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Amos

Iwas so distracted.

Every time I’d try to focus, I’d glance over and see Tommy sitting up in the stands, analyzing every move I made.

Finally, Jake came over and whispered, “If you don’t mean to be this obvious, you might want to go on up and talk to him.

As it is, the boys are beginning to snicker.”

I looked at the team and sighed. “Yeah, give me a minute,”

I said, and Jake chuckled.

“Take your time…”

he said and I could hear the humor in his voice.

Tommy had shown up about an hour ago while we were doing drills. Jake was really hitting the guys hard now that they seemed to be applying themselves. I felt proud my little impromptu skit thing and dad speech had worked.

I climbed the stairs and sat next to Tommy. “So, you came…”

He smiled. “Well obviously. So, tell me about the team.”

I cocked one eyebrow. “No ‘hid’y, how do you do’? Just right into an interview?”

Tommy mirrored my cocked-eyebrow look and sighed. “I mean, hi, Amos, how are you?”

I smiled as big as I could. “I’m excellent, man. How are you?”

And I held out my hand to shake his like we were meeting for the first time.

“You’re a nitwit,”

Tommy accused causing me to smile even bigger. That had been something he’d called me a lot before… well, before things went to shit.

He glanced back over at the team. “They look like… well… green.”

I laughed. “You have no idea. Until a few days ago, it was worse.”

“Do they have any chance of doing anything? Any stars on the team?”

I swallowed hard, but I needed to lay the law down on this, even if it was Tommy I was talking to. “Um, so I’m not going to do that, pick one kid over another. That’s not what I’m doing here. Besides, Coach Jake is who you should ask about that, anyway. I’m just here to support him.”

I looked back over at Tommy, who was staring at me. “So, what, you don’t think there’s one guy standing out over the others?”

I shrugged and went to get up. I really hated that kind of shit being thrust on a group of kids. Right now, they needed to be a fucking team, not cherry-pick one over the others.

“Amos, for real, don’t get mad; it’s a legit question.”

“No, not really at this stage. I get it. People are always looking for the next star football player, but those kids just need a chance to be a team, have some damn fun. I should probably get back.”

He reached over and literally pulled me back down on the bench. “Stop acting like this is a weird set of questions. Okay, tell me about the team,”

he said, using his fingers to air quote the word.

I shook my head. “Okay, see that kid there—he’s a freshman, sucks at everything right now, but he’s got some nice raw form. If Jake stays on him, I’m betting he will be quarterback his junior year.”

“See, that’s not too hard,”

Tommy said, causing me to flip him off.

“That one there—he’s got potential too. In fact, they all do in their own way.”

“Any of them NFL potential?”

I snickered. “For their sakes, I hope not, but no… not really, but if they continue to get out of their own way, they can probably make it to state this year.”

We watched the kids running drills and laughed when one of the upper classmen grabbed one of the younger ones and rolled them both before getting up and dancing off like he’d just made a touchdown.

“I remember how much fun high school football was,”

I said, reminiscing about all the antics I got up to.

I glanced over at Tommy who was nodding. “You were like that in college too. Always a cutup. I thought the coach was going to hand you your ass a few times.”

I frowned, thinking of my homophobic college coach. Fucker retired, thank God, ’cause he had no business coaching anything with his badass attitude any longer. “College was great, mostly because of you, but… high school football is something special.”

I leaned back, putting my ass between the two bleachers. “My dad was just as insane then as he is now, maybe worse actually, but when it was just me and my teammates, we used to have a shit ton of fun. Those’re good memories for me.”

“At some point, we probably need to talk about you and me, Amos,”

Tommy said, surprising me. I figured that subject was off the table for life.

“Yeah, I’d like that… What about dinner tonight?”

“Like going out for dinner?” he asked.

“Yeah, I mean, there’s not much here, but if we drive up to Carlsbad, there’s a few decent Mexican restaurants. I eat takeout most nights, so I know the score. Julianne’s is my favorite.”

“Sure, if you want to…”

Tommy said, then quickly changed the subject. “So what do you think about the coach, Jake?” he asked.

I hung out with him for another thirty minutes until I noticed Jake looking my way. We were going to divide and conquer with a few drills this afternoon, so I guessed he was ready to do that.

“So, um… meet you after practice?”

I asked. “I need to grab a shower where I’m staying, then I can pick you up…”

Tommy shook his head. “No, I’ll just meet you at Julianne’s at six, if that works.”

When I nodded, he smiled. “Okay,”

he said, standing up, “I’m going to snap a few shots of the kids practicing… Oh, and I need all those permission slips to publish photos from the guys. I can’t submit any for publication without them.”

“No problem, Jake sent them home with the boys yesterday after Owen said you were headed this way. We’ll make sure we have permission for any kids that’re in the shots you wanna submit.”

Tommy followed me down, asking Jake if he could be on the field taking pictures while they practiced.

“No problem as long as you stay out of the way. I can’t promise you the boys won’t smear you if you get too close.”

Of course, we all got the unintentional reference, and I cringed as Tommy cocked an eyebrow. Jake just looked embarrassed. All three of us were gay though, and although I had never faced the brunt of that particular high school kid practice, I knew a lot of kids had.

Tommy’s expression showed he wasn’t letting Jake off the hook, but there was humor in his response.

“Yeah, I have practice avoiding that, thanks,”

he said before he smiled.

My guy—damn, I wish I could call him that—was smooth even in a tense situation. One of the many things I loved about him.