Page 35 of The Locker Room
teeth, terribly conscious of the one moral imperative that they had set
themselves:
They. Must. Not. Touch.
They would walk to or from school, chatting about teachers and
Coach, or the injustice (or their own supremacy) of the last game, and
sometimes Xander wondered how the world couldn"t know that they
should be holding hands, because their muscles, skin, and bone were
practically screaming the truth:
They. Must. Not. Touch.
On the court, it was different. On the court they could high five,
low five, pat each other"s bottoms, bump each other"s hips, and that was
okay. One giddy night when they were juniors, as their team took State,
and the crowd surged onto the floor, Xander reached over Christian"s
shoulders and engulfed him in a terrific bear hug. Only Xander and Chris
knew that Xander had nuzzled through that thick gold hair and kissed the
shell of Christian"s ear through the sweat of the game. And that was
okay, no one noticed that.
On the court, they could touch.
That night, the rest of the team managed to start their showers first.
By the time the crowd let Xander and Chris into the locker room,
everyone else was on their way out, and Coach, needed at a press
conference (which they could tell pleased him no end), locked the doors
and told them just to make sure everything was shut before they left.
The Locker Room
31
They nodded and stripped off, both of them stepping into the spray
gratefully, because they had both soaked through their jerseys during the
game.
Xander wasn"t exactly sure when it occurred to him that he and
Christian were alone and naked and clean. He"d just finished soaping his
