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So the smart thing to do when you like a guy, and not in the just buds way he likes you, is to disengage. Joey is aware of this. And yeah, he didn’t manage at the start, but there were puppies involved and it would take a stronger, colder, more heartless man than Joey Munroe to be able to resist puppies. But after that, he’s going to disengage. For real.
Except he didn’t consider that Owen would then offer more puppies.
It’s the puppies Joey’s weak to, for the record. Just the puppies.
Fuck, no one’s going to buy this shit. If you can’t even fool yourself, you’re doomed.
The puppies are a mitigating factor, it’s just that Owen could probably say ‘Hey, want to come along to something really boring haha’ and Joey would be like ‘For sure! I love boring things! They’re my favorite things!’.
“I missed you too, buddy,” Joey murmurs when he gets down on his knees to greet Bruno, and Bruno greets him right back with a lick to the face. Joey would like to think Bruno remembers him, and this is special licking for Joey, but Bruno probably does it to everyone, and Joey’s fooling himself.
That is not a metaphor. Joey refuses to use that as a metaphor. Mostly because it involves face licking and comparing Owen to a dog, which Joey is pretty sure is rude, even if it’s a dog as handsome as Bruno.
“You’re adorable,” Owen says, and when Joey looks up, Owen’s grinning down at him — and Bruno, him and Bruno, he’s obviously talking about Joey and Bruno, not Joey himself. “He loves you.”
Stop thinking about things in terms of metaphors, Munroe.
“He’s pretty great himself,” Joey says, and curses himself for doing a whole double-meaning thing while Owen’s just saying things with one meaning like a normal person. “Ready for a walk, my man?”
Bruno is so ready.
*
Joey maybe didn’t tell Scratch he was seeing Owen again, which was a mistake, because they spend a ridiculous amount of time together, so if Joey’s going to keep doing it — and he’s probably going to keep doing it, let’s be real — Scratch is going to pick up on it eventually.
Or, like, the very next day, when they’re out after a blowout win, and Scratch says, “Where were you yesterday, you weren’t home.”
“Please use the spare key as it’s intended,” Joey sighs. “You do have your own place, though I know you've probably forgotten, what with how often you're at mine.”
Scratch gives that a dismissive wave. “Seriously though.”
“Errands,” Joey says. That seems like a good vague excuse.
Scratch squints at him. “You don’t do errands,” he says. “You get everything delivered. The fuck you talking about, errands?”
Shit, Scratch is right. Errands was a terrible excuse.
“Were you with Owen?” Scratch asks. “Do I need to stage an intervention, Munroe?”
“Who’s Owen?” Jonesy says. “Joey, do you finally have a boyfriend?”
“No,” Joey mutters.
“Money’s got a guy?” Trigger asks, leaning over Jonesy. “For real? I thought he was undateable.”
Trigger getting a bullseye with that one. Right to the heart.
“Fuck off,” Joey says, both to Trigger, and to Scratch, who gives him a pat on the back, all ‘I know that was a bullseye, I’m sorry for airing your undateability to the entire team’.
One of the weird bonuses of being very publicly outed is that Joey didn’t have to tell the majority of teammates about his sexuality, do that ‘is he going to be cool? Is he not going to be cool? Is this going to go to shit?’ thing, and they all banded together in outrage on Joey’s behalf when it happened. If anyone was uncomfortable with the fact Joey was gay, well, they hid it pretty well under the collective ‘we’ve got your fucking back, bro, go Scouts!’. Was it worth the actual shitshow that is his dick being on the internet for all to see? No way, but it did mean Joey got to rip the band-aid off fast. Hurt like fuck at the time, but he knows his guys are his guys.
Problem is his guys are all assholes.
“Money, I can’t believe you’re holding a dude out on us,” Foxy says. “What’s his name? What’s he do? Why haven’t we met him?”
“Give me some credit,” Joey says. “I know better than to introduce anyone I actually like to you fuckers.”
That gets him a bunch of comically offended faces, like they don’t know exactly how awful they all are.
“Fine,” Foxy says. "Pay up."
“You can’t fine me for speaking the truth,” Joey protests.
*
They fine him a hundred bucks for speaking the truth. Plus they won’t shut up about Joey having a boyfriend afterwards, no matter how much Joey protests Owen’s just a friend. He refuses to mention the proof of that, Owen specifically saying that he was glad Joey wasn’t trying to get into his pants. They already think he’s undateable, he’s not going to hand them the ammo himself.
This is not a great time to be on the road. Well, Joey never considers it a great time — there are dudes who like the travel, but Joey’s a homebody and he likes his routines and his own bed — but holy shit are they not letting it go, and the fact he’s in close quarters with all of them means it’s constant.
“Yo,” Willy says when they’re out after their forth straight road win. They’re killing it this season, and Joey can’t say he’s getting tired of winning. These dudes: yes. Winning: never. “You gonna bring your boy out with us next time we win at home?”
“He’s not my boy,” Joey says feebly.
His phone buzzes in his hand.
“That your boy?” Willy asks.
“I just told you he’s not my boy,” Joey says.
“That your not-boy?” Willy asks, and Scratch gives him this look, like he knows Joey was deflecting.
“Maybe,” Joey says, and when Scratch elbows him he elbows Scratch right back.
Joey’s maybe been texting with Owen on and off. It’s not regularly or anything, just Owen sending a picture of Bruno looking cute when he volunteered without Joey, Joey asking how a meeting with his prof that Owen was stressed about went. Buddy stuff, Joey guesses, though he’s not sure he’d actually know. He’s never done this kind of texting with anyone but family. If he sent any of his teammates a text asking how their day was going, the way Owen texted him that yesterday, they’d probably loudly drawl ‘gaaaay’, and then follow up with a, ‘you know I don’t mean it that way, Money, sorry’.
“What’s it say?” Scratch says right into Joey’s ear, and Joey elbows him again, harder this time. He’s not dumb enough to read it in front of any of them, waits until he’s at the bar for a refill before he checks it.
You’re in town on Sunday, right? Owen has texted him. It’s late, and Joey’s two hours behind Owen, so he probably sent it from the library, is procrastinating by texting Joey.
Yeah we get back late sat night., Joey texts back. Visiting Bruno?
Was going to head to a museum, if you want to come., Owen texts back. It just reopened after years of renovations and I want to see what they’ve done with it. Unless that sounds boring, haha.
No that sounds great., Joey texts back, even though he has zero interest in museums, so: confirmed. Joey will literally say ‘I love boring stuff’ if it means he’ll see Owen. That’s terrific. Wonderful. It’s so great to know Joey’s woeful self-image is accurate.
Joey carries a pitcher of beer and a vodka soda back to the table, getting hailed as a conquering hero, and considers himself lucky when no one asks about ‘his boy’ for the rest of the night. Maybe they’ve forgotten it. The idiots do all have short attention spans.
“Go get your man, Money,” Willy says with a grin and a wink when they’re piling off the plane in Kansas City, and Trigger hoots agreement.
“I blame you for this,” Joey says tiredly.
Scratch almost looks remorseful. Almost.
“Isn’t it nice to know your team cares?” Scratch asks, like it’s actually a matter of them caring and not them seeing it’s driving Joey crazy and poking at it because it’s funny. And maybe a little bit them trying to let Joey know that they’re cool if he has a boyfriend and said boyfriend’s welcome, Joey knows it’s that too, but it’s irrelevant, because he doesn’t, so instead it’s just doing the driving him crazy part.
“So nice,” Joey says flatly. “The nicest.”
Scratch has the gall to look proud of himself at that. “Apology drive home?” he asks.
Him and Scratch carpooled to the airport, so it’s not like Joey’s got any other option, unless it’s to take an Uber out of spite.
“Apology not accepted,” Joey says.
“Cool, enjoy getting home,” Scratch says, wandering ahead, and Joey waits a couple beats before he sighs and half jogs to catch up. He’s too tired for this.
“Fine, apology accepted,” Joey says.
“That’s what I thought,” Scratch says smugly, like it’s Joey actually forgiving him and not just being easy for a free ride.
*
Joey snatches about five hours of sleep before he’s angrily grunting at his alarm. He’s usually a ‘give me eight hours or give me death’ kind of guy, but as far as he can tell Owen exists on coffee and short naps, so hopefully he won’t realize what it means that Joey willingly got up before noon to see him when they didn’t get home until past three.
Joey yawns into his coffee in the back of the Uber, belatedly looks up what museum he’s agreed to subject himself to. He hopes it’s one of those ones with skeletons or mummies or stuff. Joey may not like most museums, but going to the Field Museum was hands down the best field trip every year when he was a kid. Does Kansas City have a museum with dinos? He hopes so.
It’s a history museum. Which, okay, now Joey doesn’t have any hope of seeing dinos, very tragic, but it’s specifically a museum about Kansas City’s history. Like, no offense to Kansas City, but does it need a whole ass museum? Joey likes living here, he loves playing for this team, but the amount of knowledge he has about its actual history? It’s basically zero.
He guesses he’s going to learn, isn’t he. Whether he wants to or not.
Fuck, he hopes there’s a Scouts section. That’s like the only KC history he knows.
Joey’s early, but Owen’s already waiting for him outside. Joey’s got to get on that, get there early enough he doesn’t make Owen wait. Which makes it sound like he expects to keep doing this, but — he does, he guesses. They’re friends. Friends hang out. They go to museums. They look happy when the other friend arrives and say, “Joey!” and then they hug.
Joey’s not complaining about the hug, really, it just gives his heart a little jolt because his heart is very dumb, and it is not on board with his brain’s ‘stop having un-platonic feelings, the guy already said he doesn’t like you’.
“Good trip?” Owen asks.
“Fine,” Joey says. “Glad to be home.”
He’s not just saying that because Owen’s standing in front of him looking comfortably rumpled in a beanie and an oversized wool coat, cheeks pink from standing in the cold for however long Joey kept him waiting.
“Glad to have you back,” Owen says. “Bruno missed you.”
Bruno did not miss him. Joey knows this. Owen probably didn’t really miss him either, with how busy he is, the way they kept in touch.
“I missed Bruno,” Joey says.
Stop doing double meanings, Joey. It’s not polite.
The museum just looks like some big old house from the outside, not the big stone edifice Joey associates with museums. There’s a weirdly long line to get in, but then, Owen did say it just re-opened. Either that or there are way more KC history buffs than Joey would have ever guessed.
“Grandma used to take me here when I was a kid,” Owen says while they wait. “I haven’t been since I moved away, though.”
“Moved away?” Joey asks.
“I went to school out in Illinois,” Owen says. “Was living in Chicago for a few years after that, but I wanted to go back to school, and the first place I got accepted was here. Felt like a sign I should come home.”
“Oh cool, I’m from Chicago,” Joey says. Do not think that is a sign, Joey. Also know every single one of your relatives actually from Chicago just rolled their eyes without quite knowing why. “Well. Kinda.”
“Kinda like not even close?” Owen says with a grin.
Joey shrugs. “The burbs. Evanston.”
“No shit, I went to Northwestern for my undergrad,” Owen says.
Do not think this is a sign, Joey.
“I like the Field Museum,” Joey’s mouth says without his permission, apropos of absolutely fucking nothing, apparently putting together ‘we’re at a museum’ and ‘we’ve both lived in Chicago’ and trying to build his museum cred or something? He doesn’t know. All he knows is he wants to sink through the ground now.
“Yeah, it’s awesome,” Owen says, like he didn’t notice how fucking weird and random a thing to say that was, or maybe like he’s too nice to let it show.
The museum’s kind of fun. Though that probably has less to do with the place itself and more with how excited Owen gets when he sees things he remembers from when he was a kid, or sees something new, or sees anything at all, really. His excitement is infectious, though mostly Joey’s looking at him, not any of the exhibits.
They have a Chiefs section and a Royals section but not a Scouts one. The only reason Joey isn’t loudly sulking about it is because he doesn’t want to look petty in front of Owen.
But it’s bullshit.
Just for the record.
Joey’s absolutely starving by the time Owen has decided they’ve seen everything they need to see.
“Lunch?” he says when they get out.
“Sure,” Owen says, then, “Wait, shit, it’s way later than I thought it was.”
“Library time?” Joey asks sympathetically, trying to push down the disappointment.
“No,” Owen says. “Well, yeah, but I’ve got to get everything done before seven, so I gotta go.”
“Big plans?” Joey asks.
“Not big or anything,” Owen says. “I’ve just got a date.”
“Oh,” Joey says. “Oh cool.”
That comes out…squeaky and wrong and holy fuck he hopes Owen didn’t notice.
“Rain check?” Owen asks. “Hang out sometime later this week?”
“Sure,” Joey says, still squeaky and wrong. “That sounds good.”
“I’ll text you,” Owen says, then gives him a quick hug Joey numbly accepts before he’s gone.
“Cool,” Joey mumbles under his breath, then orders an Uber and reads a stupid how-to about getting over crushes while he waits for it.