I’m so used to Luke telling me the truth, that it’s just kind of sneaks up on me that he hasn’t always been truthful with his dad. He covered up the fact that he wanted to go to Eastshore. He managed to rack up enough unexcused absences to where he almost wasn’t eligible to graduate high school. Both of those things happened without his dad’s knowledge, for a long time. And now he’s telling another lie. A lie he might hope will stick.
If that’s the case, then he’s lying to me, too.
My faith in Luke—something I never thought would waver—comes crashing down. And suddenly I snap, all that hurt that’s been building up coming out in one burst.
“Is this going to be like how you handled it the last time you said you would? Am I going to have to act like there’s nothing going on between us? Like we aren’t fucking every night?”
“No, man,” he says, trying to come closer to me. I take a step back, afraid that if I let him touch me, I won’t have a leg to stand on. “I just need some time to figure shit out. I’ll tell him. I promise.”
I really want to believe him. And I’m so close to giving in as he looks at me with those pleading brown eyes. But I turn away again, severing the connection. I let out the breath I’ve held in and start for the door. This is what Luke does when he needs some time to clear his head, right? No reason I can’t do it, too.
“Where are you going?” he asks, and I can hear the hurt in his voice.
“I don’t know. The gym, I guess. Need to…” Not be here right now. Not deal with the emotions whirling inside of me. “Need to blow off some steam.”
“Let me grab my shit and I’ll come with you,” he says, reaching for his bag.
“Think I’d rather just be by myself.”
I feel like such an asshole, but something else is controlling me now. Some dark, possessive part of me that wants to take more than he’s giving me. Some part of me that wants Luke all to myself, and wants everyone to know about it.
“Okay, dude,” he says, his voice small and full of pain.
It doesn’t surprise me that he just lets it go; just lets me go. That’s the way he is. He doesn’t raise a big fuss. If I want space, he’ll give me space. And when I don’t know what I want—like right now—he’s not going to be the guy who reads my mind to figure it out.
I grab my gym bag, heft it onto my shoulder, and push through the door before I can change my mind.
It’s a fight. That’s all. One fight. I just need to cool off and we’ll be fine.
It doesn’t take long for me to realize why Luke likes going to the gym when he’s stressed.
As I work on the circuit, my mind and body both focus on the task at hand, granting me a reprieve from my tangled thoughts. It’s a good thing, too, because the more my wants and sense of reason contradict each other, the more pissed off I get, and mostly at myself.
What did I expect? That he'd be totally okay with his dad cutting him out of his life? That he'd want to live with the deep, aching pain that only comes from having a parent tell you they don't love you anymore? I can't blame him for wanting to have some kind of a relationship with his dad. If I knew what was going to happen with my own parents, I might have done the same thing. No matter how much it killed me to live a lie.
And this is Luke. Honest, dependable Luke who would never do anything to purposefully hurt me. He didn't lie to his dad because he's got some malicious plan in mind. He didn't do it because deep down he thinks of this as nothing more than a way to get laid more often.
He did it because he was scared. Because he froze in front of the one guy in the world who's able to intimidate him. The guy who used to chew him out over the tiniest things. The guy he still wants to make proud, even if he can't really put into words why he cares.
As I push myself to do another set of reps, I try and sort out why I acted like such an asshole.
It doesn't take long for the answer to come to me.
It's because I want this. I want what we've had up until now—every part of it. I want people to know we're together. I want people to know Luke Trent is mine, and I'm his.
I desperately want it to be real. Not just in our dorm room. Not just with our friends. I want it to be real to the whole world. I want us to not think twice about getting a place together after college, no matter where our careers end up. I want us to support each other in every way possible.
I want to stand face to face with him at the end of a long aisle while we're both dressed in ridiculous rental tuxes.
And that want is so strong, so fierce that it grabs hold of my heart and doesn't let go. I don't think it ever will let go. Not until I tell him. Not until I find out if any of that is even possible.
I push the bar back up hard, catching a second wind. My muscles work like a well-oiled machine, aching pleasantly, warming the rest of my body as sweat drips over my skin. I fall into a rhythm, and I finally feel like I have a sense of direction.
Erica was right. I should have told him, back before all this started. Not just that I was gay, but that I'd been in love with him for years. That the only thing I really want in the world is to build a life with him. A real life.
As I finish up at the gym, I feel like things are finally starting to fall into place. There's fear there, rooted deeply in me. Luke is the optimist, after all, and I'm the perpetual cynic. But I don't want to be cynical about this.
I want to believe that if I put my heart out there, Luke will take care of it; that he'll take care of me.
And I know he's worth the risk.
As I head out from the gym, my phone in hand to text him, I get a message. It pops up as I'm writing something to Luke, and I realize it's from Erica.
You need to see this, the first one says.
Below that, there's just a link. I pull up the message, abandoning mine to drafts, and the link shows as an embedded video. The title scrolls across it.
Rainbow Tigers... Frauds? Eastshore Season May Be in Jeopardy After Controversial Post
All the blood drains from my face, and my breath seizes in my lungs. Ice water runs through my veins, dashing away any hope I had of getting some kind of fairy tale happy ending.
This is the real world, and happy endings don’t happen here. In the real world, someone's always one step ahead of you, ready to pounce on any opportunity to bring you down. And Luke and I have just been served our demise—along with the team’s—on a silver platter.
15
Luke
The whole time Brandon is gone, I try to think about how I could have handled things differently.
I know I should've been honest with my old man. I'm just making it worse on myself by letting him believe what's at best a half-truth. Now, instead of breaking the news over the phone when there's a good hundred miles between us, I get to look him in the eyes and tell him his only son is bi.
There's still a part of me that feels weird about that; like this whole thing has been happening to somebody else, not to me. But when I look back on my time with Brandon, I don't have any regrets. If anything, I wish I'd explored these feelings sooner.
And there are definitely feelings there.
It's not like I'm any stranger to a casual fuck. I've even hooked up with girls just for the booty call I knew I could count on, and they've hooked up with me for the same reason.
It was different with those girls, though. Sex was good, sure, but it was just physical. I got hard, got off, and then I didn't think about it any more after that. If they decided they wanted something else and cut me loose, it wasn't a big deal. There was always somebody willing to take their place--comes with the territory of being a football player.
I always want Brandon, though. Every time I see him, I want him. When we're apart, I think about him constantly. And sure, when we fuck it's hot; hotter than anything I've ever done before. I can see what I'm doing to him, know how I'm affecting him, and he's so damn responsive to me that it drives me wild.
But there's something else there, too. Be
ing with Brandon just feels right. Being inside of him feels like I'm completing some missing part of myself, as crazy as that sounds. I feel it in my chest each and every time, to the point where when we're fucking, it doesn't just feel like fucking.
It feels like we're making love.
The realization hits me as I'm sitting there, flipping mindlessly through my phone and waiting for him to get back. It feels so common sense--like it's something I should've known years ago. But damn does it slam into me with a force I can't ignore now.
I'm falling for my best friend.
As soon as the thought crops up, it just makes so much sense that I can't really shrug it off. I've always thought that if I was into guys, Brandon would probably be the perfect one for me. He gets me in a way nobody else does; in a way nobody else ever will.
And I realize I'm an even bigger idiot than I thought, because there's a good chance he thinks I don't ever plan to tell my father now. That I'm ashamed of him or something, and that couldn't be farther from the truth.
I open up my text messages and start to send one to Brandon, hoping we can talk after he finishes up at the gym. But before I can finish, I get a text from Erica.
You need to see this, it says.
Below that, there's a link to a video. I click on it, and my heart just stops dead in my chest.
It's from some local guy, Patrick Billings, who does a weekly web series on all things Tigers. His videos get run on the news sometimes, and he's made a pretty good name for himself in Florida.
This time, it looks like he's got one hell of a scoop.
He leads off by explaining the situation, and all I can do is listen, frozen on the edge of my bed.
"To many of us loyal Eastshore fans, news of the relationship between running back Luke Trent and place kicker Brandon Tucker was a very welcome surprise. Our LGBT-friendly school suddenly had two new poster boys, and I, for one, couldn't have been happier."
I swallow hard, already knowing what's coming.
"But it turns out the Tiger Nation has been played for fools. Trent and Tucker, roommates and friends since the seventh grade, have never been anything more than that, says Trent's father."
I can practically feel the blood drain from my face, leaving me cold. Patrick cuts from his own face to a Facebook post made by my dad. I read it slowly, afraid to let it sink in. But there's no avoiding it.
He outed us. My dad fucking outed us on Facebook.
Everything's just pulled out of context, but I can tell immediately from the tone of his post that he got into some redneck bullshit and somebody started trash talking me so he decided to set them straight. He probably figured his post was set to private, but it got shared and then somebody who knew what was up saw it and sent it on to Patrick.
It doesn't take long to fill in the blanks from there. The video cuts from the Facebook post, with Patrick talking over it and explaining things, to an interview with somebody “directly affected" by the actions Brandon and I took.
Bowman.
He's standing in the hall—I can see a flyer for a school fundraiser behind him—and he's telling the camera his particular version of bullshit.
"I figured something was going on, you know? Trent always had all these girlfriends, and all the girls loved him, so I knew there was no way he could be gay. I tried to ask him about it, and things just got out of hand."
I stare, at a complete fucking loss for words as this little asshole lies through his teeth.
"Did you get into an altercation with Mr. Trent?" Patrick asks, motioning to the shiner Bowman's sporting.
He shrugs a little. "Tempers run high. You know how it is on a football team. I guess he felt defensive; like he had something to hide."
That smug, lying piece of trash. Playing himself for a victim, painting that scene a whole lot different than the way it actually went down. My fist clenches so hard that my fingernails dig into my palm.
I wish I had been the one to fuck him up. I wish I could do it now, because he goes on to casually mention that he was suspended from the team for fighting, not directly laying the blame with me and Brandon, but near enough that anyone with half a brain can figure out what he means.
He closes with this gem: "I just came here to play football. It's the same for my teammates. When all this gets out, I just worry about how it's going to affect them, you know? I couldn't play with guys like that."
I'm shaking with rage as the video ends, and I want so badly to go over to the freshman dorm building and string that fucker up by his shoelaces.
Fortunately, Brandon comes back before I can do anything stupid. The instant I see his face, I know he's seen the video, too.
"What the fuck do we do?" he asks, and I wish I had a good answer for him. "As soon as this story goes national, the NCAA's going to come down on the whole team."
"We tell them my dad's got it wrong," I say, working on instinct alone, like I'm trying to paddle to shore in some crazy storm. "We'll say he's just trying to stand up for me, but what he heard was wrong. We'll tell them everything's real."
He looks at me like I've turned into somebody completely different. Maybe I have. "You want to lie to everybody? You want to tell Coach that? Tell the NCAA review board that it was real all along?"
Yes, a part of me says. I want to tell all of them that because the way it is now, it might as well have been real from the start. I want to tell them because I fucked up with my dad, and I don't want to do it again. Not when there's so much on the line.
"If that's what it takes, then yeah."
I'll do whatever it takes to keep you.
But Brandon doesn't hear that. Brandon, who knows me better than anybody else, who can read me like a fucking book, hears something else.
"Wow. Real sorry this is going to fuck up your reputation. I guess it'll kill any chance you have with those girls Bowman was talking about, huh?"
His temper's up, just like mine. He's not thinking clearly. I have to tell myself that, because the alternative is that he's picking a fight with me, acting jealous about something that never fucking happened.
"That's not what I mean, man," I say, trying to keep my cool.
"If you would've just manned up and told your dad the truth from the start, none of this would have happened. Hell, Luke, if you hadn't come up with this stupid plan--"
"Stupid?" I force the word from my mouth, trying to get it as far away from my heart as possible.
Stupid. I've been called that a lot in my life. By people I looked up to. People I respected. Even by my own father. In some ways, I guess I always figured I'd end up just another dumb jock trying to find a real job after college.
But I never thought Brandon saw me that way. It cuts deep, severing all those stupid hopes I had for the future.
Stupid. It's all stupid.
"What was the end game supposed to be, Luke?" he asks, not seeming to even realize how much he's hurt me. Maybe he doesn't care. "What if you decided you wanted to date somebody? What if we had offers at different places next year? Were you just going to tell everybody we broke up?"
My mind whirls, and I can feel that venom seep into my heart. It's that mean, hateful stuff that builds up in your veins when you're trying your best not to just crumble under somebody else's betrayal.
"You didn't think my plan was stupid when I was fucking you," I say, my voice sounding like something I don't even recognize. "I may have come up with this, but you went along with it, Brandon. You went along with it because you knew, no matter what else happened, you'd get something out of it."
He stares at me, open-mouthed, and I know I've gone too far. I feel like I've hit too close to some version of the truth, and it hurts me that much deeper.
"You know I'm right. Soon as I came up with it, you jumped right on board. Guess you were... what? Trying to see if you could convert a straight boy? Well congratulations, you fucking did it."
I hate myself right now. I hate that I'm still talking. I hate that I'm still hu
rting him, on purpose. Something I never thought I'd do, not in a million years. Not to Brandon.
Not to my best friend.
"Fuck you," he grates out, and I can see the tears shimmering in his eyes.
I know it then, as clear as I've ever known anything in my life. I don't have to watch him storm out. I don't have to hear the door slam so hard that it rattles the wall.
I can just feel it, coming over me like a dark shroud.
In the span of just a few minutes, with just a few words, I've completely destroyed not just our relationship and any chance we had at a future, but our friendship, too.
The one thing that means more to me than anything else in the world.
All because of my stupid plan.
16
Brandon
When Coach calls us into his office later that day, I almost blow him off.
It's not as if my being there is going to change anything. Whatever happens to me is going to happen either way, and I just can't be in the same room as Luke right now. I'd take the suspension or even expulsion if it means I don't have to feel that pain anymore.
But in the end, I show up because I owe it to my team. I've already let them down. I've already cost them so much. The least I can do is sit in Coach's office and take my punishment.
As I settle into that too-close chair right next to Luke, I start to feel like there's nothing Coach Haynes can do to me that will be worse than the way I feel right now.
In just a few cutting words, Luke told me exactly what he thinks of me. What he thinks of us.
And the most painful part is that he's not even wrong. I knew this thing wasn't going to work out. I knew it was probably going to end like this. And still I went along with it.
Because I wanted him.
I sit there, completely still, as Coach closes the door to his office and takes a seat behind his desk. I expect the yelling any second now, and he doesn't disappoint.
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