If I’d been expecting shocked silence, I was disappointed.
He barked out another laugh of pure disbelief. “Liar.”
He was right, but not for the reason he thought.
Technically, the V still stood for virgin, but I’d be damned if I’d ever tell that to Mr. Popular Superstar, who, one had to assume, was about as far away from being a virgin as I was from catching a Super Bowl–winning touchdown pass. I may have slept with a few men along the way, including Nelson Evangelista, but I’d never given up my ass to anyone.
I was a control freak, and I’d never been with anyone I trusted enough for that. Why the hell hadn’t I seen that as a red flag with Nelson? I’d let him do damned near everything else to me, including deny me in front of his family, the team, and even his closest friends. When I’d asked him why he wouldn’t claim me even in front of the close friends and teammates who’d known he was gay, he’d told me I wouldn’t understand the difference between the team’s “tolerance” of a gay player and their acceptance of a player who actually brought a man around and flaunted his sexuality in their face.
I hadn’t believed him at the time. My father had done his best to accept me after I’d come out, and he’d been the first coach to draft and start an out player in the NFL. Yes, he’d freaked out when he’d found me with Nelson, but that had been a fraternization problem, not a gay problem.
Right?
Sometimes I wondered if I was being deliberately obtuse. I closed my eyes and tried not to think too closely about it since it didn’t matter anymore. Nelson and I had been broken up for five years, and Tiller was my boss. I’d had a little lapse in judgment hooking up with Colin Saris, but that was history.
What I needed was to find a normal man to go out with. Someone who was as far away from professional football as you could get.
Maybe I’d meet my very own mountain man in Colorado and have a vacation fling. I decided to spend the rest of the flight daydreaming about it.
Only, the mountain man who showed up in my daydream looked surprisingly like the star wide receiver for the Houston Riggers. Dammit.
5
Tiller
Not gonna lie, I loved traveling with Mikey. He was so organized, I didn’t have my usual worries about what I’d forgotten, whether I was going to be late, or where I was supposed to be. He took care of all of that. Even if I had to forgo my favorite airport snacks, it was still worth it to have his company beside me.
I also credited traveling together with bringing us closer together as friends in the early days of his employment. The first season he worked for me, he didn’t travel with me at all. He was simply my personal chef at home. When I traveled, he packed me a giant cooler bag with enough snacks and supplemental protein meals to get me through the days I was gone. It wasn’t until the following spring, after I’d made the permanent job offer and realized he was also doing the work of my PA and my housekeeper, that I first asked him to travel with me.
I’d been heading to Hawaii with several of the guys for a month of fun in the sun after a tough season in which we’d lost during the playoffs. We’d booked a big rental house with everything you could ever want, including a chef. But at the last minute, the chef had canceled for personal reasons, leaving us in the lurch. We’d gotten together and made Mikey an offer: come cook for us and we’d all pay an exorbitant fee for his time and travel.
After that… well, I’d become closer to an NFL diva than I’d ever thought I would. Spending a month in Hawaii without deviating from my newly healthy eating plan was kick-ass. I felt strong and clearheaded for the first time in my life, and I didn’t want to lose it by eating heavy shit or too much takeout. So I started bringing him on the road if I was going to be gone longer than two or three nights. I’d taken a shit ton of flak for it at first, but once the team caught wind of how good his cooking was and how quickly my stats had improved with his nutrition help, the team got on board and started asking if they could pay him to make enough for them, too.
It had scared me at first. I thought he’d end up making so much money that he’d stop wanting to wash my dirty clothes and make breakfast smoothies for one. But he hadn’t. In five years, he’d never once implied he wanted a change.