The Locker Room (17 page)

call after games. Then he"d snort, and say loudly to his assistant coach,

or the physical therapist, or sometimes even the owner of the team, who

seemed to like the two of them well enough, “Hell no, they"re not!

They"re gonna go home and have them a circle jerk together, "cause

that"s what faggots do! You guys wanna get to the playoffs? Go out and

get yourselves some pussy, goddammit! This „pretty-boy" escort bullshit

is only fooling yourselves!”

They"d laughed him off for a month, and then for another, but by

Christmas of that year, when they"d go out with the team for a beer and a

buzz-down afterward, they found it hard to find a spot on the table.

“Naw, Cave Man—you and Edwards go have yourselves a little

romantic tryst, whydoncha—we"ll let the real men sit here!” Sammy

Lyndecker, first string guard, usually wasn"t a prick, especially after

they"d won, but tonight he"d had his vodka in the town car on the way

over.

“And how many points did the real men score tonight?” Chris

asked caustically. “Because, um, Karcek here pretty much threw all you

real men up on his back and hauled you down the court, or weren"t we at

the same game?”

“Yeah, you wanna be a real man, go get yourself some pussy! You

can give the media that song and dance about being roommates all you

want, but we all know what that"s code for, and I don"t want no fucking

HIV on my court, you hear what I"m sayin"?”

That night had been the third home game of the month of January,

and Chris and Xander had met eyes, and they had known. They"d

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discussed it—mostly in caustic terms like, “Maybe if he caught us with a

girl in the locker room, that would make him happy,” or, “I swear, I"m

just going to buy us each a hooker to take home after the game and see if

maybe he"ll leave us alone after that!”

But in the first months of their second season, they"d started to

hear the talk. It wasn"t that they were “rarely” seen with women, it was

that they were “never” seen with women, unless it was an official escort

gig, and those usually came with no strings and no phone calls attached.

Everyone knew that. Hell—some of the guys with wives got other women

to stand in, because the wives weren"t as comfortable with being in the

spotlight as their husbands.

What had seemed “just so obvious” to be hidden in plain sight

suddenly became too obvious to hide, and too awful to contemplate,

when exposed to Coach Wallick"s foul-mouthed intensity. Nobody even

joked about Xander"s “wife” or Chris"s “husband” anymore—and that

had been one of the things they"d laughed most about with the team,

before they"d gotten to know the other players in the beginning.

So they sat there, at their own table, and Chris looked up and saw

a tall, raw-boned girl with a shy smile giving him the eye. She had come

with a friend, but her friend was chatting someone else up, and Chris

had looked at Xander helplessly.

“Maybe they"ll leave us alone,” he whispered, and Xander looked

away.

“I can take it,” he muttered, but he couldn"t meet Chris"s eyes.

“I can"t. I can"t watch you take it one more time,” Chris said, his

voice raw. Xander looked at him, tortured, but just like Chris, seeing a

way out of the taunts and the jibes and the coldness that was making the

thing they"d loved—the thing they"d lied for—completely unbearable.

“I"ll quit,” he muttered. “I"ll quit tonight.” He stood up as he said

it, reaching for his phone, his heart racing and all the adrenaline he

hadn"t spent in the game rushing through his system, thrilled to the

central chord of his heart at the thought of being free.

“Don"t you dare,” Chris hissed, grabbing his arm and dragging

him down to his stool. “We"re going to make playoffs this year. Playoffs.

Do you know how long it"s been since this team has seen playoffs? No,

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man. Fuck it. Go get me some fucking condoms from the bathroom. Get

two.” Chris shuddered then, and Xander had no doubts that sleeping

with the girl like he"d planned would be about as much fun as eating

cold dead fish, with skin.

That didn"t mean he didn"t want to throw up too, just like Chris.

He came back with the condoms, and Chris was leaning into the

girl, smiling emptily in her eyes and giving her the same bright tone of

voice and vapid responses that Xander remembered from high school,

when girls like Gabrielle had tried to get his attention, and he"d said no.

He patted Chris on the shoulder in classic “attaboy”, and stuffed the

little foil packages discreetly in Chris"s pocket, shivering when Chris

brushed his fingers on purpose, stopping to squeeze them before letting

go.
You with me on this, buddy?
Xander had bumped his knee on

purpose as he"d resumed his stool.
Always with you.

“Everyone knows who you are,” the girl was saying. “You"re

Christian Edwards. I swear, my friend and I came in here just for a

chance to see you tonight!” She smiled like a cat then. “But I"m the one

who got to talk to you.”

Chris had laughed, downing the rest of his vodka and tonic hard,

and Xander heard the sound echo in the emptiness of his own heart.

“What"s your name, sweetheart?”

“Sandra,” the girl purred.

Even at one-quarter profile, Xander could see his friend—his

lover—stop and bite his lip, closing his eyes as though something hurt

him. He turned then and looked at Xander in the eyes.

“Sandra,” he slurred, making it sound like “Xandra.” “Perfect.”

A few minutes later, they were gone, exiting quietly from the

crowded sports bar, and leaving Xander to nurse his beer for the next

hour and a half.

He wasn"t alone, though. Sammy looked over after a few minutes

and asked him where Edwards went. Xander had shrugged as though his

flesh wasn"t made of brittle glass and about to fly apart.

“Went off with a girl,” he said, all the casual in the world.

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There were hoots and hollers at the main table, and Sammy

scooted his stool over to make room for him.

“"Bout time—hope she"s not too surprised when she pops that

white boy"s cherry!”

Xander had looked at him with true hatred then—the kind that

lasted. Sammy had later been put on second string for that moment,

because Xander had stopped feeding him shots. He"d had to transfer

from the team to save his career.

“He"s not a virgin, Sammy. He"s just picky.”

“Yeah? Well, we"re gonna have to get you laid next, Cave Man!

You see anyone here you like?”

Xander would have loved to right then. His gut roiled with

bitterness and jealousy, with a black mix of self-hatred and anger with

Chris and putrid, furious disgust for the microscope that had done this to

them. He would have loved to have found a girl and figured out what in

the fuck to do with her, and gone to see Chris smelling of another

person"s sex, just so Chris could share this moment with him the way

they had shared every other goddamned thing for the last ten years. But

he couldn"t. He couldn"t. Because the last thing Chris had said to him

had sounded lost and young and frightened.

“I"ll call you in a little while. Come get me, okay?”

It was the “Come get me” that kept Xander in his seat that night,

that started the pattern of every other third-home-game-of-the-month for

them.

Chris had asked him to do something, had pleaded for him to do

something, and dammit, Xander would do it.

So Xander could probably have slept with any girl there that night,

fueled with anger and the vision of Chris, naked and alone with another

human being, faking his way through heterosexuality in the same way

they"d faked their way through being single for the past ten years. But he

didn"t. Instead, he"d taken a pull on his beer, looked at Sammy, and

shrugged.

“I"m picky too.”

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The next third-home-game-of-the-month had been his turn. He"d

sat on almost the same stool with a pocketful of rubbers, and looked at a

little bubbly blond girl with big brown eyes. Almost desperately, he sent

a begging look to Chris. Chris threw back his third drink of the night and

closed his own brown eyes in pain.

“What"s your name, sweetheart?” God, Xander was bad at this,

but the girl didn"t seem to notice.

“Kristy,” she burbled, just like a little brook.

He looked at Christian as he said it. “Perfect.”

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Reckoning

SOME guys wore suits after a game—snazzy, top of the line, slick,

bright ties, newest-cut shirt
suits—
the kind that impressed the snot out of

fans and fucks alike, but not Chris and Xander. When they packed their

garment bags for their after-game, they usually put in a nice dress shirt

and slacks. Sometimes, if he"d just gotten a new pair (since about all of

Xander"s clothes were made special), Xander would pack a pair of jeans,

because for him, it was all about fitting in, and jeans were the way he did

it. He still remembered the days of ripped, dirty jeans. It meant

something.

That"s what Xander was packing this night, when Chris came in

with the requisite two condoms. It was always two condoms—two

condoms, one bang. A thicker barrier between them and the horrible

thing they were doing, a way to pretend they weren"t really touching

another human being with their lie, a way to pretend that what they were

doing wasn"t really cheating. Two condoms with the rest of the world,

but nothing, nothing ever, between the two of them. Two condoms to

hide the fact that even though they might be able to get it up, they rarely,

rarely came.

Xander looked at the two condoms this night and said, “I don"t

think I can do this anymore.”

Chris nodded and then shook his head. His eyes were still red, even

after their showers (they never showered together—old habits died hard)

because he had come apart with Xander, and once the floodgates had

opened, the jag had needed to run its course.

“We have to,” Chris whispered. “We have to do this. He"s talking

about trading us.”

It was absurd—and it was true. Xander was having the season of

his life, second in the league in points and rebounds and Chris was going

to the All-Star Game right with him. The two of them had the team on a

playoff pace, it was undeniable, and this time, it looked like they might

make it past the first round, but Wallick wouldn"t leave them alone. He"d

started calling them “Ho” and “Mo” on the court, and the name had

caught. More than one shock jock had taken up the cry.

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(Penny had told Christian secretly that his parents had stopped

watching the news or turning on the radio in the morning. “Dad actually

figured out how to use an iPod and Netflix. It"s unreal!”)

Xander"s heart caught in his throat. Trading them? Oh God. The

one thing that made the lie bearable, the
only
thing that made the lie

bearable, was coming home to Chris at the end of the night.

He took the condoms from Chris with shaking fingers, and Chris

closed his hand over Xander"s in comfort.

“Our contracts come up for renewal at the end of the season,” he

said quietly, and Xander looked up, startled. He"d offered to quit, to out

them, to scream the truth to the heavens and obliterate the lie. He"d

almost done it without Chris, about a thousand times, but he couldn"t. It

was Chris"s dream too. But this….

“What do you have in mind?”

Chris shrugged. “Retirement? A press conference? Having Leo say

we still want to play here, but that Bigot-man"s got to shut the fuck up? I