Page 18 of Choke Up

I'm jerked out of my ridiculous haze when the coach blows a whistle, and the players break up into two groups, running toward the dugouts. The warmth of Gabe's body against my back disappears, and he holds out a piece of masking tape that has the words "Little E" written in blocky letters.

Fucking Elliot.

JOHNNY: How was your day?

ELLISH: Annoying, mostly. Yours?

JOHNNY: Pretty entertaining, actually.

ELLISH: Oh?

JOHNNY: Yeah, I watched the baseball scrimmage. Team looks good. The new bat boy looks better, though.

"Oh my God," I choke, my head snapping up to look around the dining hall. I'm here early for a Pride Alliance meetup. It’s still a couple of hours until dinner is served, so it's empty aside from Ivy and Jamie walking through the tables to get to me.

Ivy looks concerned. "Are you alright?"

"Uh, f-fine."

"Why do you look like you've seen a ghost?" Jamie adds.

"I think Johnny figured out who I am," I say, a little flustered.

"Ohh," Ivy says, but she has a funny expression on her face. Jaime gives her a knowing sideways glance.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Their expressions are too close to pity for my liking.

Tyrell appears, sitting on Ivy's left. His gaze moves from me to Ivy and Jamie, who are still looking at me funny. "What's happening? Why are we staring at the baby gay like that?"

"Is he wearing those baggy jeans again?" Antoni says, peering around Tyrell’s shoulder. "Ellis, we've talked about this. A cute little ass like that deserves skinny jeans." He comes around the table and peers down at my pants.

"Ew, it's worse," he says before sitting down on my right. Since I came directly from the scrimmage, I'm still wearing the team-issued baseball pants, but I took off the jersey and pulled a black hoodie over my t-shirt.

Sean joins us, sitting on my other side. "What's up?"

Ivy clears her throat. "It seems Ellis' anonymous chat friend has figured out who he is," she says. Her words are slow and sarcastic, full of blatantly fake concern.

Sean pats my shoulder, and Antoni pets my hair. Tyrell pushes his bottom lip out. I snort out a laugh, because even if I haven't caught on to the joke that everyone else is clearly enjoying at my expense, I fall in love with these people a little more every day.

"I'm not, like, worried or anything," I tell them. "Just surprised."

"That's good," Jamie says with a patronizing nod. "You know, since your username is your actual name. Which is attached to your profile. With your name, grade, and major."

I roll my eyes. "Well, duh. I mean, all that stuff is private on my account. I knew the risk of keeping my username, but I'd already started talking to him before I could consider changing it. But, you know, it’s a big campus, I kind of assumed it'd be less likely that we'd cross paths."

"Except that you said he's an athlete, and you hang around athletes almost exclusively," Ivy points out.

"Is that why you've been spending so much time at the athletic dorms?" Sean asks.

"No." Yes. "My brother lives there, and?—"

"And you two are so close," Ivy interrupts sarcastically.

"We are twins," I remind her. "And I hang out with all of your dumbasses there, too. Although I'm starting to wonder why," I say, my tone dripping with sarcasm. I have a love-hate relationship with the way this group calls each other out on their bullshit.

"I'm just saying, you had to know this was going to happen eventually," Tyrell says. "But, moving on—How did he find you?"

Careful not to show them any of last night's more explicit flirtations, I show them the last couple of messages with Johnny.

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