Joel kissed him again. “Thank you.Thank you.”
When they were in Quentin’s hotel room, they kissed for a while, in no rush to talk. Joel felt suddenly like they had all the time in the world. He let Quentin take his shirt off, kiss his chest and stomach, and then lead him to the bed, where Quentin removed his own clothes and stretched out on top of Joel. They had sex without hurrying, and for the first time, it didn’t feel like fucking.
They were making love.
Afterwards, when they’d showered together and Quentin had made a pot of coffee, Joel sat wrapped in a bathrobe on the bed, looking down at the flat carpet of the hotel room.
“I need to say something,” he whispered.
Quentin brought him a cup of coffee and sat beside him. “I’m listening.”
Joel took a deep, fortifying breath. “Like I said, I don’t always get to make decisions about my public life. A lot of it is controlled for me. The people who make those decisions, though, don’t make them based on emotion or, really, based on humanity. They’re businesspeople, and they care about money and the bottom line. I’m tired of allowing myself to be treated like a brand, or like a product. I’m a person, and I haven’t let myself live that way in a while.”
He looked at Quentin, who was starting softly at him. Quentin’s dark hair was damp, and his cheeks were still flushed from their lovemaking.
“I love you,” Joel said. The words were simple and direct, and they were exactly what he wanted to say. “Maybe it’s crazy for me to say that right now, when we’re only hooking up, but I love you, Quentin. I thought I hated you when I met you, but I was wrong. You are one of the most incredible, inspiring people that I know. You are brave, and I admire that you want to fight to make the world better and kinder. I want that, too, and I want to do it with you.” He took a breath. He needed to keep speaking before he lost his nerve. “Like I said, maybe it’s crazy to tell you that I love you right now, but—”
“I love you, too,” Quentin said quietly.
Joel almost dropped his coffee. “You do?”
Quentin smiled. “Of course, I do. Joel, you’re…you’re magnificent. You areradiant. I love you, and I am willing to do what it takes for us to be together. If that means a secret relationship, I’ll do that. Whatever it takes. I want to be with you, in any way that I can. If it means I have to wait to come out, or never come out publicly,I’ll do that. I know my truth. My truth is that I’m queer, and another part of that truth is that I love you. That truth matters to me, and I don’t need the world to know that truth for it to be valid and real. All I need is for you to know it, and to believe it.”
“I believe it.” He sighed, and then he grinned. He felt full of joy suddenly, and felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “Okay. We need to figure this out, then.”
“Details can be figured out in the morning,” Quentin said. He kissed Joel. “Right now, I just want to be with you.”
They lay together in Quentin’s hotel bed, holding each other. They talked for a long time, not about the future, but about anything else. They held each other and kissed, and made love once more before falling asleep in each other’s arms.
Quentin’s alarm went off early the next morning. Joel was still half-asleep as Quentin climbed out of bed and kissed him on the forehead. “I have an early plane to catch back to Boston,” he said, “but I’ll be in touch. Do you want to come to Boston for a few days after Albuquerque? I have some home games. We can be together, and we can figure out the future.”
Joel smiled sleepily. “I’d like that.”
“You can stay here until you’re ready to go,” Quentin said. “Checkout isn’t until eleven, and no one will bother you.”
After another kiss, he left.
Joel didn’t fall back to sleep, but he stayed in the bed, enjoying the warmth and enjoying the knowledge that he’d spoken the truth that he loved Quentin, and giddy at the fact that Quentin loved him back.
When his phone rang, buzzing against the nightstand, he almost didn’t answer it. But when he saw that it was Shivonne, he sighed and picked it up.
“Hi,” he said sleepily. “Don’t worry, I’ll be—”
“Get your ass to Los Angelesnow.”
Joel snapped into full wakefulness. Shivonne was practically shouting, and she sounded out of breath. Horns blared in the background.
“What?” he asked. “What’s going on? Are you—are yourunning?”
“Traffic on the 405,” Shivonne gasped. “I abandoned the car, and I’m running to my office.”
Joel’s stomach dropped. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is you’ve been conducting a private affair behind my back with an internationally famous hockey star, and I’ve been politely pretending not to notice, butsomeonegot a picture of you and Hartley in Chicago, and now it’s all over the news.Get your ass back to Los Angeles, now.”
Joel dropped the phone and leapt out of bed.
It was a nightmare, but he was awake. Nothing felt real. He couldn’t reach Quentin because he was thirty thousand miles in the air, flying back to Boston. His phone was practically blowing up with scandalous news. He and Quentin had thought they’d been so careful, sneaking out of that hotel in Chicago. They thought no one had seen them. When had they gotten sloppy? The photo was all the material the trashy news needed to paint a wild story. A scandalous affair between two world-famous men. The Internet was blowing up. Everyone had something to say, and Joel wanted to ignore all of it. He wanted to crawl into a cave in some distant country and never hear from anyone again. His phone rang constantly with messages from Ariadne, from his producers, from his family, from other friends. He ignored every call and every text. He only wanted to hear from Quentin, and right now Quentin was unreachable.
