“I thought we said no more secrets?”
“Come on, I’ve got to have some.” Micah grinned.
“I think there’s been enough secrets lately to last us a decade.”
He could be right, Micah thought, but he wasn’t sharing any thoughts on how attractive some of his teammates were. “Okay. I’m arranging to meet a guy. For coffee,” he added quickly, lest Sam thought he was up to his old tricks.
“A date?” Sam crowed. “Micah Johnson has a date? This day keeps getting better and better!”
“Fuck off.”
“So who is the lucky guy?”
“Let’s not talk about me,” Micah said, deflecting. “Let’s talk about you gaining a gay brother.”
Sam smiled. “I didn’t gain him today.”
“What do you mean?”
“I knew he was gay. We all knew he was gay. We were just waiting for him to be comfortable enough to tell us. We tried to hint to him that he could, but he was always oblivious to it. I guess it’s just fear of rejection. But I know I didn’t want to push him until he was ready.”
“Wow,” Micah said. “What was it you were saying earlier about secrets?”
“I know.” Sam at least had the good sense to look a little shamed. “It was horrible watching him try to do it. He was so angry, and I kept trying to be his older brother, but he’d push me away. So we brought you in.”
Micah jerked involuntarily. “What?”
“We thought maybe you’d be a role model for him, showing him that we were okay with him being gay.”
“It actually made him feel worse.”
“I know.”
“So, you didn’t really want me? I was just a convenient pawn to out your brother?” Micah could hear the note of betrayal in his voice, even though he was trying to clamp down on it. He had thought he was welcome here, that he had been wanted for who he was, not what he could do for the family.
“No, not at all!” Sam winced. “Aah, this is all coming out wrong.”
“Much like I did,” Micah said.
“Come on. You’re a great guy, Micah. And we did want you because of you. So it was kind of like two birds with one stone, helping you out and hoping that would affect Dane and help him too. Is that such a terrible thing?”
“You wanted me here to be some kind of role model for Dane, and look at what you ended up with.”
Sam took a swig of his beer, as if he was preparing himself for a speech. “Micah, the mistakes you made weren’t because you were gay. Do you know how many other guys are in this exact same situation around the country? First year in the big leagues, earning more money than they’ve ever had before, drinking, hookups with girls after the game, just the same old thing. It’s part of the adjustment phase, and they’ve been trying to improve it and make it less difficult for the new players, which is where the fostering comes in. So I feel like I’ve failed you. I was meant to help you, and I didn’t.”
“You didn’t fail me. I hid everything from you.”
“But I should have known. And I did, on some level. I knew you weren’t exactly happy, but I didn’t know the extent. We were meant to protect you.”
“You can’t protect anyone. And anyway, I came to you when I was ready. So it wasn’t entirely a lost cause.” Micah took a deep breath; being emotionally open was never easy for him, but he had to be or else he would be doing the exact same bullshit this time next year. “I knew you were there for me, Sam, I always did. It was just too hard for me to do it. And that’s my fault, not yours.”
“I feel like getting soppy with you,” Sam said. “Do you want me to get soppy here?”
“I’m almost too scared to answer.”
“It’s just, you’re a good guy. It might have taken a little while, but you being here brought my brother back, and I got a friend to boot.”
“You’re drunk,” Micah teased.
“No, just tipsy. And soppy.”
“Aren’t I just a surrogate little brother?”
“No, you dipshit. You’re my friend too. Man, you and Dane are alike in so many ways.”
“We’re both devastatingly handsome and charming?”
“You know, it’s usually the little sisters that have to be warned away from the teammates, not the little brothers.”
Micah almost spat out his beer. “We’re not together!”
“But how long will that last?” Sam asked.
“You know, just because two gay guys are in the vicinity of each other, it doesn’t mean they’re fated to get it on.”
“I’ll add that to my notes. But you think my brother’s hot, right? I mean, after all, he’s a Mitchell. We’re even prettier than the Hemsworths.”
“No!” Micah said quickly. “Nobody’s prettier than the Hemsworths.”
“Thanks!”
“I mean, Dane’s not horrendously ugly, just like you’re not horrendously ugly….”
“Go on!”
“It’s not like either of you would cause children to scream in terror if they saw you on the street. But I think Dane would be insulted being compared to me.”
“Maybe not now. You two seem to have turned a corner.”
“To be honest, I think it also had a lot to do with the two of you spending more time together as well. He worships you, you know.”
“As well he should!” Sam puffed his chest out.
“He has a poster of you on his wall.”
“No way! Seriously?”
“Seriously. You didn’t know?”
“He never lets me in his room.”
“You have to learn to break the door down, like I did.”
Sam looked across the pool, to where his brother was sitting with Maia. “Do you think we did it all the right way?”
Micah was touched by his plaintive tone. “I don’t think there is any right way to handle it. Either you freak somebody out when they’re not ready, or you screw with their heads by waiting for them to come out to you.”
“So you’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t?”
“I just like to think of it as you’re fucked no matter what.”
Sam shook his head. “I hope you’re going to be a little more polite on your date.”
Micah didn’t think his foul mouth would be the issue when they had already seen each other naked. “You’re so prim and proper, Miss Manners.”