the most absurd demand. I tried to shake off the uneasy feeling, like those assholes were watching me head for my locker. Told myself they hadn’t stopped talking when they’d seen me come into the clubhouse.
My stomach dropped as I rounded the final corner to my locker. Even before I could make out the faces on the pictures they’d taped all over my locker, I knew what I was looking at. Pictures of Nate and me from the fundraiser. Newspaper clippings, talking about how sweet it was that Secured Hope made sure there was someone for everyone at their auction. Snickers from the other side of the room made their way to my ears as I started tearing down the images.
“You guys think this is fucking funny?” I shouted. My fingers ached from jamming them into the wood around my locker as I yanked down every picture, crumpling it before throwing it to the floor.
“Well yeah, kinda,” one of them muttered, low enough I figured he hadn’t meant for me to hear.
“How fucked up and juvenile could you be? It was a charity event for an LGBT shelter. Is it really that unbelievable that a guy would bid on one of the bachelors? Seriously, grow the fuck up!”
“You seem awfully touchy, Nolan,” Donnie O’Day chimed in. He turned back to address the rest of the peanut gallery. “Some guys can be such drama queens. He wouldn’t’ve reacted that way if it didn’t hit too close to home. Maybe the guy in that picture made him realize shit about himself he’s been trying to hide.”
“Or maybe it’s that some of us came here to play ball and don’t care for the grade school antics,” I retorted, still trying to get a grip on my temper.
O’Day scratched his chin. “Nah, I don’t think that’s the case at all. You’ve always been a little light in the loafers, but until now I’d never have thought you were queer.”
“You know what? You can all go fuck yourselves,” I spat out. “If you’re gonna worry more about who I spend time with when I leave here, I’ll be the one laughing when you don’t make the cut.”
Some of the coaches raced into the room when they heard the commotion. I wasn’t the type to lose my temper, so they all knew it had to be something serious.
“PJ, calm down,” Steven Duquette said as he tried to pull me out of the room.
“No, I’m not going to fucking calm down,” I yelled, jerking my arm free from his grasp. “I’m tired of the bullshit around here. You’re sitting here telling me to calm down, well what are you going to say to them? You plan on telling them to knock off the homophobic bullshit?”
“Come on, PJ, I think that’s taking it a bit far,” he countered. Of course he was taking their side. I was the only person in that clubhouse who thought there was a problem with what they’d done. Every bit of respect I had for our manager vanished with his next statement. “It was just a bit of fun.”
“Fun?” I started pacing, wondering what the penalties would be if I stormed out of the clubhouse and called my agent to tell him I was done. Walking away seemed like the only logical choice if no one else saw a problem with what’d happened. “You think it’s some big joke to post pictures of me talking to another guy with hearts drawn around our faces? Or maybe it’s fun to sit around and speculate on who your teammates are fucking.”
“I sure as hell don’t think it requires you to destroy the clubhouse,” he scolded me.
“Yeah, I’m sure you wouldn’t.” I ripped another picture out of the locker and thrust it in the coach’s face. “Tell me, do you think this would’ve happened if it’d been me and a woman? No. It wouldn’t have. Hell, if she’d had big tits, these assholes would’ve been cheering for me for landing a hot piece of ass.”
“Oh, and that would’ve been better?” I knew what he was trying to do. The asshole was trying to spin this around so I was the one being an insensitive prick. Fuck that.
“No, it wouldn’t have been better and you damn well know it,” I spat out.
As more of my teammates filed into the clubhouse, they all stopped to watch the drama unfold, but I didn’t give a shit. I was so pissed I couldn’t even make out faces, which was good,