Page 127 of The Locker Room

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phone away from his ear, waiting for the explosion. Leo didn"t

disappoint.

“Six months!Six months, Xander, do you know that? You are six

months from proving to the fucking world that who you fuck doesn"t

have afucking thing to do withgetting the job done! Six months! You

wanted to come out after you took the goddamned championship? After

you became the bloody fucking hero of the entire sports world—by all

means! I"d get on my knees and blow you myself, and if you loved me,

you"d let me do it while Chris was giving it to me from behind! But no!

No! Goddamn you, couldn"t you keep it in your pants for that kid for six

goddamned months?!!”

“It wasn"t like that,” Xander said quietly, because Leo was taking a

break from screaming at him and (it sounded like) waiting for an answer.

“Then tell me,” Leo sighed. He still sounded irritated, but that

initial burst of outrage had faded, and Xander tried to put it into words.

“We….” He sighed. “We stopped. You know. Third home game of

the month. I just couldn"t do it anymore. Neither could he. It was….” Oh

God. Now that he"d put his foot down, it hurt to admit that they had ever

lived like that in the first place. “It was so wrong,” he said at last, and

now Leo sighed loud enough for it to crackle over the phone.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. He"d known. He"d heard the buzz

that the happiness twins had finally ended their public celibacy. He"d

asked them what was up, and Xander could never decide if the

expression on his face had been incredible pride or incredible

disappointment. Maybe it had been both. “Yeah. I knew it when you

started, but… God. Compared to the other shit people do in this

business? Jesus. What made up your mind, by the way?”

Xander sighed. “I don"t want to talk about it,” he said, meaning it.

“The good news is, it never happened—no matter what she puts out on

the internet.” He didn"t think she would. In fact, he was pretty sure that

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