Page 36 of King of the Crease

“It was embarrassing. And something we shouldn’t be laughing about all these years later, gentlemen!” Tanner says. “I’m gonna go check on him.”

Tanner gets up and heads to the restroom.

“Des is okay. He knows we’re just fucking with him,” says Griffin, then turns to me. “Like you and your friends do back home.”

“Yeah.” The inaccuracy of Griffin’s assumption curbs my enjoyment for a brief moment. I have many privileges in my life, but I’ve never had this.

“You need a refill.” Hank picks up my pint glass. He shows me his empty one, too.

A minute later, we’re at the bar getting fresh beer. A short guy in a tight henley pours us our drinks.

“You have fun today?” Hank asks me, leaning against the bar.

“Fun is an understatement. I had the best time. I’m the MVP!”

“You’re the MVP!”

“Seriously, Hank. Thank you so much. For everything.” Maybe it’s the beer I’ve had. Or the high of today. But impulse makes me wrap my arms around him in a hug. Bros can hug, right? It’s brief, and right before I pull away, he places his hands on my hips in a quick hug back. Those two seconds of his touch make my insides get all gooey.

“You should find a league in Baltimore when you get home.”

“I wish.”

“Uh, who cares what your father thinks?” Hank says this like it’s obvious. “You’re a grown adult. It’s your life.”

“If only it were that simple.”

“Why isn’t it?” Hank furrows his brow in confusion. I don’t have a good answer for him, not one that makes sense and still hides my true identity.

“It’s complicated.” I shrug and laugh it off.

“Nick, I tried for years to change myself for my ex-wife. Didn’t make a damn bit of difference. She still hated me, and I was still miserable. I know I’m not the crispiest fry in the Happy Meal, but something I’ve learned after forty-something years on this planet: stop trying to please other people. If they don’t like you for who you are now, they’re not going to like you once you fit their mold.”

I pull out my royal reserve to keep my face as unemotional as possible, to fight back the tears threatening to sting my eyes. His kernels of wisdom land like an arrow plunging into a bullseye. But what am I supposed to do with it? Since I was a boy, I’ve been told that we must put the country’s happiness over our own. There is a mold, and I must fit it.

But he can never know that. To him, I will always be Nick from Baltimore, never Prince Nicholas. There will always be a barrier between us.

“Like I said, it’s complicated.” I excuse myself to use the bathroom before I can clock any disappointment on his face.

The bathrooms are located down a narrow hallway with an overstuffed bulletin board hanging on the left side wall. My head clangs with thoughts of the king’s disappointment, and with the shame of being a thirty-six-year-old still worried about disappointing his father.

I look up just before I bump into someone outside the men’s room.

Only it’s not one person.

It’s two people.

Two people smushed very close together.

Smushed very close together because they’re kissing.

Des and Tanner kissing.

Des?

Tanner?

Kissing??