Page 128 of Flipping the Script

“Nope.” He busied himself with pulling on his sweats. “I learned to keep my head down in locker rooms long beforeanyone knew I was gay. I wasn’t about to give anyone ammo to get me kicked off the team or in trouble because they thought I was checking them out when they found out.”

His tone was neutral, like he was telling me his grocery list, but I knew that move. He was in robot mode again, pretending he didn’t feel anything so no one would know he was hurting.

“How were things on the team after…”

“I got outed?” He shook out his t-shirt, his eyes on the material. “Not great.”

I hadn’t really been plugged into the sports world at school, so I didn’t know many details about what things had been like for him. I only knew what Ben and Ez had told me, and that had been pretty bad.

“But whatever. It’s nothing compared to what Wes and Ez went through.” He pulled on the shirt, his eyes darting around as he looked anywhere but at me. “I only had to deal with the verbal abuse and everyone watching me like I was some sort of pervert every time they had to show some skin around me. Even though most of the guys had known me since we were kids, they still couldn’t get over the fact that I like dick, so obviously I wanted theirs.”

“I hate that.” I sat on the couch to pull on my socks. “How straight guys always assume that every queer man wants them. Like, they can have preferences when it comes to women, but can’t wrap their brains around a gay or bi guy also having types.”

“Yeah, it fucking sucks.” He joined me on the couch and yanked on his socks. “But they eventually got over it.”

“Did you ever find out who outed you?”

He shook his head and stood. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like knowing will change the past.”

“True.” I pointed to the kitchen. “We can clean up in there.”

Silently, we made our way to the sink. I pulled a roll of paper towels out of the cupboard, tore off a handful, and handed it to Jesse.

Cleaning up with freezing water wasn’t fun, but I felt better when we were back in the living room and seated on the couch.

The fire was burning lower, the flickering flames bouncing off the walls and creating a little cocoon of light around us. The rain was gentler now too, but still strong enough that it wouldn’t be worth looking at the forecast. The roads wouldn’t be passable tonight, even if the rain stopped now.

“So, there’s something I need to talk to you about,” I started, tripping over my words a few times.

He rolled his gaze from the fire to me, his expression wary. “What?”

“I, uh, met Carl?”

He sat up like I’d zapped him with a cattle prod. “What? When? How?”

“So you know who I’m talking about.” I blew out a breath. That would make things easier.

“Explain, now.” His expression was as tense as I’d ever seen it.

“Remember how I said everything was fine after that night at Envy? That wasn’t true. I thought someone was following me. And I was right.”

“Carl was following you?”

I nodded. “I found out after a show I played last week. I confronted him in the parking lot after he got sloppy.”

“What happened?” He prodded. “What did he tell you?”

“Not a lot. Well, that’s not exactly true. He said a lot, but not much of it made sense without context.”

His look told me to keep talking.

“He said he hired you off a website to pretend to be his boyfriend, and he fell in love with you.”

“Who else have you told about this?” he demanded.

“No one.” I put up my hands in surrender. “I swear.”

He relaxed marginally.

---