Page 105 of The Locker Room
Two tears turned to three, to five, to Xander, stripped of his
pretense that it was an ordinary day, holding Chris to his chest in what
had become their marriage bed and howling into his own hard-bitten
palm.
THE first time Christian had gone home with a woman, he"d called
Xander in guise of a cab to come pick him up.
They"d had to stop the car four times for him to throw up on the
way home.
When it had been Xander"s turn, he"d sat stoic in the car,
unspeaking, and then murmured something about taking a shower. Chris
had found him in the freezing shower, forty-five minutes later, huddled
in the corner and scrubbing absently at his arm until the softened skin
had abraded and bled.
It was their one true lie.
The day they"d first seen the house, Chris had told Xander that they
would have to find some way to cover, and Xander had nodded. Uh-huh.
Escort supermodels to separate events. Have Penny"s friends beard them
when they had to attend fundraisers. Find ways to look sheepish when a
pretty girl was mentioned. They"d seen the tape; they"d seen the shy
smiles of the guys caught having a heterosexual relationship that no one
was supposed to know about. They were going to have to do that.
For a year, it had worked.
90
Amy Lane
For a year, they had played under a sweet man who understood
strategy but not motivation, and who had won a whole lot of college
games that way but couldn"t seem to win a pro game. And then the
owners had tried a reorganization, and they"d gotten Coach Strauss
Wallick, and their carefully orchestrated cover had gone to hell.
Wallick was an old school coach in the body of a short, trim, fifty-
