Poster Boy

by Anne Tenino

  “Ah, maybe that’s the issue then—you see, I don’t have a relationship with Jock.” Toby forced his lips into a smile. “I had a one-night stand, and when I invited him to stay longer, he refused. Since then, I haven’t seen even a glimpse of him, thereby making it impossible for me to ask him his real name. I decided chasing him down was beneath me.” And too pathetic.

  The people sitting across the room from them got up and left. The place was empty now except for the two of them. “Gavin Gervaise,” Collin said after a moment of silence.

  “Gavin? He doesn’t look like a Gavin.” Gavins were slender and sometimes a bit femme, an impression reinforced by their long, wavy hair. And they played in rock bands, didn’t they? Or wanted to. Oh, and they looked good in leather.

  Jock would look utterly hot in leather, but not the way a Gavin would.

  Collin shrugged, pursing his mouth. “That’s his name though. His middle name is Jacques, which is how he got tagged with ‘Jock.’”

  “Huh.” Toby didn’t need to reach for the messenger bag he’d hung on the back of his chair and search out the roster. “Well, there’s no Gavin going on the trip, so I guess he’s escaped being in close quarters with me for three months.”

  Collin waved that off. “Okay, seriously, stop with the selfless sacrifice shit. That is so like you. Remember the night the frat burned and I stayed with you? You wanted to comfort me. You didn’t care about not fucking, you were happy to hold me instead because I needed it.”

  What, like it was a character flaw? “That’s not true. I was very upset about not having sex. It just seemed inconsiderate to complain.”

  Collin huffed. “Please.”

  “Please,” Toby repeated after him. “Can we not discuss this anymore? I’m ready to move on to another subject now.”

  “Fine,” Collin agreed. “Let’s talk about the frat brothers.”

  Toby groaned but didn’t actually protest. It was better than the alternative. Besides, other than ascertaining that the one with the cast—Ricky, according to Collin—would have it off before he arrived in France, he didn’t really listen. Something about the kinds of trouble he needed to look out for from them, and behaviors Collin ominously termed “warning signs.”

  “Are you even listening to me?” Collin asked.

  “Um,” Toby conjured up his “thoughtful” expression. “No, I wasn’t.”

  Collin threw both hands in the air. “Seriously, you have to keep an eye on these guys. The potential for asshattery among them is exponential. You can’t imagine.”

  “Uh-huh.” How hard could it be to stay a couple steps ahead of the stupidest of the fratbros? In an earlier period of human history, Toby’s ancestors would have already culled them from the herd.

  Someone coming out of the storage room in the rear of the shop caught his attention. An employee. “Finally.”

  An employee he recognized.

  “What?” Collin craned his head in the direction Toby was looking. “Oh, no . . .”

  “I cannot believe you didn’t tell me Kenny was working,” Toby whispered furiously.

  Collin grimaced, so that meant he’d heard the gossip too—that Jock and Kenny had hooked up. Considering Kenny’s carefully nurtured slut princess image, this wasn’t the first time they’d been with the same guy, but it was the first time Toby wasn’t indifferent to it. It didn’t help that Kenny was one of those guys his Libidinous Mistake Detection Network hadn’t warned him about until it was too late.

  “He wasn’t here when I came in,” Collin responded, keeping his voice low. “He must have just started his shift.”

  “Oh, hey guys!” Kenny called, waving and walking toward them.

  “Quick, text my phone and I’ll pretend someone summoned us or something,” Collin hissed.

  But it was too late. The chair next to Toby was pulled out and Kenny plopped into it, smiling far too brightly in his face. “You haven’t been in for a while.”

  “Hey, Kenny. I guess I tend to come in when you aren’t working,” Toby answered.

  “I’m sure it’s not by design or anything,” Collin said sweetly. Toby’d had no idea he could go all cat girl like that.

  Kenny acknowledged Collin’s comment with one of those “die, bitch, die” smiles, then turned a pouty lip on Toby. “If I wasn’t so cute I might think you were avoiding me.”

  Collin snorted.

  “I’d never avoid you.” Toby forced his most winning grin, nudging his friend under the table. Seriously, he didn’t need this drama.

  “So, boys, what are you talking about?”

  “Nothing much,” Toby said.

  Kenny’s smile went sly. “I could swear I heard you mention that hottie, Jock.”

  Toby physically recoiled. I can’t take this right now.

  “Um, excuse me?” Collin snarked. “Your ears deceive you.”

  But Kenny ignored him, lowering his voice to say, “That guy? Was a totally lame lay.”

  Toby gaped, and Collin choked.

  “What did you think of him?” he asked brightly.

  “I think,” Collin snapped, “that he just walked in and heard you.”

  When Jock walked into the Beatnick, he heard his name. Not like someone calling to him, but like he’d come up in conversation.

  The picture. Why else would anyone be talking about him? It had to be out. It was only a matter of time. Through the sudden pounding in his ears, he turned his head toward that side of the café, trying to hear more.

  The only people in the place were Collin, Kenny, and . . . Toby. Sitting together. And Kenny had just said something else—too quietly for him to catch—that made Toby’s jaw drop and Collin’s nostrils flare. Then the prick sat back and asked Toby, “What did you think of him?”

  Jock’s stomach lurched, and he had to swallow down bile before he could say, “Let’s get out of here,” to Noah.

  Too late. “Hey Collin!” Noah waved across the room. The only fucking oblivious person here and Jock had to be with him. Then his friend abandoned him by the door to go join their frat brother, leaving Jock with a reverberating pulse and a decision to make. And he would have gone for the easy way out—through the door—if Toby’s eye hadn’t caught his right at that moment.

  It was just like the first time they’d looked at each other at the party. An almost physical link. But this time it was more clash than connection. Discordant. Everything’s wrong. He should be sitting next to Toby, not that prick. Then they could be talking about Kenny instead of them talking about him.

  One good thing—they probably weren’t talking about the picture.

  Still staring at Jock, Toby answered Kenny’s question in a voice that carried all the way to the door. “He was shockingly good for me. Best I’ve been with in a long time.” Then he stood up and walked over to stand in front of him, never breaking eye contact. “We weren’t talking about you,” he said quietly from less than a foot away. So close Jock could feel the space Toby’s body took up and the subtle way he disrupted Jock’s personal boundaries.

  “I heard my name,” Jock said.

  Toby grimaced. “That was all Kenny. And what I just said. But we weren’t, you know, comparing notes. He’d just sat down before you came in.”

  The wave of icy-hot relief that rushed through him from the crown of his head was all out of proportion with the situation. Or at least that’s what Jock told himself. He crossed his arms over his chest, stepping back from Toby. “Whatever.”

  Toby’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he broke their eye contact. “Noted. I won’t do you any favors in the future.”

  “I’m being a dick, sorry,” Jock blurted, then felt the tips of his ears get hot. “I mean, thanks. For saying . . . that.” He nodded his head toward the table Toby’d been sitting at, noticing for the first time that Kenny was watching them intently.

  For a half second, Toby touched Jock’s arm—the back of his wrist, just below the cuff of his bomber jacket. “I meant it.”

/>   “Thanks,” Jock repeated, sucking in a deep breath and looking into Toby’s brown eyes for a second longer before giving in to his more craven self and turning to head out the door.

  He’d taken the path halfway back to the frat before he heard footsteps come pounding up behind him on the asphalt. “So,” Noah panted. “You and Toby, huh?”

  Jock grunted and tucked his chin closer to his chest.

  “He’s pretty hot,” Noah said.

  Jock threw a sideways glare at him and caught the dude grinning. Fucker. “Shut up.”

  “Sounds like he’s kinda into you,” Noah went on cheerfully.

  Jock broke into a jog, listening to the asshole he left behind laugh.

  As he took his impromptu run back to the dorm, he couldn’t stop thinking. About Toby, and why he’d avoided the dude—because, yeah, he totally had—and what might happen if they got together again. What Toby might eventually want from him, because the dude wouldn’t bottom forever, right? That’s what Brad had said.

  All of those trains of thought led to one truth he’d hoped to avoid awhile longer: he might not have it in him to man up and be the girl.

  At just after six in the morning, Jock lay in bed awake but trying to pretend he wasn’t when his phone beeped at him. Did he really need to look at it? It was probably Tank texting him to see if he wanted to go lift weights. They were both cursed with the early riser gene. He could work out with Tank—it passed for quality time spent together, but Jock got away with barely talking to his brother.

  When he picked up his cell though, Max Abrahamson glowed up at him. Jock scrubbed his eyes to make sure he was seeing the name right.

  Dude, you need to get online as soon as possible and do some . . .

  Do some what? He hated that his phone truncated texts.

  He’d hardly heard from Max since he left Avalon, and he’d figured that was pretty much it for them. They’d only become friends because they’d discovered each other’s secret sexual status. That had been Jock’s first lesson in gaydar or whatever: he could check out all the straight boys he wanted and they never noticed, but the gay boys caught him scoping them out right away.

  What the fuck did Max have to tell him that was so important he’d text this early? Except it was after nine there. Shrugging, Jock typed in his passcode and the full text floated up from cyberspace, in stark white on green, bringing along with it a coldness that clutched at his lungs and made it hard to breathe.

  Shoulda known, he thought to himself as he read. Because, duh, Max had a stake in Jock’s public queerness, didn’t he? They’d hung out together a lot, publicly. So Max’d find it important to let him know ASAP if word got out.

  Dude, you need to get online as soon as possible and do some damage control or something. It’s hit the media. http://annetenino.com/college-hockey-player-outed/ . . .

  Jock’s heart shrank in on itself as he fell back on the bed, touching the link Max had sent with a finger that seemed suddenly bigger than his whole phone and twice as unwieldy.

  “Gay NCAA Hockey Star Outed, Cut From Team” read the headline on the page that popped up.

  Well, at least it was accurate. He scrolled past the slowly loading picture and scanned the text.

  “A promising young center from Avalon College’s Knights, Gavin ‘Jock’ Gervaise, was recently cut from the team for serious misconduct related to his social activities, but new allegations have surfaced that the decision to cancel his scholarship and athletic involvement was motivated by the discovery of his sexual orientation . . . received a photograph depicting the young student athlete in a compromising situation—sent to us by snail mail . . . neither Coach Schnigglehoeffer nor Gervaise have responded to repeated attempts to contact them for comment . . .”

  Fuck my life. But God bless his instinct not to answer his phone when he didn’t recognize the number. Except then he would have had some advance warning.

  He found the thing he’d been hoping would never get out near the bottom of the article. “Rumors abound of an NHL team scouting the young player, but none of our sources will name names. ‘I can’t tell you, he didn’t want it getting around,’ a friend of Gervaise’s who wished to remain anonymous informed this reporter.” Fingers shaking now, he scrolled back up to the top, holding his breath. Thank fuck. It was the official team picture of him in his jersey looking intimidating. Reputable news outlets—even minor ones—wouldn’t put the “compromising” picture on their site, would they?

  Not that that would stop it from showing up on Tumblr.

  It took Jock a couple of tries to get a legible message typed out to send back to Max, but he wanted the fucker to have no doubts about his feelings. I know you’re the “anonymous” source, motherfucker. No one else knew about the scout outside of the coach. And what the fuck kind of “damage control” is it you think I can do NOW? Douche bag.

  He kicked off his blankets and jumped out of bed, nearly shoving his laptop over backward when he flipped up the screen. It took mere seconds to type his name in the search bar—no quotes or anything—and a page of hits popped up. Scanning quickly, the only bright spot he could find was that they were all “pink” news blogs, even the first one Max had sent him. So he was all over the gay blogosphere—he counted thirty-two of them—but he hadn’t hit mainstream media or even the hockey blogs.

  Yet.

  Christ, he could not just hide out here and wait for that to happen. He was a sitting duck for his frat brothers to come knocking at his door to offer their acceptance and sensitivity, and as soon as that happened, he’d probably lose it and break someone’s face. He had to get the fuck out of here.

  He did the only thing he could think of—threw on track pants and running shoes, intending to head off for Brad’s house.

  Unfortunately, when he opened the door to his room, his brother was standing right there, fist raised in the air about to knock. The expression on his face made it sickeningly obvious that he knew.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Tank asked.

  “How did you find out?” Jock asked at the same time.

  Tank took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Someone emailed me with a link.”

  Jock gripped the doorjamb. “Who?”

  “It doesn’t matter, but . . . Why didn’t you tell me about the scout?”

  “That’s what you care about?” He stared at his big brother. “I just got seriously fucking exposed, and that’s what you care about?”

  “I care about it all,” Tank said, reaching to lay a hand on his shoulder. “But I didn’t know about the scout. It seems like the kind of thing you’d tell me, bro.” And there it was, the reflection of hurt in his eye.

  Fucker. Jock clenched his jaw, chewing on his teeth a second before biting out, “I didn’t want anyone to know.”

  Tank pulled back, his whole face wrinkling up in bewilderment. “But I’m not just anyone, I’m your brother. You’ve always told me everything. We’ve always worked out your career goals toge—”

  “I don’t want to have a fucking career in the NHL as the gay guy,” he bit out.

  “But they’re pro-LGBT now, bro. The You Can Play campaign—”

  “I don’t want to be the pioneer!” Jock exploded, his jaw unclenching violently, getting in his brother’s face. “The first gay guy who plays? He’ll be a fucking token, Tank. Nothing will matter except that he’s gay—not talent or leadership or personality or anything. He’ll just be the first faggot to go pro!”

  Tank’s mouth flapped, brow scrunching until it nearly covered his eyes. “But they were scouting you because you’re great, you’ve got the talent. They were scouting you and you didn’t tell me. I could have helped you.”

  “Helped me how?” He came damn close to punching his brother, just to knock some sense into him. “Helped me stay in the closet? Pretend to be straight? That’s the only way I could play just to play. But how long could I hide that when I didn’t fucking want to anymore? I want to fuck whoever I wa
nt to fuck, and no one has the right to tell me I can’t do it, and I want people to think it’s normal. I’m not a cause, I’m a good player who happens to like dick!”

  “Exactly!” Tank pounded his fist into the palm of his other hand. “And if you’d fucking trusted me enough to tell me about the scout, I would’ve backed you—”

  “Trusted you?” Jock found himself screaming into his brother’s face. “Why the fuck would I trust you? The last time I told you something I wanted kept secret, you told your entire. Fucking. Frat! I wasn’t outed last term, bro. I was outed months before that by you!”

  In the ringing silence, the sound of someone’s door opening echoed around them. “Uh, guys?” Danny said.

  They ignored him.

  Tank swallowed, backing off a few steps, the whites of his eyes showing. “You said it was all right. I mean, after I—”

  “Of course I fucking did! You’re my big brother, and I worshipped you.” Jock charged out of his doorway, toward Tank, making his brother flinch back more. “But you really think when you came home last summer and told me you’d announced my big secret to your frat that I didn’t fucking feel like you’d knifed me in the back? Because I did, Beau.” He was spitting, he could see it flying through air between them, so he pushed himself forcibly back, down the hall, yelling at Tank from a distance, barely noticing other doors opening around him.

  “I told you that in the first place because you were the one person I could trust, but you blew it, didn’t you? When you told me you fucked it up, and then you were all apologetic and fucking crushed about it? I tried to let it go because you’ve never done anything wrong. Not to me before.” Ouch, he’d punched himself in the chest, but he continued, because now he could finally let it all out. All that shit they’d both made happen. “I couldn’t believe it, you know? I thought it must not be as bad as it felt like it was. Like, when you swore I could trust these guys not to spread it around? I tried to trust that, but all the fucking sudden it could get out there, couldn’t it? Anyone could let it slip at any time, just like you did, and then where the fuck would my career be, huh?”