A Deeper Blue Read online

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  EPILOGUE

  More from S.E. Harmon

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  About the Author

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  Copyright

  A Deeper Blue

  By S.E. Harmon

  Rules of Possession: Book Two

  A year ago, Kelly Cannon couldn’t imagine he’d end up with his formerly straight best friend. It’s hard to believe he can finally kiss Blue anytime he wants… as long as they’re in private. And there’s the rub. Despite Kelly’s promise to wait until Blue is ready to come out, he’s tired of sneaking around. The cracks in their relationship are starting to show, and there might not be enough spackle in the world to fix them.

  Britton “Blue” Montgomery may not be the physics brainiac his boyfriend is, but he’s not stupid. He knows Kelly isn’t completely happy, but he’s not ready to be the poster boy for bisexuals and gays in the NFL. He just wants to keep his head down, play the game he loves, and go home to the man he adores. Is that too much to ask?

  With the truth slowly coming to the surface, Blue must make a choice. If it means losing Kelly, there’s no decision to make. He has to find enough courage to face the music and hope they’ll survive the fallout.

  Man. Happily-ever-afters may not be just for Disney princesses, but they sure are a lot of work.

  To my mother, who let me walk alone to the library. And my sister, who followed me in her car.

  CHAPTER 1

  Kelly

  TRUE LOVE.

  It’s that moment in romantic movies we subconsciously wait for, that moment that makes our hearts fill, however briefly, and makes us sigh an audible awww. The actual details of the moment vary. Sometimes it’s a slow, gradual thing when you realize you’ve been in love all along, and it washes over you like a gentle, calming wave. Sometimes it’s like a knockout punch straight to the jaw, and you realize all those little moments of “like” were love masquerading all along.

  Whatever the catalyst, it’s that moment when everything just falls into place like a magic jigsaw puzzle. Someone usually gets kissed then, but it’s not just any kiss. It’s one of those steam-up-your-glasses kisses, the kind you seldom actually experience in real life. “The End” splashes across the screen, and a catchy tune comes on and reminds us of sunshine on a cloudy day, and everything is hearts and candy and roses.

  But has anyone ever put a microscope to the poisonous concept of true love? Who the hell created a romantic ideal that none of us can possibly hope to achieve without the assistance of an irritated Hollywood producer, a harried crew, and perfect lighting? Clinging to such a fairy tale is practically dangerous, people.

  All this talk of belonging together and “your true half equals my true half” and blah the fucking blah. Before you know it, you’re looking at your relationship and realizing your true half is kind of annoying. And True Half leaves the milk on the counter a lot… even though he’s been repeatedly warned.

  True Half also spends a lot of money on shoes and a lot of time in the mirror. In fact, if you have to smell True Half’s dirty damn socks one more goddamn time because he never remembers to put them in the hamper, you’re going to slice True Half into fucking True Quarters.

  But how can you leave your one true half? He’s your one chance at happiness. Maybe if you kill your one true half, the universe will give you another. You start reviewing True Half’s life insurance policy and googling the best way to end a motherfucker, and that, folks, is how people wind up on Dateline.

  Before you go thinking I’m just the bitterest Betty who ever bettied, you should know a few things. I’ve recently gone through a lot of upheaval. Up until a year ago, I was secretly in love with a guy who’s been my best friend since we were kids, a friend who identified as straight—or at least we thought he was straight until he started to develop feelings for me that weren’t strictly platonic.

  We started dating, but because of the nature of his career as a tight end in the NFL, we haven’t told many people. Connor, my good friend and coworker, knows. And Blue’s teammate Ivanovich. Oh, and Carly, Blue’s ex-girlfriend, who walked in on us fooling around. I told him to always change your door code when you break up with someone. Otherwise you get caught giving your secret boyfriend a blowjob on the kitchen island, and let’s face it, no one needs to see that.

  A year later I’m at home watching the love of my life on TV at a hospital charity event. Blue and two of his teammates donated a “day in the life” to a couple of auctions, giving fans a chance to spend the entire day with their favorite NFL player. All the proceeds go to a worthy cause—building a new wing on a nonprofit children’s hospital.

  I watched as he and Ivanovich schmoozed with a reporter and managed to answer her questions and flatter her at the same time. They were pros, laughing at all the right times and smiling with just the right amount of sincerity. You could tell that, even though they did that kind of thing all the time, they were genuine. Blue could give an interview in his sleep.

  When I complained about how irritating reporters could be, he just gave me one of those amused smiles. He thought I was being ridiculous but cute and reminded me there would always be certain positives and negatives that came with being a professional athlete. And if playing the sport he loved meant he had to make nice with a couple of intrusive reporters every now and again, then that’s what he’d do.

  Reasonable bastard.

  He was sex personified in a tailored black tux, and from the look of things, someone had styled his dark blond hair back and away from his face. I knew it couldn’t have been him. I had convinced him to grow it out a bit, but he still had no idea how to manage his own hair. His idea of styling was to rub a towel over his freshly shampooed head and call it good.

  I bet he smelled as good as he looked too. He was probably wearing that expensive cologne his brother got him for his birthday. And on his arm was the very lovely Carly Taylor, his date for the evening. Her sheer black dress was a perfect foil for skin that was as perfectly sun-kissed as any good California girl. I think they check for it at the border. A cloud of curly blonde hair surrounded her lovely face and floated around shoulders as sharp as razor blades.

  Did fake dates need to be quite so close to each other?

  I gritted my teeth. Blue and Carly had come to a mutual agreement that involved her getting publicity and Blue avoiding detection. So everyone was happy. I stuffed my face with another mouthful of popcorn. I was trying to understand how the guy who’d been willing to set fire to everything and come out for me six months ago was on a fake date to protect his image, but I was still happy. Perfectly freaking happy.

  Connor glanced my way and sighed. “Don’t make me confiscate the bowl.”

  “And risk losing that hand?” I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you needed it to teach… and beat off.”

  “Don’t make me slap you. I’ve been itching to do it anyway, since you drank the last beer. It would take very little to push me over the edge.” He glared
and waved at the TV, where the sports part of the news had ended and a woman with a shellacked hairdo was reporting gleefully about some dirty local restaurant. “You know none of that with Carly was real.”

  “Those roaches in that wok are very real.” I squinted. “Haven’t we been to that restaurant?”

  “Kelly.”

  I sighed. “I know Blue’s not cheating on me, for God’s sakes.”

  “And you know he’s coming home to you.”

  “I know that too.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  The problem was I should be the one with him at the charity event. Not because I particularly liked the attention or even wanted to be well-known enough for reporters to hound me. Frankly, after six months of dating Blue, I realized that anyone who wanted to be famous didn’t know what the hell they were asking for. The reporters were nosy, insistent, and had a knack for twisting Blue’s every word, and the fans were almost as bad in a different way. They were handsy and aggressive and never seemed to understand the words no or enough.

  But I wanted to support my partner in the things that were important to him. He was proud of his charity work, and that made me unbearably proud of him. I wanted to be with him at the event, to celebrate the culmination of something he worked hard at.

  I should also be in the photos his assistant, a fast-talking, überefficient whirlwind named Penny, would post on his Instagram. Once again, not because I particularly wanted to. I could do without a bunch of strangers critiquing my everything, but I should be in the pictures, because he was mine and I was his, and that was something to be proud of.

  Not something to hide.

  “Wait a minute.” Connor scrunched his nose a little as he thought, and I waited patiently for his revelation. He finally shook his head. “I think we have eaten at that restaurant.”

  I glared at him. Maybe I was wishing for too much—a perfect relationship and an eatery that didn’t have rat droppings. Maybe I should just be happy I had Blue. I had him in ways I never thought I would, and we were happy together. Maybe I should stop wishing for the fairy tale and enjoy what I actually had… which, in case I didn’t make that perfectly clear, was pretty damn great.

  That true-love business was messing with my mind. In the movies true love would conquer everything, even the potential disapproval of Blue’s father, the NFL, and all the haters. Everyone would dance at our wedding as Natalie Cole’s “This Will Be” played in the background over pithy commentary. But that wasn’t reality. Perfect true love was for suckers.

  Okay. That’s all. Carry on.

  I understood why he wasn’t ready to come out. I got it. No, really—I got it, but sometimes it really pissed me off. He was still the same player he always was, and that wasn’t going to change whether he liked to sleep with dudes or not. Well… dude singular. It better be dude singular. But that just got me thinking about Blue on the road with Carly, and the less I thought about that, the better.

  It wasn’t as though we’d given the team a chance to step up to the plate and rally, but I know how they treated me as his best friend. With only a few exceptions, most of Blue’s teammates just tolerated me.

  I think it helped them that I ticked several stereotypically gay boxes. I didn’t know jack about sports, and I definitely didn’t play any. Physically I wasn’t a gladiator. Their tall, powerful bodies dwarfed my middling five-ten frame. I dressed neatly, and I was an unapologetic Gaga fangirl—not one of her monsters, but close enough. And the last time Connor and I had taken our happy asses to one of her concerts, we wore glitter on our eyelids and pants that were too tight to sit properly. Even with half-sleeve clockwork tattoos and several piercings—eyebrow, tongue, and several down my ear—I still fit close enough to their image of gay that it didn’t overly tax their brains.

  But Blue was supposed to be one of them—a gridiron giant, a big tough guy who could take you in a fight. He was the guy they invited to their bro parties, and he was their brother on the field. He could take a killer hit and push back even harder. If he was bisexual, what did that mean? Were the gays and bisexuals just like us? Were they all just people after all? Oh, the fucking horror of it all.

  I sighed. When I gave Blue my heart, it didn’t have strings or conditions, and this late in the game, I wasn’t going to craft any. I’d loved that guy since we were in second grade, loved him when he hadn’t loved me—at least not that way—and that was never going to change, even if I wanted to wring his neck and then that of his media-loving fake date, Carly. Did I happen to mention that they’re exes? No? Must’ve slipped my mind. Thinking about it made my blood pressure spike.

  I shut off the TV, and the room went dark with only illumination from the streetlights. “I wanna go out.”

  I heard something go bump and a heartfelt curse. Then there was a little snick, and a table lamp came on. When I looked over, Connor was near the side table, rubbing his shin and giving me a dirty look. “Out where?”

  “I don’t care. You can pick.” I pushed off the sofa and shook out all the kinks from sitting so long. My knees made noises that should only be heard in a bowl of Rice Krispies. “All I care about is getting my dance on and my drink on and not necessarily in that order.”

  “Your wish is my command,” he teased.

  “God, I love the sound of that.” I headed for the stairs. “When he gets back, I want you to spend some time teaching Blue that phrase.”

  “Done deal.”

  “Now come up here and help me cram my junk into something way too small and tight.”

  “No thanks,” he called after me. “I choose life.”

  I paused at the top. It wasn’t like we hadn’t seen each other naked before. Hell, we’d done much more than just look. We hadn’t gotten much further than hurried mutual hand jobs, but still. It wasn’t like Connor to be shy. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “No offense, but Blue kind of loses his overall laid-back vibe where you’re concerned. In fact, he kind of turns into one of those vampire-shifter types. Mine, mine, mine and all that. So as much as I’d like to see your ass again, I’m gonna have to take a hard pass on that.”

  I rolled my eyes. That was so very dramatic and so very like Connor. “He knows we’re just friends.”

  “Still.” He shrugged. “I like a lot of things wedged up my ass, but a size-fourteen Nike will never be one of them.”

  FIVE MINUTES after we arrived, I was already jonesing to leave.

  The music was deafening, and every place I went, it seemed like someone brushed up against me. I nursed an overpriced drink at the bar for a while and pondered the exact day I became an old crow and why none of my inconsiderate friends had bothered to have a funeral for my youth.

  Sometimes I headed for drinks with some friends to a local bar called Schmitty’s, and I certainly enjoyed that, but this…. This club scene was something else entirely. The strobe lights pierced my skull like an actual knife, and if someone blew a whistle one more goddamned time, I might lose it. As though to test my resolve, some blue-haired guy in booty shorts and boots blew a whistle shrilly, and some guys on the dance floor sent up a cheer.

  “Hey, cutie.” I glanced behind me to find a guy giving me a smile that was a little too practiced for my taste. He was attractive in a slick, club-kid kind of way, and I couldn’t have been less interested.

  When he took my raised brow for interest and tried to get me to dance by grinding on my ass, I decided enough was enough. Clearly I wasn’t going to get any younger or hipper by standing there and wishing I were home in bed.

  “Sorry, not tonight,” I said, going for a smile in case he was crazy.

  “What?” he yelled over the pounding beat of the music.

  “I said sorry, not tonight.”

  “Yeah, this does feel right.” He grinned. “The name is Eric. What’s yours?”

  My other eyebrow joined the first. “I don’t think so.”

  “Joe? Awesome, my roommate’s name is Joe!�
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  He bumped up to me closer, and I sighed. He had to be ten years my junior, and clearly all his clubbing had made him stone deaf. I took his slender shoulders in my palms and spun him around to another guy on a stool next to me. Eric blinked for a minute and then started grinding on that guy, who looked pleased at the attention.

  I spotted Connor in a shadowy corner booth, dark head close to another guy’s as they talked. It looked as though maybe his dry spell was over, and I decided not to ruin whatever he had going. I sent him a quick text to tell him I was leaving and to ask him to text me that guy’s info before Connor went home with him. He texted me back a couple emojis I couldn’t puzzle out the meaning to, and I shook my head. I decided to make a beeline for the exit.

  When I finally got outside, the fresh air was like a balm to overheated flesh. My ears still rang from all the bloody noise, and with a curled lip, I glanced back at the club doors. There were too many people in there, too many smells and sounds—too much of everything.

  I headed for the metro with my hands buried in my pockets. I was never more aware that I was in a different place in my life. There was nothing for me in the club. I liked soft couches and television and places where I could actually hear the person talking to me. Call me crazy. And there would never be any hookups for me. I had the only guy I’d ever really loved. I didn’t feel particularly sad about it. They were all in there looking for what I had already found.

  A short metro ride and a four-block walk later, I let myself back into the house and tossed my keys on the side table. I took a quick shower to get the scent of the evening off me—body sweat from the crush of people, stale alcohol, and then the train—and pulled on some boxers. I headed to the bedroom, accompanied by the soft click of nails on hardwood as my dog, a rescue named Waffles, trailed behind.

  Blue and I had gotten the brown-and-black mutt from the shelter six months before. We had no idea what kind of dog she was, but the vet was pretty sure she was part shepherd. We figured Blue would have a companion with him on his runs, and she could snuggle with me when she got back. But Waffles liked to chill—a lot—morning to night. She was also the undisputed queen of naps. Blue practically had to drag her out the door on his runs. Leave it to me to get a dog who loved sleeping more than I did.