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“Shit,” I said, rolling off the edge of the bed to gather up my clothes. “Do you want me here or⁠—”

“No. Stay.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said, stepping into my boxers.

Cally leaned over and plucked his phone off the nightstand, swiping the screen to answer and bringing it to his ear. “Hey, Donovan.”

I pulled my sweatpants up over my ass and sat back down on the edge of the mattress, watching him for any clues as to how the conversation was going. Every few seconds he’d let out a “yeah” or “uh-huh” that was accompanied by either a nod or a shake of his head. I couldn’t hear a word coming from Donavan’s end, though that wasn’t unusual—the man was extremely soft spoken, a rarity in his profession.

After nearly a minute of radio silence on his end, Cally cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said. “I understand. Thanks for trying. Of course. We’ll talk later.”

He ended the call, tossed his phone toward the foot of the bed, and dropped his head back against the headboard with a heavy sigh. “Didn’t get it,” he said quietly, rolling his head to look at me.

I climbed back onto the bed and knee-walked over to Cally. “Hey,” I said softly. “We knew this was a possibility. It doesn’t matter.”

Cally snorted. “I mean, it kind of matters. That’s how I was planning to come out.”

I didn’t want to tell him how to live his life, but I’d never quite understood his insistence that an ad campaign was the best way to announce to the world he was gay.

Aside from the fact that he hated the spotlight—a big, splashy rainbow-themed spread just wasn’t who he was—the only thing this idea had going for it was how much it would piss off his dad, especially considering he was the one who’d brought the brand ambassador opportunity to Cally’s attention in the first place.

“Donovan said they took a lot of heat after their Olympics campaign, so they wanted their next one to focus on ‘real American values,’ whatever the fuck that mean.”

I dropped onto my butt and spun to sit beside him. “You know exactly what it means, Cal,” I grumbled.

“Yeah,” he breathed out, his lips turned down in irritation. “They booked Benson Wilder and his fiancée”

“I … what?”

Wilder getting hitched felt about as likely as Banks winning the Vezina—which was to say it was never going to happen. Everyone knew the guy had a girl—or three—lined up in every city he played in. His exploits were legendary in rooms all over the league.

“That guy’s engaged?”

Cally shrugged. “Apparently.”

Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t give two shits about Benson Wilder’s upcoming nuptials outside of the novelty of it all, but Cally’s dad was obsessed with the guy. If Wilder did something, Robert Callahan believed his son should do it, too. And that meant Cally was about to be inundated with young, hot models or actresses his dad deemed worthy of the Callahan name.

“You’re about to be so screwed.”

He groaned, slouching down with a pout. “Why’d he have to go and get engaged? Couldn’t he have like, I don’t know, signed another watch deal or something? That fucker always has to beat me.”

It took exactly three seconds for his words to register, and when they did, our reactions were simultaneous—Cally’s head whipped toward me at the exact same time I turned to look at him, both of our eyes comically wide. We looked down at each other’s left hands at the same time, the matching gold bands on our fingers catching the light.

“But I’m already married,” Cally whispered, his fingers waggling as a wicked, devious grin formed on his lips. He lifted his gaze up to mine, his eyes flicking wildly over my face.

“Cal. No.” I shook my head.

He nodded. “No one will give a damn about his stupid wedding once they know about ours.”

“Is this really how you want to tell the world about us? About you?”

He nodded again, a laugh bubbling out of him. “Suddenly, I really, really do.”

I wasn’t dumb. I knew Cally’s motivation here was largely driven by spite. If I was a better man, I’d ask him to reconsider. But I was neither, and I’d never been good at telling this man no.

“Okay, how do you want to do this?”

“Here,” he said, holding his hand out toward me, palm facing up. “Give me your hand.”