Page 72 of Sweat

After taking a few moments to pretend to consider it, I shake my head. “I got too much going on. I’m on the soccer team now, working on getting some playing time this season.”

“Really?” Her countenance brightens up. For all her faults, Lese was like Rowan in that she never wanted me to quit soccer. Then again, that might be because she clearly has a thing for soccer players. “You know that Rowan is the team captain, right?”

“No shit. He’s been training me all summer. Helped me get on the team.”

“You’re buddy-buddy with Rowan Hughes now?” She sounds shocked. Offended even.

“I don’t got beef with him. You’re the one who betrayed me.” When it looks like she’s about to sob in the middle of this busy thoroughfare, I quickly say, “But it’s fine. Like I said, I’m seeing someone new, and you’re free to do whatever you want with whoever you want. Everyone wins.”

“If this is winning, I’d rather lose.” She mopes in a way that I’m trained to want to fix. Even now, I hate to see Lese so upset, especially when it’s not all on her. She may have been the cheat, but I was lying to her just as much. I used her to help bury myself in a lie, and that wasn’t fair to either of us.

Part of me considers telling Lese the truth, but at the crux of it, I can’t trust her. Never could. If she blabs to anyone associated with the team, they could all find out, and if the team finds out I’m gay, they’ll be a small step away from realizing Rowan and I do more than just train together. It’s one thing if I inadvertently out myself. It’s another to inadvertently out Rowan. I’m not sure he’d come back from that.

“You’ll be fine,” I tell Lese, a little too curt, but it is what it is.

Thankfully, she doesn’t keep following me. If she did, she’d see I’m on my way to meet Rowan at the gym for a pre-practice yoga class.

On my way through campus, I wind up smack in the middle of a club fair pitched between the Student Union and the library. I thought about joining a couple campus clubs back when I was a freshman. Something to help ease the heartbreak of quitting soccer, but my head wasn’t in it. Aside from Lese and the rare meetup with my Johnson friends, I didn’t have it in me to socialize for a long time after Erica’s diagnosis. Still don’t feel like a social butterfly, but there is one booth which catches my eye, if only due to its flamboyancy.

It used to be easy to ignore gay pride shit. Told myself it didn’t apply to me since my gayness only existed in fantasies and barely realized crushes I learned not to act on. I figured every guy wondered what it would be like to have sex with a man, and that it was only gay if I wanted to actually go through with it. Now, I think about having sex with men almost every second of the day. One man, really, and he’s about as manly a guy as I’ve ever fantasized about.

It isn’t just the sex I’m obsessed with, either. It’s also the soft stuff I’ve somehow coaxed out of Rowan over the last couple months. His kisses, his gentle touches, his hand when it holds mine back, and his voice when it goes breathy, telling me I’m beautiful and perfect until I half-believe it. Even more than I want to fuck Rowan, I want to press my face in the crook of his neck and inhale him.

“Would you like a pin?” a small, skinny girl in a denim vest asks when I unintentionally stop too close to the Queer Alliance booth. She rattles a shallow basket between us that’s full of small pins. Each one titles a different pronoun set, fromshe,tohe,tothey,and all of theabove.

My reflex is to chuckle awkwardly and joke, “I think it’s pretty obvious I’m a dude.”

The girl blinks slowly, half-smiling despite how clearly unamused she is. “I didn’t ask if you’re a dude. I asked if you want a pin.”

On the spot now, I say sure and pick ahe/himpin out of the basket.

“Not everything is as obvious as it seems,” she tells me, “and not everyone has the benefit of being easily understood by society at first glance.”

As I’m nodding, trying to process, I realize the person in front of me is wearing a pronoun pin on their vest lapel that saysthey/them.So it seems my assumptions and I are part of the problem. I’m just glad I noticed the pin before saying something to them that could be accidentally hurtful.

Nodding to the brightly decorated booth, I ask, “Do you have to, like,come outto join your club, or…can people who aren’t really open about themselves join too?”

Their smile widens, genuine this time. “You don’t have to do anything to join. You just show up when you want and be respectful. Everyone else will respect you back.”

By the time I’m back on the move toward the gym, I’ve signed my name to an email list and have a folded up events calendar shoved in my pocket.

I semi-decide not to tell Rowan I’m thinking about joining a campus LGBTQ club, in case it freaks him out. But in the locker room after yoga, when we’re putting on fresh deodorant and talking about grabbing food before practice, Rowan notices the pin I stuck to the front pouch of my backpack.

“Wait, you’ve been a boy this whole time? I had no idea,” he jokes.

I laugh and swat at him halfheartedly before shutting my locker. The start of the semester has packed the student gym and the locker room, so we have to keep our voices down.

“You know, not everything is as obvious as people think, and not everyone is lucky enough to be easily understood by society.”

“That’s beautiful,” Rowan chuckles, leaning his back against his closed locker. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he asks, “Is it obvious I wanna suck your dick?”

The question stirs the erection I worked so hard to turn limp after another glorious savasana. “If you had asked me that four months ago, I would’ve said no. But, now that I know you, it’s the most obvious thing about you. I’d even say it’s one of your defining characteristics.”

“Little bitch,” he snickers before rubbing his hand on my head, messing up my hair as penance. The blush I put on his face is totally worth it.

I’ve watched Rowan Hughes play more times than I can count, but this is the first time I’ve watched him from the sidelines, wearing a jersey with the same name across the chest. Coach calls Rowan a machine, but he’s more like a dancer to me, moving to the rhythm of the game like it’s embedded in him.

When he digs, he digs hard. When he stays back, he’s like a panther lying in wait. When he’s got a Gator on his ass, he’s a runaway train, and when he’s got a clear shot, he’s an assassin. He makes the opposing defense look like chumps, and he quickly becomes the opposing goalie’s worst nightmare.

---