Page 105 of The Locker Room

Two tears turned to three, to five, to Xander, stripped of his

pretense that it was an ordinary day, holding Chris to his chest in what

had become their marriage bed and howling into his own hard-bitten

palm.

THE first time Christian had gone home with a woman, he"d called

Xander in guise of a cab to come pick him up.

They"d had to stop the car four times for him to throw up on the

way home.

When it had been Xander"s turn, he"d sat stoic in the car,

unspeaking, and then murmured something about taking a shower. Chris

had found him in the freezing shower, forty-five minutes later, huddled

in the corner and scrubbing absently at his arm until the softened skin

had abraded and bled.

It was their one true lie.

The day they"d first seen the house, Chris had told Xander that they

would have to find some way to cover, and Xander had nodded. Uh-huh.

Escort supermodels to separate events. Have Penny"s friends beard them

when they had to attend fundraisers. Find ways to look sheepish when a

pretty girl was mentioned. They"d seen the tape; they"d seen the shy

smiles of the guys caught having a heterosexual relationship that no one

was supposed to know about. They were going to have to do that.

For a year, it had worked.

90

Amy Lane

For a year, they had played under a sweet man who understood

strategy but not motivation, and who had won a whole lot of college

games that way but couldn"t seem to win a pro game. And then the

owners had tried a reorganization, and they"d gotten Coach Strauss

Wallick, and their carefully orchestrated cover had gone to hell.

Wallick was an old school coach in the body of a short, trim, fifty-