Page 48 of The Locker Room

“God, I thought she"dnevershut up!” he muttered. “All I wanted to

do was tell her I wasn"t interested, butJesus,it neverended, you know?

Whatever I wanted to say would be halfway around the state before it

even got out!”

Xander clenched his hand, only partly aware of what Chris was

talking about. He wasn"t threatened by a girl, certainly notthatgirl, who

wasn"t particularly nice unless she wanted something and who said

nasty, mean things to people who didn"t have anything she wanted. Even

if Chris ever fell in love with a girl, or another boy, it would be with

someone better than Xander. Someone infinitely more worthy.

No. He wasn"t threatened by a girl, but he had thought of

something as she"d played with her frosted black hair and batted her

pretty, almond-shaped eyes.

“Are we going to have to pretend?” he asked, and Chris, who had

been whining some more about how totally boring that chick really was,

stopped talking abruptly.

“Pretend?” He asked the question so carefully that Xander knew he

had already thought of it too. Suddenly, the air conditioner was stifling,

even though the Sacramento valley floor still hadn"t cooled off entirely.

Xander pressed the window button and let the humid air blow over his

heated skin.

“You know exactly what I"m talking about,” Xander said, his voice

barely carrying over the sound of the wind, and Chris sighed—but he

didn"t relinquish Xander"s hand.

“Yeah, I do. And the answer is probably. But I don"t want to think

about it.” Chris"s voice became pleading, and Xander couldn"t resist

him, even a little. “Please, Xan? Please, tonight… tonight of all nights,

can we not think about it?”

Xan nodded and kissed the back of Chris"s knuckles. Then he let