“I do. And Cross?”
“Yes?”
“Congratulations on coming out. I’m being a hard-ass about your money, because that’s my job. But for every queer kid out there wondering if they can play? Thank you.”
“Oh.” Cross sat staring blankly at his phone as the call ended.
Rusty scooted closer so he could wrap his arm around Cross. “I guess you’re doing this, huh?”
“Guess so.”
“I’m really sorry. If I hadn’t dated Tyler—”
“Nope. Don’t go there.” Cross turned and delivered a fast, closed-mouth kiss. “If you hadn’t, when I blew out my ankle, I’d have had no one to turn to. I’d have still thought my tepid affection for Willow was as close to love as I’d ever get. So no regrets.”
“Okay.” Rusty kissed Cross’s temple where the hair was receding into distinguished peaks. “No regrets. Except that you have to call your team, and then we have breakfast with your parents.” That reminder got his heart pounding faster than the agent’s phone call. “Oh hell. Unless you want to cancel?” He was about to meet Cross’s mother as the guy who outed him to the world.
“Not unless you do? If you don’t feel up to it?”
“You want to go, though?”
“I do. You’ll like my mom. She’s nothing like my dad.”
“Okay. Today is all your call.”
“No, it’s not.” Cross caught Rusty’s arm as he moved to get out of bed. “We’re a team. That means you get a say in everythingthat affects us together. Right down to whether we let my dad make more of an ass of himself over eggs Benedict or not.”
“Eggs which?”
“Poached eggs, muffin, ham, white sauce. They’re good and the Silver Regency does them very well. Almost worth the Dad-lecture by themselves.”
“Oh, well, then. Sounds like something I shouldn’t miss. After I wash my ass.” Rusty made his escape to the bathroom, clothes and phone in hand, which…escapewasn’t quite the right word, but he needed a bit of breathing room. When he was plastered up against Cross, the most ridiculous things seemed possible. This was a lot, though.
He eyed his phone.Yes? No?He could call Scotty, thought about it. But Cross might want to have Scott’s support himself. Instead, he called Will.
“Yeah? What’s wrong, kid?” Will asked, clearly wide awake. Which of course he was, because ranch work started at dawn and Kansas was two hours later.
“Um, Cross and me got…” He couldn’t say kidnapped without going into a lot more detail than he had time for, hiding here in the bathroom. “Got in a mess and anyhow, he’s been outed on social media as dating me.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Does Scotty know?”
“Probably not unless Cross is calling him now. It literally just happened.”
“What can I do?” Will’s steady tones slowed Rusty’s pounding heart.
“I don’t know. Not much. I just needed to talk to someone.”
“Of course. I’ve been there, I know how scary being outed is.”
“I was already out.”
“Not the way you will be dating Cross, though, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” He’d wanted to pretend that all his anxiety was for Cross, but really, yeah, he was scared of the coming media circus too. “What if this is too messy for the Tornados? Or the Rafters?”
Will chuckled. “Not sure you can get more messy than Scott and the two of us, gay and poly, and they managed that fine.”
“Except Cross and me are both players.”
