Ace shot me a sideways look.“Still,” he said.“You’re both gay.And you both have a thing for each other.”
I blinked at him.What?No.That was… “Are you sure Brody didn’t hit you in the head at any point?”I asked.“You might have a concussion.You’rethe gay one.”
“We all are,” Ace said.He tilted his head at me.“All three of us.Why do you think he’s allowed me to carve out this niche with gay athletes?He supports them being able to play while out because he never got the chance.”
“But – he – but the – no, he…” I felt like my brain was short-circuiting.“That’s not right.He’s straight.I did alotof research before I took this job.He’s straight.”
“The media says he’s straight,” Ace replied.“I’m saying he’s gay.Who are you going to trust, the internet or the person who has been working closely alongside him for years?”
I gaped, my mouth dropping wide open.“But… if he’s not out, then…”
“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have told you,” Ace said.He looked off to the side, out of his window.“I just hate to see two people throwing away a perfectly good opportunity.”
My brain wasn’t just short-circuiting.It was soup.I couldn’t make out a thing of what Ace was saying.“What are you talking about?”
He shrugged lopsidedly.“Don’t tell him I told you, alright?I like my job.”
Two people… an opportunity?Did he mean that I would be able to work for him better if I knew the truth?That we would gel and I wouldn’t be trying to quit or work for Ace directly instead?
Or… what was it he had said?That we bothhad a thing for each other?
“I don’t – I mean, I’m not…” I laughed nervously, though it came out so strangled that it probably wasn’t convincing anybody.“I don’t have a – athing, whatever a thing even means, I mean, that’s just…”
“Sure,” Ace said, arching a single eyebrow.“I believe you.”
His flat tone implied the exact opposite.
I shook my head.All of this was too much of a revelation to deal with.“I wish you hadn’t said that.I have to go back and sit in an office with him, now.”
“Yep,” Ace said.“That’s the idea.”He leaned back against his chair, arm up over the backrest, one hand still pressing the icepack against his mouth.I couldn’t make head nor tails of him.Maybe he really had taken too hard a hit to the head.
I was starting to think that maybe I had, for all the sense this was making.
But Ace was clearly unrepentant about dropping such a huge bombshell on me and then letting me walk away to deal with it.There was nothing left for me to do but go where I was called – and, apparently, I was being called to Mr.Harvey’s side.
I sidled into the office with a sincere wish that he didn’t have such huge double doors and that they weren’t closed all of the time.If it had been a trip through a single open door I might have gotten away with being unnoticed, but there was a certain level of drama that came with opening a double set no matter how much you wanted to be invisible.
Mr.Harvey looked up at me, fixing me with an ice-clear blue gaze that almost had me stopping in my tracks.“Ace is icing that lip?”
I nodded quickly, dropping my head and looking away, focusing on getting to my chair.“Yes, yes, he’s fine.”
“Good.”There was a long pause during which I almost tripped over every single wire near my desk, finally seating myself in the chair with no small sense of relief.“We’ll be here late tonight.”
I almost choked.Why did everything sound so much more loaded now that I knew the truth?I wished Ace had never told me.
Then I glanced up at Mr.Harvey again shyly, and…
I was so glad he had.
Because now my fantasies were able to run riot.Mr.Harvey wasgay.As in, he was actually playing for my team.Therewas a sports metaphor I actually understood.
Then I had to glance away with my cheeks furiously burning and remember that, no, this was a terrible thing.Having my fantasies able to rampage unchecked was aterrible thing.I was never going to be able to look at Mr.Harvey straight-on again.
Those thick arms, straining the fabric of his jacket.Those wide shoulders that could probably serve as a seat for my bony ass with room to spare.That chiseled jaw that just begged me to –
Nope.
I blew out a deep breath, trying so hard to focus on not getting hard in my workplace.
