Page 50 of Cleats and Pumps

Summer camp was ending, and Ford, a friend I’d met a few years ago in New York, had invited me to come visit. Ford was friends with Erissa and, as such, knew how to keep my secrets. He and I had even fooled around a bit, but nothing more than kissing. Then he found the love of his life, Dorian, a Broadway star who sang like an angel but could be a total diva-demon when off the stage.

Ford and Dorian were on the outs, and Erissa felt sorry for me when I told her I was stuck in the middle of Nowhere, New Mexico, so I think she’d set all this up. Of course, I knew Ford and Dorian would never break up. I’d seen them together enough times to know their love burned hot but still burned long.

I could use some time out of the desert though, and maybe making Dorian jealous would cause the relationship to get back on track. It’d helped before.

I shook Jake’s hand and teased the boys, telling them I looked forward to coming to their first game. “Y’all make me proud now,” I said as I left and noticed a few of the boys seemed emotional that I was going.

Damn, that felt good. Few people, other than my brother and mom, seemed to care about me. Yeah, plenty cared about my ability to play, but seeing these boys emotional around me…? Well, that… was different.

I thought of Tommy but shook that out of my head. I couldn’t be holding onto him. He’d been right in some ways, I guess. Imean, he wasn’t wrong. I probably would’ve tossed everything away to be in a relationship with him. But, I’d gone the entire fucking summer with little communication between me and the team.

Erissa had pushed the issue a few times, but there were only crickets. “We’re going to have to get the attorneys involved,” she said last time we talked.

“Do what you gotta do, but Erissa, I’m tired of all of this. I did some stupid drag on a stupid cruise ship.”

“You did it in college too…” She reminded me of Tommy’s college article that’d come out a few weeks earlier.

“So, I mean really, who cares?”

She sighed into the phone. “Well, you know who cares. They haven’t pretended otherwise, but regardless, you have a contract, and they are obligated to honor it.”

“Do you think they’re trying to get out of it?”

“We’ll know soon enough,” she said. “For now, go to New York and have fun. No drag shows though… Just you and your friends going to some shows, maybe a few parties… Just have fun. That’ll make it look like you aren’t worried. Trust me, the NFL will get a black eye for what they’ve already done to you. My guess is, if it looks like you aren’t worried, that’ll reflect badly on the team. So, go have fun, but you know… not much fun.”

I laughed. “Okay, pretend like I’m the partying football-playing bachelor, but not the gorgeous diva I am.”

Erissa snorted, in spite of herself. “Whatever. Tell Ford I said hi,” she said and hung up.

I thought about texting Tommy, then decided to call my brother instead. “Hey, I’m going to fly into Houston tomorrow and have time before I fly to New York the next day. Wanna hang out?”

“Yep, but you know you should come home…”

“Nope, I’ve had all I want of Dad’s attitude. It’s bad enough I’m dealing with a homophobic football team. I’ll face Dad when I’ve figured out what the hell is going on with my life…”

“Okay, okay,” Josiah said. “You can stay with me, and I’ll drop you off at the airport the next day.”

I wondered why Jonah didn’t mention Saram. I’d get to the bottom of that tomorrow. For now, I needed to get some rest. I’d tossed and turned way too many nights since Tommy had left. It seemed everything was up in the air. How the hell was I supposed to figure out what to do with my life? Not that I was making many of the decisions in my life right now.

35

Tommy

Iwasshockedwhenmyold boss called and said they would be interested in the Amos article. I tried not to sound too happy about how much I was costing them, in comparison to what I cost as a regular employee.

Oh well, karma was karma. “I’ll be writing the second article after the school year starts and the team has been able to play a game or two. I was also planning to go back if they get to state.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s good…” he replied. I cocked my eyebrow. I mean, the guy never just agreed to anything I wanted to do. He was one of those editors who wanted to control the story from start to finish.

I guessed maybe this was him eating crow though. Still, he usually wasn’t nice to freelance writers either. “Boss, you feeling okay?" I asked, mostly ’cause I couldn’t help it.

“Fine. Why, what do you mean?’

“You are never this easygoing. Did Finley finally go through with slipping poison in your coffee?”

Old man Finley used to threaten to poison the boss all the time, and he never gave a damn if he heard him or not.

“No, no… you just have a good start. Now, I’ve got to go. Send me the final draft of your article.”

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