Page 132 of The Locker Room
could see the entire span of the Sierras between them, and the Rockies as
well.
Chris started to talk rapidly, maybe to calm him down, or maybe to
get it all out, Xander wasn"t sure. “You come with me to drop me off.
Leo said he was going to call my folks, and then maybe you can all come
back here, you know? So you don"t have to be alone.”
“And you?” Xander asked, thinking about Chris alone in a hotel
room. His stomach started to knot and roil, and he rubbed it uneasily.
“You"re going to be alone… I mean, we"ve done it before, Chris, but…
this is until the end of the season. I mean… we"ll have breaks….”
Yeah. They"d have breaks.
“He can"t control what we do during the breaks, right? We"ve been
quiet, there"s no reason for the press to start hounding us now, right? I
mean….” Xander looked around frantically, at the little corner of the
house where their heart seemed to live.
“Chris, this is yourhome.How can they make you leave your
home? Why didn"t they make me leave… why does it have to be you! I
can think of you here, and it"s okay, right? It"s okay, because your family
is here, and they"ll take care of you, but who"s going to take care of you
in Denver? Christ, you remember, we drove across the Rocky Mountains
that one summer—those people don"t believe in guard rails, Chris—how
are they going to take care of you—”
“Shh… sh… sh….”
Suddenly Chris was there, in his arms, rubbing his back, and
Xander wrapped his arms around him, making him small, making him fit
into Xander"s outsized body, and Chris kept shushing him. It was absurd,
Xander thought, feeling like he was in that box and the box had been
114 Amy Lane
dropped off a cliff. They were grown men, being transferred was part of
the business. But as Chris disentangled himself and started to explain
