Chapter 109 The Homophobic Player

Chapter 109 The Homophobic Player


I knew something had gone wrong before Cassian even said a word.

It was the way he came into the room.

He shut the apartment door behind him with too much care, set his keys down once, then stared at the floor like he had forgotten why he was standing there in the first place, his phone was in his hand, screen dark, thumb pressed against the edge of it like he had been gripping it for too long.

He looked up when he felt me watching him.

I was at the kitchen counter, pretending to make coffee because doing something with my hands felt better than standing still and asking the wrong question too soon. The television in the living room was muted, but the bottom ticker was still running. 

I set the mug down slowly. “Cassian.”

He did not answer.

I took a step towards him. “What happened?”

He finally looked at me, and the expression in his face was tight enough to make my chest go cold.

“You saw it,” he said.

That was all.

I had not, not yet. But I knew exactly what he meant because I had seen the notification on my phone ten minutes earlier and dismissed it as another stupid comment from the usual kind of person who liked hearing themselves talk into a microphone.

I had not clicked it.

Now I wished I had.

I picked up my phone from the counter and opened the article.

The headline was already bad.

It was about a rival player from the rival team in a postgame interview, he had gone on record calling our relationship unnatural, then spent three more sentences trying to dress it up as concern for the league and the audience and the children watching at home.

By the time I got to the quote, my jaw had tightened so hard it hurt.

Cassian was still standing in the doorway, watching me read.

I looked up. “He said this publicly?”

He nodded once.

The league had already responded, I could see that from the updates rolling across the top of the screen. Fine issued, condemnation from the league office, it was clean and useless, the kind of thing that looked good on paper and did nothing to erase what had already been said into a microphone.

That part I understood immediately.

The damage was already done.

I looked back at Cassian.

He was breathing too carefully now, like every inhale was something he had to remember to do.

“Cass,” I said quietly.

He shook his head once, almost mechanically.

“I saw the clip,” he said.

That made more sense than the article had.

He moved past me without really moving past me, one hand rubbing over the back of his neck, the other still holding the phone. I turned in time to see him stop at the edge of the couch and sit down hard, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the floor.

I stayed standing for one beat too long before crossing the room.

When I sat beside him, he did not look up right away.

The television kept running in the background. Somebody on a panel was talking about league standards, public image, responsibility. 

The room got very quiet.

Cassian stared at his hands for a second before he finally said, “He called it unnatural.”

I felt my throat tighten.

I did not answer too quickly because I wanted to get this right the first time.

“He is wrong,” I said.

Cassian let out a short breath that was almost a laugh and almost not.

That was not enough, and he knew it, I knew it too.

He looked at the phone in his hand like it had offended him personally. “The league fined him in less than an hour.”

“Good.”

He nodded, but the motion did not carry any relief.

“Does not matter,” he said.

I looked at him.

His jaw was set hard now, but there was something else in his face too. 

Cassian rubbed a hand over his mouth and leaned back against the couch, eyes still fixed on the ceiling. “People already saw it.”

“I know.”

“They are still talking about it.”

“I know.”

He turned his head toward me sharply. “Do you?”

I met his eyes. “Yes.”

For a second neither of us moved.

Then he looked away first, and I could see the spiral before it fully started. It was subtle at first. The way he kept checking his phone. The way his thumb moved over the screen before he locked it again. The way he sat too still and then too tense and then too still again.

I knew the signs.

I reached over and took the phone gently from his hand before he could object.

He looked at me immediately. “Tor.”

“No.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I was looking at the replies.”

“That is exactly why.”

He did not argue, which told me how far gone he already was. When Cassian went quiet that fast, it usually meant the noise in his head had already gotten too loud.

I set his phone face down on the coffee table and turned fully towards him.

He was staring at the table now, shoulders rigid, mouth pulled into a line that looked almost painful. The apartment was warm, but the space around us felt cold enough to make my hands feel useless just sitting in my lap.

I spoke softly. “Look at me.”

He did, but only after a beat.

I held his gaze. “Do not let that man steal another second of your peace.”

His expression shifted just enough to tell me the words had landed.

He looked away again anyway.

That was the part that worried me.

Cassian going quiet like this was always the thing that scared me most because it meant he was taking it in too deep and too fast and too personally before he had even decided what to do with it.

I moved closer until my knee touched his.

He did not pull away.

That mattered.

“He said it for attention,” I said. “The fine says the league knows it. The rest of the noise is not truth, it is just noise.”

Cassian gave a tiny shake of his head. “It still gets in.”

I knew that was true too.

He looked at his hands again, then said, quieter now, “I hate that it gets to me.”

I reached for his hand.

He let me take it.

The contact was immediate, warm, grounding, and more necessary than either of us would have admitted out loud.

“You are allowed to be angry,” I said.

He laughed once under his breath. “I am past angry.”

I looked at him. “Then be whatever is after angry, just do not disappear on me.”

His eyes lifted slowly to mine.

He was spiraling, and I was standing too close to the edge with him.

He asked quietly, “Are they going to keep doing this?”

I did not pretend not to know what he meant.

The reporters, the fans, the people who thought they had a right to evaluate us like we were a statement they could approve or reject.

I answered honestly. “Probably.”

That got a small reaction out of him, but he did not look surprised.

I kept going. “That does not mean they get to matter more than we do.”

His thumb moved against the side of my hand.

The tension in the room did not go away. It only changed shape; there was still the article, the quote, the ugly certainty that by morning the whole league would be discussing it, even if the fine had already been issued.

But there was also this.

Cassian looking at me like he was trying to stay upright.

Me trying not to pull him into my chest too hard in the middle of the couch.

The line between us was always thinner when he was hurt.

He said, almost too quietly, “I hate that he said it in public.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“I hate that people heard it.”

“I know.”

“I hate that I care.”

I tightened my hand around his. “That part is allowed too.”

He looked at me for a second, and the expression in his face changed just enough to tell me he had heard the permission in that.

Not because he needed me to give him permission to feel.

Because he needed to hear that I would not turn away from him while he did.

We stayed there for a while, quiet and close, his hand still in mine and his shoulders slowly lowering by degrees while the noise outside our apartment kept going without us. 

Cassian was still staring at the dark television screen when he finally said, “I do not want to see anyone tonight.”

I nodded. “Then we do not see anyone tonight.”

His mouth moved like he was trying to decide whether that was enough.

Then he turned his head towards me. “Do you think he will keep talking?”

I looked at him and let my answer come slow.

“I think he already said enough to show everyone who he is.”

That got the tiniest, bitterest smile from him.

He leaned back then, still holding my hand, and let out a breath that sounded like it had been sitting in him since the clip first went public.

I stayed right where I was.

The rest of the world could keep talking.

For tonight, Cassian was here.

And I was not letting go.