Page 33 of Cleats and Pumps

Amos

Iglanced down at my phone when it dinged.

Josiah: I’m headed to pick you up.

Me: What? I’m still eating.

Josiah: Dad wants to see you.

Me: Ugh, not cool… give me a few minutes though, I’ll be ready.

I groaned, and sat back. I wasn’t ready to leave yet. I’d literally just gotten a moment with Tommy in years. Besides, I didn’t want to hear Dad’s bullshit anymore. But, as he’d say, I was under his roof. If I didn’t want to hear it, I could move. Never mind that I’d paid off the fucking mortgage on that roof. However, it would never do to mention that. Besides, I’d done it without his knowledge, something I still think pissed him off.

“Um, Josiah is coming to pick me up. Tommy, can we give you a lift back to your car? It’s on the way.”

Tommy looked at me for several seconds before he sighed. “Yeah, that’ll be fine.”

Owen stood and sent us back to the apartment. “Y’all go talk. I can see you need to. Jason and I will clean up, but next time we cook for y’all, you do the damned cleaning.”

Tommy laughed. “Like you cooked.”

“Hey,”

Owen complained but smiled as Jason cackled behind him. “Well, my sweetie cooked, and I made the coffee.”

“Really?”

Tommy asked, and Owen shrugged.

“I poured half and half into the cup and then poured the coffee into it; that counts.”

Tommy shook his head. “Sure it does, Owen. Sure it does.”

We were all laughing as Tommy and I walked back to the apartment.

“So, are we gonna talk?”

I asked when we closed the door behind us.

Tommy froze and then nodded. “Um, I was drunk—”

“Stop, we’ve done the stupid excuses thing,”

I said. “I liked what you said last night, Tommy. I want it all to be true.”

“But you weren’t interested. I—”

“I was a blockheaded jock, Tommy. I tried to fix it and undo what I’d said to make it right, but you weren’t interested in what I had to say.”

He walked to the sofa and sat down. When I sat on the chair across from him, he shook his head. “Amos, I was so in love with you. I know this is… well, it’s a lot. I don’t expect you to feel the same or… I didn’t expect you to feel the same then.”

“But you still have feelings for me?”

I asked, daring to hope.

He leaned back against the sofa and stared at the painting above the fireplace. For several long moments, he didn’t move, and I wondered if maybe he wasn’t going to say more. “It doesn’t matter. That was a long time ago, Amos. We are two totally different people. You’re famous. I’m a backroom journalist who was fired from his freaking job. There’s so much water under that bridge.”

“What? Fired? Like when?”

I asked. He shrugged and shook his head, so I stood and went to sit beside him. “I’m sorry Tommy… for a lot of stuff.

“For me, it was like yesterday. There’s rarely a day goes by when I don’t think about you. And I’ve read every article you’ve written. And for fuck’s sake, why did they fire you, anyway?”

He froze. “Um, that’s a long story.”

The way he sat stiffly beside me told me it was because of me. “Shit, this has to do with me, doesn’t it?”

Tommy stood, paced over to the window, and looked out. “I mean, yeah, sorta. They found out I’d written the article back in college about you, and us doing drag. They were mad ’cause I hadn’t outed you.”

My mouth fell open. “For fuck’s sake, Tommy, you lost your job because of me?”

“I lost my job because I didn’t think it was any of their Goddamned business what you did. You were my friend, Amos, a friend I treasured. I would never have outed you. Fuck them.”

I stood up, went over to him, and opened my arms. When he came into them, I kissed the top of his head and held him close. “You’re still the most amazing friend I have. I’m so sorry you got caught up in all this.”

Tommy gasped, and I knew he was crying. Shit, I didn’t want to make Tommy cry, at least any more than I already had. Owen had made it clear I’d fucked with him. Now, I was doing it again.

When he leaned back, though, he was smiling through the tears. “We’re both idiots. I should’ve sought you out before now,”

he said, pulling away. “You should’ve done it too.”

I smiled. “I can’t disagree, so you okay?”

Tommy nodded. “Yeah, now tell me, do you want to save your career?”

I shook my head. “To be honest, I don’t know what I want.”

He maintained eye contact for a second before saying, “Well, you need to figure it out ’cause if you want to save your career as a football player, I think I can help. But if not, you have a lot of other options. You’ve always been a talented actor, for example.”

I laughed. “Drag isn’t acting.”

“Of course it is. Besides, you could give The Rock a run for his money. If I’m honest, you are much more handsome than him anyway.”

“And just what butch, blast-them-up movie will want a cross-dressing ex-football player in their cast?”

He winked at me. “Well, you won’t know until you try.”