Page 257 of The Locker Room
surprised as Xander and Chris (and Mandy and Audrey and Pete and a
couple of other girls) charged in, but Xander wasn"t looking at them.
He leaned back against the shut door with the battalion of press on
the other side of it, and giggled like a teenager, while Chris giggled back.
“Jesus, you fucking dorkfish! What in the fuck did you just do?”
Xander sobered abruptly. “I played this game for myself. It"s all
you"ve ever wanted me to do, and I did. And playing for me means you.
It means you, and me, and the world can take a flying fuck. It means
whatever we do for the rest of our lives, we do it forever, and we do it
openly, and—” Xander took a deep breath and wiped his mouth with a
hand that was shaking and cold.
“I mean, Jesus, Chris. It can"t possibly be any harder than hiding
was. Or being apart. Or having the world think we"re just overgrown frat
boys. Right?”
Oh please, God, let it be all right. Xander had known that it was a
possibility. He"d known this was the flipside of doing this for himself—
that maybe coming out, being together in the sunlight, wasn"t what Chris
really wanted.
Chris looked at him, a bittersweet smile on his face, and pressed
the heels of his hands against his eyes. “C"mere, Xan,” he said, his voice
shaking, and Xan knelt in front of his chair. Chris grabbed both his hands
and said, “Closer, genius. I really want to kiss you, and I can"t move
yet.”
The Locker Room 223
They tasted of joy, and tears, and a little bit of fear and a lot of
hope. They heard Mandy and the other dancers all saying
“Awwwwww…,” and they heard some of the guys in the locker room
going, “Oh, for Christ"s sake! Don"t you have a house or something?”
but that was all secondary to the roar of their own hearts in their ears.
224 Amy Lane
