The Locker Room (19 page)

between us, isn"t it? It just seemed wrong to just send your picture all

over creation, right?”

Xander looked at her helplessly. Oh Christ. “Audrey, how old are

you?”

And now her faintly hectic blush suffused her entire body.

“Nineteen. I"m legal, right? Well”—and now she looked like a caught

kid—“maybe not for the beer. That was nice of you by the way. Thank

you.”

“You"re welcome,” Xander said, the words echoing in his head as

he said them. He was reaching inside his pocket for his phone for a cab,

when he realized Audrey was looking at him expectantly.

“So, um, Xander? What did you want to do now?”

“Cards,” Xander said decisively. “You wouldn"t happen to have a

deck of cards on you, would you, sweetheart?”

He could tell by her confusion that she didn"t, so he made her play

hangman instead.

At the end, after an hour, he took her phone and wrapped his arm

around her tiny shoulders, then held the phone out at arm"s length and

took the picture. They were both smiling like cousins at a family reunion,

and she looked embarrassed as she took the phone back.

“So, you probably think I"m really stupid, right?”

Xander shook his head emphatically. “I think you"re really

wonderful,” he told her truthfully. “But I don"t think you should just go

picking up on men in bars because your friends think you should put out.

Find someone wonderful, just like you, and make sure they"re your best

friend first, okay?”

Audrey nodded and then narrowed her eyes at him. “Says the man

who just came to the house of a random hookup!”

Xander grimaced. “Sweetheart, you find that young man, and you

enjoy your time with him. Sometimes, happy ever after is a lot more

complicated than it seems.”

Suddenly that tiny little hand was up, cupping his cheek.

104 Amy Lane

“You know why I took you home?” she asked, and he shook his

head no. “Because you seemed really, really sad.”

Xander swallowed hard, and stood up, letting her hand fall away.

“You are way too smart for nineteen,” he said softly, “and I"ve got to go.

Send that picture to your friends, okay? Tell them whatever you want,

but keep the hangman so you can prove the truth if you need to.”

She looked at the sheets of copy paper filled with scribbled letters

and bad stick figures. They"d both started using the longest words they

could think of, to try to stump the other, but she"d won in the end. She

traced the word she"d guessed, “duplicitous,” and looked up at him with

more understanding than he wanted to see.

“Tell them you got laid,” he said gruffly. “Tell them to piss off, tell

them whatever you feel like—but don"t let them push you into doing

something dumb like this again, okay, Audrey?”

Audrey stood up and threw her arms around his waist in a fierce

hug. “You"re awesome, Xander. I promise.”

And then he was gone, walking back across the freeway in the

dark, because Arco Arena and Chris were only a fifteen-minute jog

away.

The night was cold, and Xander drew his trench coat and his scarf

tight around his neck and ears, wondering dismally if the fog and the

damp were going to give him a cold. Probably, he"d seemed to be a lot

more susceptible to things like that in the middle of the season, and he"d

played sick so often, Leo had stopped alerting the media. It didn"t matter.

He put his gloves on and tucked his hands in his pockets, enjoying the

smell of the fog under the pink sodium lights and the sounds of the

streets, as he walked the same route from Audrey"s apartment that he and

Chris used to walk to school.

He passed the school, looking lonely in its night island of city-

funded light, and then took his life in his hands (twice!) to cross in front

of the on-ramp and the off-ramp in order to get across the overpass,

because in this community, someone had to die before they made traffic

intersections safer for pedestrians.

If Chris hadn"t been waiting at the locker room, Xander might have

hoped that he"d be that statistic, but Chris was there, so he tried not to

dwell on it.

The Locker Room 105

Something had just given, something vital in their little bubble of

lies had just broken, and Xander refused to do it anymore. He might not

just defy the gods and come out, but he was
never
going to go home with

another stranger, and he was hoping Chris was with him on this, because

he didn"t think he could bear to see Chris do it either.

One way or another, this charade was going to end with this

season. Xander hoped it would end with a championship under his belt,

but at this point? Hell, he felt like he"d defied too many odds as it was.

He wasn"t going to ask God for another goddamned thing. He"d always

said, “Chris and basketball.” Well, he"d had his basketball, and now all

he wanted was Chris.

Chris"s newest car (something fast, purple, and without enough

legroom, that"s all Xander knew) was sitting outside the smaller practice

building on the side of the arena. There was another car out there in the

fog, but Xander couldn"t see it well, and he thought it might have been a

maintenance worker, or even a dead battery, waiting for daylight and

better visibility before someone came to collect it.

It didn"t matter. Inside the locker room it would be warmer, and

there would be a big fridge with some water, and Xander was thirsty.

The locker room was eerie as he entered it, lit only by service

lights, the pristine white tile echoing with every footfall. Xander headed

for the fridge, calling, “Chris?” softly as he went.

“You"re early!” Chris said, and Xander followed the sound to

where he was sitting, one long leg extended up on the bench, his back

against his own locker, with his smartphone in front of him. He was

probably reading—they shared e-books like crazy, usually science

fiction, which satisfied Xander"s interest in politics and Chris"s need for

fantastic geekiness and gave them something to talk about as well.

“Easy to be early,” Xander said, sitting and downing his water in

one gulp. “Especially when you don"t do anything.”

Chris frowned at him, and Xander frowned back.

“She was a baby, Chris, and I couldn"t. She was nineteen—Jesus. I

don"t know if we"ve ever been that young.”

Chris leaned back against him, moving slowly, comfortably, like,

say, a man who had been happily married for ten years. “We were,” he

said softly. “Some ways, Xander, I think you still are.”

106 Amy Lane

Xander wrapped his arm around Chris"s chest, and rubbed his

cheek against that short, short hair. The stillness of the locker room

settled around them, and he thought he heard Chris"s breathing echo

against the back wall, and maybe even out in the frighteningly dark small

gym, where they practiced.

“Not you?”

Chris grunted. “No,” he said softly. “Not after what I"ve made us

do.”

Xander felt a growl start in his chest, and he pulled back from their

comfortable “lean” on each other and shoved at Christian"s shoulder.

“Look at me,” he rasped, and he used his longer reach to grab

Chris"s smartphone and put it in his pocket.

Chris dropped his leg to the floor and turned his shoulders around,

but he couldn"t look Xander in the eye, and Xander grasped his chin

between his fingers and forced him to. His eyes were still wide and dark,

but up close they were red-rimmed and puffy. Xander swallowed.
Oh,

Christian. Me too. I looked just like that, every time we"ve ever met here.

Every time you left with a girl and came home to me.

“It was both of us,” he whispered. “That first night, what you

needed was for me to take charge. You needed me to say „No" and to

claim you in front of the whole wide world, and to say fuck all this other

bullshit, we are who we are. And I didn"t. I let you go. I let this… this…

thing
start, and it hurts us. It hurts us more every time. And I"m saying

„No" now. We can"t live like this anymore. We don"t have to come out,

we don"t have to quit, but we don"t have to lie like this again, okay?”

Chris looked at him with absolute naked hope in his eyes, and

Xander wanted to cry.
How long, Chris? How long have you needed me

to take charge? How long have you wanted one of us to lead our little

family of two?

“Okay!” Xander repeated, and this time, Chris nodded, and Xander

let out a sigh of relief.

“Okay,” Chris murmured, and then he couldn"t say anything else

because Xander was kissing him, plundering him, shoving his tongue

down Christian"s throat and tasting him and claiming him and becoming

the grown-up, all in one cleansing, wonderful kiss—

The Locker Room 107

That was interrupted when the full rack of lights came on in the

locker room.

“Fucking faggots.”

Xander looked up and cupped Chris"s head, pushing Chris"s face

into Xander"s chest to protect him, but it didn"t matter. Coach knew

Chris, even from the back of his head. Xander glared at him, defiantly,

and the man with the acid tongue, the fucker who had peeled away the

layers of the two of them until only the lie remained, smiled in

satisfaction.

“Thanks, guys,” he said smugly. “I"d wait for that phone call

tonight.” And then he turned around and walked out of the locker room,

leaving Chris and Xander staring at each other in shock.

108 Amy Lane

Fallout Canyon

WHEN their hands stopped shaking, and the spots had cleared from

Xander"s eyes, they walked out to the car. Xander held out his hands for

the keys, and Chris handed them over silently—Xander could tell from

his pallor that he was probably going to be sick on the way home.

He was. Twice. Xander didn"t smell any booze as he held him from

the middle and then used a napkin from the car to wipe his mouth, and he

wondered how long that was going to last. He"d have to watch close,

because Chris could very easily go home and pour himself a triple, then

down it on an empty stomach. But other than the words, “Pull over,”

neither of them said anything else on the way home.

Xander pulled Chris past the bar in the front room and dragged him

up the stairs, unbuttoning his dress shirt roughly, then shucking his pants

and shoving him toward the shower.

“Wash,” he said roughly, squeezing his hand. “I"m going to call

Leo.”

Chris blinked shell-shocked eyes at him and smiled a little. “What

do you think will happen?” he asked, and Xander looked away. He

knew… he knew. But for Chris, he would pretend not to.

“Maybe a press conference!” he said brightly. They both admitted

that those things felt surreal, anyway, and they were scrupulous about

not watching them afterward. Xander thought he looked like a

Neanderthal, no matter how many body waxes he went through, and

Chris thought he looked too pretty for the NBA, and he never said it in a

vain way, but more like it meant he was a silly little boy, playing at

being something great.

Chris gave him a weak grin. “We can only hope,” he muttered,

before slouching to the shower, the slump in his shoulders seeming to

slow him down.

Leo was a little more vocal.

“You got busted doing
what?”

Xander repeated it, feeling about twelve years old. “Kissing in the

locker room.”

The Locker Room 109

There was a seething silence on the other end, and Xander held the

phone away from his ear, waiting for the explosion. Leo didn"t

disappoint.

“
Six months!
Six months, Xander, do you know that? You are six

months from proving to the fucking world that who you fuck doesn"t

have a
fucking thing to do with
getting the job done! Six months! You

wanted to come out after you took the goddamned championship? After

you became the bloody fucking hero of the entire sports world—by all

means! I"d get on my knees and blow you myself, and if you loved me,

you"d let me do it while Chris was giving it to me from behind! But no!

No! Goddamn you, couldn"t you keep it in your pants for that kid for six

goddamned months?!!”

“It wasn"t like that,” Xander said quietly, because Leo was taking a

break from screaming at him and (it sounded like) waiting for an answer.

“Then tell me,” Leo sighed. He still sounded irritated, but that

initial burst of outrage had faded, and Xander tried to put it into words.