30
Coach James
James couldn’t do it when Steve was around. He would need total privacy for this particular phone call.
He told Steve he’d be inside in a bit and waited until he’d taken Kenny into the house too. Although Steve looked at him suspiciously, he eventually left him alone.
So much weighed on his heart. He wanted to help Steve and his brother any way he could, but he’d hidden something from them that could destroy everything. And now, now it was too late to just come clean. That would look even more suspicious. He didn’t know what to do. He had hidden something from Steve and it killed him.
In fact, he’d hidden more than just one thing.
He dialed the number and tapped his fingers along the steering wheel waiting for the answer.
“Hey,” James said, speaking into the phone while he sat in his truck.
“Who’s this?” the voice on the other end asked.
He sighed. The person on the other end knew exactly who he was. He didn’t have time for games, and he wasn’t in the mood.
He rolled up the window so his voice wouldn’t be heard outside. “You know who this is. What did you say to Steve?” he asked with an edge to his voice.
Dennis sighed on the other end of the telephone. “Nothing. I just didn’t know…”
Cutting him off, James said, “I thought we agreed that you would keep what happened private.” The last thing James wanted Steve to know was that he knew his best friend. Well…if he was being perfectly honest, he knew him better than that.
Dennis’s voice went up an octave in defense. “I didn’t tell him anything.”
The whole thing made James feel like shit. He hated hiding such a big deal from the man he cared about so much. But it was for his protection, and he had to remind himself of that. It was all for the greater good.
He lowered his tone so that Dennis would know he meant business. “You better not. You’re going to ruin everything. I really like him.”
Dennis raised his voice. “Then, why don’t you be honest with him?”
It was a fair question, and one that he’d asked himself, but he became defensive instead. An act which was typical him.
“Why don’t you?” James asked. “I don’t understand why, if you two are best friends, you couldn’t tell him that you are into dudes too.”
He was all about keeping one’s private life private, but with such a big part of a person’s life, and with regards to people who cared the most about them, he’d learned it was best to come out and be honest. Usually he couldn’t have cared less about what Dennis did. But when it affected his man, then it became personal.
Dennis stuttered at first as if racking his brain how to respond. “And what am I supposed to say? That one drunken night I messed around with my sister’s ex-husband?”
James sighed. Touché. That was something he definitely didn’t want Steve to know about, not yet. If told in the wrong context, then the whole situation would come out sounding very promiscuous and dirty. He’d tell him, he promised himself he would, but he couldn’t yet. He needed the right time.
“One thing at a time. I’m going to tell him, but not yet,” said James. He wasn’t used to people cornering him or chastising him, but right now, Dennis had a point and he knew it.
“Maybe we both should,” Dennis said softly.
Sure, that was something to think about, but still not the best idea in the world. James would decide when they told him and how. And not a moment before.
He leaned back, letting the squeak of the truck’s leather seats take him away for a moment. God, he wished he had some weed or something. He just needed to relax. “Not yet. Besides, the past is the past. That was only a onetime thing. I really care about Steve. I like him a lot.”
He hadn’t admitted that to anyone except his ex-wife, Dennis’s sister, the other day. Hearing himself admit it aloud had reaffirmed how much he was falling for Steve, no matter how much he fought it. If he had had any doubts, the fact that he had volunteered this information so freely confirmed how he felt. He wasn’t going to let a little mistake from his past ruin the future he knew he could have. He would fight tooth and nail if he had to.
Dennis sighed. “I can tell you care for him and he cares about you, but if you hurt him, I swear to God…”
James sat up. He had to let this young man know who was in control. “You know better than to threaten me. We all have secrets, you know…And if you break his heart, I’ll break you.”