Page 179 of The Locker Room

and gave in to the shivers. He felt pathetic. Somehow it was worse

letting Chris see him like this when they couldn"t touch, when Chris

couldn"t make it better.

“Shhhh….” Chris reached out a hand toward the camera with a

pained grimace. “Shhhh… "kay, Xan. You"re just going to have to listen

to my voice for a little, okay?”

Xan nodded, ashamed and embarrassed, but comforted by Chris"s

voice, because it was the only thing he had. “"K… k… okkk… kay…,”

he chattered, and then he leaned his head on his knees and let Chris"s

usual burble of conversation wash right over him.

“So Cliff and I went out with the team after the game, and we

managed to get some spoons from the waitress, right? And next thing

you know we"re playing spoons in the middle of the bar. Except, it

wasn"t just a shot, it was shot and an appetizer—cheese stick, potato

skin, whatever we were eating. And Cliff and I just totally ordered all of

the greasiest, nastiest shit we could think of. You know, stuff that goes

with Scotch like nitro in a blender, right?”

In spite of the shakes, Xander had to laugh a little, because he knew

where this was going. God, Chris could be a bastard sometimes—that

impish sense of humor could totally go south, with anybodybutXander.

“Right,” he said with a rusty voice. “You totally sabotaged them.”

“Oh. My. God. It wasepic!Cliff and I—well, you remember what

we did in school, right? You should have seen him. He"d like grab one

spoon and then hand it to me under the table before he grabbed the other

spoon, and then I"d do the same for him, and there"s this rookie….”

“Oswald,” Xander supplied. Cocky little—five-foot-eleven—

sonuvabitch who kept trying to prove he had the balls to play with the

big boys on the court. A good player, just needed seasoning.

The Locker Room 155

“Yeah, Oswald. Anyway, between the two of us, we"d totally