Page 55 of Everything's Better With You
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
They grinned at each other like a couple of lovestruck teenagers.
“So, the last show, huh? Are you going to miss the network?” Joe asked him.
Leslie exhaled and rubbed his forehead. “Yes and no. I like being connected with the league still, but no, I’m happy with my little team. I have a lot of work to do with them. It’s not going to be a picnic. I can’t keep on gallivanting off to Dallas or LA or New York in the middle of football season.”
“Hmmm, but maybe you could gallivant withmenext month to LA?”
Leslie sat up straighter. “With you? To LA?”
Joe grinned. He looked around. “They need me for aDance Machinespecial live performance. We have a bye week so I thought maybe, if you weren’t busy—”
“Godyes, I’d love to come with you.”
“Good. Great. It’s a date.”
Leslie had a herd of wild horses running through his chest. “Are we doing this? Joe?”
Joe bit down on his lip and grinned. “Let’s do this. I mean, we can’tdothis, like, at Greenvale, but like Iwantto do this. Let’sdothis.”
All this talk ofdoing thishad Leslie’s slacks feeling snug, but also his chest was so full, he was ready to make declarations, which was a bad idea while Joe was likely tipsy in the Goalpost parking lot with Leslie’s creepy brothers lurking nearby.
There was some commotion behind Joe and the screen went black but he could still hear him.
“Yeah, I’m going to take off. Thanks for the drinks. No, thanks. I walked up here. I’m going to walk back. No, I don’t need an escort. Goodnight.” The sound of footfalls and the phone scratching against the material in Joe’s pocket. Joe singing to himself. Then he pulled the phone out. “Oh, you’re still there. Good. You can talk to me while I walk home like a responsible little faculty member. Geez, I can’t believe I was out drinking on a school night. What would your brother say?”
“That you should not be hanging out with the youngest Payton brothers if you don’t want to do foolish things?”
Joe smiled and looked around him in the bar’s parking lot. “I’m just going to stay here for a minute and talk to you. I want to see you and I don’t want to trip and fall if I’m watching you and walking while tipsy.”
Leslie really liked his profile from this angle. It was still dimly lit outside at nine o’clock and the streetlights illuminated his face. He smiled into the phone and Leslie was glad he had this moment, this connection with him. Joe’s smiles were infrequent and Leslie cherished every one of them.
“Yeah. I only had two beers but I’m a lightweight. And your brothers are kinda sweet. Like, they were trying to look out for you without being obvious but beingtotallyobvious that’s what they’re doing.”
“What did they do now?” Leslie groaned. Was he going to have toforbid them from talking to Joe? Most of the time they meant well but they were loose cannons…without alcohol.
“Nothing bad, I promise. But, if I listened to them, I might think you were kind of sweet on me.”
Joe glanced down at the screen for a few beats, and Leslie saw that vulnerability he craved, when the dancer, the reluctant “out” spokesperson in his field who put up that wall to keep anything from possibly hurting him allowed Leslie to gaze inside at the beautiful man behind the anger.
“You know I am, Joe. I have been for fifteen years. Since that night in the Goalpost parking lot, right where you’re standing. All of these years, all of our texts, phone calls… Yeah, I think sweet on you is an understatement, but it’s a factual statement.”
Joe covered his mouth with his hand, but his eyes crinkled at the corners.
“You’re making me blush, Leslie.”
“Good,” Leslie said, chuckling. “I like you blushing.”
“I likeyou,” Joe murmured. “You have no idea how many times you reaching out was exactly what I needed to get me out of my head, out of my… You were there for me so many times, whether you knew it or not. I always knew I could show you the shitty side of my life. I didn’t have to be perky or perfect with you.”
That confirmed one of Leslie’s theories, that the pressure put on Joe as a part ofDance Machinewas more than he let on.
“You can tell me anything, Joe. You know that. Don’t you know I get it? I know our lives have seemed different, but are they really? We’re both under a microscope all the time, everyone watching, waiting for us to make a misstep and be the one to screw it up for other out athletes and artists.” They’d both been in a place where people were okay knowing they were gay as long as it wasn’t in their faces. His crush on Joe had been safe in a lot of ways.
“I know you get it. But, Leslie? Why do we only do this over the phone?”
