by Amy Lane
Xander shrugged, and went to his fallback line on the subject—one cooked up by Chris, of course.“Well, when your father was half-yeti….”
She giggled again, and then looked at the beer in his hand.“So, um, does that have a home?” She was looking at him hopefully, and he smiled, feeling resignation steep down from his spine to his balls.
“It does now.”
Audrey was funny, and a little bit shy, and she had heard his sound bite and told him that she was majoring in English and thought that his poetry was beautiful.
Xander had actually blushed.“I was a history major,” he said, embarrassed, and shed nodded, like she knew this.
“I know!” she told him, excited.“Everyone else majors in business or computers or technology. Do you know how rare it is to have a basketball player major in the humanities?”
“Probably not as rare as you think,” he said, thinking it was true. A lot of the players had enjoyed their educations as much as he had. For some of them, it had been an opportunity theyd never dreamed about.
Audrey shook her head.“Id need to do stats,” she confessed. “I just thought it was interesting, you know? The press calls you Cave Man, but really, youve got this sort of erudite specialty. Its like they dont know you at all!”
Oh God. She was actually looking at him like a person, and Xander had a sudden, real conviction that he couldnt do this. He was smiling at her, getting up the courage to tell her that it had been nice, but he had an early morning, when she suddenly looked him dead in the eye.
“Hey—do you want to get out of here?”
And he felt trapped, as locked into sex with her as he had been locked into this whole encounter, and his eyes sought Chriss across the bar. Chris nodded and held up two fingers. Xander nodded back, and Chris held up his index finger and his thumb, perpendicularly, like a big L. Xander laughed like his buddy was chiding him for being a Loser, but he knew the code. It meant “locker room.” They both had keys, and it was a convenient place to meet.
“Do you live nearby?” he asked smoothly, because his silent exchange with Chris had lasted less than a second.
“Only about ten minutes,” she told him, and Xander looked up at Chris and made a little X with his fingers. An hour and a half, max, and so he left.
She actually lived less than five minutes away, although it seemed longer because he went in her car. It was tiny, and he felt as though his knees were at his ears, and Audrey laughed and chattered nervously the entire way. He got to the apartment and was a little surprised; it was about a block away from that first apartment hed had, the one with the couch and the garbage bag, and his heart started to flutter in his stomach and his throat and behind his eyes.
It was pounding like a kettledrum when he got inside.
She had a couch in the front room, and a laptop on the coffee table as a television. There were stacks of books and a printer and computer paper in the corner, but no table to put them on. He looked beyond her to the one bedroom and saw that it had clothes—not a lot, but enough to indicate shed moved from somewhere—and a dresser, but no bed.
She saw the direction of his gaze and looked sheepish.“I hope you dont mind. I just moved out of my parents house, and Im still earning the money while I study,you know?”
Xander nodded stupidly.“Whats your major?” he asked, buying time. There were a couple of standing lights in the living room, and he could get a better look at her face than he had in the darkened bar. She looked improbably young.
“Poetry,” she chirped, turning back to him, and he smiled, thinking shed be a wonderful English major—hell, probably a wonderful writer, and then he looked around the apartment again. When he looked back at her, she was texting again, and he had to laugh.
“Telling your friends?”
She grimaced and closed her phone, turning it off.“They keep giving me shit, you know?Because I havent put out yet…. I told my best friend that I had Xander Karcek in my living room, and she about shit her pants.She wont believe it in the morning!” Suddenly, Audrey looked abashed.“She asked for a picture, but I couldnt send one. I mean, you know.I know youre just here for sex, but thats sort of between us, isnt it? It just seemed wrong to just send your picture all over creation, right?”
Xander looked at her helplessly. Oh Christ.“Audrey, how old are you?”
And now her faintly hectic blush suffused her entire body. “Nineteen. Im legal, right? Well”—and now she looked like a caught kid—“maybe not for the beer. That was nice of you by the way. Thank you.”
“Youre welcome,” Xander said, the words echoing in his head as he said them. He was reaching inside his pocket for his phone for a cab, when he realized Audrey was looking at him expectantly.
“So, um, Xander?What did you want to do now?”
“Cards,” Xander said decisively. “You wouldnt happen to have a deck of cards on you, would you,sweetheart?”
He could tell by her confusion that she didnt, so he made her play hangman instead.
At the end, after an hour, he took her phone and wrapped his arm around her tiny shoulders, then held the phone out at arms length and took the picture. They were both smiling like cousins at a family reunion, and she looked embarrassed as she took the phone back.
“So, you probably think Im really stupid, right?”
Xander shook his head emphatically.“I think youre really wonderful,” he told her truthfully. “But I dont think you should just go picking up on men in bars because your friends think you should put out. Find someone wonderful, just like you, and make sure theyre your best friend first, okay?”
Audrey nodded and then narrowed her eyes at him.“Says the man who just came to the house of a random hookup!”
Xander grimaced.“Sweetheart, you find that young man, and you enjoy your time with him. Sometimes, happy ever after is a lot more complicated than it seems.”
Suddenly that tiny little hand was up, cupping his cheek.
“You know why I took you home?” she asked, and he shook his head no.“Because you seemed really,really sad.”
Xander swallowed hard, and stood up, letting her hand fall away. “You are way too smart for nineteen,” he said softly, “and Ive got to go. Send that picture to your friends, okay? Tell them whatever you want, but keep the hangman so you can prove the truth if you need to.”
She looked at the sheets of copy paper filled with scribbled letters and bad stick figures.Theyd both started using the longest words they could think of, to try to stump the other, but shed won in the end. She traced the word shed guessed, “duplicitous,” and looked up at him with more understanding than he wanted to see.
“Tell them you got laid,” he said gruffly. “Tell them to piss off, tell them whatever you feel like—but dont let them push you into doing something dumb like this again, okay,Audrey?”
Audrey stood up and threw her arms around his waist in a fierce hug.“Youre awesome, Xander. I promise.”
And then he was gone, walking back across the freeway in the dark, because Arco Arena and Chris were only a fifteen-minute jog away.
The night was cold, and Xander drew his trench coat and his scarf tight around his neck and ears, wondering dismally if the fog and the damp were going to give him a cold. Probably, hed seemed to be a lot more susceptible to things like that in the middle of the season, and hed played sick so often, Leo had stopped alerting the media.It didnt matter. He put his gloves on and tucked his hands in his pockets, enjoying the smell of the fog under the pink sodium lights and the sounds of the streets, as he walked the same route from Audreys apartment that he and Chris used to walk to school.
He passed the school, looking lonely in its night island of cityfunded light, and then took his life in his hands (twice!) to cross in front of the on-ramp and the off-ramp in order to get across the overpass, because in this community, someone had to die before they made traffic intersections safer for pedestrians.
If Chris hadnt been waiting at the locker room, Xander might have hoped
that hed be that statistic, but Chris was there, so he tried not to dwell on it.
Something had just given, something vital in their little bubble of lies had just broken, and Xander refused to do it anymore. He might not just defy the gods and come out, but he was never going to go home with another stranger, and he was hoping Chris was with him on this, because he didnt think he could bear to see Chris do it either.
One way or another, this charade was going to end with this season. Xander hoped it would end with a championship under his belt, but at this point?Hell, he felt like hed defied too many odds as it was. He wasnt going to ask God for another goddamned thing. Hed always said,“Chris and basketball.” Well, hed had his basketball, and now all he wanted was Chris.
Chriss newest car (something fast, purple, and without enough legroom, thats all Xander knew) was sitting outside the smaller practice building on the side of the arena. There was another car out there in the fog, but Xander couldnt see it well, and he thought it might have been a maintenance worker, or even a dead battery, waiting for daylight and better visibility before someone came to collect it.
It didnt matter. Inside the locker room it would be warmer, and there would be a big fridge with some water, and Xander was thirsty.
The locker room was eerie as he entered it, lit only by service lights, the pristine white tile echoing with every footfall. Xander headed for the fridge, calling,“Chris?” softly as he went.
“Youre early!” Chris said, and Xander followed the sound to where he was sitting, one long leg extended up on the bench, his back against his own locker, with his smartphone in front of him. He was probably reading—they shared e-books like crazy, usually science fiction, which satisfied Xanders interest in politics and Chriss need for fantastic geekiness and gave them something to talk about as well.
“Easy to be early,” Xander said, sitting and downing his water in one gulp.“Especially when you dont do anything.”
Chris frowned at him, and Xander frowned back.
“She was a baby, Chris, and I couldnt. She was nineteen—Jesus. I dont know if weve ever been that young.”
Chris leaned back against him, moving slowly, comfortably, like, say, a man who had been happily married for ten years.“We were,” he said softly.“Some ways, Xander, I think you still are.”
Xander wrapped his arm aroundChriss chest, and rubbed his cheek against that short, short hair. The stillness of the locker room settled around them, and he thought he heard Chriss breathing echo against the back wall, and maybe even out in the frighteningly dark small gym, where they practiced.
“Not you?”
Chris grunted.“No,” he said softly. “Not after what Ive made us do.”
Xander felt a growl start in his chest, and he pulled back from their comfortable“lean” on each other and shoved at Christians shoulder.
“Look at me,” he rasped, and he used his longer reach to grab Chriss smartphone and put it in his pocket.
Chris dropped his leg to the floor and turned his shoulders around, but he couldnt look Xander in the eye, and Xander grasped his chin between his fingers and forced him to. His eyes were still wide and dark, but up close they were red-rimmed and puffy. Xander swallowed. Oh, Christian. Me too.I looked just like that, every time weve ever met here. Every time you left with a girl and came home to me.
“It was both of us,” he whispered. “That first night, what you needed was for me to take charge. You needed me tosay „No and to claim you in front of the whole wide world, and to say fuck all this other bullshit, we are who we are.And I didnt. I let you go.I let this… this… thing start, and it hurts us. It hurts us more every time.And Im saying „No now. We cant live like this anymore. We dont have to come out, we dont have to quit, but we dont have to lie like this again, okay?”
Chris looked at him with absolute naked hope in his eyes, and Xander wanted to cry. How long, Chris? How long have you needed me to take charge? How long have you wanted one of us to lead our little family of two?
“Okay!” Xander repeated, and this time, Chris nodded, and Xander let out a sigh of relief.
“Okay,” Chris murmured, and then he couldnt say anything else because Xander was kissing him, plundering him, shoving his tongue down Christians throat and tasting him and claiming him and becoming the grown-up, all in one cleansing, wonderful kiss—
That was interrupted when the full rack of lights came on in the locker room.
“Fucking faggots.”
Xander looked up and cupped Chriss head, pushingChriss face into Xanders chest to protect him, but it didnt matter. Coach knew Chris, even from the back of his head. Xander glared at him, defiantly, and the man with the acid tongue, the fucker who had peeled away the layers of the two of them until only the lie remained, smiled in satisfaction.
“Thanks,guys,” he said smugly. “Id wait for that phone call tonight.” And then he turned around and walked out of the locker room, leaving Chris and Xander staring at each other in shock.
Fallout Canyon
WHEN their hands stopped shaking, and the spots had cleared from Xanders eyes, they walked out to the car. Xander held out his hands for the keys, and Chris handed them over silently—Xander could tell from his pallor that he was probably going to be sick on the way home.
He was. Twice. Xander didnt smell any booze as he held him from the middle and then used a napkin from the car to wipe his mouth, and he wondered how long that was going to last.Hed have to watch close, because Chris could very easily go home and pour himself a triple, then down it on an empty stomach. But other than the words, “Pull over,” neither of them said anything else on the way home.
Xander pulled Chris past the bar in the front room and dragged him up the stairs, unbuttoning his dress shirt roughly, then shucking his pants and shoving him toward the shower.
“Wash,” he said roughly, squeezing his hand. “Im going to call Leo.”
Chris blinked shell-shocked eyes at him and smiled a little.“What do you think will happen?” he asked, and Xander looked away. He knew… he knew. But for Chris, he would pretend not to.
“Maybe a press conference!” he said brightly. They both admitted that those things felt surreal, anyway, and they were scrupulous about not watching them afterward. Xander thought he looked like a Neanderthal, no matter how many body waxes he went through, and Chris thought he looked too pretty for the NBA, and he never said it in a vain way, but more like it meant he was a silly little boy, playing at being something great.
Chris gave him a weak grin.“We can only hope,” he muttered, before slouching to the shower, the slump in his shoulders seeming to slow him down.
Leo was a little more vocal.
“You got busted doingwhat?”
Xander repeated it, feeling about twelve years old.“Kissing in the locker room.”
There was a seething silence on the other end, and Xander held the phone away from his ear, waiting for the explosion.Leo didnt disappoint.
“Six months! Six months, Xander, do you know that? You are six months from proving to the fucking world that who you fuck doesnt have a fucking thing to do with getting the job done! Six months! You wanted to come out after you took the goddamned championship? After you became the bloody fucking hero of the entire sports world—by all means!Id get on my knees and blow you myself, and if you loved me, youd let me do it while Chris was giving it to me from behind! But no! No!Goddamn you, couldnt you keep it in your pants for that kid for six goddamned months?!!”
“It wasnt like that,” Xander said quietly, because Leo was taking a break from screaming at him and (it sounded like) waiting for an answer.
“Then tell me,” Leo sighed. He still sounded irritated, but that initial burst of outrage had faded, and Xander tried to put it into words.
“We….” He sighed.“We stopped. You know. Third home game of the month.I just couldnt do it anymore. Neither could he.It was….” Oh God.Now that hed put his foot down, it hurt to admit that they had ever live
d like that in the first place.“It was so wrong,” he said at last, and now Leo sighed loud enough for it to crackle over the phone.
“Yeah,” he said after a moment. Hed known. Hed heard the buzz that the happiness twins had finally ended their public celibacy.Hed asked them what was up, and Xander could never decide if the expression on his face had been incredible pride or incredible disappointment. Maybe it had been both.“Yeah. I knew it when you started, but… God. Compared to the other shit people do in this business? Jesus.What made up your mind, by the way?”
Xander sighed.“I dont want to talk about it,” he said, meaning it. “The good news is, it never happened—no matter what she puts out on the internet.” He didnt think she would. In fact, he was pretty sure that shed blow up the picture, put it on the wall, and only tell the people who mattered what really went on that night—but he couldnt be positive.
There was a silence on the other end of the line, and Leo asked tentatively, “Please tell me she was eighteen?”
“Barely, Leo—thats why nothing happened.” Xander flopped backward on the comforter, bouncing his hand lightly on top of it. It was Kings purple, with gold trim, because it had cracked Chris up to have it made that way, and it had made Xander laugh when hed seen it. The sheets and the pillows were purple and gold to match. It was raucous and gaudy and sooo not them. That had been the point, right? Two queens playing for the Kings? Get it?
He was having a conversation right now that wouldnt let him laugh about that.
“God… she was a baby, and she lived in what looked like my first apartment, and… Christ. Christ, Im done with lying—not to her, and not to the media. Look, whatever happens, they can draw the conclusions they want, but Im not getting up and giving a press conference and answering to any of this bullshit. Not now.Not ever again.”
Leo sighed.“Yeah. Yeah, I hear you, big guy.Kay.Look, Ive got your owner on call waiting, right? Whatever the fallout is?Its about to rain down. Go put Chris together—hes going to need you.”
Xander stood up and went to the bathroom, wondering if he was going to have to pull him out in the same way Chris had pulled him out three years ago, but he neednt have worried. Chris had shut off the water and was drying his hair, a towel slung around his trim waist and a little bit of life back in his eyes.
