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Sterling’s Newport home is the opposite of all that. When he asked you to come for a weekend at his “cottage” after you played a Thursday night game in Week Three, you imagined a charming clapboard shanty on the beach. (Admittedly, you should have known better. )

On Friday afternoon, he meets you in the circular drive of the house, which has five gables and four dormers just on the parts that you can see.

It’s set back far from the road, nestled amidst a cozy cover of elms, maples, and oaks that enclose the thirty-two (!) acres of groomed land like a fence.

The leaves have started to turn, but peak foliage is still a couple of weeks away.

Two stories rise up from the stacked stone foundation, the vast walls clad in weathered shingles.

Eyeballing the exterior, you guesstimate that it's pushing ten thousand square feet.

“First of all,” you say, dropping your two bags on the ground like punctuation, “where’s the cottage?”

He laughs, free and easy. It carries on the salty New England air.

You can’t see or hear the Atlantic, but you can smell it: the brine carrying from a couple of blocks away.

Apollo comes bounding down the walk, tail wagging furiously.

You drop and give him plenty of attention.

Once he’s satisfied, he lies down at Sterling’s feet.

“Everything’s a cottage in this town,” Sterling explains. “Even the Vanderbilts called The Breakers their summer cottage.”

You don’t have any association with the name Vanderbilt except for the school that hasn’t beat Bama since ‘84, so you just smile and nod. Sterling approaches you a little slowly, not throwing himself at you right away. You want to tease him about looking like a Gap ad in his striped sweater and pinkish-red shorts, but you’re too excited to see him in person.

It’s the first time you’ve been in the same ZIP code since you became his boyfriend , and the extent of the weekend ahead seems thrilling.

Maybe he’s feeling some kind of way too, because he puts his hands on your chest and goes up for a kiss. No tongue. Like he’s a shy little wifey greeting her man after a hard day at the office.

“Oh, that’s not gonna work,” you mutter decisively.

You grab him by his slender waist and hike him up , making him shriek and gasp, even as you wrap his legs around your hips.

His body is hauled against you, chest-to-chest, and his arms go instinctively around your neck, just trying to hang on.

You drag his mouth against yours, hot and hard and dirty, grabbing his ass.

Sterling groans and opens his mouth to your insistent tongue.

Fuck comfort. If you can figure out how, you’re ready to fuck him standing straight up, right there on the gravel driveway of his cottage.

He humors you for a couple of minutes, letting you manhandle him. Then he pulls back, his full lips kiss-swollen and his eyes glazed-over and stupid.

“We’ve gotta stop,” he insists. “You seriously never know where they have cameras. ”

“Where who has cameras?” you ask. You’re hard against Sterling’s ass, and, since you are a gentleman, you are refraining from grinding him against it. But only just barely.

He plants one last smooch on your lips, and climbs down you like a tree.

“Paparazzi,” he explains. “They don’t tend to expect me in Rhode Island at this time of year, but you never know.

During Memorial Day weekend a few years ago, a bunch of them actually rented the house across the street and camped out on the front lawn from Thursday night to Tuesday morning.

They manage to be everywhere, and you don’t know it until they sell the pictures.

We should try to keep all the PDA behind closed doors. ”

“It’s not PDA if it’s not public,” you reason. “Then it’s just DA .”

He looks at you sidelong. “Speaking of that… did you even read the NDA?”

“My lawyer did.”

Sterling bites his lip. “There’s a whole section on public affection.

I really wish you would check it out. I tend not to like giving the press too much to work with.

It has to do with my image, but it’s also just my personal preference.

Holding hands and short kisses are fine.

Anything too sexual, though, needs to stay in private. ”

Has there ever been a conversation that has deflated a boner so quickly and completely? Embarrassment and frustration engulf you in a hot wave. You turn red easily, and you can feel that it’s probably happening right now.

“I’m, uh, sorry,” you say.

He kicks at the gravel. You really wish you could see his face. “For future reference, if it’s in a contract, it’s probably important.”

“I know that…” you start.

“Then why did you think I sent you the paperwork?” His voice is hard to get a read on. He’s not raising it or anything, but you can’t help but think that he’s upset. Christ. You haven’t even stepped foot inside the front door.

“I don’t know, Ster,” you say. “I guess I thought that, if it was important, we would discuss it together. Like normal people do.” You shake your head. Repeat, “I don’t know.”

This is one big disadvantage of spending as little in-person time together as you two have.

You have a closeness that was built by time on a phone’s six-inch camera screen.

You, personally, wish that your first disagreement wasn’t happening like this.

Not that there’s ever a good time , but maybe, if you had some more time under your belts, you would know what to do.

There’s no longer a question: he’s upset.

“Come inside,” he says, after a long pause. He holds out a hand for one of your bags. “We can talk once I’ve gotten us something to drink, and you’ve sat down. I didn’t even ask you how your flight was.”

You shake off his hand and grab the bags yourself. They are fairly heavy. Apollo trots close at your heels.

It hits you as you are walking up the drive: if sucking face in public isn’t acceptable, then fighting in public definitely isn’t either.

Increased irritation prickles you, and you will yourself to shake it off.

It’s three steps up to the wide front porch, which is shadowed by thick, boxy hedges.

Sterling opens the door and lets you inside.

The foyer is wide, opening to the main part of the house.

The floors are hardwood, in a zigzag pattern— herringbone , your brain helpfully fills in.

Pristine white wainscoting runs halfway up the walls, which are outlined in heavy molding.

Columns divide the living space instead of walls, and a hallway to your left features geometric light fixtures in heavy gold metal.

Sunlight fills the rooms from corner to corner.

And you kind of get the cottage thing—there’s something cozy about it, despite the massive amount of space.

“Are we the only people here?” you ask.

“Maeve is over for the weekend so she and I can work on some stuff, but she’ll be out of the way most of the time.

It’s meant to be time off for her, too. Of course, Cal and Eric will be on the property.

Again, they won’t bother us unless there’s an emergency.

And tomorrow afternoon, my friends Merry and Ross will be up to hang out.

I wanted them to meet you. I thought we could all do dinner? ”

“Sounds great,” you say. “But where do you put all those people?”

“Well, there are eight bedrooms.” Sterling points upward, left and right.

“The primary suite is on the far end, there, with his-and-her bedrooms connected by a small hall. Three other bedrooms on the other end of the second floor. There are two smaller ones down here, closer to the gardens, and there’s one bedroom in the pool house that can sleep two more people.

Lots of privacy for everyone, honestly.”

You shake your head, impressed.

“Where can I put these?” you ask, hefting the bags in your hand.

“I’ll show you your room,” he says. “Can you get those upstairs? I could call for someone to help out?”

You just barely resist rolling your eyes. “Sterling, I bench, like, three times your body weight. I can handle some luggage. Lead the way. ”

(Following the subtle sway of his hips up the stairs, you observe that he did not say our room. )

Upstairs, at one end of a long hall, Sterling opens a door into what looks like a small sitting area. Ahead of you is a bathroom, and to either side, two large bedrooms. You’ve never seen a setup like it, and you tell Sterling so.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think it dates back to the time when husbands and wives didn’t share bedrooms, but maybe still wanted to be close?

I don’t know, maybe the previous owners hated each other.

But I always stay here,” he gestures to the left door, “and usually the other side is empty. I thought you would like it.”

You look at the two doors, which are separated by no more than ten feet. “That will work,” you say.

“I’ll let you get settled in,” he tells you. “Did you want to take a walk down to the Cliff Walk before dinner? It’s gorgeous to catch the sunset there.”

You tell him that sounds great, and he heads back downstairs, calling that you should come down and meet him when you are ready.

You wish that you could turn your brain off and stop wondering if you did something wrong.

Well, wronger than not reading the damn paperwork.

You swing open the door to your bedroom.