2 days have gone by, and Eric is getting restless. He's been training nonstop, his coach's orders are to double his training as the end of the season is nearing and everyone needs to be in top shape. His couch is cutting off drinking, which Eric disagrees with. He loves his scotch, his whiskey, and his mixers. So I'm keeping him at my place where there's no alcohol to tempt him.

"I really don't understand why you don't just move in with me. Your place is empty," he's lying on the couch, shirtless and sweating from working out in the backyard.

"It's odd for us to live together," I tell him with a shrug and bring him a bottle of water.

"That's bullshit. We're practically already living together. You even have a clothes drawer, your own bed, need I continue?"

"It's odd for a player to live with his manager. There are ethical issues with that, but I don't suppose you understand that."

"Why the hell would I? We're much more than just manager and employer," his fierce eyes latch on to mine, and I freeze. "Move in with me."

I sigh and sit down beside him, he throws his legs on my lap to weigh me down. "I'm a grown man, and so are you, sometimes we need personal space."

"We'll get a three-bed house, so we both have personal space. Come on. If you want to bring a girl over just tell me to book it, and I'm gone. Same thing for me."

I rub my hand against my face, ready to tell him to drop it, and the alarm in his phone goes off for me. He groans and takes his feet off of my lap. He turned off the alarm and sat up, scooting closer to me.

"Liam, move in with me. I'll take care of all the expenses, just move in with me. It'll make it easier on both of us if you do it anyway. Who cares about what anyone thinks, no one needs an explanation about us or our dynamic. We are just us. Move in with me."

His hand rubs deep into my shoulder, taking the tension away immediately. Something I do to him all the time during a game when he's stressed.  He slowly took his hand away, and stood; he went back outside to finish working out.  I watched with admiration, how he could simply persuade me like that, then walk away like nothing happened. I frown and fall back, shaking my head at his childishness. He already has his mind set on me moving in, and he's to stupid to realize why we can't move in together. He'll use the argument that we lived together as teenagers, but that was different, and he knows it.

I walk out to the backyard, he's not even working out anymore, he's just starting down at the orange ball at his feet. The wind blows around him, the sun makes his skin shine, and if he were to turn around I would run to him like the movies and kiss him. But he didn't turn around, he stared at the ball, then sighed and picked it up. He bounced it once, then twice, then jumped and flicked the ball perfectly into the net. 

"If you refuse to move in with me, I'll just move in with you," he said and finally turned around. "What so different now? We're family, what's so wrong with that?" He asked as he stepped forward. "Tell me, because I'm not backing out of this."

"Eric, let's not do this please," I beg and shake my head, he grabbed my face and forced me to look him in the eyes. "Eric, I'm setting a boundary, please respect it."

"Fuck that," He cringed. "You're not setting a boundary, you're distancing yourself. I know you, something is wrong and it shows. You would normally say yes to moving in, so what changed? Why?"

"Eric."

"Liam!"

I take a breath and close my eyes, "No, Eric. I won't. You're right, we are family, and that's why I won't be following along with you this time. You're far too important to me for me to lose you, so I'm fucking saying no. Let's just keep at this, this is good, I like this arrangement."

His eyes searched my face, finding truth in my words, but his face looked pained and hurt. I don't care, I need this boundary so he doesn't find out about how disgusting I am, how I use him, how I take advantage of him, and his kindness. I can't keep doing that to him, he doesn't deserve it. I know I need to move on, but it's so hard when he's all I've ever loved, he was my first everything. His hands drop from my face, and he nods and turns around. He grabbed his water and his shirt and went to the gait. 

"Dont drink," I tell him. 

"Wasn't planning on it."

--

Later that night I unlock the door to Eric's, I hear music, so I follow it. The walls in his home were covered in his achievements, his family and friends, and me, it felt like home. My walls were blank, I had a picture of us as teens with the guys from our team, and that was all. I stop by the bathroom and see my toothbrush beside his, my drawer for my hair products, and deodorants right beside his drawer. Im not sure I even have any in my house. Maybe unopened. I enter the kitchen, and the cup cabinet holds my mugs and water bottles, I probably only have a mug at my place. I keep following the music, passing the dining room, a placemat set for him and I like always, side by side. 

I find him in the living room, the back door is open and he's blasting his music while staring out to the sky. I sit beside him, he doesn't even flinch. We sat in silence, watching the clouds roll through the sky. 

"I've still got 2 hours," he says.

"I know, I came to ask if you wanted to go out shopping before."

He looked over with a confused brow. "For what?"

I sigh, then take an extra deep breath: "Let's do it. Let's find a place and move in together."

"Are you serious?" he grinned ear to ear.

"There's got to be some rules and-" his arms wrap around me, crushing me, crushing my heart, making me warm and want to fall into the warmth and never leave. "Regulations. And, I have to tell you something important."

"Okay," he said in the hug, still not letting go. "Shoot."

I try to separate the hug, see his face as I tell him, and shatter his heart. He didn't let go. 

"Eric, let go for a second," I whisper in annoyance, and he slowly obeys. "Thank you... Now, what I'm going to tell you is going to be surprising, but I don't want to lose you."

I stop when my phone buzzes, I groan and pick it up. A text message from a number not recognized. A picture and message underneath. "I wonder how much money I'd make off this picture" the caption read, the picture being me and Eric. A few days ago, in his car, when he kissed me outside of his garage. You can make out that it is us in the picture, and we look so intimate. My heart skipped a beat, my breath caught in my throat. 

Eric moved forward, I slammed my phone screen against my chest. "Liam, what's wrong," his hand lands on my knee, his other hand coming towards my phone.

My phone beeps again, and again. I stand, and I run. I run into the house, and I run right back out the front door and to my own house right next door.  I hear Eric behind me the entire time, telling me to stop and tell him what's wrong. When my door is shut and locked I tell him to go home, and I'm rescheduling his appointment. He stands there, knocking and trying to unlock the door, and asking me to unlock the deadbolt, but I don't. He gave up, he went home. 

Two more pictures, when he kissed my palm, and when he was flirting with me when we were leaving the bar. You can see his arm wrapped around my waist, pushing us together, something so intimate and sensual, that he doesn't even know he did. My heart was running a million miles a minute, I felt like I couldn't breathe, my face was going numb and my limbs were shaking. I felt the world closing in. He was going to hate me, his career is going to be ruined, and I fucked up his life. 

 I went to the kitchen and drank ice-cold water from the faucet, splashing it on my face to get the numbness to stop. It didn't work. I threw my shirt to the floor and went to the bathroom, I turned on the cold water, stripped, and stepped in. My body froze, and I sank to the floor, covering my eyes with my hands until I was calm. I was freezing, and calm, but still terrified. I turned off the water, wrapped myself in two towels, and went to sit in front of the vent. I used my phone to turn on the heater, and I went back to the messages. I took screenshots of everything and blocked them. I contacted a fellow college student who was studying law. 

Our relationship started when I ran into her when I was in a hurry to see Eric play. I pushed her over, apologized, helped her up, gave her my number, and said I'd pay if anything was damaged, and I ran off. She texted me first. Joking that I had to get her hair done professionally as an apology. I managed to get her some coupons. We clicked, and became easy friends, as we were both secretly in the closet, my first ever fellow gay friend. Alice was an incredible woman.

"Alice, I need legal help pronto."