried I’d been that his mood was because he regretted dividing his time the way he had been. Regretted me, but couldn’t say anything. That his physical and emotional distance were the result of a failing on my part. Knowing what was going on made it easier to face his upcoming trip home for Thanksgiving. I could tell myself, and hopefully believe, that he’d be back.
That didn’t mean the blame was entirely on Linc for the tension that’d been weighing us down. If I was committed to what was happening between us, I needed to be willing to bend my own worldview to meet him somewhere in the middle.
He’d rearranged his entire life for me. He was no longer the doting father, hovering over his son to make sure he kept his grades up without his football performance suffering. He was states away from one of his closest friends, the man he’d once asked to step in and raise Hunter if anything happened to him and Isabella, while Patrick slowly withered away because of too many helmet to helmet hits and hard tackles.
The least I could do was take the man out on a real date. While he finished getting dressed, I pulled up a search on my phone, praying I could finagle reservations at the perfect destination.
We got in the car and headed for the beach. My original plan had been to take him to use the weight room at the training facility so we didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing us, but that idea flew out the window when I realized I was doing that for my own security, not his. With it being a short day, there would be no one hanging around, and those who were still watching tapes or trying to get in an extra workout wouldn’t think anything of Linc’s presence.
“What are we doing?” Linc asked as I wound my way through town, the opposite direction from the Breakers facilities.
“Figured we’d head down to the beach, get a little fresh air while getting our blood flowing.”
“I’m fine with just going to the weight room,” he responded, placing a hand on my leg. “We don’t need to do anything you’re not ready for.”
“And taking a run on the beach is something I’m ready to do. Don’t make such a big deal out of it.”
“Okay.”
It being the middle of a weekday during the off-season made any of the local beaches a relatively safe training ground. We could run along the waterline, pushing ourselves without having the added obstacle course of dodging around kids building sand castles and parents trying to keep them safe.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take into account how many of the players lived along this particular stretch, which led to the first challenge of my resolve to quit hiding Linc’s presence in my life.
We were halfway to the pier when I saw deShawn Wall jogging our direction. I told myself the sudden breathing difficulty was because of the pace Linc forced me to maintain, not because I was freaking the fuck out that deShawn might ask questions.
Maybe next, I’d work on being honest with myself. “Hey, what’re you doing down here? Figured you were more of a treadmill runner.”
Linc laughed, because he knew deShawn was telling the truth. I knew the benefits of running with natural resistance from the sand, but I wasn’t a fan of having to dump out my shoes when I got home. If I did run outdoors, it was always along marked, paved trails.
Still, I wasn’t going to admit to deShawn that he had me pegged. “Yeah, but it’s too nice of a day to stay cooped up inside.”
It really was, too. There were high-altitude clouds, which still allowed the sun to shine through without blinding you. And with the breeze coming off the ocean, the temperature was comfortable, even after running a few miles with a sadistic fuck who didn’t realize he was retired and allowed to slack off.
The way deShawn kept glancing from me to Linc and back again made me twitch. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, rooting them in place so I couldn’t physically step away from Lincoln. I promised myself I wasn’t doing that shit anymore. And deShawn was one of the good guys.
He’d been a vocal ally when Zach came out, telling the entire locker room that if they had a problem with Zach being gay, they could bring it to him. He wouldn’t care, right?
“I hear that,” deShawn agreed. “You visiting again, Mr. Sims? Seems you’ve been around a lot this season.”
I swallowed hard, biting my tongue to keep from answering for Linc. I should’ve known there was nothing to worry about. Linc wouldn’t do anything to shine a spotlight on the fact that we were together.
“It’s a nice change of scenery. I needed to get away from Alabama for a bit, figure out what’s next for me now that my boy’s in college, and Nixon was nice enough to offer up his spare room,” he answered without missing a beat.
I should’ve been elated with his answer, but a dull weight landed on my chest. Linc wasn’t the type to skirt around the truth, but he was doing it for me. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to clarify, to tell one of my players that Linc was here because we were together. He wasn’t a guest sleeping in my spare room, he was a fixture in the house, one whose absence would be felt every time he flew home to Alabama.
