The Locker Room (25 page)

(but it was the truth!) and wandered away to find crutches. He passed

Wallick, who walked in, who said, “You know this doesn"t get you out

of being there at the games!”

For a minute, Xander wanted to protest, but he didn"t. He enjoyed

the pregame festivities at the arena; in particular, he really loved signing

balls and shooting baskets with the kids whose parents brought them

early. He wasn"t sure when he"d started loving basketball, or when it

came to be so important, but he could only imagine that once, when he

was in kindergarten or first grade,
some
adult had paid attention to him,

some adult had put a ball in his hand. Most of the parents who brought

their kids were good people—fed their kids, clothed them,
loved
them,

but that didn"t stop Xander from loving the idea that he might be putting

the ball in the hands of the next Larry Bird, or LeBron James, or Vlade

Divac or Chris Webber. Or Clifford Washington. Or Christian Edwards.

Or Xander Karcek.

That last one didn"t seem like such a benefit, but he still wasn"t

going to skip out on signing balls.

“I know it doesn"t,” he said now to the coach. “I"ll be there.”

The Locker Room 139

“I swear to Christ, Karcek, if you try to injure yourself out of spite

for this season, I will fucking out you myself.”

Xander looked at him, horrified. He"d thought they"d keep this

civilized, and that the fucker"s prejudice would remain as on the down-

low as he and Christian had tried to keep their relationship. Apparently,

prejudice was more socially acceptable.

“Why didn"t you?” he asked. “Why not just out us both?”

Wallick looked away, uncomfortable. “I promised this town a

championship,” he said.

Well, tough!

“Then why send Chris away!” he challenged, thinking it was a

pretty good thing that he didn"t have a ball in his hand today, either.

“Because what you were doing was wrong!” Wallick snarled, and

for a moment, Xander thought this was easily fixed.

“I"m sorry, Coach. We don"t usually, you know, do that when

we"re not at ho—”

“I mean you two, screwing each other! It"s wrong, and… I swear

on my church, I don"t know why God would give a gift like yours to a

couple of queers who spit on the game!”

“God didn"t feed me!” Xander snapped, not sure where this was

coming from, except he couldn"t remember the last time he"d felt this

alone. “God didn"t feed me, or clothe me, or put a roof over my head.

Your
God didn"t give a
damn
about me! But Chris did, and so did his

family. If I"ve got a gift, it"s because Chris wouldn"t let me starve on the

streets, and his folks wouldn"t let me die in a hole. So don"t ask me to

give a
fuck
about your God. I love this game, and this phobic, pissant

town, and I will play my heart out for them. But don"t talk to me about

God. You sent Chris away—and until that gets fixed, I"m not talking

about your God ever fucking again.”

Coach Wallick whirled on him, his small eyes narrow in his

oatmeal face. “That"s blasphemy, son.”

“Well, according to you, so am I.” Xander didn"t shout. He was a

big, gawky man, and he was aware that his body had plenty of presence

and he didn"t need to add any to it with his voice. So he was hissing,

140 Amy Lane

snarling, growling the words, and Wallick took an involuntary step back

from him, his mouth opened to respond.

Doc Malloy walked in at that moment with a pair of crutches with

an easy, almost oblivious smile on his face. “Had to get the extra-long,

Xander—fortunately, we"ve got a lot of those around here.”

Xander managed a small smile for him, and Malloy turned

guilelessly to Wallick. “Hey, Coach, give us some room here. He"s got to

try these out, okay?”

Xander took the crutches and thrust them under his arms,

experimentally testing his weight and shifting it back and forth. For a

moment, he just hung there and played, enjoying the balance and swing,

like a little kid, using his good foot to catch his weight when he swung

down. Of course, he knew from experience that the novelty would wear

off, but for the moment? Swing forward, swing backward, swing

forward, swing back….

“What in the hell were you two talking about?”

Xander almost missed the swing forward and crashed to the

ground, and wouldn"t
that
have been embarrassing.

“Stuff,” he muttered, not looking at Malloy. He had no idea how

Doc Malloy felt about gay rights, and he didn"t really want to know,

either. Honestly, was it too much to ask that the whole world not give a

flying monkey shit who he slept with? Did it really make him a better

basketball player? A worse one? Whatever.

“Yeah, well, whatever stuff it was, I hope you gave him a piece of

your mind. Ever since he transferred Edwards, you"ve been looking like

someone slept with your girlfriend and shot your dog!”

Xander managed a small quip, and when Malloy laughed, he felt

like he"d won some sort of battle, because he was not usually the funny

one.

“Yeah, well, if someone had shot my dog, then I"d be
really
upset.”

LATER that evening, as he watched his team lose, he was not laughing,

even a little bit.

The Locker Room 141

He"d started the night with such high hopes.

The families lining up with their kids to have their little mini

basketballs signed were delightful, as always (although Xander kept

hearing Chris making jokes about fondling baby balls, because Chris

could get away with that without it sounding creepy) and Xander had

gotten to talk to a fan who managed to not make him feel like shit about

kicking a rock and getting injured during the season.

“Sounds like something I"d do when I was fighting with my wife,”

the guy said with a grimace. He was a comfortable-looking man with a

graying beard and bright blue eyes. His daughter—a sturdy, redheaded

dumpling of a precocious four-year-old—had the same eyes, and since

she was sitting on her daddy"s shoulders, they were gazing up at Xander

with a guileless charm.

“Your eyes are pretty, like mine. My brother"s eyes are the worser

color. They"re brown.”

Xander looked at her brother, a tall boy with sandy hair full of

cowlicks, and a grave smile. “I like brown eyes,” he said quietly,

thinking of Chris. The little boy gave Xander his ball to sign, holding it

in one spiderlike hand. He smiled with a mouth full of gaps in his

growing teeth, those brown eyes sparkling, and Xander got hit with a

longing so strong the pen shook in his hand as he signed the ball.

“We were going to have it signed by Christian Edwards,” Dad was

saying. “We were really disappointed when he was traded.”

“You and me both,” Xander replied, feeling hollow and bright, like

a candy shell.

“Yeah—we really thought this team had a chance with the two of

you. Now I guess it"s just you, right?”

Xander frowned. “No—there"s four other guys on the court,

whether Chris is one of them or not,” he said. It was automatic, ingrained

in every player of team sports ever, to give his team props. But hearing

his own voice saying the words made him realize that yes, they really

were
true. For a moment, he felt a surge of gratification—basketball and

Chris, right? Well, he still had basketball.

He"d smiled at the father and his children with more of his heart,

and lifted the long-limbed little boy up to dunk the ball (an easy feat,

142 Amy Lane

since his long limbs felt like they were made of bird"s bones) and sat

down to watch his team play with a certain amount of pride.

And now? Jesus, were they letting him—and Doc Malloy, and that

nice family and
Chris,
for heaven"s sake,
all
of them—down.

“Don"t take the shot,” he muttered, as Wilson Aames, who usually

played guard but was replacing him tonight so that the second string

could be guard, went running through the other team"s guards to try to

shoot. “Don"t take the shot, don"t take the shot, don"t take the shot—”

Wilson was an inch taller than Xander. Why couldn"t the guy see that

Napoleon Burkins, his guard, had a better chance? But, no, there went

the ball in the air. Napoleon, who"d had his hands up when he was

expecting the pass, dropped them to his side at the shot and missed the

rebound.

“Goddammit,
you shouldn"t take that shot!”
Xander hollered. He

was loud enough to make Wilson roll his eyes in Xander"s direction

when they were hustling down the court to block the other team"s next

attempt at scoring.

They failed, and the gap widened to nearly twenty-five points, and

Xander fought the urge to get out his phone and text Chris to tell him

that he quit—he was going to buy these clowns some red shoes and

striped pants and let them entertain the crowd
that
way.

Because the crowd was sure as shit not laughing now, were they?

But Xander didn"t yell. He was known for it. He didn"t yell, and he

didn"t coach. He ran in, did his job, led by example, and shared the ball

as often as he could, as long as it would benefit the team.

And when Chris was by his side that was enough. With Chris to

jolly everyone along, tell them to have their heads up for the pass,

rebound the ball and give it back so Xander could find someone else to

make the shot, well, they pretty much couldn"t be beat. But now it was

Xander, and he was on the sidelines watching five years of their work go

spiraling down the fucking drain, and he couldn"t bear it. Not tonight.

Not when Chris had woken him up that morning with a phone call to

make sure he was all right—and because Chris knew, to the minute,

when Xander"s nightmares were the worst.

Not when sleeping in that big house without Christian felt like

being alone in a box, only bigger, darker, and more frightening than it

The Locker Room 143

had ever been when he was a kid and didn"t know how much he had to

lose.

Wallick was not pleased at the half. And Xander hoped

everybody"s asshole hurt, because the coach had gnawed on them for a

good five minutes at the half before stalking back through the tunnel

connecting the locker room to the arena to confer with his assistant coach

on who was playing third quarter. Xander, who had hated the guy on

principle before, and now hated him with a particular personal flair,

found that he
really
hated the fact that he agreed with the guy. They"d

played like shit, and he"d be damned if he was going to throw this team

on his back and haul them down the court when he was up and running if

they couldn"t at least try to take on some of their own dead weight.

“You got something to add to that, Karcek?” Wilson asked, the

edge of his sarcasm dulled by the weariness in his voice. They"d been

run hard around the court, and Xander knew how that felt.

“Share the ball,” he said quietly. “Let someone else take your shot.

Seriously, Wilson—Burkins, Oswald, Pollack—they were all open

during that last turnover. They would have helped you out. But everyone

expected you to go for the shot and you didn"t disappoint them.”

Burkins snorted. “But it"s not like our percentage is any better!

Jesus, Xander—none of us have your shots. It"s like you and God have

that shooting percentage, you know?”

Xander shrugged. “But part of that is that I don"t take shots I can"t

make—I give them to someone else. And that helps their numbers too.

And, you know. Win/win, right?”

There was a sigh, and a buzz, and Xander looked at all of them.

They were his teammates, and he loved them. Not like Chris, but then,

what was?

“Look, guys—you hear that crowd?” Everyone nodded their heads

yes. “Man, most of those people aren"t rich. They gave up a better car or

better clothes or a home improvement or something to be here. They
love

us and they gave up something to see us. It"s only fair we give up

something to please them, right? So give up the shot to your teammate. I

mean… we"re thirty points in the hole. Anything"s gotta be better than

that.”

144 Amy Lane

He would have loved to have stalked out of the locker room with

dignity, but he was still on crutches, so he sort of gimped out of there

with whatever he had. He felt foolish, foolish and idealistic. He"d never