Page 23

CHAPTER 22

ETHAN

Bell guided Marjorie to her seat, uncovering the appetizer platter with a flourish. “Feta-stuffed mini peppers with a little lemon zest, smoked paprika, and a tzatziki dipping sauce,” he announced. “Completely extra, I know.”

Marjorie gave an impressed hum as she picked one up and took a bite. “If this is what extra tastes like, I’m fully on board.”

I chuckled as I settled the cloth napkin over my lap, then moved to fill our water glasses as Bell slid the steaks onto our plates, the crust seared to a perfect mahogany brown while the center remained a juicy medium rare. He’d also made blistered green beans that snapped between my teeth with a satisfying crunch, crispy rosemary potatoes with dark, golden edges and fluffy centers, and honey-and-thyme glazed carrots that melted on my tongue. I was already planning to fight him for any leftovers.

“So tell me about this wine,” Bell said, examining the label before he reached for the corkscrew he’d already set out beside the candle centerpiece.

Marjorie finished chewing, then took a sip of water. “It’s from a small vineyard just outside Fredericksburg. A woman in my book club brought a bunch of their wines to our holiday party last week, and I thought this one was lovely. She said it should pair well with red meat.”

Bell nodded thoughtfully as he slid the cork free and set it aside. Running his nose over the bottle’s opening, he said, “Smells earthy. A little peppery, maybe?” He poured some of it carefully into her glass, his wrist turning to stop the flow without a single drop spilled.

I found myself unexpectedly transfixed by the movement—the flex of tendons beneath tanned skin, the controlled strength in that simple twist. Of all of Bell’s physical attributes—and there were many I’d spent considerable time appreciating—I was surprised to find myself mesmerized by something as mundane as his wrist. But there was something undeniably elegant about the way his hand moved, confident and precise. It was the same careful control he showed on the ice, translated to this domestic moment, and for some reason, it made my mouth go dry.

I was still staring when he shifted toward me, the bottle poised above my glass. Our eyes met briefly, and I wondered if he could read the unexpected desire on my face. If so, his expression didn’t give anything away.

“That’s what Jocelyn said,” Marjorie replied. “She used all the fancy wine terms I’ve never bothered to learn.”

I chuckled. “Tastes good? Great. Pour more. Otherwise, I have no idea.”

“While I know just enough to pretend to be a pompous windbag,” Bell said, raising his glass for a toast. “To good food, good wine, and people who don’t judge us for not knowing all the terms.”

Marjorie’s eyes twinkled as she lifted her own in salute. “I’ll drink to that.”

We clinked our glasses gently, and a moment passed in comfortable silence as each of us took a sip.

Night had fully settled in, the darkness broken only by the warm glow of the string lights I’d hung along the porch railing a couple of weeks ago at Bell’s insistence. They cast soft halos against the inky sky, where stars broke the darkness in millions of brilliant white pinpricks of light.

Despite the patio heater nearby, the crisp winter air nipped at my exposed forearms, but for this Mainer, it was a pleasant sort of cold.

Bell let out a satisfied hum as he set down his wine glass. “Okay, that’s really good. Nice pick.”

As I’d explained earlier, I didn’t really know much about wine, but this one was rich against my tongue, with a warmth that traveled down my throat and settled pleasantly in my chest. I thought I caught hints of dark fruit and something earthy, the complexity surprising me.

“Glad it passes muster,” Marjorie said, her gaze flicking between the two of us with a faint smile tugging at her lips. “This whole setup is beautiful, by the way. You boys set a lovely table.”

Bell shot me a quick look, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“That’s all him,” I said at the exact same time he said, “That’s all me.”

Marjorie laughed, eyes twinkling. “Bell, then.”

“Hey,” I said, feigning offense. “I cooked the steaks you’re both devouring. Give me some credit.”

“Yes, baby,” Bell said automatically, patting my hand where it rested on the table next to my plate. “And they’re very?—”

He froze.

His eyes widened, the slip-up catching up with him mid-sentence.

“Good,” he finished, his voice cracking slightly.

A beat of silence followed, just long enough for the endearment to land.

If Marjorie noticed, she didn’t let on. She just smiled and made a soft tutting sound. “Like an old married couple.”

Bell’s gaze was locked on mine, his expression full of panic. Color crept into his cheeks, and he dragged his hand off mine and dropped his eyes to his plate. He looked like he hoped a hole would open up in the earth and swallow him whole.

The thing was, I should have been panicking, too.

Any other time, a moment like this would’ve made my chest go tight, my pulse spike, and my brain start spiraling.

But I wasn’t panicking. Not even close.

If anything, I felt … happy. Warm. Calm. Like something had clicked into place that had been misaligned for far too long. It was something steadier, quieter—a certainty settling into my bones.

The only reason my heart rate had ticked up was because I liked it when he called me baby.

Liked the way he said it, soft and playful and a little distracted—like it slipped out not because he wasn’t thinking, but because he didn’t have to.

I’d only known Bell for a few months, most of which we’d spent fucking. And it’d been two weeks since I vowed that he was mine and I was his. Two weeks since I’d told him that even though I belonged to him, I wasn’t ready to tell anyone, but I’d try to get there.

So yeah. I should have been panicking.

But I wasn’t.

Bell’s expression shifted from panic to confusion before his gaze flicked away. He reached for his water glass like it might cool the heat rising in his face, but before he could take a sip, the familiar trill of the ringer he’d assigned to his agent sounded from his pocket.

He fumbled his phone free and glanced down at the screen.

“I have to take this,” he said quickly, already pushing back his chair, the legs scraping loudly over the flagstones.

He didn’t look at me. Didn’t look at Marjorie, either. Just muttered a soft, “Excuse me,” his voice strained as he fought with the sliding door handle, his sure, deft hands suddenly clumsy.

I watched him retreat into the house, shoulders hunched slightly forward as he retreated farther into the house.

Marjorie tilted her head, tracking his movement. The silence between us hummed with unspoken words, neither of us rushing to fill it.

I toyed with my fork, pushing a roasted potato across my plate.

“So,” she said finally, turning to me, her expression unreadable. “How long have you been in love with your handsome young roommate?”

I dropped my head forward and let it hang there. My hands flexed against the tabletop, as if grounding myself to something tangible might keep me from floating out of my own skin.

I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry, and reached for my water glass before changing my mind and letting my hand fall back down.

I drew in a slow, deep breath—felt it settle in my lungs—and then lifted my head.

There was a weird sort of weightlessness in my chest. Not the panicked kind I usually felt anytime someone got too close to the truth, but something softer. Quieter. Like the part of me that had been holding it all in had finally run out of excuses.

My eyes met Marjorie’s—steady, knowing, and impossibly kind.

“I could say it’s new,” I began, my words coming out slowly. “But honestly? Probably since the moment I first laid eyes on him.”

Funny how close love and hate could sit—how easy it was to confuse the two when you were trying like hell to protect yourself.

I’d spent weeks convincing myself I couldn’t stand him. That he was annoying. Loud. Too much. A complication I didn’t ask for.

But the truth was, I hated how much I noticed him.

How he got under my skin, not for all the reasons I initially claimed, but because he read me like a book no one else had ever thought to open.

God, I’d tried to hold onto my frustration and irritation, to the wall I’d spent years fortifying.

But every time he smiled at me without expectation or teased me without fear, a piece of that wall cracked. Then another. And another. Until I was standing in the wreckage with nothing left to hide behind.

Bell never once asked me to be someone I wasn’t. He just kept showing up—brilliant, ridiculous, and tender in ways I hadn’t expected, filthy in ways I hadn’t known I needed.

And little by little, I stopped fighting it.

Because somewhere deep down, even from that very first moment, I think I knew: Stryker Bell was going to matter.

He was going to be my everything.

Marjorie’s gaze softened, her whole face going gentle in the way only people who’ve been there too can manage. People who’ve lived it and knew.

She laid her hand over mine on the table. “How long have you been holding that in?”

A soft huff of breath escaped me—half a laugh, half like something was caught in my throat.

“You mean the fact that I’m a gay man trying desperately to pass for straight?”

She shrugged, her hand giving mine a small, affectionate squeeze before pulling away and linking her fingers together over her abdomen. “Sure.”

I let the silence settle. Let it stretch just long enough for the truth to rise to the surface, quiet and inevitable.

When I told Bell I’d try—when I said I’d work on acknowledging our relationship—I hadn’t expected it to happen quite so soon. But sitting here with Marjorie, it didn’t feel rushed.

It felt right.

She’d become something like a second mother to me in the years we’d lived next door to one another, her blunt kindness and unshakable ease something I didn’t have with my actual mom.

And being queer herself, I knew I could trust Marjorie with this truth I’d kept locked inside me.

So I finally let it out. Spoke the truth I’d only ever said to my agent, Lacey, and then Bell: “My whole damn life.”

Marjorie was quiet for a long moment, her eyes scanning my face like she was searching it for something. Finally, with a soft exhale, she reached for her wine glass again, turning it slowly between her fingers. “Did I ever tell you how I met Barbara?”

I shook my head. “No. You’ve mentioned her, but I’ve never heard the full story.”

Her smile was wistful. “We both worked at UT’s library, but in different departments. We saw each other in the staff lounge all the time and quickly became friends. She had this wild halo of dark curls and the sharpest wit I’d ever encountered. Used to leave these little post-it notes on the vending machine with snarky commentary about the food choices.”

That made me smile. “Sounds familiar.”

Marjorie’s mouth curved. “Oh, she would’ve adored Bell. Same brand of clever irreverence.” She sipped her wine. “Anyway, I was smitten from the get-go, but Barbara … well, she was careful. Grew up in a deeply Southern Baptist family. Still, we moved in together shortly after we met, and for the next seven years, everyone thought we were just best friends and roommates.”

She paused and glanced toward the sliding glass door, where Bell’s silhouette passed by inside the house. It looked like he was pacing.

“I didn’t mind at first,” Marjorie continued. “Thought maybe time would help. That she’d eventually feel safe enough to be seen for who she was. Who we were. But then one night, I asked if she didn’t finally want to tell people the truth about us. She froze. Told me she couldn’t. Not because she didn’t love me … but because of what it would mean. What it would cost. This was the early 2000s, so things were a bit different than they are now.”

My chest tightened as she spoke because I knew that fear. Knew exactly how it could hollow you out. I also heard what she wasn’t saying—a lot had changed in the ten years since gay marriage had become legal in Texas.

Sadly, though, a lot had stayed the same.

“What happened?” I asked quietly.

“She left,” Marjorie said with a shrug that I thought she probably meant to seem indifferent, but her fingers tightened around the stem of her wine glass, betraying the tension she still carried all these years later. “Decided a half-life with her family was better than a full one with me. Packed a single suitcase and moved back to Dallas to live with her sister. She sent me a letter a few months later thanking me for loving her, but said she couldn’t live a life that exposed her like that. Said she wasn’t brave enough.”

Silence stretched between us again, filled only by the quiet hum of the heater and the faint sound of Bell’s voice on the phone inside.

“I think about her a lot,” she continued wistfully. “Especially around the holidays. Not in a bitter way, mind—I’ve lived a good life, made peace with the choices we both made. But I think that’s why I knew what I was seeing with you two. That ache you’ve been carrying. The way he looks at you like you hung the stars.”

I swallowed hard, her words lodging deep in my chest.

She reached out again, and I let her grasp my hand in hers. “Don’t let fear make your choices for you, Ethan. Because someday, you’ll look back, and I promise you, what people might’ve said or thought? It won’t matter a single bit. Not if you don’t have him in your life.”

I let her words sit there for a second, heavy and full of truth.

Then I exhaled, slow and uneven. “I know things have changed,” I said, carefully choosing my words. “But in professional sports? Not as much as people think.”

My fingers tightened slightly around hers before I let go and leaned back in my chair.

“And outside of sports?” I continued. “Forget it. Texas is so openly hostile to queer folks that some days I wonder if I’m losing my damn mind just by living here. The bills they’re trying to pass, the laws they’re trying to repeal? They’re trying to legislate us out of existence.”

Marjorie’s expression didn’t change, but her eyes never left mine.

“Even in our locker room,” I went on, lowering my voice lest Bell overhear. “Even on a team where the owners pride themselves on equity and inclusion, there’s still a guy on our roster who’s openly hostile to Bell and Miller.” My jaw clenched as I said it, hands unconsciously forming fists on the table. “It’s still the same good ol’ boys club it’s always been. They’ll smile for the cameras during Pride Month while letting guys like our resident bigot run his fucking mouth.”

“Management doesn’t do anything?”

“Not really.” I shook my head. “Bell and Miller wouldn’t dream of complaining—of asking for preferential treatment—but the asshole’s not really subtle about it. Someone higher up has to know the kind of energy he brings to the team, but the guy still gets to show up and skate like he hasn’t done anything wrong.

“Bell tries to laugh it off. Says he’s fine. But I see the way he flinches when Chet walks into the room. I see how Miller avoids him. And I—” I stopped myself, my chest suddenly tight, my breaths dragging—such a sharp contrast to the calm warmth I’d felt only minutes ago.

“It scares me. The idea of putting myself in the crosshairs. Putting Bell in them with me.”

Marjorie was quiet for a moment, then she leaned forward slightly, her hands resting on the edge of the table. She held my gaze, then slowly shook her head. “Excuses,” she said, not unkindly but with the unyielding certainty of someone who’d lived through the consequences. “Valid fears wrapped in convenient justifications.”

I blinked, my body instinctively pulling back as if her words had physically shoved me.

“Move to California,” she said. “Or Massachusetts. Play for a team like Seattle that actually celebrates our community and wouldn’t tolerate that kind of behavior from one of its players. A team where you could be out and supported and safe.”

Her words landed like a punch, not cruel, but undeniable.

Around us, the careful table setting Bell had created—the candles flickering, the half-eaten meal growing cold—seemed to mock the upheaval I was feeling inside.

“You’re not wrong about the fear,” she added gently. “It’s real. But fear doesn’t get to be the whole story. Not when love is on the other side of it. Because at the end of the day, Ethan? If you wanted to, you would.”

The phrase echoed in my head like a condemnation of everything I was.

If you wanted to, you would.

It was like she’d handed me a mirror and asked me to decide if I could live with what I saw reflected back at me.

I glanced through the sliding door where Bell was still pacing, one hand gesturing animatedly as he talked to his agent.

Just looking at him made my chest ache with everything I felt—everything I wanted but was still terrified to claim publicly.

“It’s not that simple,” I said, my voice barely audible, even to myself.

Marjorie followed my gaze, her expression inscrutable. “It never is. But someday, Bell is going to ask you for something you can’t give him while you’re hiding. And when that happens—” she paused, meeting my eyes again, “—you’ll have to decide what matters more: your fear or his happiness.”

I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat, unable to answer.

Because deep down, I already knew Bell deserved someone who would choose him over their fear every time.

Someone brave.

The terrifying question was whether I could ever be that person.