Page 9 of Off the Rim
As team captain, I should do more about it, but the coaches pretty much dismiss me when I mention the team should clean up before we leave. There’s no point in pressing it, and I’m not brave enough to call them on their bullshit. They're all patting me on the back and cheering how I "showed up" the Timberwolves best player. I think I hear a joke about how Marcus probably liked having me at his back all night, but I don’t know how to respond to it. It’s thinly veiled homophobia, but they could easily get away with saying they didn’t mean it that way. The word "trash" is thrown around a lot, and how shitty this side of town is.
“God, I hope your dad keeps bulldozing this whole side of town. I think this shitty school would make an excellent condo development, don’t you?”
My stomach is sour, but I don't say a word. I don't stop them. It wouldn't accomplish anything anyway, not when even the coaching staff is laughing and all of this is treated like normal locker room talk. All it would do is turn them away from me.
When we're finally making it towards our bus, I see Marcus in the parking lot with some of his teammates. He gives a couple of them fist bumps and bro handshakes as they head to their cars. Turning his head towards us, he catches me staring and holds my gaze before turning around and heading back inside thebuilding, which is mostly empty at this point. Passing my bag to one of the students loading the bus, I tell Coach I left something behind and run back inside before he can stop me.
I find Marcus leaning against the wall in the hall outside the locker rooms with his arms crossed.
"What is your problem?" He asks, brows furrowed and blue eyes blazing. He looks so serious, so different from how he used to. But I can still recognize the little boy with the wide grin and messy hair behind this grumpy facade he's putting on for me.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Like you didn’t just spend that entire game messing with me. Why are you here right now?"
"It seemed like you wanted me to follow you inside," I say with a shrug. With a swallow, I drop some of my bravado. "Did you not want me to?"
"Why would I want you to follow me in here, Ashton?" I like hearing him say my name, even if it's in anger or annoyance.
"To finish what we started?" I ask, my voice dropping low.
For a moment, I hope he didn't hear me say that. It was bold. Bolder than I've been around anyone else since the last time I was alone with him.
My sexuality isn't something I'm afraid of, but it's something I'm still figuring out. I had a girlfriend for a while, a cheerleader with dark brown curly hair, small, perky tits, and long legs. But she didn't do it for me. Eventually, she got bored and broke up with me. Girls are always trying to get my attention, but I ignore them for the most part. Somehow, acting aloof and uninterested seems to make them more interested. Meanwhile, I have no ideahow to explore this other side of me. The only person I've ever really been interested in is standing in front of me right now.
Marcus doesn't say anything. He doesn't confirm, but he doesn't deny, either. The way his eyes dart to my mouth and then back up to my eyes makes me think he wants this too. Maybe he's been thinking about it for almost two years, like I have.
I step forward, closing the distance between us. I'm too afraid to think too much, so I just act. Another inch closer and my lips touch his.
He doesn't move at first, and neither do I. I try to remember the mechanics of kissing from all those times I made out with Brooke. My lips part slightly and close again, pulling on his bottom lip. His lips are tight and unyielding, but I'm desperate for this. I’ve been haunted by the thought of almost kissing him that night outside the camp courts. I don't back away. Instead, I press more firmly, bracketing him with my hands on the wall on either side of his head. A small huff of air leaves him, and he finally softens. His mouth moves against mine. The entirety of my body breaks out in goosebumps, and I drop a hand from the wall. It caresses down his face, cups his jaw, pulls the back of his neck to press him harder into the kiss, then rests against his chest. Through the thin layer of his t-shirt, I feel the frantic thumping of his heart, matching the intensity of the beat ringing in my ears.
I know without a shadow of a doubt that this moment, his lips against mine and our hearts beating wildly, will stick with me forever. I feel a piece of me slide into place, and I know there's no coming back.This is the moment everything changes.
The bubble bursts with a loud slam of the doors being swung open. Before three of my teammates and so-called friendsdarken the doorway, I rip my mouth away from Marcus' and step back. My hand is still against his chest.
The way my friends react, it must look like we're fighting instead of quite the opposite.
And I'm a fucking coward.
I let two of my friends pull me away, as if they're dragging me off him. Kent, one of my best friends at school and on the team, gets in Marcus' face. I don't know what he thinks he's defending, nor do I hear most of what he yells, I only watch as disbelief melts into hurt in Marcus' expression. His eyes never leave mine, and the disappointment I see there makes my chest ache. I shake myself out of a daze and shake my teammates off, pulling Kent back by the back of his shirt.
"Dude, stop. Come on, let's get out of here." Finally, I say the words that dig my grave. "It's not worth it."
I don't mean it the way it comes out. I don't mean to imply that Marcus isn't worth it. I meant that fighting and making a big deal out of whatever they walked in on isn’t worth it. I rack my brain to find a way to explain that we weren't fighting, but I stammer, not sure how to say the words, unable able to come up with any explanation that wouldn't out me before I'm ready.
Blue eyes darken, morphing from hurt to steely anger.
"Fuck you, Ashton," he says in a low, menacing voice that I feel in the pit of my stomach. "And fuck you, too!" he yells at Kent.
Kent rears back and fucking spits on Marcus. "You’d like that, wouldn’t you? What? Couldn’t get my boy here to give you any, so now you’re trying to get on my dick? As if any of us would fuck trash like you."
"Jesus, Kent?—"
Before I get a chance to call Kent out, Marcus swings. I hear the thud of his fist against Kent's face, and watch his head snap to the side with the impact.
Shit. This keeps getting worse.
All three of my teammates go in for the kill, taking turns holding Marcus down while they punch and hit him. He’s crumpled on the floor before I can shake myself out of my stupor, pushing myself in front of Marcus and shouting for my friends to back off.
