Page 104 of Sweat

It’s a trap. One I won’t fall into easily.

“We just train together.”

“You sure?” he asks.

“My feelings for Rowan have nothing to do with however he feels about me. I’m the gay puppy dog following him around everywhere, okay? He puts up with me. Not the other way around. It’s all on me.”

“Dude.” Malik interrupts me with a funny smile. “That’s sweet of you to save face for your boy, but finding out Rowan is a repressed gay dude has been on everyone’s Bingo cards since I joined the team. No one’s surprised. A lot of guys are just hyped they called it right. Think Levi won fifty bucks off one of the assistant coaches, so he’s pumped.”

Bitterly, I turn away from Malik and scowl at the back of the seat in front of me. “Well, I’m glad everyone’s having such a great time because of us.”

Malik sighs in that way people do when they’re getting comfortable. Makes me think he’s planning on sticking by me until we get back to Sac Town. “You think Cap is pissed at you?”

“I dunno,” I mutter, because I truly don’t know. He said he’s not. He said we’re good, but then he left my orbit before I could help him through whatever he’s feeling. When I’m not with him, his reality is out of my control. I’m helpless.

“How bad will it be if he’s pissed?”

“Monumentally.” I look down at my lap—at my hand that I wish was holding Rowan’s right now. “He’s more fragile than he let’s on, you know? He’s been through some shit, and I’vebeen trying not to push him too far too fast. I don’t want him to shut down because of something stupid I did without thinking.”

“You serious about him?”

I chuckle mirthlessly. “As serious as anything in my life."

“Well, if he’s serious about you, he’ll get over it. He’ll man up, reach out, and everything’ll be chill. If the worst thing a girl ever did to me was kiss me at a match, it’d be the best relationship I ever had.”

I try to force a smile, but I can’t. Not now. I’ll text Rowan when I’m home and hope for the best, because that’s all I can do now.

It’s Monday afternoon, in the thick of practice, and I’m keeled over clutching my stomach as the turkey and cheese sub I had for lunch threatens to barrel back up my throat. Coach’s drills aren’t what’s making me nauseous, though. It’s that not only has Rowan not answered a single one of my texts or calls since the Davis match, but he didn’t show up for practice either.

It’s a bad sign.

A very bad sign.

If he’s not pissed, then he’s spiraling. Probably feels how I feel right now. Like the world is tumbling off its axis and any second now we’ll fly off into a limitless abyss.

The guys are still teasing me, which doesn’t help matters, but I’m brushing off as much as I can. After practice, I nearly lose it the way Rowan did in Davis when Levi asks, “Yo, Tyson. When you and Rowan have sleepovers, who takes the top bunk and who takes the bottom bunk?”

Before I can react, Coach is hollering my name through the locker room, and he doesn’t sound happy. I follow him to his office where he sits behind his desk, then I pull up a chair and prepare myself to be reprimanded for something. Anything. For that embarrassing display at the Davis match, for nearly puking during drills, or for existing at all.

“Where’s Rowan?” he asks me point blank, like I’m hiding him in my back pocket.

“I don’t know.” My voice comes out hoarse, and I realize this is the first time I’ve spoken all day. “Maybe he…needed a sick day.”

Coach blinks his hard stare at me long enough for me to fidget. “Rowan doesn’t take sick days. I’ve had that kid come to practice with a hundred-and-two temperature. Last spring, he rolled in here with a shiner as big as my fist and his eye half swollen shut. So where is he?”

The idea Rowan would be better off right now if I’d punched him again rather than kiss him makes me feel like crying.

“C’mon, Tommy. Either he’s in jail or laid up in a hospital bed incapacitated, because those are the only reasons I can think of why he’d skip practice without so much as a text. Which is it?”

I shake my head, because there’s no way Rowan’s in jail. He may act like a little pit bull sometimes, but he’s not actually a fighter, and he wouldn’t put his future in jeopardy by doing something illegal. The only reason I can think of why Rowan might be hospitalized is one I can’t bear to consider. He wouldn’t have harmed himself because of me, would he?

“I don’t know where he is,” I say.

“Wrong answer.”

“I’ll find him.” I stand up so abruptly, the chair tips over behind me, and I scramble to set it right.

“You better,” Coach snarls, “because if he’s not here tomorrow, he’s benched for the quarterfinals, and you can tell him that when you find him. Tell him I’m not bluffing!”

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