“How’d you meet?”
“At the pool. He’s an assistant water polo coach for one of the local leagues. He’s kind of popular. He played for Croatia in the last Olympics. Parents and kids loved him. They still do. Sometimes I think they pay ridiculous club fees just to be in his orbit.”
“Geez, you must have been something together,” I said with a smile.
“What do you mean?”
“You just described yourself, except at the café. Customers flock to your tables and memorize your hours to get a dose of Liam. Maybe he was jealous of you.”
Liam chuckled humorlessly. “Nope. Pete was your average closet case. He wanted dick and he wanted it often, but he didn’t want anyone to know. I was eighteen when we met and twenty when it ended. I wasn’t ready to make any grand announcements, so I went along with it.”
“How old was he?”
“Five years older. Your age, right? Ancient.”
“Ha. Ha.”
He grinned. “He was a wake-up call to listen to my instincts. Sneaking around felt sleazy, but I convinced myself it was temporary. I learned that hoping someone changes is a bad strategy. I think I kept that picture ’cause A, I’m a sentimental sap and it’s a great photo. And B, to remind myself not to play by someone else’s rules.”
“Who gets to make the rules? That always seems to be an issue. You have yours, he has his and—”
“You do it together. Seems logical, but hey, I’m single…and much…much younger than you.” Liam smirked, then added, “What do I know?”
“Smartass,” I huffed without heat. “You still don’t have your shoes on.”
“You’re kinda bossy.”
I fixated on his ass as he pulled out a pair of Nikes. He caught my stare before he sat again and waggled his brows. I could tell he was about to change the subject and put the conversation behind us. I should have let him, but…
“What happened between you guys?”
“He dumped me. More accurately…he ghosted me.”
“Ghosted you?”
“Yeah, he blocked me, stopped taking calls and returning texts. He erased me.”
“Don’t you still see him around? Water polo seems like it’s an insular community.”
“It is. And yeah, we still bump into each other.”
“Why would he ghost you? You can’t fuck someone, then pretend it didn’t happen,” I insisted.
Liam fixed me with an incredulous look. “That’s sweetly naïve. You know it happens all the damn time, don’t you?”
I let out a frustrated sigh. “I guess, but…it’s so immature.”
He smiled wanly. “Meh, what are you gonna do? It sucked at first, but it’s not a big deal anymore. I’m over it. Water under the bridge and all that BS. Besides, he’s married now and—”
“Married! When did he get married?”
“Two years ago. I think. It’s old news.” Liam trudged to the desk and picked up the photos. He retacked the one of him and the girls on the board and tossed the other one in the trash under his desk. “Thank you for being irate on my behalf. I assure you, it’s not necessary.”
“Hmm. It must be awkward when you run into him.”
“Thankfully, that doesn’t happen often.”
“Does anyone else know about you and…him? Like your teammates?”
Liam shook his head. “Nope. Some of them know I’m bi, but I never talk about my attraction to guys. Most of them wouldn’t know what to say. Locker room conversations revolve around bragging. Brag about the point you scored, the blow you took, the paper you aced, the size of the hamburger you polished off in record time, or the boobs on the chick you banged the night before.”
“That’s crude.”
“And I’m giving you the PC version. If I bragged about a guy I sucked off at a party over the weekend, they wouldn’t know what to say. So I keep it to myself.” He winked as he added, “Or…I tell my boss.”
“Me? Oh. Right,” I replied. I forgot we worked together for a second. “Maybe we shouldn’t—”
“Relax, Drew. We’re grown-ass adults. I think we can safely do or say whatever we want.” Liam tugged at my wrist and pulled me to sit beside him on his bed. “You know, I was in the locker room when Derek and Gabe came out.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ll never forget that day. It was monumental. They’re both bi and they were teammates. I remember watching it unfold with a sense of hope. I was twenty at the time and secretly seeing Pete. I had at least three more years on the team, and it seemed pretty fucking unreal that I might be able to be an out bi dude with a boyfriend playing Division One water polo.”
“But?”
Liam sighed as he leaned back, bracing himself on his hands. “No one talked shit…to their faces. The second they walked out the door, it was a different story. Some guys were cool. Some weren’t. Pretty much what you’d expect.”
“What did you say?”
“Well, that’s the interesting part. Since I’d literally had my dick in my fuck-buddy’s ass less than twelve hours before that, my viewpoint was a little skewed. I went from feeling relieved I had two cool role models waving the rainbow flag to being scared shitless for them…and me. And for anyone else in that room who had a secret that felt dirtier than it should have. I told Pete about it, and now you know how that went.”