Playing Offside by Jax Calder
Epilogue : Aiden
Four months later.
“Greetings, Banones,” Macca said as we walked into the team barbeque in Coach Wilson’s backyard. He grabbed two beers off a table and held them out to us. “You guys want a beer?”
Tyler happily accepted a bottle as I frowned. “What did you call us?”
“He’s just trying to ship our names together,” Tyler said as he twisted open the beer. “And he’s doing a really bad job of it.”
“What about Jonnings?” Macca asked.
“Give up before you strain those last few braincells,” Tyler suggested.
Macca pouted. “I’m doing you a favor and coming up with solutions for when you get married. Otherwise, what are you going to do?”
Tyler shrugged. “We’ll probably just join our names together.”
Macca lumbered away to inflict his sense of humor onto someone else, while I turned to Tyler with a raised eyebrow. “So, we’re hyphenating our names, are we?”
A blush trekked up his cheeks. “That’s the part you’re focusing on?”
Yeah, I was focusing on the practicality of how we were going to blend our names because the underlying concept—the fact one day we would get married—seemed to me as sure as the sun rising tomorrow.
“Well, yeah. That’s the major point of uncertainty, isn’t it?” I said, making sure I let some of the love I felt for him leach out in my voice.
Tyler’s breath hitched. We had a moment when we just stared at each other.
I could tell he wanted to kiss me, but he restrained himself. Instead, he gave me a look that promised really, really great things were going to happen when we were alone together next.
We generally didn’t touch each other when we were around the team. The balance of being true to us as a couple and being professional had been challenging sometimes when we were away on tour.
Luckily, both the team and the public had been overwhelmingly supportive. Team management had made it clear they had our back, and even someone like Graham struggled to maintain his sneer when he saw the number of rainbow flags that had flown at the rugby grounds in Europe when we played.
When I’d run on the field to replace Tyler at the game in Cardiff, I was fairly sure we’d both gotten more cheers than all the Welsh players combined.
We’d both had a great tour from a playing perspective, which probably made it easier to silence any would-be critics. Tyler had adopted cocky bravado as his go-to strategy to cope with the screeds of attention we’d received. Only I had seen the times when he was vulnerable, when he’d stress about what a teammate’s offhand comment meant, when he’d come across a post on social media that would cause his smile to dim.
We talked it through a lot. And if talking through stuff didn’t work, dragging Tyler to bed and reminding him of all the reasons why he liked being gay seemed to do the trick.
Now, our teammates greeted us casually as we ambled side by side over to the table that had all the nonalcoholic drinks to track me down a ginger beer.
Jacob was there, patiently pouring a little bit of orange juice into a cup, then adding a whole lot of water, before giving it to one of his twins.
“What do you say?” he said to the little girl after he handed her the cup.
“Pease.”
“Close enough.” Jacob flashed us a grin as his daughter wandered off to join the bunch of other kids on the huge lawn.
“Hey, I managed to find something to change her into, but we’re in the cactus if this outfit gets messed up too.” A guy carrying a little girl on his hip approached Jacob. He was model-worthy gorgeous, with large blue eyes, curly, dark hair and high cheekbones.
“This is Austin, my kids’ nanny, and Lily, my daughter,” Jacob introduced us. “This is Aiden and Tyler.”
He’d brought his nanny to the team family barbeque? But then, I guess if I had to cope with two small kids by myself at a social event, I’d bring along support if I could.
“Hey, nice to meet you.”
“Great to meet you too,” Tyler replied, shaking Austin’s hand.
“We just learned a very valuable lesson about not shaking raspberry soda before opening it, didn’t we Lily?” Austin said as he put her down on the ground.
The little girl nodded solemnly as Jacob reached over to tousle her hair affectionally.
“Dad, Austin!” the twin with the juice called out. Both Jacob and Austin immediately sprang to attention.
“Catch you guys later,” Jacob said. Austin threw us a warm smile as they walked off together.
“Is your gaydar pinging?” Tyler asked me quietly.
“Oh, hell yeah,” I replied.
We both watched as they reached Jacob’s little girl. Austin immediately bent down to redo her shoelaces. Something twinged inside me.
“Do you want to have kids someday?” Tyler asked.
My heart started to race. I tried to keep my voice casual. “Yeah, I’d quite like to be a dad.”
Tyler played with the label on his beer. “When… you know… everything came out, my cousin Breanna told me she’d be our surrogate if we ever wanted kids.”
My eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“I’m pretty sure she just saw her only chance to have Aiden Jones’s babies.” He threw me a grin, then shrugged. “But it’s an option, right? I quite like the idea of having a kid that’s got some of my genes and some of your genes.”
My heart continued to pound, but it was definitely tapping out a happy tune.
“God help the world,” I said.
Tyler snorted; then his face turned serious. “Your mum would really enjoy being a grandmother.”
My throat thickened. “Yeah, she would.”
My mother seemed more and more like her old self every time I talked to her. She was still dating Fred. I’d met him the weekend before, and while I had mixed feelings going into it, I couldn’t help liking the guy. The best thing was how he’d managed to bring back my mother’s smile.
“My mum would be pleased too,” Tyler continued to muse. “Who knows about my dad, but he’d handle it.”
Tyler’s mother had definitely become an enthusiastic member of the rainbow-flag-waving club. His dad was more restrained, but at least he’d given a stuttering, heartfelt apology to Tyler. Tyler’s parents had flown out to watch our test matches against England, and we’d had some slightly awkward dinner conversations, but Arthur seemed to have accepted I was part of Tyler’s life.
Now, I swallowed hard as I finally met Tyler’s eyes. “You’re really serious about this?”
Tyler’s gaze was direct. “Yeah, I am.”
Fuck. I might not have beaten Josh Latu’s record or be the starting first-five anymore, but the fact that I had this gorgeous, funny, and caring guy talking about starting a family with me made me feel like I’d won the biggest lottery prize ever.
“Great. Let’s schedule having kids in the diary sometime,” I said, and Tyler grinned.
I looked back across the lawn to where Austin the nanny was showing the kids how to twirl around to the point where they got so dizzy they lost their balance. As a result, there was a whole bunch of kids staggering around like they’d been at the booze table while their parents stood around with indulgent smiles on their faces.
One face caught my attention in particular. Jacob. He was standing there watching the scene on the lawn with such a look of love it caused a funny feeling inside my chest.
But I followed his gaze, and it wasn’t his twins he was watching.
It was Austin.
I blinked. Fuck. I did not see that one coming. But the issue wasn’t whether I’d seen it coming or not. The issue was whether Jacob had seen it coming, or whether he even recognized what was happening.
Right. I’d make an effort to keep in touch with Jacob this off-season. Because if this was what I thought it was, then I got the feeling that when you factored in his ex and his family, things weren’t going to be smooth sailing for him.
My attention was torn away from Jacob by Macca and Zach starting a game of touch rugby on the lawn. The numbers quickly grew, as most of us adults couldn’t resist joining the kids. You could never play too much rugby.
Tyler ended up with one of Jacob’s twins on his shoulders as he raced around trying to intercept the ball.
And I had a glimpse of my future that filled me with a feeling that seemed beyond the realm of normal happiness.
Tyler finally got the ball and handed it up to Jacob’s daughter. I halfheartedly chased him as he thundered away down the lawn. Jacob’s little girl giggled as he reached the end and scooped her down off his shoulders so she could plant the ball down on the grass.
“Try!” He gave her a high-five.
After she’d run off, he approached me, his face flushed and eyes sparkling, “Did you enjoy eating my dust, old man?”
I just rolled my eyes.
Because my cocky asshole was at it again. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
* * *
A note from Jax…
Thank you so much for reading! I really hope you enjoyed reading Aiden and Tyler’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
You might have already guessed it, but coming up next is Jacob and Austin’s story!
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