Page 211 of The Locker Room

“I don"t even know if dog shit is in his contract!” Xander

complained again, and Chris interrupted him.

“It is,” Chris told him, through a full mouth. “I wrote it in. Dammit,

Xan, Penny"s right. I could see it in the dark, the grounds look like shit.”

“Well, his wife just had a baby, and he"s not getting a lot of sleep.

He wants to bring in his nephew to help, but I don"t know. I don"t know

if he knows… or you know. I didn"t want to have him sign the contract

without Chris or Leo to look it over, and I"ve sort of been out on the

road, right?”

Xander paused, in the middle of bringing a bite of scrambled eggs

up to his mouth. “What?”

“Xander,” Audrey said quietly into the silence, “you don"t talk that

much tous.”

Xander flushed. “Well, he did all the talking. It… you know. It"s

nice to hear about someone else. Except, we can"t fire him, right?”

He turned to Chris in supplication, and Chris was blinking at him,

hard.

“Yeah, Xan. Right. No firing the gardener. I"ll draw up papers for

his nephew this afternoon, "kay?”

Xander brightened, unsure of why the world had stopped because

he knew the gardener"s backstory, but willing to take Chris on faith.

Then Chris wiped his mouth carefully, grabbed Xander"s face in both

hands, and kissed him soundly, scrambled eggs and all. There was a

collective “Awwwww…” from around the table, but Xander didn"t really

hear that. All he knew was that Chris was there, and something about

him had pleased his lover, and all of that desire, as hot and bright as it

The Locker Room 183

had been in high school was there, exposed on his skin, for the world to

see.

As he fell into the kiss, became stupid and hazy with it, tasted,