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Tommy

“Smear the Queer”

came to mind, and when I looked at Jake I could tell he’d caught that too.

When I responded sarcastically, Jake smiled and shrugged in apology.

If Owen hadn’t told me he was gay too, I’m sure that would’ve been more offensive… even if it wasn’t meant to be.

If I’d still been working for the paper, I’d have brought a camera, but for this, I used my phone to snap a few pictures as the kids practiced.

I caught some pretty awesome candid shots of Jake and Amos.

Damn, this was going to be awesome, I thought as I packed it in for the day.

I needed to grab a shower myself after being out in the New Mexico summer heat.

When I got to my hotel room, I quickly sent off a few emails to various magazines with one picture of Jake and Amos.

You couldn’t make out any of the kids in the background, and Jake had already given me written permission, so I figured this could be a great teaser to get me the job.

I hesitated before sending the photo and proposed story to my old magazine.

They hadn’t done me right, but they hired more freelance writers than any other and paid almost twice as much as the others.

I could use the cash…

I pushed my pride down and sent the photo and short synopsis of the article to my former boss.

I had carefully left out where the team was, and Jake’s face was blurred enough I doubted facial recognition would expose the team..

Knowing my employer, I doubted anyone would think this story big enough to go to the trouble of finding where Amos was, or where the coaching was happening.

It would be cheaper just to pay me for the article.

Money was money, even if they weren’t my biggest fan.

I jumped into the shower after that and thought about Amos.

I liked what he was doing here.

It was impressive.

Amazing, really.

It showed resilience in the face of adversity, and even the homophobes would probably find that appealing.

I was proud of him, plain and simple.

Amos Clark was a good egg, I thought, using my grandpa’s old saying for someone he liked.

Now, I just needed to get my shit together enough to have the conversation I knew was needed.

He’d said he liked me the day I woke up at Owen’s.

I needed to find out if that was real, or just some bullshit he was spouting to feel better about how we’d left things in the past.

I had no idea what I wanted the outcome of this conversation to be though.

On one hand it was beyond exciting to think we had a future; on the other, it seemed like some romance novel wet dream.

I thought of the manuscript I’d written.

Curing the demons— that’s what I’d been doing.

No matter how tonight went, I was determined to accept things as meant to be.

No more pining over a man who didn’t want me… If he did want me, then he’d need to step up to the damn table and show me.