The Locker Room (6 page)

ask.”

At that moment, Penny came out of the bathroom. Her voice was

rough but loud and overbright when she said “What"s up?”

“We"re trying to talk Xander into moving in with us!” Andi said,

apparently not bothered by the suddenly awkward silence.

Penny"s look could only be described as “stricken.” “Moving in?”

she asked in a weak voice, and Xander shook his head, looking

surreptitiously at Christian.

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Amy Lane

“We"ll see,” he said cautiously. “I… I don"t want to impose. I"m…

I"m not used to family. I may not be good at it.”

Penny closed her eyes and swallowed, then looked up brightly.

“We"re a good family, Xander. I think you"d be okay here.”

Years later he would remember her face. Her eyes had been a little

swollen and very bright, but they had been clear and accepting, and she"d

been looking at him with sympathy and kindness. It wasn"t until he was a

grown man that he realized that she"d been crying.

“YOU don"t want to live with my family?” Christian asked, his voice

choked and surly. They were walking to school, after Xander ate a stack

of pancakes that might stay with him all day. He was hoping so—the

warmth of his reception in Christian"s parents" home would stay with

him a lot longer.

“Your family"s great,” Xander murmured. Absurdly, he wished he

could take Chris"s hand as they walked down the residential road, but

there were too many kids on their own wanders to school.

“So why hesitate?” Chris backed up and looked at him, all of his

unhappiness written clear as day across his face. That was Christian,

open and transparent as a bay window over the ocean.

Xander looked away, then back into that open face. He knew his

own expression was closed and guarded, but he couldn"t help it. These

were difficult, complex thoughts, and he had a simple mouth.

“I want to kiss you,” he whispered, and Christian"s eyes widened.

“Here?”

Xander shook his head, frustrated with himself. When he was an

adult, he"d be better at this. He knew he would be.

“In general, genius! I just—” He grimaced. “It would be wrong. It

would be… like taking advantage of them. Your folks. They"re the nicest

people, you know? I don"t want to… you know. Betray their trust or

anything. That would be—” He pulled in a big gust of air.

“Wrong,” Chris conceded, and Xander smiled at him with such

terrible relief.

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29

“Yeah.”

“Maybe,” Chris said, looking fitfully at the concrete at his feet.

“Maybe you could still live with us. The kissing—we could do that not at

home. We wouldn"t have a lot of time to do it, right? But, well, we"d be

together. My folks would get you a dresser.” His voice sank to a whisper,

and he looked down at his shoes as he turned back to be shoulder to

shoulder with Xander. “You wouldn"t have to live out of a garbage bag.”

Xander sighed. “Garbage bags aren"t a big deal,” he said, meaning

it.

Chris looked around surreptitiously, and then
he
grabbed Xander"s

hand. “They are when that"s your world,” he said, sounding wise.

“Maybe you and me, we"ll be slow, and in nooks and crannies and

places. Because—” They heard chatter coming up the walk from a side

street, and Chris dropped his hand. “Because I"d rather you be safe, and

have a home, Xander. If that means we gotta wait until college, then

that"s what it means, okay?”

It was a little sound, almost a whimper, but Chris looked at him

sideways, practically in triumph, and that was when Xander knew he"d

lost.

“Someday,” he said gruffly. “Someday, we"re gonna have a big

house, and it"ll be you and me. No one has to know what we do there,

but we"ll be a family, right? You and me?”

Chris met his eyes, and Xander fell into them. “That"s a deal, Xan.

You and me.”

30

Amy Lane

Free At Last

WHEN Xander remembered high school as an adult, he would invariably

remember two things: his time on the court, with the entire community

screaming for the both of them as they worked, bloodied, and pounded

their way into magic by sweat, and tiny corners of time with him and

Christian, alone and protected and insulated from the world.

Xander did move into Christian"s parents" house when he turned

sixteen, and he took up residence on their couch. He and Christian would

sit next to each other and watch television, or eat breakfast or brush their

teeth, terribly conscious of the one moral imperative that they had set

themselves:

They. Must. Not. Touch.

They would walk to or from school, chatting about teachers and

Coach, or the injustice (or their own supremacy) of the last game, and

sometimes Xander wondered how the world couldn"t know that they

should be holding hands, because their muscles, skin, and bone were

practically screaming the truth:

They. Must. Not. Touch.

On the court, it was different. On the court they could high five,

low five, pat each other"s bottoms, bump each other"s hips, and that was

okay. One giddy night when they were juniors, as their team took State,

and the crowd surged onto the floor, Xander reached over Christian"s

shoulders and engulfed him in a terrific bear hug. Only Xander and Chris

knew that Xander had nuzzled through that thick gold hair and kissed the

shell of Christian"s ear through the sweat of the game. And that was

okay, no one noticed that.

On the court, they could touch.

That night, the rest of the team managed to start their showers first.

By the time the crowd let Xander and Chris into the locker room,

everyone else was on their way out, and Coach, needed at a press

conference (which they could tell pleased him no end), locked the doors

and told them just to make sure everything was shut before they left.

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31

They nodded and stripped off, both of them stepping into the spray

gratefully, because they had both soaked through their jerseys during the

game.

Xander wasn"t exactly sure when it occurred to him that he and

Christian were alone and naked and clean. He"d just finished soaping his

hair for the second time, and then rinsing, and he wiped off his eyes and

saw Christian, staring at him.

The two of them had avoided looking at each other personally.

Hell, they had avoided looking at
everyone
personally. They might be

gay, but that didn"t mean they spent their time gawking at the other boys

on the team. That felt like an abuse of trust, somehow, and they couldn"t

do it.

But here they were, giddy from victory, happy, thank-the-gods

clean,
and, well, naked.

They simply stared for a few moments, completely taken aback.

Xander began to focus on details then—Christian"s taut stomach, his

tight, wiry frame. Christian was six feet tall by now, and looking like he

might possibly grow another inch, but Xander was six foot five, and

definitely not finished growing. Christian was all tight, small muscles, a

rippled stomach, pale skin. Xander couldn"t stop looking at him. Chris

was… pretty.
Beautiful.

Xander didn"t want to think about what his own body looked like.

Freakishly tall, deathly white, a small mat of dark chest hair already

taking up residence between his pecs—not beautiful. Not Chris
.

But Chris was looking at him like he was something special, and he

managed a shy smile. He looked down Chris"s body and raised his

eyebrows at Chris"s private area, drooping large and soggy in a nest of

curly blond hair.

Chris"s grin turned cocky then, and he gave a little shrug and a

swaggering thrust with his hips that could only be called “adorable.”

Xander laughed then, and Chris, again without talking, reached down

bravely, seized his cock in his fist and stroked once, twice, three times.

His head tilted back, and his eyes closed, and Xander watched,

openmouthed, as that thing grew, doubled in size, became plump and

thick and long and huge.

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Amy Lane

He wanted to touch it, but… but they were exposed, in the middle

of the locker room, and discovery—by anybody—would be disastrous.

He kept an eye out, his ears open, but he moved in behind Chris,

pulled him back, supported Chris against his naked body. Chris would be

safe in his arms.

Chris had been loved all his life,
protected
all his life. He relaxed

easily into Xander"s embrace, and started making breathy little moans as

he pleasured himself. Xander studied his profile, liking the way his

mouth tightened, the way he worried his lower lip with his teeth. He

wanted to close his eyes and bury his face in the hollow of Chris"s neck,

but he didn"t dare. It was his job to watch out for them. It was his job to

keep them safe.

It was almost over anyway. Chris had been quiet so far, keeping his

noises to himself, but suddenly the sound of his fist smacking in the wet

of the soap and water got loud, and he shuddered in Xander"s arms. He

groaned harshly, and Xander watched, transfixed, as his come shot out,

mixing with the water pounding on them and running down the drain.

They stood there, panting for a moment, and then a sound,

probably nothing, from outside made Xander stiffen. They separated

quickly, their naked skin peeling apart with reluctance, and both of them

turned toward the wall and started rinsing their hair as some sort of

cover.

In a minute, when it looked like nobody was coming, they breathed

out a sigh of relief. Xander tilted his head and threw the water out of his

eyes, and Chris grinned at him, that same cocky grin, but this time sleepy

and sated and proud.

“Next time, it"s your turn,” he said, giving Xander a meaningful

look at his privates. Xander blushed and nodded, and wondered at the

feeling of reluctance that trammeled up his words. That would be the

natural progression of things, wouldn"t it? And it wasn"t as though he

didn"t want to. Chris had felt wonderful in his arms, skin to skin. But

he"d also been helpless, defenseless against the world in the height of his

passion, and Xander….

Xander didn"t have a lot of good experiences being helpless, did

he? He"d been helpless against hunger, helpless against beatings,

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33

helpless against neglect. He… oh God. He loved Chris. He didn"t want

to be helpless with him.

But Chris was looking a little worried now, and Xander wondered

if maybe it wouldn"t be better to be helpless in Chris"s arms than strong

out of them, so he smiled shyly and said, “Yeah. Like we"ll ever get a

chance like this again, right?”

Chris laughed, the sound resigned, and rolled his eyes as he shut

off his shower. “Graduation"s not that far off,” he said philosophically.

“You know, pretty soon we"ll be dorm mates, and every college movie

I"ve ever seen says that we get to hump like bunnies!”

That made Xander grin for real, because he and Chris had stayed

up late all summer, watching every movie about college they could get

their hands on, looking at each other from the corner of their eyes and

hoping with everything they had that it might be true.

“Do bunnies hump a lot?” Xander asked now, knowing that maybe

the one person in the world he could joke with was Chris. The two of

them moved to their lockers, grabbing towels from the barrier and

wrapping them around their waists. Xander"s erection, rampant and

painful when Chris had been in his arms, had since withered. It was

almost like they really were brothers in truth now, and Xander was

relieved. He had a place in his brain that would do that, and it was easier

that way, because he already felt like a walking hard-on for the guy.

“I plan on finding out,” Chris said, with a waggle of his eyebrows,

and Xander laughed in agreement. A year and a half. They had a year

and a half until graduation, and they would probably have maybe half a

dozen opportunities like this one. Maybe, by the time they could actually

sleep together, like grown-ups, he would have learned to trust, and Chris

might never have to know how very scared it made him to think about

laying back in his Chris"s arms and giving himself over to love.

Xander trusted on the court—that was for damned sure.

Running the boards, he
knew
Chris would be there for the bounce