Family Camp (Daddy Dearest, #1)(54)

Only it wasn’t just him that would have to deal with the fallout. Geo didn’t deserve to be publicly shamed and photographed and splattered all over the tabloids. Geo’s name wasn’t in the article. Hopefully, he would remain anonymous, though Travis supposed that wasn’t likely.

He wanted to kick himself for giving in to his attraction and risking this. But at the same time, he felt resentment and anger that he couldn’t even have that, that he couldn’t meet a guy he liked and get to know him the way every straight person took for granted, have a bit of a summer romance. He wanted to rage at the unfairness of it all.

But resentment was pointless. He was a fucking major league ball player. There were costs to that, and he’d signed off on them years ago.

Well. It was out there now, and nothing would put that genie back in the bottle. He had to pull himself together and deal with it.

When he finally moved, it was to dial Cindy. She answered the phone half-asleep.

“Hey,” Travis said, his voice wrecked. “I need to leave. Right now. And I need your help.”





Chapter 27




Friday morning, Geo woke up to the sounds of Jayden and Lucy whispering. There was the sound of bare feet on the cabin’s floorboards. A bed squeaked.

These were pleasant, happy sounds, and Geo lay there for a moment, his brain still offline, snuggling into the covers.

Last night. Parent Party night. Umm. That had been fucking incredible.

Travis Mayhew, with his hot kisses and hard cock. Laughing and loving on a warm summer night. The world felt perfect in Travis’s arms, so perfect it was hard to believe it was real.

Or that it could last. Geo sighed, remembering. It was the last day of camp. They’d be driving home this afternoon. Travis would be going back to San Diego.

Geo opened his eyes and blinked up at the pine ceiling. His warm fuzzies faded into a hollow sadness.

There was another squeak as someone bounced on a bed.

“Shhh! You’ll wake Geo,” Jayden whispered.

Geo smiled. With a sudden leap, he jumped out of bed and chased his two kiddos, growling like a bear, and making them squeal and laugh.

He got the kids to the communal bathroom to brush their teeth and wash up. When they were dressed, they headed to the flagpole with a stream of other half-awake campers. There they were tortured with “Chicken Fat” calisthenics. Today, Trish led them instead of Cindy. There was no sign of her or Travis or any of the other Mayhews. Maybe on the last day of camp they had a lot of shit to do.

Afterward, Geo, Lucy, and Jayden joined the line moving up the stairs and into the lodge for breakfast.

Geo caught a woman staring at him. He raised his eyebrows at her and smiled. She looked away. Another guy was on his phone. He looked at the screen, then at Geo, smirking in a way that was not pleasant at all.

Geo blinked, frowning.

By the time they reached the food-service area, Geo knew something was wrong. Jayden and Lucy didn’t notice. The calisthenics had woken them up, but Lucy had her dolls in her hand and was happily humming to herself as she held some internal dialog with them, only pausing long enough to tell Geo what she wanted to eat. And Jayden had cut up ahead in line with Stryker and Aiden and was probably already at their table.

Geo told himself he was being paranoid and tried to focus on getting his and Lucy’s breakfasts onto his tray. But a woman behind the serving line who had always been friendly gave him a major hairy eyeball and he heard a middle-aged guy mutter, “Can’t believe he’s a faggot,” very intentionally as he brushed past Geo with his tray. And suddenly Geo had a whiff of the looming disaster.

Had someone seen them last night, he and Travis? Had the rumor spread that fast?

As he walked out of the food line with their tray, Lucy shuffling along beside him, Geo’s eyes went to the table in the back by the window, the one where the Mayhews and the counselors sat. He didn’t see Travis or Cindy. And the others were eating quietly. James Mayhew sat with his elbows on the table, both hands holding a cup, staring out the window, face unreadable.

They made it to their usual table. Geo got Lucy seated and put her plate and glass in front of her. When he’d put jam on her toast, and she had everything she needed, Geo finally looked at Van and Bridget. They were staring at him, faces grim.

“What? What is it? Tell me.”

Van and Bridget looked at each other. Van’s mouth was tight as though she was angry, and Bridget’s eyes were filled with pity. She picked up her phone and tapped it, then handed it to Geo face down.

“Take it outside. Don’t look at it in here. Take it outside, Geo.”

“We’ll watch Lucy,” Van said.

He swung his legs over the bench and went. His heart was pounding as he headed for the front of the lodge and pushed out into the morning air. It was a cloudless day, already warm, and the sunlight was cheerful. But a storm was waiting for him on that phone and, as he looked at the TMZ post and scrolled through the photographs, he felt cold, chilled to the bone.

Oh, shit. Oh, God. Fucking goddamn hell shit no. Poor Travis.

Geo knew that Travis was a sort-of celebrity. It was in the way everyone treated him—the selfies and the autographs and the watching. But there had to be hundreds of professional baseball players. Geo hadn’t realized Travis was famous enough to be of interest to a site like TMZ.

Other than the last photo of them kissing—in the dark, where they were mostly gray shapes that were, nonetheless, stupidly recognizable—the photos weren’t explicit. They weren’t doing anything. But they’d been well-chosen and well-timed. In a few they were eye-fucking each other like horny teenagers on poppers. And in a few they looked like an old married couple, especially that one with Lucy, where they huddled close and looked at each other like partners, something they absolutely were not.