The Locker Room by Amy Lane Page A

completely apart, and you were sent to some sort of
    dorm for boys no one wanted, I was devastated. I wanted so badly for us
    to want you. I heard my parents talking one night, and I thought, „Yes!
    We can keep him here !"and I was so excited, right?”
    Xander looked up at her, and for the first time realized how much
    time had passed since that moment. Five years, nearly six. He and
    Christian had been children when he"d spent those months in a halfway
    house. Penny had been even younger. He looked sideways at Christian,
    who still didn"t know where this was going. In this moment, in spite of
    the phenomenal bulking up the two of them had done, in spite of the
    many stolen moments as lovers, and the fierce moments honing them
    into competitors, Chris looked just as young this day.
    “I didn"t know I was enough to get excited about,” Xander said
    with a smile, and he wished for her brother"s hand like anything.
    “You were,” Penny said with a faint smile of her own. “So one
    morning, as I"m getting ready for school, I hear the boy of my dreams
    outside, talking to my dumbass brother, and I open the door to go outside
    and gossip with them, because, hey, they used to talk to me about high
    school, and I figured they"d want to hear this, right?”
    Xander shut his eyes. “That"s why you were crying,” he said softly,
    and Chris said, “When was she crying? Penny, would you get to the
    point?”
    Penny patted Xander"s knee again. “The point, dumbass, is that our
    parents know. They were sort of suspicious by your senior year, but they
    kept thinking that you and Xander would somehow get that twin-at-the-
    hip detachment in the last three years. It obviously hasn"t happened,
    because you guys had to go and just… just… explode the odds books by
    being two boys from high school who play together through college. For
    all I know, you"ll end up playing the same team in the pros, because
    sometimes the gods are just that kind, but it doesn"t matter. This little
    charade you guys got? The reason you didn"t want to come home? The
    fact that you"ve been here for a week and nobody in town knew you
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    Amy Lane

    were here? I mean… you heard that waitress tonight. She was fawning
    all over the two of you, and telling people that she"d have to pass the
    word that you were here. And I watched you two, trying to crawl under
    the table with your butt-muscles alone, and I realized that you"d been
    hiding. Just like you thought you"d been hiding from Mom and Dad.
    Well, stop it!”
    Penny wiped her face with the back of a shaking hand, and Xander
    reached out and took that hand and placed a little kiss on the wrist.
    “Don"t cry, Penny,” he said softly. “We never meant to hurt you.”
    “That"s not why I"m crying, Xan. I"m crying because… you guys.
    Dad watches all the sports shows. Do you watch the sports shows?”
    Xander and Chris looked at each other and shrugged. They had, at
    first. They had watched for news on the pros and on their beloved (and
    horrible) Sacramento Kings and they had watched the All-Stars and all
    of those shows that made basketball still glorious and amazing and so,
    so, so, out of their reach.
    And then they"d started seeing themselves up on the screen.
    The first time Chris had seen Xander on television for UNC, after
    their high school recruitment frenzy had passed and they"d been playing
    college ball, he"d been ecstatic. Xander had been mortified, and then the
    shot had taken in Chris in one of their flawless passes, one of their
    perfect moments of synchronicity, where Xander passed the ball to Cliff
    (who had changed positions to keep playing with them) who passed to
    Chris, who went up for the dunk which Xander made in his wake, and
    then their patented high five/down-low as they crossed paths on the deck,
    and they"d looked at each other in horror.
    How could anyone watching that not know they were lovers?
    They hadn"t watched any more tape after that, unless Coach made
    them watch