Page 32

LOGAN

T he early bi-week helped us regroup, but the tension in the locker room since the last game was palpable. Dean hadn’t said a word to the press, Coach had been running interference. The problem was the longer he waited to do it, the more suspicious it all looked. The reporters all had their own narratives now, and there wasn’t a damn thing Dean could do about it.

Cael sat beside me in silence, tying his shoes—a quiet confirmation of my point. Everyone was walking on glass—and it wasn’t because Dean was gay; no one gave a shit about that, it was the fact that none of them could do interviews without the reporters pressing them about their captain and no one wanted to be the one that said the wrong thing.

Coach cleared his throat as he stepped into the center of the locker room, every eye turning toward him as they finished getting ready for the game.

“Today is going to suck,” he said, and Cael snorted from beside me with the shake of his head.

“He’s horrible at the whole speech thing,” Cael whispered under his breath, causing my lip to curl up in amusement.

“It’s the last week of pre-season and your last opportunity to show everyone out there exactly who you mean to be this season. I want you to be composed, focused and driven. We win this game as clean as possible, boys; no fights, no suspensions. I don’t want to spend the three hours after the game on the phone negotiating terms,” he warned.

“Yes, Coach,” the locker room responded in unison.

“They’re going to fuck with Tucker,” Coach said. Dean, noticeably absent from locker room prep, would’ve hated being talked about like that. “And when they do, you do not react. If anyone has an issue with your captain, come to me and I’ll deal with it outside the game. Breaking your hands on their faces isn’t going to stop them from being assholes. Do you understand me?”

Again, understanding was barked out from each Hornets player.

“Win the game to prove everyone wrong, don’t give them any more reasons to alienate him,” he said as the doors swung open and Dean stumbled in. His tie was already loosened, and his fingers were working at the buttons on his dark dress shirt.

“Where the hell have you been?” Coach asked him.

“Meeting with Ms. Cody,” Dean grumbled and threw his duffle into a locker.

“I’ll talk to her about scheduling them this close to game time.”

“It wasn’t her, I scheduled it. I’m ready though, I’m sorry.” The words came out tight and strung together in a mumbled mess as he kicked off his shoes.

Coach wrapped up his speech, leaving behind a blend of confidence and just enough fear. The team didn’t move though, they waited for Dean to dress in his jersey in silence. Hoping maybe he’d find the courage to say something.

He could feel their eyes on him and he sighed, turning on his heel to look over them as he did up the last of the buttons.

“What?” he asked, but it clicked almost immediately after, and he sighed, knowing what they wanted. “Right…” he pulled his hat down over his eyes and put his hands on his hips. When he looked up from the ground, there was a fake, full sparkle to his eyes, and he had forced a smile on his face. “I know this season is off to a rocky start, but we’ll find our groove and prove to everyone how good Hornets' ball is. Go out there and play tight, communicate and kick ass.”

That seemed to satisfy them—they hollered, thumped their chests with those dumb handshake taps, and flooded out of the locker room. I waited, tying the last knot on my cleat and grabbed my hat.

“Nice fake smile, Tuck,” I muttered as I passed him.

“What, this? All real,” he chuckled, but it was tight and wrong. I knew when it was real.

“If you’re going to be depressed, you need to hide it better,” I warned him as he walked around me to get to the tunnel.

“I’m not depressed,” he deflected.

“Sure,” I said. "You go to class, you go to practice, you go to bed. Not depressed, gotcha.” I scoffed at him. It was a mirror of the schedule I used at spring camp, just less dinner with the Manson family.

“Is my healthy routine bothering you?” Dean rolled his eyes.

“If you were anyone else, that might be healthy.” We rounded the corner to the players’ entrance, where the entire team was getting ready to take the field. “But you?” I scowled. "There's nothing healthy about what you’re doing.”

“Yeah, because you know me so well, tough guy. Focus on the game, Logan—stop worrying about me.” Dean pushed past me and smiled as he patted a few of the guys on the back, starting a loud, rhythmic chant that had them jumping and swaying.

I ground my teeth together. He hadn’t called me Logan in a while, and I don’t know why it bothered me as much as it did, but I could do what I was told.

Right now, the priority was the game.

The lights on the field were unforgiving as we stepped out and waved to the fans as we made our way down to the dugout. Coach called out the batting order, and it was the same as usual. Dean lost the coin toss, and we started the game. The first few innings weren’t bad; we were down three runs, but it would be easy to catch up in the back half. Some hard hits and a few tight outfield moments had us back in the lead at the bottom of the seventh.

Dean never missed a swing, it was like every ounce of worry and frustration he had been feeling was channeled into the game. His feet planted hard in the clay as he rounded third and cemented the win for the Hornets, for us.

Coach ushered everyone down the tunnel, ignoring the protests of the press as he closed the heavy navy doors to the locker room behind us.

“They’re fucking insufferable,” Van sighed and tugged his jersey over his head, tossing it into the locker and undoing the belt on his pants. “You’d think they’d give up on it.”

“You know they’re relentless, the second they smell fresh meat, they’re out for blood,” Cael said, stripping the majority of his clothes in one swoop of his long arms.

“I’m exhausted.” Dean slumped against his locker beside me and closed his eyes.

“Fuck Delta tonight,” Van said, sweat dripping from his chocolate brown mullet as he collapsed to the ground in nothing but his boxers.

I untied my shoes and shoved them into my locker between my feet before unbuttoning my jersey. I had been smart about wearing a t-shirt under my jersey, and so far, the only person who had given me stink eyes about it was Cael. I could tell he wanted to ask again, but he didn’t want to be pushy. Which was an odd revelation for Cael to have, since he had lived his entire life to push buttons.

“I’m calling in an orange duck,” Dean grumbled.

“A what?” I asked, looking around at them as they all agreed.

“Chinese food and TV,” Cael explained. “We call it an orange duck because one year Arlo-”

“I don’t need to hear the story that’s behind your latest toddler code word,” I scowled at him and tugged my sweater over my head. “But I’m in,” I grumbled.

“Logan’s in,” Cael smiled and slapped Van in the shoulder like it was a big deal.

“I’m just hungry,” I added, and Cael gave me a ‘sure, that’s what it is’ look in the form of a wide smile and his eyebrow raising.

“Shower and then meet back at the Nest.” Van clapped his hands into Cael's who hauled him off the ground and followed him into the showers, arguing over who would call to order the takeout.

Dean didn’t move from his sleepy position on the locker bench, his eyes still closed. I sat with him, quickly changing out of my ball pants while the others were distracted.

“You alright?” I asked him.

“Fine,” he said. And that’s all I got out of him.

We drove back up to Dansby house because my car was still ripped apart in the garage. Arlo had invited me in to help fix it more than once, but I knew less about cars than I did about loving someone. And being locked in a garage with Arlo King still felt like a death sentence, so I avoided him to keep the peace.

Dean looked wrecked behind the wheel. His hair hung limp under his Hornets cap, and the usual bright blue in his eyes had dulled. His hands gripped the wheel with white knuckles, and it was obvious that pretending to be okay was eating away at him.

I didn’t say anything as we all flooded into the house, running upstairs for a shower as the rest of them all found comfort in the living room on the main floor. I could hear them laughing and talking through the floor while I ran the shower hot and stepped under the water. For a moment the silence was perfect, there wasn’t a sound except the running water and my slowing breaths but it was interrupted by a small knock on the door.

Before I could say anything, the door was pushed open.

“Hey—”

“It’s just me,” Dean’s voice interrupted me.

“What do you want?” I asked, muscles locked with tension.

“I—” He stumbled over his words, and I could feel him standing there awkwardly, waiting for the invitation, but I couldn’t seem to get them out. “This was stupid, I'm being s—”

“Get in,” I snapped, before he could call himself stupid. Hearing the need in his voice was enough to break away another piece of the concrete that surrounded my heart. His clothes fell away in shuffled motions and the curtain pulled back just enough for his giant frame to slip into the shower.

His eyes caught mine, and uncomfortable heat filled my chest.

“Face the wall,” I ordered him. I reached up and angled the shower head so that it ran over my shoulder against his skin.

He nodded and turned around in the shower, offering the toned muscles of his back to me, and I eased out of my discomfort a little further. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to do by coming in here or why I even let him get in, but beneath all the anxiety that seemed to be itching its way to the surface was a want for him to stay.

I think that he had also sought out the quiet and that, maybe, I was that for him the way the shower was for me. Just like the night I had joined him in his bed; if he was able to focus on the one problem in front of him, all of his problems didn’t feel so scary.

“Tuck,” I said over the sound of the running water. “Are you okay?” I asked him, trying to curb the annoyance in my voice as I braced for him to lie to me again.

“I don’t have the time to be anything else, Josh.”

His answer didn’t make me feel better, but there wasn’t much else I could do. If he wanted to be sad and cover it with fake niceties, then I couldn’t push for more, not without breaking out the paper-thin trust we had built with one another.

I washed the dirt and sweat off my body, handing him the soap so he could do the same. The motions are slow and methodical, neither of us coming in contact but sharing the silence for what it was. It was mesmerizing how gentle he was for his size; his arms and back tensed periodically, but for the most part, he took the form of a rolling wave. His tan skin pulled tight as he rolled the soap over his body, his shoulder blades flexing with his back muscles as he angled side to side for the water to reach every spot.

I kept my eyes trained on his back as I washed my hair. I thought about giving him the bottle and slipping from the shower so he could finish, but the want to touch him that nipped at the back of my mind was loud today.

“Put your head back,” I ordered him and there was a brief pause, but he stepped back once and tilted his head back toward me.

The gap between us was minimal, and I could feel the heat rising off him as I filled my palm with shampoo and inched closer. Never touching skin to skin, but leaving inches between our naked bodies.

I paused, counting myself backward from ten with the simple reminders that I was in control and that I wanted to feel him, to do this for him. I chewed the inside of my lip as I reached one and ghosted my hand over the first set of curls that fell limp at his neck, saturated with water. His shoulders softened the moment I found my courage and sank my fingers into his hair.

Applying pressure, I massaged my fingers through the hair and watched carefully as he struggled to keep his balance as he relaxed further. His eyes were closed, but his hand was pressed flat against the shower wall to keep him upright as I worked the shampoo in his scalp slowly and carefully. I realized at that moment, Dean had never been taken care of. Our loneliness had stemmed from different trauma, manifested differently as we grew older, but festered with the most toxic need for independence.

I angled to the side to let the water rinse through his hair, helping the more stubborn curls with the pads of my fingers until all the soap was gone.

“Done,” I said and felt him straighten out and pull away from my touch.

I held my breath as the strange feeling of disappointment filled me. I hadn’t wanted him to pull away—and I’d never felt so hollow not touching him.. I swallowed the unusual emotion and slipped from the shower before he could do something stupid during our moment of vulnerability.