Page 8 of Catching Kyle (Football Heartthrobs #1)

Kyle Weaver

“Ma! I’m home!”

“Kyle!” She exclaims.

I stand in the small foyer of her cozy Mississippi home as she rushes to put her arms around me.

I’ve insisted on buying her a bigger place, but she always shoots me down.

She moved here to Glamour Springs from Fordsville, where Miss U is, after she divorced my daddy.

The smell of vanilla from her baking fills her home.

Nothing like the jasmine incense she used to burn when she lived with my dad, but it’s just as good.

She pulls back, a good foot shorter than me, and grabs my cheeks. “I missed you,” she says, reaching up on her toes. I lower for her to kiss me on the cheek.

“Oh, my boy. Did you drive? Fly?”

“Fly,” I say, laughing. “I can’t last so long in a car. You know that.”

She laughs, no doubt remembering our family road trips down to the coast. “Don’t I know it. Come on in. Sit down. I have some leftover cookies. I woulda made them fresh if I knew you were coming.” She bolts into the kitchen, and I plop down on her oversized couch.

After all that happened with Timmy, and then meeting Peter Cummins—who is actually Michael Cunningham—I needed to get out of Portland and visit my ma.

Now that Michael’s agreed to keep me up to date on book club, I can easily fake my attendance to Timmy.

I’ll still read the books so I can more easily lie that I’m going, but now I don’t have to go and find a woman.

I mean, I’ll eventually have to in order to get a girlfriend.

But I can procrastinate it longer now. And that means Michael—the pornstar I’ve been watching for years—will be coming to my house weekly, and I’ll be reading his writing. I don’t see any problem with this.

Scratch that. There’s a whole lot wrong here, which is why I left town—to decompress from the stress I’m about to cause myself.

But what choice do I have? I can’t date women.

All that dark sadness that swallows my mind every time I try to get intimate with a woman?

Better enjoy my single life while I can.

And my time with Michael while I’m at it.

We’ll just be friendly, though. No funny business.

I almost had a heart attack when I opened my phone with his porn playing right in front of him. Thank God he didn’t recognize it.

My ma returns with a plate of small chocolate chip cookies, and my heart leaps at the sight. I miss these so much. I may be trying to slim down and speed up, but this is vacation time. Calories don’t count now.

I grab three and set the plate on the coffee table close enough that I can lean over and grab more, because I definitely will, and Ma sits across from me.

“Now tell me,” she says. “Did they fire that awful reporter who questioned you before your big game?”

Ricardo.

I sigh. “No, ma. He’s still around. He probably got an even bigger following after that whole fiasco.”

She shakes her head and grimaces downward as if she squashed a bug. “Using you to further his career? Now that’s just low.”

I finish off the last cookie and grab two more. “That’s just the business of it.”

She scoffs. “Well this whole business gives me a headache.” She stands up. “I need some wine. Can I get you anything, love?”

I shake my head and laugh. “These cookies are good enough.”

She nods and prances off to the kitchen while I indulge myself on the best sweets ever.

I love being with my ma. Even though a huge part of my brand is my Southern charm, I still tone down the accent, especially in public settings.

But with my ma, I can let it go. I can be myself.

I always feel like she has my back, and my whole life, she’s never given me trouble for whether I’m dating or not.

Even now, she’s bashing Ricardo for invading my privacy rather than asking the same question that he and everyone else are asking—and no, I’m still not gay.

My only wish is that she and my daddy could have stayed together.

I still don’t really know why they ended things. It hurts my heart to think about it.

My mom walks in with a glass of wine in her hands as I pick up another cookie. “Kyle Theodore Weaver, have you eaten anything else today?”

I look at her with wide eyes and a full mouth. I shake my head.

“You darn boy,” she says. “Come on. Let’s get some lunch.”

I swallow, and despite all these cookies, my stomach grumbles. “Jimmy’s diner?”

She looks at me above her reading glasses. “Where else?”

I rise to my feet, already salivating at the thought of Jimmy’s double steak burgers. “Let’s go. I’m starving.”

When we get there, I’m immediately recognized, and the entire diner is in an uproar. An older couple that lives near my ma asks how life is a star in a big city. One of my high school friends, now a waitress, tries to tell me about all the drama that’s gone on as my Ma drags me to my seat.

“Jimmy!” my ma shouts. “Your NFO brother is here!”

A burly man with a surprisingly well-kept beard longer than mine—I don’t know how he manages it—barrels out of the kitchen wearing a dirty apron.

“Well if it isn’t the best linebacker that the NFO has ever seen,” he says. He swings his hand out and I shake it, and he’s damn near stronger than me. A patch of his dark chest hair pokes out of his shirt, and he smiles at me, his eyes bright.

Jimmy’s a few years older than me, and we became good friends when my mom moved here. He’s practically my brother now. With how confident he is being gay, I’ve wanted to ask him so many questions. But I’ve just never been able to for some reason.

“I don’t know about best,” I say with a shrug. “Not after our last game.”

By now, the entire diner is crowded around us as I stand and talk with Jimmy. Ma sits patiently in her seat looking over a menu .

“Pfft,” he says, swatting his hand at me. “The fact that the team relied on you for that just shows how good you really are.” He pulls out my chair. “Have a seat.”

I tap him on the arm. “It’s good to see you, buddy,” I say.

He pulls me into a bear hug. For a second, I let myself melt into him. This touch is nice. Then I pull away.

“Now y’all need to give them some space,” he says, addressing the crowd. “We may have a celebrity here, but he’s a person like all of us.”

At that, the crowd reluctantly goes back to their seats.

Jimmy looks at my mom. “The usual?”

She sets down the menu and takes off her reading glasses. “Please.”

He looks to me, snapping and tapping his fists together. A small grin forms. “We got something new on the menu,” he says. “Spicy triple steak burger.”

I roll my eyes in ecstasy. “You’re killing me, Jimmy. I’m tryna slim up.” I grunt. “Just gimme two.”

He taps my shoulder and laughs. “I’ll give you extra lettuce for your conscience.”

And then he saunters off. I forgot how welcome I’ve felt here, how loved. Sure, a lot here worship me as a celebrity, but it feels more familial than anything else.

“So,” my mom says, leaning forward. “Anyone special in your life right now?”

I deflate slightly.

“I’m sorry,” she says, knowing my signs well. “It’s just—I couldn’t help wondering as well after that interview.”

“Ma!”

“Oh hush,” she says. “I’m not out here harassing you about who you love. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

I don’t have that burger yet, but I already have heartburn.

Probably from all those cookies. For a minute here, it almost seems like I can open up.

Tell my Ma that it’s been hard seeing women.

That my mind always go dark whenever I need to be intimate with one, emotionally or physically.

Like it goes real dark—my heart beats really fast, and I can’t help but think I’m just some weirdo that was made up all wrong.

Daddy always said to avoid these emotions—that these sorta negative emotions were for the women and queers.

A real man didn’t let these dark thoughts get to him.

So I just avoided what always brought these emotions out: women.

But I can’t tell my ma that. I don’t want to talk poorly about Dad, even if they are divorced. Without him, I wouldn’t be living my dream. And I certainly don’t want to tell her about how I need to find a girlfriend in order to get re-signed with the Tigers. I’m here to enjoy myself, not stress.

“There’s no one,” I say, tying my paper straw in a knot.

“That’s alright,” she says. She reaches out and holds my hand. “I think you’re amazing all by yourself.”

“Thanks, ma,” I say. She gets distracted by a text and looks down at her phone. I pull on both ends of the paper straw, tearing it in half. The knot stays intact.

And my mind immediately goes to Peter.

Well, Michael—that’s his real name. They say that when the knot stays, someone is thinking about you. Does that mean he’s thinking about me? My stomach tingles at the thought, or maybe it’s just the cookies. Either way, he’s on my mind. And I kinda want to be on his.

I was able to read nearly all of that Nora Roberts book on the plane, and I loved it.

I’ve been to Montana before—stayed in a cabin with some buddies.

But, dare I say it, the whole setting was very romantic.

And reading a book about it unleashed a part of my mind that always wanted some cowboy to whisk me away to his ranch and tell me I was handsome and valid and awesome.

Just a fantasy, though.

And in a few days, I get to discuss this book with Michael.

I know I’m supposed to be going to this book club to meet some girl or whatever, but I just can’t stomach that.

I don’t want to feel all that darkness in my head again.

But I didn’t get those dark thoughts with Michael, and I’m actually kinda eager to hear what he has to say about it.

That’s also when he’s going to give me a little of his book, and I’m curious to see what a gay romance is really about.

Just curious though. I know it will be about love between two gay guys, but I can’t help but wonder how that will all play out…

Yikes. I guess I sorta lied to my ma. There is somebody in my life. I wouldn’t call him special, but he certainly isn’t nobody.

My heartburn flares again just as Jimmy brings our food out.

“Jesus, Jimmy,” I say, marveling at him. “You got a roadrunner in the kitchen or something? I feel like I haven’t even blinked.”

He sets down my ma’s Caesar salad and my burgers and fries. I gawk down at the greasy masterpiece, already looking forward to the glorious nap after this, my heartburn be damned.

“What can I say?” Jimmy says with a shrug. “I’m good at what I do.”

I take a bite of the steak burger, and it’s like heaven pouring into my mouth. The juiciness of the burger complemented by a little ketchup and his thousand island sauce—I’m throwing this diet to the wind.

“Jimmy, you’re not killing me—you have killed me, and I’ve gone straight to heaven.”

Both he and my ma laugh.

“Thanks, Kyle,” he says. “Now you both enjoy.”

“We will,” my ma says.

And as we eat, I can’t help but notice bright orange and pink dip into my periphery. As I’m savoring the last bite of my first burger, I turn to see that the building across the gravel road as a gay flag in front of it—a lesbian flag if I’m not mistaken.

“That,” I say, nodding my head to it, still swallowing my food.

My mom turns to it as she takes a bite. “Oh, yes,” she says, light in her eyes. “That’s a lesbian owned bookstore and coffee shop, The Book Corner. It’s spectacular.”

My chest burns again, and I press my hand against it. “Lesbians?” I ask, letting out a small burp. Even though I came here to stay with my mom often as a kid, I never noticed that Glamour Springs was this inclusive.

“You wanna know why I choose to live here, Kyle?”

I wipe my hands with a napkin and nod .

“Because it’s like a little oasis in a tempestuous sea,” she says, emphasizing each syllable of the thunderous word. “People are accepting here. Kind. And it’s where I want to spend the rest of my life.”

I gaze back over at the flag that blows in the wind. Some people walk by, but they don’t pay the flag any mind. It’s almost like it just belongs there.

I start on my second burger. “That’s cool,” I say. “I have to leave tomorrow morning, and there’s some people I’d like to see while I’m here. But maybe next time I visit I can check it out.”

“It’s wonderful,” she says. “I think you’d enjoy it too.”

We finish the rest of our meal in companionable silence, but my mind keeps going back to one thought, one curiosity: What would Michael think of this lesbian owned café?