The Locker Room (12 page)

walked in, and Cliff stood there the entire time, making cracks about

how maybe they could try not to funkify their next room, because this

one smelled like sweat socks.

Chris looked at Xander wryly and mouthed, “Sex socks” as they

were bent over tying their shoes, and Xander tried not to smirk, but their

smiles were a little forced, and a little sad. Whatever had been set in

motion by their secrecy and their game, by their love of basketball and

their love for each other, it was more than clear that it had already begun.

64

Amy Lane

Glory Days

WHEN all was said and done, they enjoyed Chapel Hill and loved

college ball. Xander got a degree in history (rather apologetically,

actually: he told Chris"s parents he really didn"t know what to do with

that, and Andi told him that"s what her degree was in, so maybe he was

meant to be a lawyer), and Chris got one in business, but that"s not what

either of them remembered.

They remembered the night they beat Duke, the Tar Heels" hated

rival, and took the ACC regular season. Xander had scored thirty-six

points in that game, and Chris had scored twenty-eight. Xander told the

press later that if he had flung the ball out into the crowd of the Dean

Smith Center, it would have rebounded, found Chris"s hands and ended

up in the basket, because, dammit, there was just that magic in the air.

The party had lasted until dawn, and sometime before then, they had

managed to sneak into Xander"s room and Chris had taken Xander

against the wall—then Xander had returned the favor.

They remembered being in the Sweet Sixteen, all four times, and

winning it in their senior year. They played in nearby Charlotte, and the

players had to be escorted out by security as twenty-one thousand people

screamed their names. The party that night consumed their entire dorm,

and there would be happily buzzed coeds sleeping on their couch and in

their basement and in their rooms (Xander kept finding one girl in his

closet and respectfully returning her to the main floor) for the next two

days. Even though each of them had their own room, they had no

privacy, and as Christian drank too much beer, and Xander listened to

the thousandth recap of the game from a fellow court warrior, they

would meet eyes and yearn for a time to be alone.

Apparently, Christian couldn"t take it anymore after a while, and as

Xander walked by the back door, he was surprised when it opened, and

Chris grabbed his hand. He"d been drinking almost steadily for two days,

and Xander was a little concerned by the bobble in his walk and the lack

of awareness in his smile. But he followed him anyway, because he"d

follow Christian to hell or, well, all the way through the meandering

brick paths of Chapel Hill, right? And he was more than surprised when

they came up in the middle of Coker Arboretum… and then Chris kept

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65

going and pulled him back through the wisteria to a big tree, surrounded

by shrubs and undergrowth. This time of early early morning this was

the most deserted place on campus—a coed had been killed there in the

sixties, and in the morning, when the mist came off the ground, or in the

dark of the night, even the most stoic avoided it like the plague.

Apparently being gay and in love trumped some of that

superstition, at least now.

“Remember last summer?” Chris murmured as they walked.

Xander grunted, “Yes.”

They"d rented a tiny cottage on Bald Head Island, one with two

bedrooms and a couch. Chris"s family had come to visit for two weeks,

and Xander and Chris had spent an hour before they arrived trying to

figure out how to make it look like Xander had been using the other

bedroom, while they were moving all his shit into the front room to make

room for his parents, with Penny on a cot in Chris"s room.

The night after they arrived, after Andi and Jed had taken them to

dinner at probably the nicest restaurant Xander had ever been to outside

a booster dinner at the school, they were all getting ready to go to bed,

and Andi and Jed had looked at each other meaningfully.

Jed gave his son a one-armed hug and said, “Good night, boys.

You may want to let Penny sleep on the couch, okay?” before

disappearing into the bedroom.

Andi stayed out for another moment, and looked at them with

bright eyes. She was still a pretty woman, with curling blonde hair,

although Xander had noticed that more of the blonde had come from a

bottle than it had seven years earlier, and the fine lines around her eyes

had grown deeper and (from Xander"s point of view) kinder and wiser.

She didn"t kiss Chris right away. She stood on her tiptoes and

pulled Xander (a full six foot nine by now) down so she could kiss his

temple and whisper in his ear, “You will always be part of our family,

sweetheart.” When she was done, she gave Chris a long hug and then

disappeared into the bedroom with her husband.

Chris and Xander weren"t anywhere near tired. They asked Penny

if she wanted to stay up and play video games or Trivial Pursuit or

something, and she looked at them levelly and said, “How about I tell

you guys a story?”

66

Amy Lane

Chris and Xander looked at each other, and Penny took the stuffed

chair and gestured at them grandly to ensconce themselves on the couch.

They sat, and Xander realized with a start that Penny was beginning her

first year of college. He wondered hopefully if there was anyone she"d

write to as she left, or anyone she"d miss. Maybe Penny would spend her

college days in that passion/drama/romance play that Xander had seen

most of the other guys partaking of during their time at Chapel Hill, and

in a way he wished that for her. He"d loved having Chris as his anchor,

and wouldn"t have traded that security or that kindness for a thing on the

planet, but Penny was braver than he was. Penny had tried band, and

drama, and soccer, and academic decathlon. She"d run for student body

offices, taken guitar lessons on her own, and worked at Jamba Juice, the

book store, and Starbucks. Penny, he thought, looking at Chris"s dark

eyes in a sweet, mischievous female face, was meant for great

adventures in the wide world. Xander was fully aware that his heart

would not survive his adventures unless the other half of it were beating

in time.

“See, here"s the story,” Penny said now, after an almost nervous

pause. “Once upon a time there was a little girl named Penny, who had a

horrible crush on her brother"s best friend.”

“Aww, Penny, really?” Chris groaned, trying to keep things light.

“She thought it was true love, Christian, you bastard, so shut the

hell up and listen, okay?”

Christian rolled his eyes at Xander, but Xander couldn"t laugh

back. Unlike Chris, who didn"t seem to know where this was going,

Xander had a congealed, belated fear in his stomach, a terrible adrenaline

rush, as though he"d been caught doing something bad, and the

consequences were worse than he had ever imagined.

“We"re listening,” he said quietly, and he resisted the temptation to

take Chris"s hand. There was another quiet, one they could hear the

ocean in, and Xander realized he loved that sound. God, wouldn"t it be

wonderful to live near the ocean for the rest of his life?

Penny reached out and patted his knee. Xander was leaning

forward, his outsized body trying not to spangle over the couch like a

Mylar decoration, and that hand on his knee was close enough to his face

to stop and pat his cheek.

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67

“I know you"re listening, Xander. You always listened to me. You

were the one quiet voice in our house, and I loved you for it. I really did

love you, you know. I mean, I know it was junior high, but you were

every boy I ever wanted to kiss me. I dreamed of it, right? And then,

when your life fell completely apart, and you were sent to some sort of

dorm for boys no one wanted, I was devastated. I wanted so badly for us

to want you. I heard my parents talking one night, and I thought, „Yes!

We can keep him
here
!"
and I was
so
excited, right?”

Xander looked up at her, and for the first time realized how much

time had passed since that moment. Five years, nearly six. He and

Christian had been children when he"d spent those months in a halfway

house. Penny had been even younger. He looked sideways at Christian,

who still didn"t know where this was going. In this moment, in spite of

the phenomenal bulking up the two of them had done, in spite of the

many stolen moments as lovers, and the fierce moments honing them

into competitors, Chris looked just as young this day.

“I didn"t know I was enough to get excited about,” Xander said

with a smile, and he wished for her brother"s hand like anything.

“You were,” Penny said with a faint smile of her own. “So one

morning, as I"m getting ready for school, I hear the boy of my dreams

outside, talking to my dumbass brother, and I open the door to go outside

and gossip with them, because, hey, they used to talk to me about high

school, and I figured they"d want to hear this, right?”

Xander shut his eyes. “That"s why you were crying,” he said softly,

and Chris said, “When was she crying? Penny, would you get to the

point?”

Penny patted Xander"s knee again. “The point, dumbass, is that our

parents know. They were sort of suspicious by your senior year, but they

kept thinking that you and Xander would somehow get that twin-at-the-

hip detachment in the last three years. It obviously hasn"t happened,

because you guys had to go and just… just…
explode
the odds books by

being two boys from high school who play together through college. For

all I know, you"ll end up playing the same team in the pros, because

sometimes the gods are just that kind, but it doesn"t matter. This little

charade you guys got? The reason you didn"t want to come home? The

fact that you"ve been here for a week and nobody in town knew you

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Amy Lane

were here? I mean… you
heard
that waitress tonight. She was fawning

all over the two of you, and telling people that she"d have to pass the

word that you were here. And I watched you two, trying to crawl under

the table with your butt-muscles alone, and I realized that you"d been

hiding. Just like you thought you"d been hiding from Mom and Dad.

Well, stop it!”

Penny wiped her face with the back of a shaking hand, and Xander

reached out and took that hand and placed a little kiss on the wrist.

“Don"t cry, Penny,” he said softly. “We never meant to hurt you.”

“That"s not why I"m crying, Xan. I"m crying because… you guys.

Dad watches all the sports shows. Do you watch the sports shows?”

Xander and Chris looked at each other and shrugged. They had, at

first. They had watched for news on the pros and on their beloved (and

horrible) Sacramento Kings and they had watched the All-Stars and all

of those shows that made basketball still glorious and amazing and so,

so, so, out of their reach.

And then they"d started seeing themselves up on the screen.

The first time Chris had seen Xander on television for UNC, after

their high school recruitment frenzy had passed and they"d been playing

college ball, he"d been ecstatic. Xander had been mortified, and then the

shot had taken in Chris in one of their flawless passes, one of their

perfect moments of synchronicity, where Xander passed the ball to Cliff

(who had changed positions to keep playing with them) who passed to

Chris, who went up for the dunk which Xander made in his wake, and

then their patented high five/down-low as they crossed paths on the deck,

and they"d looked at each other in horror.

How could anyone watching that not know they were lovers?

They hadn"t watched any more tape after that, unless Coach made

them watch game tape. For some reason, watching game tape was

different—clinical—like the difference between feeling each other up in

the stolen darkness or getting their prostates examined by the doctor.

Either way it was naked, like the whole world got to see a part of them

they wanted hidden from everyone but each other, but for some reason,