Page 24 of Sweat

That magnetic field tugs on my eyes again, lifting my chin to find Rowan staring back at me, expression unreadable. It quickens my breath.

His dark eyes flit down my body. A black brow quirks, and his mouth screws into a funny smirk.

I look down, and the enchantment shatters. I jolt upward, bring my legs into a pretzel and lay my forearms over my lapbefore anyone notices I’m hard as a rock. Why did I have to wear boxers and basketball shorts today?

A second later, the instructor brings everyone out ofsavasana.As they all stand up and roll up their mats, I’m stunned rigid, forcing my mind onto anything that might quell my raging boner. My life is a pretty good start. Erica’s chemo side effects and how she’s getting sicker every day. Mav having to watch his mother deteriorate. Ma constantly on edge and expecting me to pick up all the slack.

“Here.”

Rowan’s voice takes me out of my melancholic detour, and I look up. He’s standing beside me, holding a sweatshirt down to me.

“Thanks.” I ball it up and press it onto my lap, which covers me up enough that I can stand. My reflection in the wall-to-wall mirror does wonders softening me up.

Rowan rolls up my mat for me. Takes both to the door across the room. A closet, I guess. I put my shoes on, grab my backpack and follow Rowan out of Room B. It opens up to the second floor of the gym. To the left is the weight training wing, and to the right is the indoor track.

“Things didn’t go well with Eve, then?” Rowan asks, heading for the stairs.

“What?” I follow alongside him, noticing he hardly broke a sweat. He must do yoga often. Could be why his body is so lithe and taut. “Oh. We were going to get together last night, but with finals this week, it didn’t work out. We put a pin in it.”

It’s not a total lie. I never planned on messaging Eve, but I got paranoid Rowan would somehow find out I fibbed about messaging her, so I messaged her to keep my story straight. I was the one who blamed finals for not being able to gettogether last night. We did put a pin in it, but it’s a pin I hope to keep firmly inserted.

Rowan smirks. “Ah, so you’re still aching.”

I chuckle, because at least Rowan seems to buy my lame ass excuses. “It is what it is. My dick still thinks I’m a teenager, I guess. That instructor in there was pretty hot too.”

Is she hot, though? I don’t even know, but she looked like the sort of woman that a guy like me would find hot, if I weren’t so fucking gay. She’s the sort of woman Lese would act huffy over and half-jokingly tell me not to talk to. Lese’s jealousy was always a good indicator of whether I was supposed to find a woman hot or not.

Rowan stops on the landing between the first a second floor and nods back up to the second. “You want me to grab her number for you? Maybe you could do a three-way with her and Eve. That should take care of the problem, right?”

Halfway through laughing my ass off, I realize Rowan looks as serious as I’ve ever seen him. My laughter turns to an awkward chuckle, then a meek sigh. “Yeah, maybe. You’ve, uh, done a three-way before?”

Rowan doesn’t answer. Just folds his lips and carries on down the stairway. “Your finals going okay?”

“So far, I think. I had a Statistics exam this morning. Just hoping for the best on that one.”

“You’re not a math guy?”

“No,” I snort. “I’m, uh… I don’t really know what kind of guy I am.”

Rowan smiles like I’m a tad bit mad. “You’re an athlete. Aren’t you?”

“Ask me again next week.”

“You’re going to make the team, Tommy.”

I sigh, trying not to swoon. The way my name sounds on Rowan’s tongue gives a whole new connotation to the syllables. Still, nothing beatsthat feel good, baby boy?

Why did he say that?

I’ve gone back and forth on it. The conspiratorial side of me wonders if Rowan wanted to rile me up, like trying to get me on the team is just a backdrop for a long-play to prove once and for all I’m a homo. What better proof than making sure I’m hard every time Rowan enters a room? Rowan wouldn’t do that, though. He called me a faggot once, but that was a long time ago. I said some dumb shit when I was a kid too.

“You need to study tonight?”

I hand him back his sweatshirt when we get to the main doors. “You got an alternative?”

That smirk comes back to Rowan’s face, the sort that says he’s got an idea, and it just might make me puke my guts out.

“Drink this.” Rowan hands me a plastic flask out of his gym bag like it’s the most casual thing in the world to get toasted in the middle of Douglas Field with a women’s rugby practice going on behind us.

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