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week, and even now, Chris didn"t know that they hadn"t completely

gone. The press had been missing vast acreage of Xander Karcek for

years.

Xander had one gift he could still give, one thing that he could

make theirs. He was tempted (soverytempted) to just give in, to spill

everything to his best friend, his lover, the other half of him.

But he couldn"t. Because if he told Chris what he had planned, then

this game, this plan, wouldn"t be for him. It would be for Chris, for

Chris"s approval, and that wasn"t it at all. This is what Xander wanted,

and it"s what he wanted for the both of them.

This is what he had to do alone.

Getting Chris to the game took some doing—a private ambulance,

a special chair, and, of course, the much-yearned-for fiberglass casts. But

get him there they did, with straight-male-nurse-Peter there in

attendance, and Audrey there by his side, and even Penny standing next

to him. Mandy had appointed herself Chris"s special dancer. Any time

she wasn"t on the floor, doing the dancing thing (which was, Xander had

to admit, pretty spectacular, on an athletic level anyway) she was making

sure Chris and his retinue had drinks or a T-shirt (special ones had been

made for each series) or even just a friendly presence there in the

pregame, and, Xander assumed, the rest of the game.

He took a look at them from the tunnel, looked at Chris, enjoying

the attention from the press, from the fans, from the dancers—hell, even

from Mandy and Audrey, who did nothing but fawn all over him all day,

anyway.

The Locker Room 217

God, he was enjoying himself. Xander watched him for a moment,

under the lights, smiling as though pain were the same old tired lapdog

that fear had become.

It wasn"t his imagination, he thought, swallowing hard past the

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