Page 78 of The Locker Room

every boy I ever wanted to kiss me. I dreamed of it, right? And then,

when your life fell completely apart, and you were sent to some sort of

dorm for boys no one wanted, I was devastated. I wanted so badly for us

to want you. I heard my parents talking one night, and I thought, „Yes!

We can keep himhere!"and I wassoexcited, right?”

Xander looked up at her, and for the first time realized how much

time had passed since that moment. Five years, nearly six. He and

Christian had been children when he"d spent those months in a halfway

house. Penny had been even younger. He looked sideways at Christian,

who still didn"t know where this was going. In this moment, in spite of

the phenomenal bulking up the two of them had done, in spite of the

many stolen moments as lovers, and the fierce moments honing them

into competitors, Chris looked just as young this day.

“I didn"t know I was enough to get excited about,” Xander said

with a smile, and he wished for her brother"s hand like anything.

“You were,” Penny said with a faint smile of her own. “So one

morning, as I"m getting ready for school, I hear the boy of my dreams

outside, talking to my dumbass brother, and I open the door to go outside

and gossip with them, because, hey, they used to talk to me about high

school, and I figured they"d want to hear this, right?”

Xander shut his eyes. “That"s why you were crying,” he said softly,

and Chris said, “When was she crying? Penny, would you get to the

point?”

Penny patted Xander"s knee again. “The point, dumbass, is that our

parents know. They were sort of suspicious by your senior year, but they

kept thinking that you and Xander would somehow get that twin-at-the-

hip detachment in the last three years. It obviously hasn"t happened,

because you guys had to go and just… just…explodethe odds books by

being two boys from high school who play together through college. For

all I know, you"ll end up playing the same team in the pros, because