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  She winks at Oakley, and I know she's fucking with him. Erica's got a pretty strict 'no athletes’ policy. She said I didn't count, since we started dating before she decided on that rule.

  Oak doesn't know that, though, and his blush deepens. I open my mouth to tease him about it, but I hear someone else speak.

  "He wants to know if you turned Trent gay. If fucking you was so close to fucking a guy that he figured he'd just go after the real thing."

  Erica stiffens, and my blood starts to boil. The fucking prick. I know who it is immediately, even though his voice is quieter than normal. When I look for him in his usual spot with his usual piece of shit squad, he isn't there.

  It doesn't take long to find him, though. Bowman is at a separate table, just him and his little skinhead friends. If I had to guess, I'd say they're afraid they're going to 'catch' whatever Brandon and I have.

  They've been quiet lately. The more we've won, the quieter they’ve gotten, until I figured they'd just be happy with their wins, no matter how they happened. I guess I was wrong, and they were just waiting for the chance to be brain dead little shits.

  I exchange a look with Brandon. He's tense, too, and we're both ready to go over there and teach them a lesson. But before either of us can even push our chairs out, Oak's clatters to the ground.

  "You take that shit back," he growls.

  Oakley isn't exactly a small dude, so the fact that he makes it over to their table so fast is damn impressive.

  "Oakley," Erica says, her voice mostly calm, but with a pleading note underneath.

  "What's the matter, Oak?" Bowman taunts, standing up in front of Oakley. "You want the fat bitch to turn you into a faggot, too?"

  Brandon and I are up out of our chairs with that. Two other guys, too. There's no need, though. Oak draws his fist back and punches him so fucking hard that I swear I can hear his jaw crack.

  He goes down like a sack filled with lead. Erica gasps beside me. For all the time she's spent around me and Brandon, she should be used to this. But Oak's not usually the temperamental sort, so I guess it is out of left field.

  I don't even think about the fact that it might go further than Oak laying that guy out. But it does. Bowman's crew is on him as soon as their leader goes down. Oak could easily take them on, but I jump in just the same. If you don’t back up your teammates, what kind of guy are you?

  When I see a freshman going for Oak with a broken beer bottle—proof positive these guys are a bunch of asshole rednecks—I tackle him to the ground hard enough to make our LBs proud. I can hear Brandon behind me, panic in his voice. My own pulse rings in my ears as I struggle with the freshman for a minute before slamming his hand back against the floor.

  The bottle clatters out of it and Davis kicks it away.

  After that, it’s mostly just a scuffle, but there’s enough broken glass and wood around that we’re thrown out into the street and told to wait for the cops. We’ll be lucky if we all don’t eat a few games for this, but I can’t really find it in me to care. Erica’s family, and so is Oakley. If anybody starts shit with them, they’re going to have to answer to me.

  "You okay, man?" Brandon asks Oakley once we make it out to the street.

  I look at him, and he's holding back another one of our teammates. The whole scene outside this bar right now is fucking surreal. These four freshmen against everybody else. And the little shits still look smug as fuck.

  "Yeah," Oak says, his voice shaky. "Fuckers can’t throw a punch to save their lives."

  "You are such a fucking idiot," Erica says.

  When campus police show up and take statements, though, it’s Oakley she calmly defends. And she does it so well that despite being twice as big as Bowman, he doesn’t get cuffed. The cops tell us our coach will sort it out, and to go back to our dorms and chill the fuck out.

  We break off in different directions, and I can’t help but feel unsettled the more I think about what happened tonight. It’s one thing to talk trash. It’s another thing to be so against somebody that you go out of your way to start shit even when your team is winning. I don’t know what Bowman and his crew are capable of now, and it bothers me.

  Brandon touches my arm gently, and I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding in.

  "You okay?" he asks.

  "Yeah. Just... can't really believe that shit happened."

  Brandon frowns. “You think they’re going to be a problem?”

  "I don't know, man," I say. My skin feels clammy, my stomach sick. "All I know is I don't trust any of those guys. On the field or off."

  "Yeah, well," Davis starts in from behind us, his phone in his hand. "They won't be on the field much longer. Coach is suspending all of them."

  That should make me feel better, but I grew up around these kinds of guys. You tell them they can't do something, and it just makes them that much madder.

  Now I'm thinking that anger's going to be directed toward me and Brandon, sooner or later.

  13

  Luke

  I thought Bowman getting suspended would pretty much put an end to the bullshit we had to deal with. Sure, he's still hanging around campus, and he talks all kinds of shit when he sees us, but at least he isn't around the team anymore, getting other guys in on it and pulling the good guys like Oak into that shit with him.

  But Bowman was pretty easy to control. As soon as Coach stepped in, his ass was grass. My dad, though... he's another story.

  He calls on a Tuesday morning, while Brandon is off at an early class. Probably worse times he could call, but when I grab my phone, I'm not expecting it. I'm expecting one of the coaches, or maybe Erica.

  "This is Trent," I say, staring at the blinking cursor on my laptop.

  This paper's due in a couple hours, and I'm not going to have a lot of time for Brandon to help me with it.

  "You mind telling me why I have to find out my son is gay through some God damn internet trash?"

  Ice floods my veins as soon as I hear his voice. That's the voice of the guy who stayed up late when I was a kid just to catch my ass sneaking back in the house. That's the voice of the guy who tanned my backside when I was skipping class in high school so I could meet up with a girl.

  And that's the voice of the guy who's finally found out about me and Brandon.

  I know I told Brandon I’d tell him before he had a chance to find out this way, but I just haven’t wanted to think about it. There’s no way this conversation ends well. I guess I was just hoping I’d have more time. Plus, I thought he was still at that prepper retreat for another week or so, cut off from technology and all that shit that goes along with it.

  Apparently I was wrong, and being cornered like this is making my pulse race and my stomach roil. I'm lucky he didn't just march straight down to Eastshore and confront me in person, but this is bad enough.

  "Hey, Pops," I say weakly, my voice breaking halfway through like I'm a kid again.

  "Don't 'hey Pops' me, boy. You know how I had to find out about this shit? Frank posted it on Facebook and tagged me in it."

  I didn't even know he had Facebook on his phone, let alone knew what the fuck tagging was. Not really a great time for my old man to get all tech-savvy.

  "I didn't want to bother you on your trip," I say, which isn't a lie.

  It just isn't the whole truth.

  "Yeah, it's a lot better for me to find out about this in the middle of nowhere with such shitty reception that I couldn’t call you until we got back to town. You know how many shit-for-brains assholes commented on that post? You know how many people I had to see calling my boy a faggot, saying they knew all along he was queer?"

  I cringe. Apparently my dad hasn't figured out not to look at the comments on pretty much anything on the internet. I'm guessing now isn't the right time to tell him that, though.

  Not when I can hear the anger and the disappointment in his voice.

  The shitty thing is, I knew it was coming. That's why I've been dragging
my feet. I wanted a little while longer for my dad to just be proud of me for playing football. To be proud of me for doing something with my life. I didn’t want to face him being ashamed that his country-raised, God-fearing son likes to suck dick.

  "I was going to explain everything Sunday, face to face. I wanted you to hear it from me, Pops, but texting didn’t seem right."

  And I was fucking terrified that this exact thing was going to happen.

  "Guess it's too late for that, so why don't you explain everything now. Help me understand how my son, who I raised with my own blood, sweat, and tears, is suddenly a queer without me knowing about it." His words cut at me just the same as if he's slicing a knife through my heart; carving me up with every accusation he throws my way. "What is it, huh? Is the shit they say about that school true? Did they make you like this?"

  Jesus fuck. I knew my dad believed some backward shit, but I had no idea he'd stoop so low as to think Eastshore somehow turned me gay.

  "It doesn't work like that," I say.

  I know I should tell him what happened. I should tell him I'm still figuring it out; still learning about myself and who I am and what I want. I should tell him Brandon means everything to me, and if my dad starts shit with him, I will cut ties so fast it'll make his head spin.

  But there's some part of me that's just sort of cowering in fear. That little kid deep down who only wants to make his father proud, and knows the consequences of getting on his bad side.

  It's that part of me that speaks up. "It's not real, anyway, so you can quit your fucking tirade."

  My gut clenches even as I say it. I imagine what Brandon would think if he were here; the look on his face if he'd heard me. I glance toward the door, half-expecting that he has. But it's still closed, and I'm still alone.

  Stuck with this warped version of the truth I'm feeding the one person I'm still a little scared of.

  "You better explain what the hell you mean by that, boy, and watch your fucking mouth when you talk to me."

  Any other time, I might laugh at him telling me to stop cussing at him by cussing at me. It's pretty typical for us. Right now, though, I'm stuck with trying to figure out a way to get words to come out of my mouth.

  "I came up with the idea after we just kept getting reamed toward the start of the season. You remember?"

  The line's quiet for a second, then, "I remember you having a rough start. Don't see what that's got to do with--"

  "I figured it was because the team lost its identity," I say before he can cut me off. "When Hawk and Griff were here, and later when Mills and Erickson were playing, Eastshore was all over the news."

  "So you figured you'd... what? Act like a queer and get some of that attention?"

  If we were having this conversation face to face, this is about the time I'd have to stalk off into another room. Then he'd follow me, yelling all the while, and we'd really get into it.

  "I thought if a couple of the guys were together, the team would have something to rally behind. And it worked."

  It sounds so stupid and short-sighted as I say it now. No wonder Erica didn't like the idea. But if I'd known about Brandon--and if I'd known about myself--back then, I would've never gone through with it.

  "You couldn't just pay off some freshman, get him to pretend like he takes it up the ass?"

  I wince. I guess I didn't really expect my dad to handle this in any other way, but it still hurts. And I realize, with him talking like this, there's another reason that lie came out of my mouth.

  I know how Brandon's parents reacted to finding out their son wasn't straight. My dad and I haven't always had the best relationship, but I don't want to end up in a spot where we're never talking to each other again.

  "It shouldn't be hard for you to get this shit, Pops. You were in the Army. You'd do anything for your unit, right? If it meant them keeping their shit together?"

  I hear him suck in a breath, and instantly I know that was the wrong thing to say. "If you think winning a few football games is the same thing as saving lives--"

  "I don't," I say quickly. "I'm just... trying to explain what I was thinking. The team's done a lot for me, and I figured I could give back to them. And Brandon has been real cool with all this."

  "I bet he has." His words are dark, with an edge to them that I don't like at all. "You know, when Miriam started spouting all this crazy shit in church about how her son had the Devil in him and how she needed to cleanse him from their lives, I just thought she was nuts. Now I know what she was getting so worked up over."

  I bristle immediately at that, my hand clenching into a fist. "I don't care if you wanna talk shit about me, but you don't say that shit about Brandon. What his family did to him was completely fucked up, and you know it."

  He backs off then, thank fuck.

  "Sorry,” he mutters. Then, after a long pause, “So all of this is just for show. You're not actually fucking Brandon Tucker."

  He says it in a way that tells me he isn't really looking for an answer. He's got what he feels is the acceptable truth in his head.

  "It was just for show," I say, feeling numb.

  I want to tell him the rest of it. That it started off that way, but it's something else now. I want to tell him to go to hell if he doesn't like it. But I can't, and I hate myself for it. I have no idea how Brandon did this when he was a kid. I can’t even do it now, and I don’t know for sure that my old man would flip out.

  "Next time you decide to pull this shit, you tell me about it first." I can hear a lot of noise behind him. He must be at the shop. "I got things to do, so you're gonna explain the rest of this to me on Sunday."

  Sunday. Brandon and I were supposed to have dinner with him when he got back from his trip. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I'd planned on telling him then. I figured Brandon would give me the strength to do it.

  I sure as hell need it, because when he isn't here, I act like a piece of shit. As I end the call and let the phone just fall onto the bed, I have no idea how I'm going to dig myself out of this hole.

  Or what I'm going to tell Brandon when he gets back.

  14

  Brandon

  I can tell there's something wrong as soon as I step through the door.

  Class was a struggle, and as hard as it was to leave Luke this morning, I really considered just blowing it off. But Eastshore has a strict attendance policy, and too many missed classes means no chance to start, and maybe even being dropped from the team completely. It might have been worth it to spend a little more time with Luke, and when I see him after I set my backpack down, I know my instincts were right.

  He's pacing, and since it's such a small room with furniture taking up most of the space, he just looks like an agitated bull stomping around. I don't know that he even notices me, so I go up to him and put my hand on his arm.

  "Hey. Everything okay?"

  He stops and looks at me, and the expression in those brown eyes kills me. Immediately my heart starts to hammer in my chest, and I come up with a million different things that could have caused that look.

  Did somebody find out about us? Did something happen to Erica? Has Luke finally decided to break up with me?

  "My dad called while you were at class," he says, his voice almost painfully level.

  My brow furrows in confusion. His dad’s just now calling? I figured Luke told him about us days ago, at least. He said he would. But maybe I’m missing something.

  “He knows,” he says, and my stomach drops. “Found out about it during the trip. Apparently he had a signal just long enough for some fucker to tag him on Facebook.”

  Right. The trip. Luke probably wasn’t able to reach him, that’s all. He wouldn’t have lied to me about calling his dad. This is Luke.

  “Your dad uses Facebook?” I ask stupidly, because that’s all I can process right now.

  “Yeah, fucking shocker.”

  His tone is neutral, like he’s found a way to force all the emotion ou
t of his voice. It’s bothering me, clawing under my skin and getting a stranglehold on my heart.

  “At least everything’s out in the open now, right?” I lift my hand to the back of my neck, rubbing in tight circles.

  Luke lets out a puff of air and finally—finally—his expression changes into something readable. He looks… almost guilty. Like he’s ashamed of something. Dread coils thick in my stomach, and I try not to let my thoughts get ahead of me. He probably just feels bad about his dad finding out this way.

  “I fucked up,” he says, looking down at his shoes. After a moment, he forces himself to look up at me. “I froze. Told him it was all fake.”

  I let the words sink in and try not to freak out. Sure. He had to explain things. There’s no way he’d leave it like that, though.

  “You told him it started out that way, right? That it isn’t fake anymore?”

  The look in his eyes is enough of an answer.

  Luke may procrastinate on getting shit done, but he’s always honest with me. It’s one of the things I admire most about him. He doesn’t pull any punches, even if it’s something he knows will be hard to hear. Right now, though, I almost wish he’d lie to me. I wish he’d tell me what I want to hear, so I can go on pretending like everything’s okay for a little while longer.

  “I fucked up,” he says again, and all my hopes crash down in one glorious mess of destruction.

  I put my hand to my forehead and turn away from him, afraid of what I might say; what I might let him see. This thing between us is just supposed to be casual. Fun. No strings, just two bros enjoying each other’s company. If I let him see how hurt I am by this, he’ll know there’s a lot more to it than that.

  At least for me.

  “I’ll set it right on Sunday. I just need a little time to figure out what I’m going to say to him. You know how he is.”

  I do know how he is, and I know I’m not really looking forward to sitting across from him at the dinner table, trying to act like everything’s normal while he’s just thinking his son is wrapped up in some scheme to save his football team.