Page 47 of Catching Kyle (Football Heartthrobs #1)

Kyle Weaver

The past month has been a dizzy blur.

The day after I came home from Glamour Springs, Timmy demanded a meeting to discuss damage control.

He put me with Robyn and demanded we spin up some story that makes me look good and Amani look bad. The only story that he approved of was that Amani cheated on me, so I had to find someone else.

This someone else ended up being Jessica.

Timmy and some of the Tigers’ management hired an agency to get me a girlfriend.

I met her the next day. She was slim, beautiful, blonde, and had a radiant smile.

I liked her, but I couldn’t love her. Because no matter what I did, I couldn’t stop thinking of the man I truly loved.

But that didn’t matter anymore. I had to let him go.

Since then, it’s been appearance after appearance, Timmy trying to convince the public that this relationship transition isn’t abrupt or strange or unnatural but completely reasonable.

And though our plastered smiles might make the world think so, I know deep down that this is not the true me.

At the very least, I’m not hiding a taboo relationship anymore. Daddy would be proud of that.

I come in through the garage, and Jessica shuts the door behind me.

We were just at some gala for a cancer charity I donate to, and per Timmy’s instructions, we made sure to get in a lot of pictures.

I throw my suit coat down and pull out my shirt from my tight pants, my head dark and stormy.

Since Thanksgiving, I’ve been eating more than usual.

I chalk it up to the weather, but I know my mood’s been worse than ever.

I may need to see Neeti again. Talk about depression.

“Sooo…” Jessica says, taking off her jacket. She’s wearing this tight red dress that brings out her perfect blonde hair. She’s an objectively attractive woman. I just wish she wasn’t mine.

I start unbuttoning my cuffs. “What’s on your mind?”

“Have you thought about Christmas at all?”

I sigh as I unbutton one wrist, letting blood flow back into my hand. Man, I need to get my shirts refitted.

“It’s in a week,” I say, unbuttoning my other wrist. I roll both my sleeves up. “So no.”

She frowns and sucks on her lip. “Well, I’d like for you to come to Pittsburgh and meet my family.” She closes the distance between us, and I feel my breath quicken. But not in a good way.

She traces the crease of my forearm with her finger. “And maybe the Sexiest Man Alive can teach me a thing or two in bed.”

It takes all my strength not to buck away from her. That darkness that swarms my brain whenever I have to get intimate with a woman returns, and it feels like I’ll never be happy again.

“I’m tired tonight,” I say.

She sighs and pulls her hand away. “You’re always tired.”

I turn to her and put my hands on her shoulder. “How about this,” I say. “I come home with you to Pittsburgh this Christmas, and that’s when you can unwrap me. I just need some time is all.”

She brightens. “I can do that,” she says. “I don’t mean to push you either. I know you had a rough relationship with Amani.”

I let out a sharp laugh. “I guess you could say that.”

* * *

Unlike how I failed Michael, I manage to keep my promise to Jessica. Well, so far.

We sit around a large, mahogany table. Her parents sit at either end, and the table is filled her brothers and their wives.

Christmas music is playing in the background, and it’s snowing in Pittsburgh.

Little kids are running around, too excited to sleep but too eager to wait until Christmas morning.

I’m peppered with questions about the season, fellow players, and so on. Her brothers are good men, and their wives are well-rounded. Her parents are charming and thoughtful, and Jessica is an attentive partner.

But it’s all still wrong.

This is nothing like Thanksgiving with Michael and my folks.

I loved watching Michael get into heated debates with Silas about the best piece of LGBTQ+ fiction.

I loved the way my ma doted on Michael, the way that she saw him how I did.

How I felt so free, being completely myself around the people I loved.

I can’t do that here.

I can’t take the man I love up to my room after dinner and fuck my love into him. I can’t open my inbox to see Michael’s latest draft that he wants me to read and critique. Fuck, I can’t even talk to him.

My mom’s words echo throughout my mind. Is this really what it means to live with integrity?

To live a shadow of the life I really want to live?

I feel so small, like I’m trying to fit myself inside a box that wasn’t made for me.

I feel achy and sad all the time, tired as hell, even though I sleep more than ten hours a night.

And being around Jessica so much, the pressure to be intimate constant, the darkness never leaves my brain.

Happiness feels like a distant memory. I know my dad didn’t like gay people, but would he really want me to stuff my true self down like this? Would he want me to be so sad?

The night wraps up, and all of us go to our separate rooms. And it feels like I’m walking to the gallows to be hanged.

Timmy said that the best way to secure my reputation as a straight man is to get Jessica pregnant.

So, in the past week, I’ve coordinated this with her.

She’s off birth control, and we’re finally going to have sex.

Once she’s pregnant, we’ll announce our wedding date.

Sooner rather than later. And when we’re finally married, we’ll reveal that a little Weaver baby is on the way.

The Weaver legacy will finally live on. Just as my father wished.

“Gimme a sec,” I say to Jessica just outside the guest room door. “Need to use the bathroom. ”

“I’ll be waiting,” she says flirtatiously, but my chest just squeezes hearing her.

I burst into the bathroom, feeling my chest squeeze even harder. The air gets thin around me, and I have trouble breathing.

Inhale for four , I think to myself. Hold. Exhale for four . Just like Neeti taught me when the anxiety gets bad. I do that for a while, and then my head feels slightly clearer.

I’m doing this for Dad. I’m carrying on his legacy. This is an honest life. I can do this.

Suddenly, my phone vibrates in a way that I immediately recognize. And my heart picks right back up again, the air thinner than before. I haven’t felt this in months, since before I started dating Michael. But I know exactly what it is.

My hands shaking, I reach inside my jean pocket and pull my phone out.

And there it is. The last thing I want to see.

Peter Cummins, aka Michael Cunningham, has posted a new video on OnlyFans.

My knees grow weak, and I lower myself to the tiled ground.

My eyes blurry from tears, I open the video and watch.

It’s some guy I’ve never seen before. But he’s hot.

And he’s naked with my boyfriend—ex-boyfriend.

It feels like someone is slowly stabbing me with a knife, over and over, as I watch this unknown man fuck the man I love more than anyone else.

I want to say that Michael looks unhappy, incomplete without me there.

But they’re get at it with enthusiasm and vigor.

He’s moved on. Thriving. And here I am, procrastinating my duty to get my soon-to-be wife pregnant.

There’s a knock on the bathroom door, and I manage to turn off the video just before I freeze up, dark depression swarming my mind.

“Babe?” Jessica calls out. “Are you alright in there?”

I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. I can’t say anything. I don’t have any more lies left in me.

“Kyle?” she asks.

I don’t respond. I can’t. I don’t know what to say .

She opens the bathroom door, and when sees me leaning against the bathtub, she rushes in. “Are you okay?” she asks, kneeling next to me. “Are you sick from dinner? What’s going on?”

My chest feels like it’s caving in on itself, and the air is so thin I feel like I’ll pass out.

I start to speak, then stop myself. This is it.

I can manage to lie now and keep the future my dad wanted for it, or I can be honest about myself.

I remember the question Robyn, the reporter, asked me at the end of our interview: am I playing for my daddy or myself?

Up until now, it’s been all for him. But I think I’m finally going to do something for myself.

I think that’s what I can call integrity.

“I…” I take a deep, shaky breath. “I can’t do this,” I say. “I’m in love with someone else. A man.”

My words cause her to physically recoil.

I reach out and gently hold her hand. “Let me explain.”

She looks at me skeptically, and then she gives a small nod.

So I tell her the story: how in college, I slept with other football players. And then I tell her everything since. I don’t bother keeping any other details out. There’s no point in lying about it more. I gave up any future of an NFO career when I told her I loved a man.

“So, do what you will with what I told you,” I say. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t take the lies anymore.”

I expect her to get up and storm off. To cry and tell her family, to tell her little matchmaking agency that I forewent the deal, and to tell the world that the I’m the faggot they’ve all been making me out to be.

But she doesn’t. She just keeps holding my hand.

“That’s very brave of you to say,” she says.

I look up at her like she called me a slur. “Are you serious?”

She nods. “Kyle, I could tell something was off. And this makes sense considering you were the Sexiest Man Alive and yet still didn’t have a girlfriend.”

I exhale through my nose, some of the darkness in my mind dissipating with my breath. “I know.”

“I won’t tell,” she says. “But you gotta figure out what you’re going to do. ”

Hope floods my chest, and I squeeze her hand. “You have no idea what this means to me.”

“Believe me,” she says. “I know what it’s like to be separated from someone you love.” Her voice is heavy, making me think there’s a lot about her that she’s choosing to keep private. So I’ll respect that. But she is on my side.

“Thank you,” I say, wiping my eyes.

We both sit there, her against the cabinets, me against the tub, in silence.

“So what now?” she asks. “You’ll have to come clean eventually.”

I think of the article that Robyn had to write about Amani cheating on me. I think of all the missed calls and messages from Michael, and how the day those stopped was like another heartbreak. Because then I knew he had given up.

“I’ll keep this secret as long as you do,” she says. “But it can’t go past the end of the season.”

Plans start to bake in my head, and I feel my body wake from the slothful stupor it’s been in for the past month.

“I’ll come clean soon,” I say. “But first, I need to make some apologies.”