Page 29

Shorts, jockstrap, shabby old t-shirt. More holes in the latter than fabric, practically; butter-soft from so many washings. Weirdly comforting in its familiarity.

It tightened around my shoulders as I tugged the bar of the pulldown machine. My lats swelling, traps already aching. Stress could do that, my old coach had warned me: a tight neck or hunched shoulders sending tension into your upper back.

Right now, it felt like someone had taken a few swings at it with a lump hammer.

Chest press next, each push at the handles igniting the memory of how I’d shoved Harvey away from me. The expression of cold annoyance on the club manager’s face - not so much at how hard I’d done it, I thought, merely that I’d dared do it at all - and the potential repercussions of that. Unsure if, for all I’d wanted to help him, I’d just screwed Brayden out of his spot with my overreaction.

And then I remembered the look on Coach Bennett’s face, that shock which edged on dismay or even disgust, and nothing felt like it would’ve been an overreaction. Short of burning down the whole club with me still inside it, and even that didn’t seem like an entirely terrible idea.

Grunting annoyance - at the weights, and the sweaty cotton now clinging to me, and at the whole damn situation - I yanked the t-shirt off. Ignoring the signs admonishing minimal gym-wear, as I grit my teeth and tried to focus on another set.

Coach’s face floated over each movement, the twist of his features haunting me. I closed my eyes, only to see the scene more clearly. Wishing for a do-over, even as I replayed the awful details. The triumph I’d felt, crouching there at the stage’s edge; the handsome guy who’d boldly shoved cash into the crotch of my singlet, until Coach yanked his arm away.

Were they at the club together?

“A couple of parties in tonight,” Harvey had said just before I’d strutted onto stage, and at the time I’d barely heard him. Hadn’t processed it, beyond adding a few extra sets of eyes to my bubbling anxiety. But just what sort of party happened at a gay strip club?

Suddenly, for all I was terrified at the prospect, I wanted to see Coach. Wanted to ask him why he was there last night, and who he was with. Whether he’d sat through the performances of the dancers that preceded me: the tall, lean Black guy who I’d traded places with on stage, and the men before him.

“Eoin.”

For a sharp, crystalline second, I thought I’d imagined it. My spiraling thoughts too real; stress deceiving my own ears. Reality landing with a crunch a moment later.

Stood in the doorway with his arms folded across his broad chest. Familiar, and stern, and watching me with an intensity that seemed to chill the sweat across my shoulders in an instant.

“Coach?”

He stared a few seconds more.

“My office.”

#

“You know the rules about appropriate attire for the weights room, don’t you, freshman?”

I tightened my jaw; tried to stand a little taller, straighter. Fixed my eyes on a spot just above and to the right of Coach’s face, as he watched me from behind his big, metal-topped desk.

“Yes sir. I was... I was going to wipe everything down when I was done, sir.”

“And did you?”

He knew I hadn’t. That I’d scurried after him, just as soon as my muscles unlocked and my legs remembered how to walk. Terrified of how his ire might swell in each and every minute I left him waiting.

“We need to have rules. Rules for the benefit of everyone, the whole team.” Coach frowned. “I had thought, even with you being the newest addition, that you’d understood that.”

“I do, sir,” I said, trying to clamp down on the roiling sense of guilt in my stomach. “I was... I just...”

He watched as my protest faltered into silence.

“Some of the rules are intended for courtesy. Respect, for your teammates and everyone else. Like being on time to practice, or wearing the required clothes while you’re working out.”

I’d not stopped to pull my shirt back on before I followed him. My bare chest felt like an admission of guilt.

“Yes, sir.”

“And some,” Coach continued, “are about responsibility. Making good decisions, and avoiding things that might reflect badly on you, or the team, or this whole school. Which might put those things in danger.”

“Yes, sir.”