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And still, my “closest” friend didn’t know about my breakup. Maybe it was my fault for not talking about it, but talking about things was never really my… thing.
“Shit, sorry, bro.” He started pulling off his shorts. I did the same, my shorts and underwear as soaked as my shirt. I put them into another plastic bag before grabbing a towel from my locker and wrapping it around my waist.
“It’s fine.” We started walking toward the showers together. A group of guys was talking loudly about an orgy they had been invited to, their loud hoots still able to be heard over the sound of the running showers.
Aidan and I chose neighboring shower stalls so we could continue the conversation.
“You okay, though?” Aidan asked, his voice echoing slightly.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“How long were you two together?”
“Close to a year.” I lathered myself up with soap that smelled like cheap cologne and watched it swirl down the drain. Just like my last relationship, funny enough.
“Why’d you two break up?”
“I caught Luther sucking someone off in our shower.”
“Oh… fuck.”
“Yeah.”
We finished up showering and moved on to other topics, lighter things that consisted of mainly rugby, rugby, and some more rugby, with a little bit of Aidan’s sorority conquests thrown in there.
After toweling off and getting dressed, Aidan and I walked out of the lockers together, joined by Randy and Eric, two more of our teammates and guys I considered friends.
Eric flashed a toothy grin. He had gotten his lower braces removed about a year ago and he still showed off his teeth every chance he got.
“So,” he said, “Brandon, I heard a rumor about the coach from the US league starting to ask about you… Any truth to that?”
His smile was disarming, damn it.
“I’ve heard some rumblings.”
It was a weird position to be in. I wanted to be up-front and honest, and say that yeah, I had gotten an email. One saying that I had landed on their radar and that a scout would be at a random game, so to play at my best level every single time.
But playing for the American team is a dream that, let’s face it, the majority of people won’t get to see come true. And I knew for a fact that Eric was desperately waiting for the same email, because his older brother already played for the league.
“Well, it wouldn’t be a surprise.” Aidan shrugged. “Brandon’s one the best players in our league. Numbers don’t lie, and neither do all those clips of Brandon going viral.”
“They didn’t go viral.”
“Sorry, bro,” Aidan said, shaking his head, “but anything above a hundred likes for me is going viral, and your videos get like twenty thousand every time.”
He wasn’t really wrong. There were short videos that our coach had started to film, first at practice and then during the games. I’d grown used to the attention, which exploded after my coming out speech went viral and I’d become known as one of the only out and proud rugby players in the entire game. Plus, my Instagram following blew up after I was featured in a special for a popular streaming special; about college athletes who are openly gay. I was only in the documentary for about ten minutes tops, but they showed my Instagram handle and from one day to the next my account exploded.
It felt weird, not gonna lie. It was a responsibility, a weight I never really thought I’d have on me. I didn’t think I’d have kids coming up to me, saying they looked up to me, and I didn’t think I’d have my DMs flooded with dick pics on a daily basis. It took a little getting used to at first, but I couldn’t complain, not even for a second.
Even with the big following count and large group of friends here at school, I still felt pretty fucking alone. Luther was the one I’d been able to open up to the most. I shared some very deeply shelved skeletons that lived in my closet, but he still fucked me over at the end of the day by fucking someone else.
So yeah, I ended up keeping people at arms length even if, from the outside, it looked like I may have always been surrounded by friends.
We walked through the large, echoing halls of the stadium, out into the bright sunlight. I put on my sunglasses and flipped my cap around so the brim covered my face. It not only helped with the glaring sun, but it also helped prevent a flood of selfie requests between the short walk from the stadium to my dorm room.
“Y’all want to hang out tonight? Susy is getting us a twelve-pack.” Eric wiggled his eyebrows.
“Hell yeah.” Aidan jumped at the chance. Randy said he had a date, so he couldn’t make it. I shrugged. “Sure, why not,” I said, thinking I could use a beer or two. This semester didn’t start off on the right foot, and I wondered if maybe some illegal drinking in my friend’s smelly dorm could set it back on track.
