Royal Indiscretion, chapter 34 (Patreon)

When they turned the corner, Yves spotted the photographers with their rapacious looks and those stupidly oversize cameras. For a moment, he froze. Then Doug’s hand landed on the small of his back. Doug didn't say anything. He just stood there with Yves waiting for him to collect himself. And in that moment of indecision, the photographers descended on them. 

“Count Yves!”

“Count!”

“Can you explain why you left your country?”

“What's your relationship with Doug Wasso?”

They all jostled each other as the cameras flashed and clicked and pedestrians stopped to watch. Yves felt his panic start, and he focused on the pressure where Doug’s hand rested against his back.

“Do you have any comment on the recent reports that Mr. Wasso has made derogatory comments towards you.?”

This was the question Yves had practiced. “Mr. Wasso has never said a negative word to me. Whoever spread those rumors is clearly uncomfortable with my friendship with Mr. Wasso.” Yves drew himself up straighter and tried to project an aura of royal authority. He probably failed.

“What is your relationship with Mr. Wasso?” Another photographer called.

Again, Yves froze. It felt wrong to say they were in a relationship because they hadn't done more than hold hands and exchange a chaste kiss in the hotel room before leaving for the meetings, but it felt wrong to deny they had a relationship because Yves felt a bone deep attraction to Doug that was far more than physical. Doug was handsome, yes. But more importantly, he was kind. And Yves had too few kind people in his life.

“Mr. Wasso, how did you meet count Yves?”

Doug laughed. “Count Yves? That makes him sound like a breakfast cereal.”

All the photographers laughed with him, and as much as Yves cared deeply for Doug, possibly even loved him, he was jealous of that easy rapport.

“So how did you meet?” Another photographer called.

Doug beamed at them. “His aunt, the Lady Anne, saved me from eating brains. I swear, you people eat some weird crap over here. Give me a good old-fashioned double bacon cheeseburger any day of the week. I will forever be in Lady Anne’s debt for saving me from evil hors d'oeuvres.”

Again, the photographers all laughed even though Doug was insulting people's culture. Then Doug rubbed his belly like a stereotypical American cartoon.

“What's your relationship with the Count?”

Doug tilted his head toward Yves and smiled, and Yves couldn't resist smiling back. For a millisecond, nothing else mattered or even existed. “I think we’re working on that,” Doug said with a softness in his voice.

Around them cameras clicked and Yves blinked his way back to reality. Conscious of how close he had leaned toward Doug, he took a step back and refocused on the photographers. “Surely you have something actually newsworthy to report on.”

“I think they’re suggesting we are newsworthy,” Doug said, and he gave the photographers a wink. More cameras clicked away.

“Are you confirming that you were gay?” A photographer called out. Obviously she was speaking to Doug because Yves own homosexuality was fairly well-established at this point. His father had demanded that Yves remain in the closet, so Yves had turned up for a gay pride event with rainbows painted over his eyebrows. Drugs had made him rather brave because facing this outing was far more terrifying than his own. Hell, Yves had waved flags and kissed random men for the photographers when he’d outed himself.

“I think the women I have dated would probably disagree with that characterization,” Doug said without showing a bit of discomfort. “But perhaps bisexual would be an accurate description.”

There were only six photographers, but Yves felt like they were surrounded, like they were a small group of freedom fighters with Nazis in the hills all around them. He also suspected he was overreacting, but given that he had no narcotics in his veins, he wasn't terribly surprised.

“We need to get through, guys. Can you give us some space?” Doug asked as if this were the most normal thing in the world. He pressed on Yves’s back, encouraging him to move forward. Yves did, and the photographers fell back, their cameras still clicking.

A young man with a blue streak in his hair shuffled backward a half step and kept taking picture after picture. Doug stepped forward so fast the guy didn’t have time to retreat. “We let you get your pictures already, so stop being a dick,” Doug said firmly. 

“I’m working here.”

“Work without getting in people’s way,” Doug said.

The kid smirked at Doug. “What are you going to do? Hit me? Push me?” His words were taunting, and Yves held his breath as the worst case scenario played out in his head.

“Worse,” Doug said. He faked a lunge forward, and the kid stumbled back, eyes wide. Instantly, Doug whirled around, caught Yves by the waist, dipped him backward and kissed him. Yves was stiff at first, his heart pounding with fear, but then Doug pressed his lips against Yves’s and a tingling warmth spread through him. Doug tightened his arms, his strength pulling Yves closer, and Yves held onto those strong arms. When Yves parted his lips, Doug’s tongue pressed in slowly as Doug shifted. Yves grew warmer as their bodies pressed together, and then Doug swept him back up to his feet. Yves stood there, stunned into blinking owlishly.

“Aww,” Doug said in a sarcastic tone. “Did you miss that picture?” All the other photographers laughed.

Yves realized that Doug had put his back to the asshole so he had the worst angle of the kiss. “You could have warned me,” Yves complained softly.

Doug leaned in and rested his forehead against Yves’s temple. “Where’s the fun in that?” he asked.

“Ass,” Yves said, but despite his aggravation, his voice came out fond.

Doug smiled. “Come on, let’s get back to the hotel.” He pulled Yves forward, and one of the photographers stepped right in front of the blue-haired asshole so Yves and Doug could pass. A few cameras continued to click and flash, but several of the photographers were staring at the screens on their cameras, most likely choosing the juiciest photo to send back to their offices. They had talked about teasing the paparazzi with innuendo, and they had both agreed they would not deny the growing attraction between them, but that had gone far beyond anything they had discussed.

They separated at Doug’s rental car, and Yves headed to the passenger seat, still a little light-headed. Once they were both in, Yves looked over to see the blue-haired photographer still clicking away. Given that the other tabloids were going to have pictures of Doug dipping him like a fairy tale prince, Yves doubted that a few shots of them sitting in a car were going to be worth much.

“That was effective and brutal,” Yves said.

Doug grinned. “That’s my specialty. I still have my temper, but my therapist taught me to channel it in different ways. I’m not sure this is what she meant, but I enjoyed it.” After Doug merged into the London traffic, he glanced over. “How are you doing?”

“A little nauseated,” Yves said. 

Doug grimaced. “Shit. I’m sorry. I never should have done that without talking to you.”

Yves rolled his eyes. “I am not concerned about that.” If anything, Yves hoped Doug repeated that in the near future. Yves was half-hard and still tingling. “What if this damages your career? There is a difference between implying you are gay and giving the sort of photographic evidence you just provided. That will be a red flag to any homophobes on your team.”

Doug's expression evened out. “I have millions of dollars in the bank. I'm fairly sure that even if I lose every sponsor, I will be fine. However, the world has changed in the last twenty years. For every sponsor I lose, I expect to gain one or two.”

“You expect? And how realistic are your expectations?” Yves had learned to be very cautious of overly general language.

“Those are Caro’s estimates, and she is the best at what she does,” Doug said. “I know how to run a play and she knows advertisers, so very realistic.”

“And your ability to work as a quarterback? What about that?” Yves asked. Doug was proud of his skills with the game, and if a relationship with Yves stole that from him, it would breed resentments.

Worryingly, Doug did not answer immediately. He turned onto a new road and took a few minutes to check mirrors and get settled in his lane.  “It won’t matter.”

Doug was a poor liar.  Yves shifted in his seat and tugged at the seat belt to get it away from his neck. “I would appreciate some honesty so I can reduce the amount of uncertainty I'm trying to navigate right now. I am very near my limits for being able to handle the unexpected. So how much damage will this do to you and your career?” Yves braced himself. If the damage was catastrophic, Yves could not imagine their relationship surviving, and Yves would not forgive himself.

The easy smile slipped from Doug's face. “Okay, first, I'm not lying about the sponsors. Caro projected that if we went through with this, assuming that the public gets an actual love story and not two weeks of screwing around before I'm updating some woman, she could actually get more sponsorships. I'm not worried about that part at all.”

“But there is a part you're worried about.” Yves could hear that in what Doug wasn't saying. 

Again, he grimaced. “Football might become difficult in the long run. I’m the quarterback, so I shoulder a significant part of the burden for keeping the team together. I don't know what will happen in the long term, but I will certainly keep playing the next year or two. After that, if I can't find a way to work with homophobes, then I might have to give up football. Do I think that's likely?” Doug shrugged. “I give myself sixty percent odds that I'm going to be able to pull through this.” He sounded oddly calm about the prospect of losing his job, but Yves felt like a medieval flagellant who carried the plague from town to town, destroying everything he touched even as he tried to make the world better. The horror of the truth made him want to flee the car and take his curse anywhere that it couldn’t hurt Doug.

Maybe Doug could read the concern on Yves’s face because he reached over and caught Yves's hand. “I like a challenge, and it’s not something you need to worry about because I'm not worried.”

“So I'm not allowed to worry about my boyfriend?” The words sounded odd coming out of Yves's mouth. He had engaged in sex with men. He had men who were friends. In his entire life, he’d never had a boyfriend.

Doug squeezed Yves’s hand. “I like knowing that I have someone in my life who worries about me, but with all the money I have in the bank, I don't think I have any right to worry about my career. Besides, I could get injured in my next game and be out. That’s the nature of football.”

“The way you could injure your ankle on old stairs?” Yves asked. It felt like a lifetime ago that they had stood in the ruins on Yves’s land.

Doug grinned. “Exactly. When you make your living with football, you can't expect to do the job forever. It's not realistic. That's why I get so frustrated when I see my coworkers spending money recklessly. They get a contract for million dollars and think that means that they should spend a million. They have no concept of how very fragile life is.” Doug squeezed Yves’s hand again. 

“You are far more poetic than I expected.”

“Expected of an American or expected of a football player?”

“Than I expected of anyone who is not a poet,” Yves said. 

Doug laughed. Yves loved the way he looked when he did that—the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and the way one corner of his mouth turned up more than the other. “Well, let's keep that our secret. It would really screw with my macho image.” Doug waggled his eyebrows.

“God forbid.” Yves watched the city outside pass by. They’d done it. They had announced themselves to the world. Yves imagined his father was going to be swallowing a camel over that. “In English, how do you say that you must do something you hate? I assume you do not speak of swallowing a camel.”

A snort-laugh burst out of Doug. “No. We don’t. We might swallow a bitter pill.”

“It would be worse to swallow a camel.”

“I can’t argue that,” Doug said. “So, who’s going to swallow this camel of yours?”

“My father. He is going to look at that picture and have fantasies about what he would like to do to me.” While Duke Gerard had never physically struck Yves, he would likely want to now. “He and others will make certain assumptions about our relationship.”

“That we’re having sex,” Doug said rather bluntly.

“Yes. And that you are the stereotypical male in bed.” No doubt that would upset Duke Gerard nearly as much as Yves leaving the country or being romantically linked with an American. In the Stenbock family, one did not show weakness. Even King Alphonse believed that as he slowly died in private.

“I am okay with either end of the bed,” Doug said. “In fact, since I don't have a whole lot of experience with gay sex, I'm rather curious to try the whole bed.”

“Truly?”

“Well, yeah. Why not?”

Yves thought about what it might mean to share a bed with someone he trusted to be there in the morning—someone who put him first. “Since I have very little experience having sex either sober or with someone I actually like, I'm rather interested in trying it all myself to see what the differences are.”

Doug squinched up his face. “That’s disturbing.”

Yves considered what he said. “You know, you're right. It is.” But Yves suspected that his life in and out of bed was starting to change. He tightened his hold on Doug’s hand.