Trick Play Read online

  "How should I know, man? Not like I've been kissed by a guy a ton of times."

  Not exactly a lie. It hasn't been a ton of times.

  "I don't know. Girls kiss each other all the time."

  I arch a brow at that.

  "At sleepovers and shit. Erica told me."

  I almost want to laugh, but I hold it in. "Erica was fucking with you."

  He just waves this off. "Whatever. The point I'm trying to make is if we're supposed to convince anybody we're actually dating, we have to both at least look like we like it, right?"

  My mouth goes dry, every ounce of saliva evaporating in an instant. My tongue feels thick and clumsy. I can't seem to swallow past the lump in my throat.

  "You're saying I need to do a better job of acting?" I finally manage.

  The alternative is something my short-circuited brain can't think about right now.

  "I'm saying we need to make it look convincing. So... I mean it only makes sense to practice, right?"

  Oh God. That's exactly what he meant.

  I stare at him, unable to say or do anything. He stares right back, and I'm waiting for him to just start cracking up. But he's utterly serious.

  Luke Trent wants to practice kissing me. What world have I fallen into?

  "Won't that be... weird?" I ask, my voice scratchy.

  He just shrugs. "Why does it have to be weird? We're friends. Not like a kiss is gonna change that."

  This doesn't make any sense at all. I know the kind of messages Luke got growing up. They were the same messages I got. There's no way he'd think kissing another guy was no big deal.

  Unless he secretly wants to.

  That thought lights a fire through my blood, my heart aching for it to be true. I know it's not. I know that with every fiber of my being, because knowing it is the only thing that's going to keep me from breaking.

  But I still want to indulge him. Whatever his reasoning, I want to agree with his crazy logic and feel his lips on mine again. This is exactly the sort of thing Erica warned me about, but I don't think even she would have expected this.

  "I guess you're right," I say, finally able to find my voice again. "If it doesn't look real, people won't buy it."

  I see something in his eyes. It's not the mischief that's usually there, but something like happiness; like he's pleased that I agreed. But I can't let myself examine that too closely.

  "You wanna do it now?" he asks.

  Yes, please.

  "Sure," I say as casually as I can manage.

  "Cool."

  There's a weird note to his voice, but I don't have time to figure it out as he walks toward me. He stops and I look up at him, into those warm brown eyes.

  "Should I like... put my hand on your cheek or something?"

  "Just do it however you normally would," I say, trying to cover up my breathlessness.

  He considers me for a long moment, and I feel like I'm going to crumple under that intense stare. Finally, he brings his hand up, but he doesn't rest it on my cheek. He slides it behind my neck, drawing me closer to him. My breath catches, and when our lips meet, it's everything I could ever want.

  The kiss Luke gave me before was hard and distracted. I'd still take that over nothing, but this one is a real kiss. A real kiss that shows me everything he's capable of. His lips meld to mine, caressing in a firm yet oddly tender way. He leads and I follow, his tongue sliding over the seam of my lips, begging entrance. I let him in, and this time it's not a stabbing thrust, but an exploration, like he's slowly learning my taste.

  It's everything I can do not to moan, and I very nearly lose myself, one of my hands coming up to his chest, the other resting on his shoulder. When he breaks the kiss, it takes me a minute to come back to reality.

  "Think that'll be convincing enough?"

  He sounds almost breathless, but I know I must be hearing things. There's no way that kiss affected him as much as it affected me.

  Not in this reality. Because in this reality, we're just faking it. Which means I need to separate from him before he spots the bulge in my jeans.

  "Yeah, it's fine," I croak out. "Think I'm gonna get a shower and turn in."

  I'm due for another lonely session with my hand. It's a good thing we're already well-acquainted.

  "Oh. Sure, man."

  He sounds almost... disappointed. I look at him, and his face is a little flushed, his lips a little swollen. I want so badly to lean up and kiss him again, just to test the waters. If it backfires, I could always say I was just trying to get in more practice.

  But I can't do it. As I grab my stuff and head for the shower, I realize with sinking clarity that I can't hide from it anymore. I have to tell Luke I'm gay.

  Otherwise, I'm not going to make it through this.

  8

  Luke

  Brandon and I don't talk much after that little experiment in the dorm room.

  It's not that weird, because we’ve gone full weeks before where we don’t really talk. Some of our favorite pastimes are spent like that. Fishing is one of them, and something we'd already agreed to do Sunday morning, so it fits in just fine with the whole not talking thing.

  Only usually we're not talking because there's nothing to say. Now it almost seems like there's too much to say.

  We sit on the dock at Holden Lake. It's about halfway between Eastshore and home, so it's been our go-to fishing spot since I bought my truck. When we were in high school, we'd load up a cooler with beers I snuck from my old man, buy a bunch of crap at the gas station, and just sit here and get wasted on Bud Light and junk food.

  Not really that great for catching fish, but man, we had some good times.

  Today's a little rough, though, because everybody goes fishing on Sunday. The lot behind us is filled with trucks and trailers, and we have to get up and move whenever somebody comes to put their boat in. It sucks that we don't have one of our own, but what the hell are two college kids going to do with a boat?

  "Dude, first thing I'm buying with my signing bonus? A fucking Evinrude," I say.

  It seems to do an okay job of breaking the ice. He snorts, reels in his empty line, and casts again.

  "You need somewhere to put it first."

  I wave that off. "Nah, dude. I'll just get a tarp and sleep in it. It'll be cool."

  When we were kids, I probably would have done it. Brandon and I are country boys, born and bred. We like hunting and fishing and doing stupid shit you only do when you're bored and stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Living in a boat's pretty much the dream for any redneck kid worth his salt.

  Now, though, I'm thinking about how tarps don’t cover shit, and there's always some animal getting under there. Being an adult sucks.

  "You should get a pontoon. That way you can fit a grill on there or something."

  "Hell yeah," I say. "That would be awesome. Just float it down the river all day."

  Except for the mosquitoes and the blazing hot sun. Damn. Being an adult really does suck.

  We focus on fishing for a while, with both of us catching throw-backs. There's never any good-sized fish up this close to the dock. Not with the boats disturbing the water. But it's not really about catching fish. It’s just about spending time together and unwinding from all the shit that happened during the week.

  I look over at Brandon, feeling that same sort of nervous anticipation I felt a few days ago in our dorm room. He's got a Jags cap on, and he's just staring out over the water, like he's thinking about a million different things. I can already see the country tan starting on his skin, and I realize he looks... good.

  It's not that I've never given my friend credit for being a good-looking guy before, but any other time I've noticed, it's just been while I was trying to figure out which one of us some girl was actually looking at. Now I'm just seeing him as somebody who's pretty easy on the eyes, and it makes me feel weird.

  I don't know why I kissed him.

  I mean, I know why I did it the first tim
e. To shove it in Ritter's ugly face. But as soon as my lips touched Brandon's, I felt a jolt that shot straight down to my dick. I almost got noticeably hard in the middle of the bar, which I guess would've been good for show, but bad for me figuring out what the fuck is going on between us.

  The more I thought about it, too, the more I wanted to do it again; to see if maybe my dick was just mixing up signals of anger and pleasure. And sure, Becky did say I was a shit kisser, but Becky was the worst girlfriend ever. The truth is that when I was going on about being a bad kisser, I was just angling to get another shot at it with Brandon.

  That in and of itself just blows my fucking mind. The fact that kissing him felt amazing, again, was way too much for me to process. And yeah, when Brandon went to get his shower, I jacked it. I had to, because I was afraid I was going to make up another bullshit excuse to practice when he came back.

  The only thing I can say for myself is that I didn't think about him while I stroked my dick. It was all about releasing that pent-up frustration, and I didn't need any help to get there. Plus, I felt like jacking it to images of my best friend would be going overboard.

  I look out at the clear blue water shimmering under the sunlight. I need to figure this shit out, because we're supposed to be in a fake relationship, and I'm pretty sure that can't happen when one of us wants the other.

  Maybe I'm just horny. I haven't been with anybody since Erica, and Brandon's lips were surprisingly soft. Maybe in my head I was picturing a girl while I was kissing him.

  But as I glance over at him now, I know that isn't the truth. Maybe the truth is just that I liked it because... I like kissing guys? I don't know. I've never noticed a guy that way before. Never even noticed Brandon that way until that kiss. My dad would probably tell me I'm confused. Not like I'd ever confide in him about this, though. There's really only one person I can talk to, and before I open my mouth, I already know this is going to get super weird.

  "Hey, about what happened the other night..."

  He tenses immediately. Not a good sign.

  "You're not going to ask me if you're a good kisser again, are you?"

  "Maybe. Asshole." He laughs, and I feel a little of the tension in me ease up. "No, it's just... I don't know, man. I thought it'd feel weird, but it didn't."

  He looks over at me, and I can see the shock on his face. No disgust though, so I guess that's a good sign.

  "To me, anyway. I don't know about you. Hell, maybe I'm just crazy--"

  "Luke," he says, interrupting me.

  His eyes are pained. I can see it now. His whole expression looks pained, like he's about to tell me he doesn't want to be friends anymore. I try to backpedal.

  "It's cool, man. I'm just screwing around, don't worry about it."

  "Luke," he says, more insistently this time.

  I realize I'm looking out at the lake, not at him. I can't handle the way he's looking at me. But apparently he isn't actually going to say whatever it is until he has my attention. Steeling myself, I finally meet his gaze.

  "I'm gay."

  Of all the things I was expecting him to say, that wasn't even on the list. For a second, I can't even process it. It's like he spoke those words in a different language, and I have to slowly translate them and conjugate shit in my head before I can get it.

  When it hits me, though, it really fucking hits me.

  "You're fucking not," I say, because it's the first thing that comes out of my mouth.

  Denial. Because he can't be. My best friend can't be gay.

  "I am," he says quietly.

  "You're not." I drop my fishing pole on the dock, the line still cast into the lake, and get to my feet. "You're not, because you would've fucking told me."

  Brandon stands, too, and that pained expression looks even worse. "I know," he says weakly. "I know I should've told you."

  "No, man." My feet carry me away from the dock, into the parking lot. "There's nothing to tell, because you wouldn't do this to me."

  Even as I say it, I know he isn't just playing some shitty prank. Bits and pieces of our lives flood my memory, like they're fitting to a puzzle I didn't know was incomplete. Brandon never had a steady girlfriend. He didn't seem all that interested in dating. His parents kicked him out when he was a kid, but he was always real vague about why.

  I whirl on him, finding him right there in front of me. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me, man?"

  I can't think when I get like this. I've got too much of my old man in me. All I can do is shove Brandon hard in the chest. He stumbles back, but doesn't lose his balance.

  "I didn't want you to hate me," he says, his words raw with emotion.

  I just stare at him, not even able to form any words of my own. How the hell could he think I'd hate him for being gay?

  But I know the answer to that. My dad, for one. His parents, for another. The whole town where we grew up. I want to tell him that. I want to tell him that on some level, I understand. But I'm too angry. Too hurt.

  "You've got until I start up the truck to get in or I'm leaving your ass here."

  9

  Luke

  Brandon and I barely talk for a full week.

  I waited longer than ten seconds for him, since he went to grab the poles and cooler, but we didn't talk on the ride back to the dorm. We didn't talk in the time it took me to put my shit away and head out to the gym. We didn't talk at practice, and I made sure we couldn't talk in our room by not being around most of the time.

  So much for acting like an adult.

  I know I should give the guy a chance to explain. It's Brandon. He probably has a damn good reason for why he never told me. But I'm just so pissed I can't think straight.

  Luke and I have been best friends for years. We didn't meet until junior high, but it didn't take us long to click. He gets me in a way nobody else does, and I thought I got him, too.

  So how could I have missed such a huge part of his life?

  That's probably what bothers me the most. Am I that self-absorbed, that shit of a friend that I just didn't know? Or has he really been that good at hiding it all these years?

  By Thursday night, I don’t have an answer to that question. I make for our room after hitting the gym, and of course Brandon is there. I can't even look at him without feeling hurt, and I turn right back around to leave as soon as I see him. But before I can grab my beer money, Erica shows up, just letting herself into our room like always.

  "All right, listen. I think what you're doing is really fucking stupid, but I'm still going to run the story. We can't afford to lose the homecoming game."

  I've been so focused on my drama with Brandon that the fact that we aren't favored to win our own damn homecoming game on Saturday has mostly slipped past my notice. I'd almost forgotten about the whole fake relationship thing, too, and I feel a sharp pang in my chest as I attach that to what Brandon told me. I never would've suggested something like that if I knew he was actually gay. I wouldn't out him to the team like that.

  "I don't think either of us has time for an interview right now,” Brandon says, not looking at me.

  "I don't need a full interview, just a couple sound bites."

  Yeah, I've got a few sound bites. One of them just flies out of my mouth before I can stop it.

  "Did you know Brandon is gay?"

  Erica stops in the middle of fiddling with her phone and looks up at me, then at Brandon. He's still got his nose buried in that science textbook.

  "I..." Erica takes a step back, like she's going to just run from the room.

  I don't blame her. I'd run, too. I have been running, every time there's the smallest chance I could be stuck with Brandon for a few unguarded minutes.

  "She knows," Brandon says.

  She looks over at him, and I do, too. I didn't think I could feel more hurt, but damn, that one's like a bucket of salt dumped into an open wound.

  "You told her before you told me," I say.

  "I'll... get those sound bites
later. I can see you two have a lot to talk about."

  Erica is usually a busy-body. It goes with the whole reporter thing. But she's right to back away from this. Brandon and I need to figure our shit out. Avoiding him and putting it off isn’t working, so why not now?

  "I didn't plan on telling her," he says, closing his book. He looks like he hasn't slept in a week. "I got drunk, and it just... came out."

  I don't remember a time when Brandon was drunk and I wasn't there. I'm not around him all the time, though, so I guess it makes as much sense as anything else. Even if it doesn't lessen the sting.

  "So what, you two were just planning on keeping this from me forever? Was I supposed to maybe figure it out when you married some dude?"

  The idea of him marrying another guy, fucking another guy fills me with a white hot rage that I can't explain. Instead, I lash out.

  "Or did you just figure I'd be too stupid to notice that, too?"

  "No," he says, his voice pleading. He stands from the bean bag chair, but stays a good distance away from me. "I'm sorry, Luke. I'm really fucking sorry. I wanted you to know, I was just... afraid."

  I don't say anything to that. I can't. It's hard to reconcile, because I know deep down that I wouldn't have done the same thing in his shoes. I would've told him anything, because he's my best friend. The fact that he didn't tell me makes me wonder if maybe we're not as close as I thought.

  Sad thing is, I also understand it. I don't know if Brandon's parents really threw him out because he was gay, but if they did, hell. He has every right to be scared of the world around him.

  "You haven't been around enough for me to tell you, but I'm putting in a transfer to another dorm--"

  That rips me away from my thoughts, forming all of my anger into some cold, hard thing.

  "What?"

  "I get it, Luke. You don't want to be around me. So I figured I'd make it easier on both of us. That way, the only times you have to see me are at practice and during our games."