Page 35 of The Locker Room

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teeth, terribly conscious of the one moral imperative that they had set

themselves:

They. Must. Not. Touch.

They would walk to or from school, chatting about teachers and

Coach, or the injustice (or their own supremacy) of the last game, and

sometimes Xander wondered how the world couldn"t know that they

should be holding hands, because their muscles, skin, and bone were

practically screaming the truth:

They. Must. Not. Touch.

On the court, it was different. On the court they could high five,

low five, pat each other"s bottoms, bump each other"s hips, and that was

okay. One giddy night when they were juniors, as their team took State,

and the crowd surged onto the floor, Xander reached over Christian"s

shoulders and engulfed him in a terrific bear hug. Only Xander and Chris

knew that Xander had nuzzled through that thick gold hair and kissed the

shell of Christian"s ear through the sweat of the game. And that was

okay, no one noticed that.

On the court, they could touch.

That night, the rest of the team managed to start their showers first.

By the time the crowd let Xander and Chris into the locker room,

everyone else was on their way out, and Coach, needed at a press

conference (which they could tell pleased him no end), locked the doors

and told them just to make sure everything was shut before they left.

The Locker Room

31

They nodded and stripped off, both of them stepping into the spray

gratefully, because they had both soaked through their jerseys during the

game.

Xander wasn"t exactly sure when it occurred to him that he and

Christian were alone and naked and clean. He"d just finished soaping his

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