He was beginning to see the picture. “No way.”
“Yep.”
“What?” Graham nudged him. “What’s she saying? I can barely hear her.”
“Allyson says that the school’s security cameras caught the people who decorated your locker, and that they’re probably going to be suspended for vandalism and bullying.”
A wide grin spread across Graham’s face. “Excellent.”
“That’s not the best part,” Allyson said, glee in every syllable.
“What is?”
“Any guesses on the perpetrators?”
“Please tell me it’s—”
“Roy and Clint.”
“Perfect.”
Graham nudged him again. “Put her on speaker or tell me what’s going on.”
“The Tweedles are in big trouble.” Connor found the button to turn on speaker.
“That’s not the best part either,” Allyson said.
“What could be better?” Connor asked.
“Principal Rogers pulled them aside and their parents, to let them know they’d been suspended, and man, their parents were livid. At them for their behavior, not for the suspension. If they try to give you a hard time, threaten to call their mommies, that’ll shut them up.”
There was a scuffling noise and Marc was back on the line. “So, enough about that. How are things with you and lover boy?”
Connor met Graham’s eyes—those gorgeous, icy blue eyes—and smiled. “Things are going well. Trust me when I say you don’t want the details.”
“Dude, if you and Guyliner are getting hot and heavy, I definitely don’t want to know.”
“In that case—” Connor focused on Graham’s face, “—you’d better hang up.”
He didn’t wait to see if Marc did as he suggested. Connor ended the call and hauled Graham back onto the mats.
His phone rang again a few minutes later, but they were too busy to answer it.
Epilogue
CONNOR FOUND Graham exactly where he’d expected. His boyfriend—even after six months, the term still made his insides jitter—ran along the oval track behind the school. Though he’d ditched the crutches and knee brace weeks ago, the slope was slippery with snow and icy mud, so Connor took his time covering the distance. He couldn’t wait to share his good news with Graham, but the fear of screwing up his knee again before it was fully healed kept him from rushing.
A lot had changed over the last few months. Connor had spent the summer working and saving money for school, and for the first time since he was five, hadn’t participated in a summer baseball league. He’d been a little anxious starting school again in September. The last few weeks of the school year had been weird, to say the least. His spectacular coming-out had been replayed and examined until the truth of events had been buried under the legend. A few people watched him with disgust, but as a whole his classmates had been surprisingly supportive.
By the time the new school year came along, most people had gotten over the shock. Clint and Roy still talked smack, but no one paid any attention to them. The only thing that threatened his easy happiness was that with school in session, he didn’t get to spend nearly as much time with Graham as he’d like. Not only were their daylight hours filled with classes, Graham had been accepted into the Hoosier Futbol Club’s senior program, so most of his time was spent training and traveling with the club. It was a big deal. The Club was a premier training and competition league that funneled talented players to universities and, sometimes, professional leagues.
Things had even smoothed out at home. His dad had eased back on the pressure, trusting Connor to stay on track for his future. It helped that the school guidance counselor had given Connor a stack of grant and scholarship applications she thought he’d have no trouble earning. He’d mailed them out, along with stacks of college applications, with a sense of anticipation. His dad even seemed to like Graham. The first time they met, things had been awkward, but since then, his dad started acting toward Graham the way he did toward Marc and Allyson.
Connor settled onto the bench alongside the track to wait for Graham’s circuit to bring him near. Watching Graham was one of his favorite pastimes. The best part? He no longer had to hide his admiration.
Graham’s stride slowed as he approached. He smiled. “Hey, you. What’re you doing here?”
Reaching up, Connor snagged Graham’s hand and pulled him down to sit on the bench. He kept possession of the hand while Graham settled in. “I have news.” He pouted—only a little, and only on the inside—when he saw that Graham had wiped away the eyeliner at some point since he’d last seen him that morning.
“Yeah?” Graham leaned over until they bumped shoulders. “What’s up?”
“Actually,” Connor said, “I’ve got two, no, three things to tell you.”
“So you’re, what, keeping a list?”
“Something like that.” Connor toyed with Graham’s glove-covered fingers. “First, Marc finally broke down and asked Allyson out.”
“No shit?”
“Yep.”
“Well, it’s about time. What did she say?”
“She actually said yes, but she had some conditions.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“She wanted him to promise not to call her Red anymore.”
Graham chuckled. “He didn’t promise, did he?”
“No way. I think Allyson was testing him. If he’d agreed, she’d know he was lying. So she’s going out with him anyway.” The thought of his two friends together made him smile.
Graham watched him carefully, as though gauging his reaction. “Does it bother you?”
“What? Are you kidding? They were made for each other.”
“So you don’t find it weird?”
“Nope. I genuinely want them to work out. They deserve it.”
“Agreed.” Graham slouched lower and crossed one ankle over the other. “So, what’s number two?”
“Number two,” Connor said, bumping shoulders with Graham, “is I’ve finally settled on my major.”
“Which way did you go? Sports medicine or physical therapy?”
Once he stepped back from the mostly self-induced need for success as defined by others and really thought about what he wanted out of life, he realized that business or law or any of the other “successful” career paths he was considering really weren’t for him. Weeks of therapy and talking with his therapist sparked in him a fascination with the human body and what it needed to perform at peak levels. The more he thought about it, the clearer the path to his future became.
“Sports medicine.”
“Does that mean you’ve decided what you’re going to do for college?”
“Uh-huh. That brings me to the third item on my list.” Connor sat forward and withdrew a cream-colored envelope with a maroon logo from his coat pocket. “I got in!”
He passed the envelope over and held his breath while Graham pulled the letter out and read. It took only seconds for a wide grin to break out across his face.
“This is fantastic! Loyola? Congratulations!” Graham jerked Connor into a hug.
Connor’s smile stretched so wide he thought it might split his face in half. “Isn’t it amazing? And did you see, a scholarship. Fifteen thousand a year. That will definitely help.”
“What did your parents say? I bet they’re thrilled.”
“I haven’t told them yet. I wanted to tell you first.”
Graham smacked a hard kiss to Connor’s smiling lips, causing their teeth to bump. “I’m so proud of you. We need to celebrate. Why don’t you go tell your parents? I’ll go shower and change. Then we can go out to dinner.”
“Perfect. Do me a favor, though?”
“Of course.” Graham stood up and hauled Connor to his feet.
Connor let himself fall into Graham and then reached his arms around Graham’s waist. “Don’t forget the eyeliner.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Graham pulled him clo
se and kissed him.
J. LEIGH BAILEY is an office drone by day and romance author by night. She can usually be found with her nose in a book or pressed up against her computer monitor. A book-a-day reading habit sometimes gets in the way of… well, everything… but some habits aren’t worth breaking. She’s been reading romance novels since she was ten years old. The last twenty years or so have not changed her voracious appetite for stories of romance, relationships, and achieving that vitally important Happy Ever After. She’s a firm believer that everyone, no matter their gender, age, sexual orientation, or paranormal affiliation, deserves a happy ending.
She wrote her first story at seven which was, unbeknownst to her at the time, a charming piece of fanfiction in which Superman battled (and defeated, of course) the nefarious X Luther. (She was quite put out to be told later that the character’s name was supposed to be Lex.) Her second masterpiece should have been a bestseller, but the action-packed tale of rescuing her little brother from an alligator attack in the marshes of Florida collected dust for years under the bed instead of gaining critical acclaim.
Now she writes about boys traversing the crazy world of love, relationships, and acceptance. Find out more at www.jleighbailey.net or e-mail her at [email protected].
By j. leigh bailey
Guyliner
Snow on the Roof (Dreamspinner Anthology)
Published by Harmony Ink Press
Do-Gooder
First Time for Everything (Harmony Ink Anthology)
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Published by
DREAMSPINNER PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Guyliner
© 2016 j. leigh bailey.
Cover Art
© 2016 Alexandria Corza.
http://www.seeingstatic.com
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.
ISBN: 978-1-63477-725-4
Digital ISBN: 978-1-63477-726-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016906157
Published October 2016
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
Guyliner Page 27
