Page 187 of The Locker Room

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“Yeah,” Chris sighed, lost in his own thoughts for a moment.

“Nothing seems to hurt on court, does it?”

And like that, their morning conversation was broken, and they

were left with the raw fact that they wanted each other, and after twelve

years of seeing each other daily, they had not touched in over two weeks.

“I can cancel my charity stuff next week…,” Xander started

reluctantly—his chosen charity was the local foster homes, and he hated

to disappoint the kids.

“And risk losing your contract? I don"t think so. Besides….” Chris

looked at him, an unmistakable tenderness in his eyes, even from the

computer screen. “Xander, you… you need to do that. I can tell. It feeds

something inside you.”

“So do you,” Xander muttered, and Chris made a strangled sound.

“Look… we"ve got a week until the All-Star break, okay? I"ll book

us adjoining rooms. You fly in, we do that banquet thing at the

beginning, and… and every second we"re not out, doing the games and

shit, we"ll be together. I swear, okay?”

Xander nodded and scrubbed his face. His nightmare that morning

had been a doozy, and the pain in his foot had wormed its way into it,

making him sure that vampire zombies were eating his toe. Sure, it

sounded hilarious when the light was on and he was talking to Chris, but

when he was suffocated by the weight of sleep and his own fears? There

was nothing funny about it.

“I can function without you,” Xander said by way of reassurance.

“I can. I… I just don"t…. Chris, you know how I used to think the lake

was pretty in the winter? I liked all that bleakness, and the stark branches

of the trees and the pewter gray color of the water… remember that?”

Chris nodded. “Yeah.” Xander wasn"t trying to write poetry—but

that view from their window when they woke up, from their front room

in the evening—Xander had stared out that window for hours.

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