Chapter Five
Simeon
“How’s my backup doing?” I asked, tossing my brace in the air and catching it again. The doc had said I could take it off, not that it did me any good since I was still banished from practice and the field. “Thrilled to have a chance in my limelight?”
“He’s shitting bricks,” Gavin said. It was their off day from training camp, and he’d taken the time to come visit me in the Hamptons. He looked the same as always, all golden hair and golden eyes and shitty attitude, but that attitude was never directed at me.
“He’s been second string for years, and now he’ll be starting the first six games. The media is already tearing his ass apart, and the season hasn’t started yet.”
I flopped down on the couch next to Gavin and rested my head on his big shoulder. “That’s no fair. The poor bastard didn’t even get a chance to strut his stuff yet.”
“Since when is anything fair?” Gavin threw an arm around my shoulder and pulled me in for a half hug. It was the most affection he gave anyone who wasn’t a blue-eyed piece of ass named Noah Monroe. “Also, he doesn’t help himself by suddenly having a noodle arm.”
Groaning, I buried my face in his T-shirt. “This sucks, dude. This season we were supposed to be on top of the world. Me, you, and Marcus—the two dope-ass musketeers and one surprisingly dope white boy.”
His shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Blame that clown you’re playing camp counselor with.”
“Oh, I do. And he knows I do.”
“Heh.” Gavin pulled his phone out one-handed, and I watched him read a text from Noah. They weren’t exactly mushy, but the soft smile that briefly appeared on Gavin’s face warmed my heart. He ruined it by asking, “That motherfucker showing his ass yet?”
“Not really anymore.”
“Yeah? Shocking. I expected him to make this hell for you, which is why I was pissed at Mel for suggesting you do it.”
“Don’t be pissed. I’m starting to see what they’re trying to do.” The last few days had made it clear what Mel and Casey’s plan had been with our team owners. Force us to teach kids leadership and sportsmanship skills, throw that around the media instead of our ability to teach kids how to learn plays and tackle each other, and absorb some of those skills our damn selves. “Like . . . part of me is pissed, you know? They’re treating us like some little kids needing to learn a lesson, and it’s demeaning, but it’s sort of working. So it’s hard to criticize.”
“It’s working?” Gavin gave me his infamous brow arch. “You’ve been there half a week.”
“Yeah, and we already see some progress. We came up with a bomb routine for the kids, we’re finally getting them out on the field because they’re proving we can trust them out in the world to not act like fools, and we only argue like three times a day.”
Gavin cracked up.
“That’s an improvement,” I said. “Trust me. I was ready to knock that sucker out not even three days ago.”
“And now?”
“Now we’re kinda coming to an understanding.”
“What understanding is that?”
I tilted my head back and looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t really know yet, but it should be interesting.”
Gavin shook his head, disbelieving, and I switched topics to the Barons once again. Not being with them after months of not being with them unless we had a promo gig was like being kept away from my brothers. It was a different situation from Gavin’s the previous fall, because I could technically go see them when they had downtime, but I didn’t. All things considered, the cuts of exclusion and depression would be sharper if I was that close and . . . it wasn’t a good use of my time.
I was still working out to stay in shape for my return to the field in October, but the camp was kicking my ass. Teaching kids was no joke. Especially when I had a traffic-heavy commute back and forth by car or a three-hour journey via public transportation. If there was an easier way to do it, I hadn’t found it yet.
Gavin left around seven to make his own journey back to New Jersey since the team lived at the facility during conditioning, and I tried to crash early since I had to get up at five. It wasn’t the getting up that got me, since we also woke at the crack of dawn at training camp; it was the traveling while barely awake and cranky as hell. And normally I was a morning person. How did the average working sucker manage this crap for their entire lives?
Sighing the sigh of a prima donna, I flopped back on my bed. It was dark in my room, with music playing quietly, but I was nowhere close to tired. In fact, I was amped up and horny. Sex was an outlet for me in more ways than one, and I was antsy from not getting my fix. Finding someone to hook up with wasn’t the problem. That was the easy part. But ever since my nightclub mishap the previous year, I’d been a lot more . . . reluctant to pick up any old random. I was out as a gay man now, but that didn’t mean I wanted my personal life scrutinized or more sex tapes secretly recorded and sent to the media.
“Fuck life,” I muttered, shifting on the bed.
After a few minutes of rolling around and punching pillows, I grabbed my phone and navigated to Grindr. My thumb hovered over the icon as I gnawed on my lower lip. A text message popped up before I could click on it.
Adrián.
Adrián: Yo. I’m bringing my Xbox and Madden tomm.
My mouth twitched. The hell was he up to now?
Simeon: You gonna do that while I watch these kids work in groups to make their own plays??
Adrián: No, stupid ass. I figured it’d be easier for them to make plays if they spend a while taking turns using the playbooks and formations in Madden’s practice mode. Dig?
Simeon: Whoa, are you like . . . smart or something?
Adrián: Fucker, you gots no clue how many intelligences are in my brain.
Simeon: lmfao I take it back already
Adrián: [crying laughing emoji] Aiight, bet. Glad I have his majesty Golden QB’s permission. I might swing by GameStop before they close and pick up a few more games and systems so they can work in groups of three.
Simeon: I’ll chip in
Adrián: Keep your dollars, fool. I’m not strapped.
Simeon: Still tho
Adrián: Shut up. Save the dough for a date. Your tense ass needs some loosening up.
What the hell? How had this kid tuned in to me needing to get off? Like yesterday.
Simeon: How you know it’s my ass that gets loose?
Adrián: LOL bro. You got a face gangbang in a club bathroom . . . while sober. No offense but that is the sign of someone who likes to get plowed. JS
Simeon: Heh.
Adrián: “Heh”? That’s all you got? I guess you gave up on our game of chicken. I expected oversharing details about your gay sex life.
Simeon: I started to go there but TBH nothing makes me call uncle and get nervous faster than the idea of someone having pics of me or in this case screen caps to make me look bad in the media.
There was such an extended silence that I expected him to not reply.
Adrián: Wow, son. I know I said a lot of shit like a dumbass, but I’m not trying to entrap your ass.
Simeon: I didn’t say you were. You could say I have trust issues [[SMILEY FACE]] Which is why I ain’t been laid.
Adrián: Oh. Gotcha . . .
Simeon: Yuppppp.
Adrián: Well . . . in that case, I guess we can finish that convo in person. ;)
Simeon: WTF. Do you WANT me to win? Lmao you have no idea the details I can unload on you, man. I will go in.
Adrián: Try me! You can’t make me uncomfortable, dude. Do your worst.
Simeon: We’ll see.
With a shake of my head, I plugged my phone into its charger and looked at the ceiling again. This time, instead of obsessing over my sexual frustration, I planned on what I’d say to make Adrián Bravo lose his cool.
Adrián
Delilah was a born quarterback.
I’d been doing my best to not assign them permanent positions in my head, especially since they all thought being the quarterback was the coolest thing ever (insert eye roll), but it was hard. The girl was a natural.
Every time we rotated the kids, the combination of her speed, reflexes, and killer arm had both me and Simeon flipping out. It was hard not to whoop with excitement and show a measure of favoritism, because damn. Between her and Jory, whose lean body and long legs made him a prime running back, they made a killer team.
“What grade are these kids in?”
“I dunno.” Simeon squinted down the field with his hands on his hips. He was concentrating hard, and all the kids were doing at the moment was practicing passing. I could tell Delilah was bored out of her mind, but she was a good sport about it. “They’re like twelve and thirteen, right?”
“Yup.”
“I dunno.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, what grade were you in when you were twelve? I can’t remember worth a damn. Starting to think Yaritza is right about those concussions.”
Simeon scratched at his brace absently, gaze tracking our pupils. That kind of focus was enviable, since I’d never possessed it. Whether it was in school or in social situations, I darted all over the place, doing before thinking and constantly getting in hot water as a result. The only time I could cancel out all the white noise and distractions, and make a decision that would benefit everyone around me, was on the field.
“Sorry,” he said absently. “Brayden isn’t trying much today. Gotta talk to that kid. But anyway, I got no clue. I was homeschooled for a while as a kid and it threw me off. If you ever have a kid and you even think about keeping their asses home, keep in mind some stuff doesn’t always line up when you go back to public school.”
“I never want kids so no worries on that end. But why were you homeschooled?”
“At first because my mom was always working and she wanted to know I was getting taught the way she wanted me to be taught.”
I shook my head in confusion. “This is not anything resembling the story I’d heard about you.”
Simeon snorted. “What do you think you know about me, man? I know we didn’t talk much about family when I was in the Predators.”
“The media makes it out like you had a similar upbringing to Brawley. Bounced between homes, struggled, et cetera.”
“Yeah, and that’s bullshit. My mom put herself through school and worked two jobs, but we weren’t miserable. My dad died when I was a toddler, but my family on both sides has roots generations deep in New Orleans, so I had plenty of family to help out.” Simeon took out his phone as he spoke, and I was just nosy enough to see him checking a text from his mother. He was giving me actual cavities. “My aunties watched me when my mom was at school or work, and I never had any complaints. There was a lot of love in my family.”
“So why the fuck’s the media spin it like you were in foster care? I’ve never even heard of you having a parent!”
“Makes a better story if the pretty black boy with the freckles and reddish hair had some hard-knock life instead of growing up surrounded by hardworking black women.” He slid his phone away. “Besides, my actual story isn’t as interesting. My daddy was a half-white mechanic and part-time fisherman who grew up in Cajun country. Died of cancer when I was so young I barely remember him.”
On the field, Delilah cocked her arm back and let the ball fly in an arc so gorgeous I couldn’t contain a whoop. “That’s right, Pacheco! Yeah!”
The kids all cheered for her, and I grinned broadly. From the corner of my eye, I could see Simeon watching. I pretended not to notice.
“What’s Cajun country?”
“Arcadia,” Simeon said, to make it even more obscure. “You know! The part of Louisiana where all the Cajuns live!”
“The only Cajun I ever knew was on X-Men.” At his horrified expression, I cackled. “Well, and you.”
“Half,” he said. “Man, you don’t know shit. Uncultured heathen growing up thinking about nothing but baseball and football.”
“Ball is life.”
“Damn right.”
We both opted out of making dick or ball jokes and went back to watching the kids, but my mind zoomed in that direction. I felt like an asshole for basically giving him ammo to win a round of our unnamed challenge to make each other uncomfortable. If he wasn’t inventive enough to give me the gory details about riding poles, I wasn’t supposed to go around suggesting it. Even though I’d immediately started picturing it. Which was . . . different. And interesting. And different.
“Nice catch, Brayden!” Simeon shouted, his voice booming across the field. “You’re on fire today!”
“You just said he wasn’t trying.”
“I know, but he doesn’t have to know that. I hate when coaches try to encourage a kid by tearing him down.”
That I had to agree with. Shitty coaching staff had plagued me since high school and still did, now that I was with the Predators. The defensive coach was a monster when things weren’t going his way. Shouted and cursed like he wanted to beat the shit out of us. A few times, his tantrums had been caught on camera. One clip, of him throwing his headset and destroying his own hat, had gone viral. Made for a funny-ass GIF.
But at the end of the day, it hadn’t fazed me. I was used to it from growing up with a pro baseball player for a father who’d been obsessed with winning. Without a W, I was a zero. Some slogan.
“You’re not a total asshole, Boudreaux.”
Simeon released a startled laugh. “I can’t say the same about you just yet, but I will say that even though my people skills are far superior to yours, you have the planning shit down pat.”
“Oh shit, are you saying we make a good team?” I shaded my eyes and made a big show of peering around for paparazzi. “Maybe we can call this quits since that’s a mission accomplished.”
“You’d still be suspended and sitting on your ass for six games once the season starts.”
“That’s better than overseeing children.”
“Nah, it’s not so bad.” Simeon went back to his serious survey of our tiny prodigies. “I kinda like it. The worst part is the parents.”
“You’re right there, bud.”
Practice went on for another thirty minutes before we gathered all the balls and trooped back to the Center. A couple of parents were already there, the more hovery ones, including Brayden’s father. The dude gave me the heebs, but I was loath to say anything about it since I had no real reason to fend him off. Just a general vibe of creepiness as he hung around longer than was necessary, drawing out conversation with Simeon, before hauling Brayden off like he was a sack of potatoes that wasn’t moving fast enough.
And then there was Nicole’s mother, who insisted on flirting with us both, much to her daughter’s horror.
Yeah, parents weren’t fun.
“We made it,” I said, once they were all gone and the rec room was cleaned up. “And that one week felt like a month.”
“Tell me about it. I’m ready to eat and crash. Fuck partying.”
“Not getting any dick this weekend?”
“You’re pretty obsessed with my sex life.”
“Nah. I just don’t know shit else about you other than the fact that you like dick.”
Simeon slid his hands into his pockets and strolled out of the room while I trailed behind him. “Untrue, dumbass. You know more about me than a lot of the dudes on my team. I never talk about my fam.”
“So why’d you talk about it with me?”
“Because I’m stuck with you, so we may as well talk about something.”
“True.”
We waved at Sheila and stepped out onto the sidewalk, breathing in deep as a warm breeze blew down the block. It was a perfect New York summer afternoon. No humidity, low eighties, breezy, and in this part of Brooklyn the trees gave a lot of shade. Made me want to go score a good spot at the park and lay out, but I was always too paranoid to do it alone. For all I knew, some asshole anti-Predators fan would set my ass on fire.
“I’m about to get some grub. I’m starving.”
Simeon started to answer but his jaw cracked with a yawn, causing his eyes to tear. He raised his arms in a back-cracking stretch. His T-shirt rode up and exposed a long stretch of brown skin a couple shades darker than my own and a ripped stomach. I knew he was shredded just on account of him being an athlete, but seeing all that exposed skin was still disconcerting. Like he was doing an unintentional striptease.
Fuck, I needed to stop.
“I should cab it back to Westhampton, but sitting in a car while stuck in traffic makes me fucking nuts,” he said, still yawning. “I should have rented a spot over here.”
“Shoulda coulda,” I said unhelpfully. “Wanna grab some food before your journey? I could fuck me up some pancakes right about now.”
“Oh shit, that sounds good. With maple syrup and bacon and potatoes. Mmmmm.”
Simeon rubbed his stomach, and I watched, wondering if he’d flash some skin again. God, I was messed up in the head.
“There’s a diner a few blocks away. Overrun by hipsters, but it’s good shit.”
Part of me half expected him to remember I was the douche bag who’d mocked him on national television before picking a fight and getting us both put on leave for half the season, but he didn’t. He just shot me one of his winning Boudreaux smiles.
“Let’s do it.”