Navigating a new relationship is hard enough when both parties are in the same state, but it’s particularly difficult when one party is on an extended road trip. Jimmy Hart has been playing in golf tournaments in Florida for five weeks and isn’t scheduled to come home for another ten days. Ray Wilson misses his sexy new boyfriend. Facetime and texts just aren’t the same as actual time face-to-face and real contact.
The new season’s first major championship is held in Florida at the end of March, and as a multiple winner, Ray is invited to the annual gala celebrating previous champions. Eager for the opportunity to see Jimmy, he makes travel arrangements and decides to keep his arrival a surprise. But when he arrives to see Jimmy looking awfully cozy with a fellow golfer, Ray starts to feel like he’s made some major mistakes.
Ray looked at his phone again, the message at the top of the screen catching his eye. Jimmy thought Ray didn’t want to be seen with him? Did he really think that or was he just trying to make Ray feel guilty in order to deflect the guilt from himself? That didn’t sit right. He never knew Jimmy to play games like that, but then, maybe he never really knew Jimmy at all. They’d been talking for only five months now, and really together only for about ten weeks, and Jimmy was fully out of town for at least five of those weeks. How could he know if Jimmy was capable of playing those sorts of games?
Maybe it was best to have it out now. He could change his charter and fly home in the morning, with Jimmy and the fucking Tour behind him forever.
Ray: I’m in 1113
Jimmy: 5 mins
Why did he need five minutes? To get Blackmon off his dick?
The thought made him dizzy with anger, but also snapped him back to reality. He hadn’t actually seen anything that would indicate they were doing anything wrong. Danny wasn’t doing anything inappropriate, especially if he and Jimmy were friends from college, and the message Ray sent was anything pressing. It was just a simple “how’s the gala.” Was there some sort of law about how quickly one had to respond to a text? Was Ray the texting police? Or the casual contact police? Or the relationship police?
Jimmy knocked on the door less than five minutes later.
When Ray opened it, the sight of him knocked the breath from his lungs. That close, face to face, it was easy to see that Jimmy was beyond handsome. Of course Danny was flirting with him. Everybody in that room, gay or straight, should be flirting with him. Who wouldn’t want him? The jealousy and anger in his chest burst open like a popped balloon, and he just felt very empty and very foolish.
“Come in.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming tonight?” Jimmy asked, closing the door behind him.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“I was sure surprised to see you running out of the ballroom.”
“Yeah, not my finest moment.”
“What happened?”
The demon possessed Ray again. “Are you fucking Blackmon?”
Jimmy blinked. “What?”
“I saw you two standing together at the bar. Then again at the table.”
“You saw us ... talking?”
“He was all over you. And if you are, then fine. But I have a right to know.”
“You really think I’d do that? Fuck somebody else? Somebody else on the Tour, no less?”
“What happens on the Tour stays on the Tour.”
Jimmy frowned. “Maybe for you, but not for me. That’s what you really think of me, huh?”
“Why didn’t you respond to my message?”
“The message you sent me like a fucking creep? How’s the gala? I don’t know, Ray, you’re standing about a hundred yards away from me, you fucking tell me.”
“You saw me?”
“Of course I fucking saw you. Ray fucking Wilson walks into a room and everybody notices. But I figured, hey, if you wanted me to know you were there you would have fucking told me you were coming. Or at least came over to say “hi” as a colleague. How am I supposed to act when you show up like this? Tell me so I don’t get it wrong next time.”
“Fuck, I’m an idiot,” Ray muttered.
“Guess that makes two of us.” Jimmy’s watch began to beep and he absently turned off the alarm. “Well, I got an hour before I have to turn in. Guess I’ll go back downstairs and pretend I don’t know you.”
