Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 105080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 525(@200wpm)___ 420(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 525(@200wpm)___ 420(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
On the next play, Anson caught the ball again just before he made it into the end zone. Touchdown!
I jumped, screaming and pumping my fists. Anson did a dance, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Afterward, the Lightning made the extra point and managed to stop the other team.
“Shit. We should get out of here,” Jeremy said. “It’s gonna take forever.” We were planning on walking up the street to call a car.
“Hold on a sec.” I almost said I wanted to see if they talked to Anson, but Jeremy would wonder why I cared. “If that was the plan, we should have done it a few minutes ago. It’s not gonna go any quicker if we leave right now or in a few.”
Jeremy frowned, looking confused, but nodded. Everyone began to head out around us as one of the reporters grabbed Anson. He’d taken his helmet off. He was sweaty, his hair plastered to his head, a bright glint in his eyes. He loved this—fuck, you could see how much he loved it, how much he thrived on it. Lived for it. Maybe enough to spend his life in the closet for it.
His face appeared on the screen when the reporter said, “It wasn’t an easy win for you guys tonight.”
Anson replied in the deep voice that had gotten me hard last night, only now, it was breathless from the game. “No win is ever easy. If it was, it wouldn’t be football, and we wouldn’t love it. But yeah, they played their hearts out tonight. I wanted it badly, though—we all did—and we got the win, and now it’s time to get ready for next week.”
What a perfectly diplomatic answer. It made me smile.
“Last season you led the league in receiving yards by a tight end, and today you showed off your impressive blocking skills. You can do it all.”
“Yep.” He winked at her cockily. “I do whatever it takes to get the job done.”
Oh, he was good.
“Is this Atlanta’s year?” she asked.
“Hell yes,” he replied. “I’m calling it now. Come this February, there will be a new champion in the league.”
She laughed as I asked Jeremy, “Have they ever won before?”
“The Lightning has, but not since Hawkins has been on the team.”
I looked back to the field, but Anson was gone.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here. We’re on the red-eye tonight.”
He was right. I had no business obsessing over a closeted football player anyway.
As it turned out, not thinking about Anson and…well, not being a stalker for the first time in my life, was easier said than done. I looked him up on the internet…a lot. Anson was one of two sons. His dad died when he was young, and his mom struggled to make ends meet. When he was fourteen, his younger brother had been paralyzed in a trampoline accident. He and Anson were close. They lived together, and the brother—Elias—was getting his doctorate. There were videos of the brothers playing football, Elias in his chair, and he had a special kind of bike with a seat that held him in place so he could also ride dirt bikes with Anson.
Anson was a tight end, and while he was great at blocking, as he should be, he leaned a bit more toward being a receiver, as many of the greats did. Apparently his athleticism was insane and he could do it all.
Suddenly, I was a fucking ESPN addict.
On the screen, Anson was being interviewed, and he was saying, “I always knew football was my way out. The way to help my family, to provide for them and for myself. I don’t know how I got so lucky, why I was born with this talent, but it’s something I’m grateful for every second of my life. I’ll never take it for granted. I guess it’s a good thing I love the game so much. Outside of my family, there’s nothing I love more than the game.”
It was true. I heard it in his voice, saw it in his eyes. Anson loved football more than himself. Football and his family meant more to him than being true to who he was. Would his family care? Were they like mine, who had walked away from me, or was it only football that held Anson back? These were the kind of questions I asked myself over and over. I wanted to reach out to him, wanted him to know he wasn’t alone, but I was nervous too. I wasn’t sure it was my place, and the last thing I wanted was to make him uncomfortable or scared I would out him.
So instead, I tried to forget about him. Unfortunately, I wasn’t good at walking away from things I wanted.
Chapter Five
Anson
We were 2–0 so far. We were playing really good football, and while that should have been enough to keep me busy and distracted, my thoughts kept going back to that night at the hotel bar with Weston. Fuck, I wished I knew his full name. What I thought I would do with it was beyond me, and each time I tried to tell myself I would have used it, I usually just worked out harder or watched game film or anything else I could think of to distract my body from what it wanted.