Page 22 of Catching Kyle (Football Heartthrobs #1)

Michael Cunningham

Kyle just stands there, that goofy, pants-dropping grin on his face. Then he gets a little more somber. “What’s wrong?”

I realize I’m just standing there, frozen stiff. I haven’t moved a muscle. I would normally want to get in the car with him. But I’m so confused.

“I didn’t hear from you,” I say. “I thought…”

He furrows his brows, then raises then in recognition. “Oh, my bad, Michael. I saw your text and didn’t think to respond. I thought it was given you were coming over.”

My stomach lifts. I overthought everything. Kyle was expecting me this whole time. But what does that mean about how he feels about his sexuality?

Kyle taps his foot patiently. “If you don’t want to go, I won’t make you.”

I force myself to step forward, still nervous that he could reject me at any moment. “I want to go,” I say.

“Good,” he says, putting one of his hands in his pocket, which stretches the fabric around the side of his leg and shows just how muscular his thighs are. Just the sight of him gives my stomach the flutters.

I set the book and his clothes inside my own car and then rush to get inside Kyle’s car, and the moment he shuts the door, all my thoughts race up to me.

Kyle Weaver, THE Kyle Weaver is taking me out. On a date. And how could I fucking forget that our lips touched? We kissed for Christ’s sake. Did I enter the Twilight Zone ?

He opens his door and sits down, and sitting this close to him, I’m overwhelmed by how much of a man he really is. His smell lingers over to me—earthly cologne with a hint of sweat—which tells me that he’s a little nervous. For me, though?

Oh my god. He has been watching my videos for probably years now. If I had known that he was… I probably would have made all my videos especially for him.

“I’m taking you to one of my favorite places,” Kyle says as we pull out of his driveway.

He puts his hand on the back of my seat, and I just about melt into the leather.

He drives in that confident, self-assured, and lazy way that men drive, keeping one hand on the wheel and taking cautious but modest glances to make sure he’s safe.

Our eyes catch just as he turns back to face the front.

“Awesome,” I say, warmth building in my chest.

As we drive, I have a million questions.

But I don’t know which are appropriate to ask.

He’s one of best football players on one of the best teams ever.

He can’t just come out. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any professional sports player come out, let alone one that plays one of the most American sports ever.

And now I’m going on a date with him. I’ve said no emotionally unavailable men, but does this include Kyle now?

Though he could be accepting his sexuality, how can I be sure that he’s in a healthy enough place to be a good boyfriend?

I’m tired of sex, of guys who just want something from me and then let me go once they have it, and then getting hurt in the process.

But here Kyle is, taking me out. He could have just invited me into his house, taken my clothes off, and fucked me right there. And considering he’s my biggest fantasy, I don’t know if I would have stopped him.

Yet here he is, dressed to the nines, taking me to one of his favorite restaurants. I glance down at my clothes and grimace. I’m wearing a gray workout shirt and bright pink shorts.

“Jeez,” I say, glancing over at him then back down at my clothes. “If you’re dressed that nice… I wish you told me. I could have worn something better. ”

Kyle leans back and puts his other hand on the steering wheel. “I guess I could have,” he says. “Sorry about that. But there you don’t need to worry. No one but our waiter will see us anyways.”

I frown. Right, because Kyle taking me, a gay man, out on a date in public… that would surely mean outing himself. So that answers that. Yet he is taking me on a date, so he’s had to come to some sort of acceptance about himself.

“So, what have you been up to this week?” I ask, after we reach the city. I’m curious. He went from crying on the couch about his sexuality to taking me on a date. There are some gay men who could never even dream of making that leap.

“I decided to get some help,” he says. “I talked it out with a therapist.”

I gawk. “After one therapy session, you felt confident enough with being gay that you asked me out?”

He winces slightly when I saw the word ‘gay’, and a pit forms in my stomach. But I ignore it.

“I didn’t just meet with her once,” he says. “I met with her several times—she happened to have a lot of openings that week.”

“Wow,” I say.

“And we got more meetings,” he says, pulling onto a less busy street that I’ve never seen before. “We’re gonna try to dig into my past.”

“How do you feel?” I ask, looking up at the buildings. The facades have that old Western look, and something tells me that somebody without money like myself would never just find myself in a place like this.

He shrugs. “It feels shitty and great at the same time.”

I reflect on my conversations with both Susan and my therapist. “You’re right there.”

He parks the car. “But enough talk. Let me take you inside.”

The next moments are strange. He opens my door, and then a man dressed in a suit like Kyle’s opens a nondescript door next to what looks like a fancy, New American restaurant. The man leads us into a dark hallway. Kyle’s hand hovers just over my back, as if he wants to touch me but can’t .

“Here’s the private room for you and cousin,” the man says, holding a door open.

Cousin? The pit forms again in my stomach, this time stronger.

Kyle lets me walk inside the room first, and he follows.

The man shuts the door, leaving us alone in a warm light.

On the far end of the room, there’s a fireplace going.

There are several dim lanterns hanging from the ceiling, also candlelight, and there’s one small table for two in the middle.

Above the fireplace hangs a deer head, and I don’t want to know if it’s fake or real.

The rest of the dark maroon walls are covered in landscape art.

On the far wall, there’s a small opening, I presume for the waiter to walk through.

But besides them, we’re completely alone.

Kyle grabs his napkin and sits down, covering his lap in white. He gestures to my seat and grabs his glass of water. “You wanna sit?”

After he called me cousin, I’m not sure. But I see no other option. I sit anyways.

“So it’s true,” I say. “You date your cousins in the South.”

He chokes on his water and spits it back into his glass.

A waiter emerges from the curtain covering the opening in the wall. He’s an older man, and he looks gay to me.

“Good to see you again, Kyle,” he says.

Kyle brushes off some water from his tie with a napkin. “You too, Charles.” After he cleans himself, he orders us some artichoke dip and drinks, and Charles disappears behind the curtain.

“I’m sorry,” he concedes.

“Sorry about what?” I ask. “Lying to me that this is a date, or calling me your cousin?”

He grumbles and looks up imploringly. “This is a date,” he says. “Can you just give me a break? I came out to you a week ago, and I barely did to myself before that. I’m not ready to tell the world.”

“Then why do you wanna date?” I ask.

“’Cause—” he raises his fist to his mouth and seems to burp. He presses his hand to his chest, takes a breath, then relaxes his shoulders .

“Because I like you, okay? And it’s not just because I’ve been watching your porn for three years.”

“Oh man,” I say under my breath. He’s been watching me since I first started. “You like me?”

He scrunches his face and nods like it couldn’t’ be more obvious. “You’re funny, and you’re smart. And you’re so driven. I’ve never met anyone who goes after their goals like you wanting to be an author. And it shows. Your writing has really improved. I read over your most recent draft.”

I blush. “You really think this about me?”

He rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “You want me to explain it all a second time? Because I can and will. You’re a good guy, Michael.”

Kyle quiets himself when the waiter arrives with our appetizer and drinks. After we order our entrees, I take some buttered bread and lather it with spinach-artichoke dip. I can’t resist letting out a moan when I taste it.

“Good, huh?”

“This is the best dip I’ve ever had,” I say.

“You ain’t tried nothing yet,” he says. “If you think this is good, I got a lot of places to take you.”

I smile, but the pain in my stomach has risen to my chest. Of course, he’s saying this now, but how many other places have discreet rooms like this? Where all Kyle has to say is that I’m his cousin or something so that nobody suspects?

“So tell me, Michael,” he says, taking a sip of his whiskey on the rocks. “How’s work been treating you?”

My stomach sinks to the ground. All this pomp had me briefly forget. “I was laid off,” I say flatly.

He leans forward, his hairy brow forming a V. “Really? Are you okay?”

I shift in my seat, the concern on his face doing crazy thing to my stomach. “I have one more week of work, then a month of severance. After that I’m on my own.”

He leans back and folds his arms, thinning his lips. His concentrated face is almost as handsome as his smile.

“And don’t worry,” I say. “I haven’t made any more videos. ”

He lets out a heavy sigh. “Good,” he says. “Thank you.” His relief is palpable. I didn’t know I mattered that much to him. “But I don’t want you to go broke, and I don’t want me to stop you from making money through your videos if they help.”