15. Blaise

FIFTEEN

Didyou know we're secret boyfriends?

The words echo through my head as I stare at him with my mouth open. What? No, seriously… what?

He looks back at me steadily, if nervously, and I realize he means it.

"Uh… excuse me?"

Relief crosses his face, and he nods vigorously. "That was my reaction! I'm so glad it wasn't just me. But Mila pointed it out, and?—"

"Your sister told you that we're boyfriends?" How would she even know?

"Yeah. And Jamie. Though after they said it, I realized they were right. Then I started wondering if you knew, and maybe I'd been disrespecting you this whole time. But turns out, we're both dense."

I'm still back on his sister and her boyfriend telling him that we're dating. "Can I get you to back up a little? Why did Mila… I mean, how did this even come up?"

He shrugs and walks over to collapse on the couch, making himself comfortable the way he always does, and it strikes me that he spends a lot of time here. Like… a lot. Which I like more than I probably should for a friend.

"I video called her to show her the ear studs, because I wanted to see her react, and I mentioned that you'd come with me… and it kind of snowballed from there. She and Jamie were asking things like how much time we spend together and what we do—not the sex stuff," he adds hastily, seeing my face, "though they know we have sex. Anyway, there was a whole bunch of questions, and then Mila called me a dumbass and told me we were dating."

"But—"

He holds up a hand. "My first thought was that she had to be wrong, but when I thought about it… I think we are."

I take a deep breath. "We agreed this was just going to be a casual thing. You don't want a boyfriend." I don't know that I do either. I'm really focused on my career goals at the moment. A boyfriend would split my focus and take a lot of time.

Though having Jordan's help and company while I work on the cosplay costumes has been really ni?—

Wait.

Wait.

Fuck. I think he's right. I mentally tick off all the things we do together and compare the list to the things I did with past boyfriends, and yeah… we're dating. You could even say we're pretty serious.

I drop onto the couch beside him and lean back, needing the support. "Wow."

Jordan pats my shoulder, then curls into my side and leans his head on it. I automatically lift my arm to wrap it around him. "Yep."

For a little while, we just sit there. Then he straightens. "So… what do we do now?"

Oh, god. "Uh… I know you didn't want a boyfriend?—"

"It's not that," he interrupts, his earnest gaze locked on mine. "I just don't want the attention associated with being an out ball player. Especially because there are so few already. But I'm good with having a boyfriend. You, specifically." He smiles shyly, and it's so unlike him that my heart melts.

"Yeah. I'm good with being your boyfriend." The thought of "breaking up" with him, not seeing him all the time and being able to talk to him… touch him… makes me feel physically sick. I'm so ashamed of myself for not working this out sooner. But… I brace myself. "The thing is, while I get you not wanting to come out publicly, and I don't want to be part of that kind of attention either, I'm not okay with being in a secret relationship." I stop. "Not now that I know about it, anyway."

He nods. "That's fair enough. I didn't think you would be, and honestly, neither am I. It feels… skeezy."

The weight of this dilemma seems crushing. "So where does that leave us?"

"Compromise?" he suggests. "We tell the people closest to us, who know us the best and who we can trust not to sell an exclusive to the press. Not that they'd get much money for it," he adds.

"Another collegiate ball player being queer would make headlines, even if you're not on a College World Series team," I defend automatically, and he leans over to kiss my cheek.

"Aww. Look at you, knowing what the College World Series is. I'm gonna make a baseball fan of you yet."

I grab the front of his hoodie and pull him in for a proper kiss. We've kissed before, but this time feels different. It's our first kiss knowing that we're boyfriends, and that makes me so fucking horny… yet also so sentimental.

"This is nice," Jordan murmurs against my lips when I finally ease back. "Let's do more of this."

Reluctantly, I let him go and pull away, huffing a laugh. "In a minute. First let's work out what the fuck we're doing with our lives."

He pulls a face. "Fine. What do you think of the compromise idea?"

"I like it," I admit. It would mean that with our friends, we can be together—though no obvious PDA if we don't want the wider world to know. "But it would still mean you coming out. And your closest friends are on the team with you. Is that going to be a problem?"

"No." He shakes his head firmly. "My family already knows, and you know Boyle and Polly will be cool about it. I might tell Coach too—just so if it does accidentally get out, he's not taken by surprise. The other guys on the team, I'll just see how things go. They all know my dads are gay and that I'm a fierce LGBTQIA+ ally anyway, and nobody's ever said anything hateful before now."

"Are you sure?" I don't want to push him into outing himself, even if it makes things more complicated for us.

His smile is gentle and… loving? "Yeah, babe. I'm sure."

The thrill that goes through me at the endearment would be embarrassing if I didn't like it so much.

"Then I guess we're officially telling our friends that we're together."

"Great!" He grins. "That means I can bring my boyfriend to dinner with my dads on Saturday."

Uh… what?

Jordan suggested that since Calla was my friend first and I'm closer to her, I should be the one to tell her and my other friends that we're officially together, while he tells Polly and Boyle. That means outing him, of course, but he earnestly gave me permission to do so. It was so adorable that I had to kiss him, and then we decided we'd had enough talking and "consummated" our newly recognized relationship with a celebratory sixty-nine.

Which is why my friends are all in my apartment on a Thursday night, stuffing themselves with the charcuterie platter and dips I got from the deli—not to mention the fancy bread from the bakery—to soften them up. Not that I think they'll react badly, but there are going to be a lot of questions and teasing, and I'm hoping that rich food and carbs will make their brains so slow they don't think of many. If it works, it'll be totally worth the expense.

Ditto the snobby craft beer and thirty-dollar bottle of wine. Though I couldn't bring myself to buy expensive vodka, so they've got the rotgut there.

"Are you dying?" Butch asks point-blank, smearing brie onto a round of bread and topping it with prosciutto. "Because if you are, we're going to stick by you. All this"—she waves the bread at the array on the coffee table—"isn't necessary."

"Appreciated, though," Harold says with his mouth full. He swallows. "Oooh, you got the stuffed peppers."

I ignore him and answer Butch. "I'm not dying. Not that I know of, anyway. But I do have news."

"Bad news?" Calla puts her wineglass down. Another benefit of having a rich roommate is that his mom stocked the place like we're wealthy socialites. Otherwise, we'd be drinking wine out of cheap tumblers from the grocery store. Gotta admit, I'm going to miss living this comfortably when I go to LA for the internship.

"Not bad news. Good news. Happy news."

"You got the internship!" Harold jumps up. "That's great! But I didn't think you had enough money yet."

"I don't, and no. I haven't applied yet. Sit down and let me tell this. It'll go a lot faster without the interruptions."

Harold flips me off, sits down, and reaches for another goat-cheese-stuffed pepper.

"Okay, so… Jordan and I are dating."

They all watch me expectantly. "And?" Butch asks when I don't continue.

My brows draw together. "What do you mean, ‘and'? Isn't that enough?"

Calla snorts. "Blaise, we already knew that. We just figured you were keeping it secret because Jordan's not out."

What? I look around at all their faces. Phil nods sympathetically and sips his beer.

"There's no way you could have known," I protest.

"Honey, baby, sweetie… we did." Harold leans over to pat my arm. "Xera knows too. She was the one who said it out loud first."

"What about her brother?" If Boyle knows already, I need to give Jordan a heads-up. It's not a bad thing, but I don't want him blindsided like this.

Butch scoffs. "Xera wouldn't out anyone, Blaise. And Marty… well, he's sweet, but she says it took him a year of watching Drag Race with her to realize that RuPaul in a suit and RuPaul in drag were the same person. So I doubt he's guessed."

I give that a second of incredulity before letting it go. "Well, anyway… we're official now. Jordan's still not coming out publicly, but he's going to tell some of his friends and then see where things go from there. We want the people closest to us to know."

Calla puts a hand to her chest. "That's so sweet. What do you mean, you're official now? Haven't you been together this whole time?"

I scratch my head. Damn her for picking up on that. "That depends on what you mean by ‘whole time.'"

They exchange glances and then all lean forward. It's creepy, and I lean back. "Well," Harold begins, "we assumed you hooked up, like, in the first week you met, then by the time we all went to that first game, you were dating."

In retrospect, I can see why they would think that. "You're close. We, uh, well I guess we hooked up the day we met. Then when he came to pick up the suit, we got to talking and hit it off. But we've been just casually seeing each other since then. Until now." They don't need to know that's because we're both dumbasses.

"Hooked up on the day you met but didn't get to talking until days later?" Butch repeats, grinning. "Blaise Warner, were you a naughty boy at work?"

I can't help it. I blush.

Calla crows. "Someone's breaking company policy!"

"It's not like that," I protest, even though it was. "He's special." I feel guilty saying it, because at the time, he was just a sexy, sweet stranger with a smile that made me tingly and an air of helplessness that made me want to protect him.

Huh. Maybe he was special, even then. Even if I didn't realize it. After all, my dumbassedness has been clearly established already.

But, just to get it on record, I add, "He's the only one I've ever… broken company policy with. And we only did it once."

"How gross would it be if I asked for details?" Harold wonders aloud.

"Very," the rest of us say in unison—even Phil.

Harold rolls his eyes. "Fine. But just so you know, without the actual details, I'm totally going to be picturing a porno movie."

"With your friends' faces? Also gross," Calla tells him, and he shakes his head.

"Oh, hell no. I'm replacing Blaise with someone else. Jordan's staying, though. I don't know him well enough yet for him to be an exception to ‘never have sex daydreams about friends' rule."

Yeah, I might leave that out when I call Jordan later and tell him how tonight went.