Jude exhaled sharply. “Fuck it. I’ll just say it. We’re together. We’ve been together since my first night in Calgary. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but it was complicated.”
“You. And Cody Clements. The man who hates everyone?”
“He doesn’t hate everyone.” My boyfriend bristled, and it warmed me all over. “He loves me, for a start. And I love him. More than anything in the world. More than football.”
“Love? Whoa. You’re going to have to give me some time to process this. It’s…it’s a lot. My teammate is banging my little brother.”
Jude sighed. “I know. But we’re together. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it in the media. We kind of got outed, accidentally, during the match where I was injured. I was hoping I could tell you sooner, but you weren’t answering my calls.”
He’d panicked about his brother finding out before he had a chance to tell him himself, especially when I’d received a string of texts from Petrov and Davis right before the PR statement was released to confirm our relationship status. I smirked, picturing the shock on their faces when they found out I was in a relationship with Brayden Nielson’s brother.
“Sorry. You know I needed some time to process everything, and I kept forgetting about my phone,” Brayden said. “So you’re together. Still struggling to get my head around that, by the way. I can’t believe you were sneaking around right under my nose, and I had no idea. What happens when he goes home?”
“He’s staying here. Permanently. He’s got a coaching job with Cheltenham Storm. Working with the youth team and assisting the coaches in the main team.” Jude beamed at me, and I couldn’t help returning his smile.
I moved around the coffee table, coming up behind the sofa so I could see the screen. Brayden sighed when he saw me.
“So it is true, after all. Be good to my brother, Clements. Don’t break his heart.”
Wrapping my arms around Jude’s shoulders from behind, I brushed a soft kiss over my boyfriend’s cheek as I responded to his brother. “He’s the most important thing in the world to me, and I have no intention of ever hurting him.”
Brayden’s jaw dropped. “Who are you, and what have you done with the Clements I know?”
“He’s gone for good.”
“No,” Jude corrected, bringing his hand up to squeeze my arm. “He’s still here. I’m just lucky enough to see another side of him.”
Because Jude was still healing from his injury, I’d been taking every chance I could to help him out, looking after him as much as he’d let me. After we wrapped up the call with Brayden, I carried him into the bathroom, ignoring his protests that he was nearly as tall as me and I was going to drop him. While the tub filled, I held him close, brushing soft kisses over his lips as I didmy best to show him just how much he meant to me. The things he'd said to his brother?—
“The bath’s getting a bit full.”
I blinked, my gaze shooting to the brimming tub. “Shit.” Carefully moving my boyfriend aside, I turned off the taps and then attempted to talk him into getting into the bath without me.
Eventually, after several long minutes of Jude trying out an array of begging expressions that he thought would make me change my mind, and me growling back at him, I managed to persuade him to lie back in the tub. Alone. Seated at the side of the bath, I ran my fingers through his hair, watching with satisfaction as his eyes fell closed and his breathing evened out.
“Mmm. This is nice. Why don’t you get in here with me?”
“Jude. We’ve discussed this. Extensively. You barely fit inside. There’s no room for us both.”
“We’re doing it at the Painswick house, then. I wanna christen the whole place, and that includes the tub.”
“I’m down with that.” I trailed my fingers down his body, watching with interest as his cock rose beneath the water. My own dick was hardening in my shorts, and I pulled my hand back—reluctantly, not wanting to risk anything that might cause him to hurt himself.
A soft surface. That was what he needed.
Half an hour later, I was almost ready to put my plan into action…if he’d stop complaining about the fucking pillows.
“Cody. I’m fine. I don’t even need the pillows. My ankle’s pretty much back to normal now. It was just a sprain, anyway.”
“Just a sprain that made me lose my fucking mind.” I lowered myself onto the edge of the bed, rubbing my thumb over his calf. “I kept thinking about what would have happened if it had been worse.”
“But it wasn’t. I’m fine.”
“I know. But seeing you go down so hard, and then lying there, not moving…” Trailing off, I shook my head. “Then I had to go and make things even more difficult with my one-man pitch invasion.”
Jude grinned at me. “I loved your one-man pitch invasion, and so did the media. They ate that shit up. And if you think about it, it brought us together. Properly. I don’t mind suffering through an injury if I get a love confession out of it.”
My heart swelled in my chest. Fuck, I loved this man so much. “I wish you hadn’t been hurt, but you’re right. It did force me to confront the truth.”
