and groundskeepers, security guards, university police. Every one of them stared at him like he was suddenly completely different from the man they’d high-fived and laughed with the day before. Shared a Thanksgiving meal with. He gritted his teeth and looked straight ahead.
He nearly faltered at the door to the locker room. Nearly turned tail and walked out. Justin.
He dug down inside himself, to the same place where he’d grabbed the courage to kiss Justin for the first time, the same place he’d reached for when he told Justin’s retreating back that he loved him, that he’d always love him, and that he’d made a terrible mistake. He touched that space inside himself, the part of his soul that belonged to Justin, and pulled open the locker room door.
Every conversation stopped. A hundred pairs of eyeballs swung to him.
Orlando was up front, wrapping his wrists in athletic tape. He shook his head and turned his back on Wes. Threw his tape into his locker like he was pitching a fastball. It bounced off the back wall with a hollow thunk, rolling out and spiraling across the carpet.
He grabbed his helmet and stormed out. Art followed, not even bothering to look at Wes or acknowledge his existence. Art led the offensive line like a parade, Josh and Patrick and Cesar walking silently to the field. Every one of the guys Wes had played with for three years turned their backs on him as he dropped his gear at his locker and started to change.
“So you showed up.”
Wes hissed. He yanked his Under Armour over his head and tucked it into his uniform pants. Tied the laces at his waist. “I did.”
“Course you did. You need your fucking adulation, don’t you?”
“What?” Wes turned. Colton was furious, all dark lines and rage, scowling as he strangled the football in his hands. Wes frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“All your bullshit yesterday. All that fucking bullshit about us being a team, and you needing us, and you being nothing without us. That’s fucking bullshit! All you care about is yourself!”
“That’s not true! I love this team!”
“You have a fucking funny way of showing that.”
“What did you expect me to do? Announce my first day of training camp freshman year that I’m gay?”
Colton hurled the football into the concrete wall at the end of the row of lockers. It ricocheted off, landing with a hurdy-gurdy bounce in the second-string defense locker bay. “You knew you were gay freshman year?”
“I’ve known I was gay since I was nine.”
“And you never told me!” Colton roared. “You never told any of us!”
He kept his mouth shut. No, he never had. Because this was the reaction he’d feared. This was exactly the reaction he’d feared.
Colton ran his hands through his long hair. He was half dressed, like Wes, in his pants and his Under Armour but missing his pads and his jersey. He paced away. Kicked a locker so hard the metal buckled. “You treated us like we’re goddamn pawns in your fucking show-off game.”
“Colton—”
“Three years. Three fucking years, and you didn’t say a fucking thing.”
“Why would I? When this is what happens?”
“It’s not that you’re gay!” Colton roared. “It’s that you lied to us! Fuck, yesterday we were talking about your girl! Right here! Right fucking here! You let us all believe you were head over heels for some perfect girl you met in Paris! Not fucking him!”
“Don’t you dare say anything about Justin,” Wes growled. “You can hate me all you want. You leave him out of it.”
“He did something to you. You say you’ve always been gay, but you’ve never been like this. What the hell did he do to you—”
“Shut your mouth!”
“Or what? You’ll lie to me again?”
He turned away, grabbing onto the sides of his locker.
“I asked you to your face, on the bus, what was going on. I asked you.” Colton shook his head. “What is it about him that made you turn your back on us? That made you lie to us? To your team? To me? Was his mouth that fucking good? Did his blow jobs rock your world that much—”
He didn’t remember moving. He didn’t remember pulling back his fist or letting it fly. He blinked, and Colton was on the ground, holding his jaw, glaring up at Wes with shock in his eyes.
Colton laughed. It was an ugly, horrible sound, and it made Wes’s skin crawl. “You should see your face, man,” Colton said. He spat blood on the