Red Zone: Boys of Fall by Mari Carr Page A

“Did you know then? Did you know you were into guys?”
    Oakley nodded slowly and for the first time since he started talking, his eyes drifted to Joel. “Yeah. I always knew I wasn’t exactly like the other guys. My straight friends. They were all about girls, and while I could appreciate boobs as much as the other guys, I sort of got the same tingle whenever I caught a glimpse of a guy’s ass in the locker room. Jake was completely out of the closet, one-hundred-percent gay. A lot of the guys stayed away from him because that freaked them out, made them nervous. It didn’t bother me.”
    “What happened then?” Joel was strangely aroused by Oakley’s story.
    “Kissing turned to touching. Clothes came off. It wasn’t Jake’s first time. He put on a condom, filled my ass with lube and we fucked.”
    Typical Oakley description. Straight forward, graphic language, nothing extra or flowery.
    “You liked it?” Sadie asked.
    Oakley’s grin grew. “I fucking loved it. Jake and I sort of kept going for a while, but he was a giver, not a taker, and not into girls at all. Six months later I was at a campground with my parents. We’d met and started hanging out with another family. They had a pretty daughter about my age. The two of us snuck out of the tents one night, started making out. One thing led to another and it was finally my turn to put the condom on.”
    “And you liked it?” Joel asked.
    Oakley laughed. “I fucking loved it.”
    Sadie picked up a pillow and batted him in the head. “It occurs to me from your story, you clearly haven’t grown up a bit since high school. An eternal man-child. Peter Pan.”
    “Growing up is for pussies. My turn.” Oakley took Sadie’s foot in his hand and sucked her big toe into his mouth as she gasped and squirmed. Oakley didn’t release her. Instead, he said, “Sadie. Truth or dare?”
    She narrowed her eyes. “God. Both choices are potentially dangerous.”
    Oakley gave her a wicked wink.
    “Fine. Truth.”
    Oakley dropped her foot and sat up. “Good. I was hoping you’d pick that. There’s something I’ve been wanting to know ever since I moved to Quinn, but every time I bring it up, you change the subject.”
    It was clear from Sadie’s groan she knew where this was going. Which sparked Joel’s curiosity because he didn’t have a clue.
    “You don’t strike me as the Homecoming-Queen type. Tell me how that happened.”
    Joel could understand Oakley’s confusion. Hell, he’d voted for Sadie, but he was hard-pressed to remember the conservative, clean-cut blonde, run-of-the-mill girl she’d been then compared to the powerhouse, opinionated, take-no-prisoners, stand-out-in-a-crowd beauty she was now.
    Sadie shrugged. “Why can’t you let that go?”
    “I’m curious too,” Joel admitted.
    She glared at him. “You were there, Joel. Didn’t you vote for me?”
    He nodded. “I was a sophomore.”
    “Oh yeah. Only the seniors voted.” She looked at Oakley and confessed, “I guess I have changed a bit since high school.”
    “That might be the understatement of the century. You’ve changed completely.”
    “I was a typical teenager. High school was my rebellious stage.”
    Joel thought of the Sadie she was at seventeen vs. the Sadie she was now. The words didn’t compute. “High school was your rebellious age?”
    “I was six years old when my mom split. That meant my dad raised me. You’ve met the man. Have you ever noticed anything soft or girlie in him?”
    “Jesus, no,” Oakley muttered.
    “That’s because there isn’t anything. He didn’t have a clue how to relate to a little girl, so he basically just treated me like a boy. We went to baseball games together, he put me in little league. I did my homework at a table in Pitchers, surrounded by a bunch of drunks and foul language, and I watched more than a little inappropriate making out in the back room. None of that shit fazes you after a while.”
    Joel tried to imagine Sadie’s