“Are you serious?” Jace said. He knew Noah was going to kill him for this, but he was done. No one got to bully Noah, not even his mother.
Carolyn turned to look at him, her glare withering. Jace wasn’t about to back down now, though. He didn’t back down from surgeons, hospital administrators, or overbearing parents at work, and he wasn’t going to keep watching Noah’s mother belittle him.
“You have been giving Noah crap since the moment he got here, and I’m not gonna let you get away with it anymore. He’s your son, and you can’t be happy with even one of his achievements. I don’t give a shit whether or not you like me, but don’t you dare talk to him like that. He’s happy here. He stayed here because it makes him happy. What the hell kind of parent wouldn’t want that for their kid? What kind of parent would come all this way just to bully their son?”
“You can’t say that to me,” Carolyn said, horror on her face.
“Yeah? Stop me.” Jace spread his arms, offering her a free shot—verbal or physical—if she wanted to take it.
“You only married him because…” she paused, obviously struggling to think of a reason. “Because…”
“Because...?” Jace prodded. “Because Ilovehim. But you can’t believe that, can you? You can’t see how anyone could love him because to you, he’s just a disappointment. Ungrateful because he didn’t become exactly the person you wanted him to. Well, I got news for you. Those guys over there? They love him. We all love him.” Jace looked over at Noah, swallowing.
This was the moment. This was the moment where he had to tell Noah how he felt, right here. He couldn’t hold off any longer. “And when I look at him, I see everything I want in my life. I see my present and my future, I see the person I want to come home to every single day, the person I want to curl up on the sofa with. I know why you’re here. Someone told you that Noah married me for his green card, and you wanted to come see him failing at marriage like you think he’s failed at everything else. Well, too bad. This is the real thing, and that’s my husband, and you don’t get to talk to him like he’s anything less than perfect. Not while I’m around.”
Jace’s heart was hammering in his chest. Not only had he just told Noah’s mother off, in public, but he’d also poured all his feelings out for everyone to see.
No one else was making a sound. He’d stunned Carolyn into silence, and he wasn’t sure what to do or say next.
To his surprise, he felt someone touch his hand. He glanced over to see Noah taking it, linking their fingers together, smiling a small, hard-won smile up at him.
Noah wasn’t rejecting him.
That was all the encouragement Jace needed.
“Go sit in the bleachers and try to pretend you’re capable of being happy for your own son for once in your entire life,” Jace instructed, pointing to their team’s side of the stadium. “And if I don’t hear you cheering your goddamn lungs out, you can find somewhere else to sleep tonight.”
Noah squeezed his hand. Jace looked down and smiled a tiny smile, more thrilled than words could express that Noah was here, beside him. Everything was going to be okay. Noah wasn’t running in disgust. The sexuality police hadn’t burst through the door to arrest him. The sky wasn’t falling.
“I love you, too,” Noah said softly.
Jace felt as though his heart might burst out of his chest.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say something earlier,” Jace murmured, just loud enough for Noah to hear. “But I really want this to work out. And it turns out I’m not as straight as I thought I was.”
Noah chuckled. “So you won gay chicken after all.”
“Well, not yet,” Jace wet his lips. “I was hoping to win after the game, though.”
“I think that can be arranged.” Noah tugged him toward the rest of the team. “Come on. We’ve gotta win this game, first.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Noah had a personal policy of not looking at the scoreboard before the last jam of the game, so he wouldn’t let himself get caught up in the idea that he needed a certain number of points. He forced himself to score as many as possible, pushing his body until his muscles burned and his head was spinning right up until the final siren blared.
A cheer went up in the stadium the moment the game ended, though Noah wasn’t sure who it was for until he turned around.
They’d won. They’d won by more than enough to make them contenders for the national championships next year. Noah laughed, looking around at his teammates celebrating. Before he could react, Jace picked him up by the waist, twirling him around in a circle and then holding him close.
“We did it,” Jace said. “You did it,” he added, grinning broadly.
“We did it,” Noah corrected. “All of us. I didn't do any of this on my own.”
“Yeah, well,” Jace said. “We couldn't have done it without you. So I definitely didn't marry you for nothing.”
Noah laughed again. “I remember you giving a speech about all the reasons you married me. I was very into that.”
Jace finally put him down. Noah took a second to get his balance back, and then rolled toward the bench, where the rest of the team was already celebrating. They pulled Jace and Noah into the group hug they'd started.
