Page 7 of The Locker Room

was the guy?) said. “We"ll eat in the living room. It"s getting late, and

we need to wrap dinner up and get to homework.”

“Aces.” Chris grimaced, all sarcasm. “Way to suck the joy out of

dinner, Dad.”

“Just doing my part,” said Chris"s “Dad,” and Xander tried not to

boggle. He"d thought those were an urban legend.

The Locker Room

7

It didn"t take long before Xander was seated quietly, balancing a

plate of chicken with fixins on his lap, and listening to the family banter

back and forth. By the time dinner was over, he"d learned that Penny,

Chris"s sister, was in all of the advanced classes, Chris was struggling

with Algebra, Andi was a lawyer from the teacher"s union, who couldn"t

talk about her work but made a lot of eye rolls when certain subjects

from school were brought up, and Jed was Chris"s father, and he taught

Junior High math in another district.

He could sit there and listen to them talk for hours.

He didn"t say anything himself, of course, but he did look up

gratefully when Andi put two more pieces of chicken on his plate after

he finished off the two he started with. When those were gone, he found

that Jed had given him the last of the potatoes and gravy, and he ate that

gratefully too. And then, like there always is, he found that there was a

price for the good, because he was the center of attention when Jed asked

him how he was doing in school.

He actually felt the sweat break out under his loose T-shirt collar.

“I sleep a lot,” he mumbled. Well, school was clean, it was safe, no

loud noises, no one having sex or getting high—how was he not

supposed to sleep?

“You can"t sleep through your classes!” Chris said, with so much

suppressed passion that Xander blushed more and wished for a quick