Page 19 of Make the Play
“My baby brother. Well, twenty-two last month, so he’d probably kick my ass for calling him a baby, which naturally means I gotta do it as often as possible.” A solid laugh rumbles out of Jason’s chest but it’s fleeting. “He uh, had a pretty nasty car accident last year. Needed a lot of physical therapy and doctor’s appointments. Me and the twins?—”
“What twins?”
“My older brothers,” Jason offers, seemingly unbothered by being interrupted yet again.
“How many do you have?” Emerson asks. He might’ve been raised with his cousin for half his life but he certainly never felt like Emerson’s sibling. At least not one he wanted. He wonders if Jason is close to his siblings. From the way he talks, it seems like he must be, but then everyone probably likes Jason. Emerson doesn’t have that kind of amiable personality, unfortunately.
“Three, well four, if you count Theo but that’s kind of a grey area since he’s marrying Alec.”
“Your brother is marrying your brother?”
There’s an awkward moment of silence during which Emerson worries that his tendency to interrupt people when he has a question, or his brusk mode of asking those questions, might have rubbed Jason the wrong way. Thankfully the moment passes when Jason’s booming laughter fills the cab of the truck while he pulls into a parking spot then shuts off the engine.
“Holy fuck, no,” Jason snorts. “But also, yes I guess, but also no.”
“I’m so confused,” Emerson mumbles, settling on one of the squishy stress balls. He wraps his fingers around it, focusing on the give of silicone beneath his fingers and the resistance each time he squeezes. It relaxes some of his tension, affording him something else to focus on while Jason tries to stop laughing.
“You know what, how about I explain over lunch?”
“Lunch,” Emerson repeats.
“Sure. The whole twins slash Theo slash Alec story. It’s a great one. Lots of drama and pining and intrigue. Hell, it could be a book.”
“I—I like books,” Emerson says, unsure what to make of the flutter in his chest when Jason directs his smile at Emerson.
“Good, then we’ll have lunch together. Where do you usually eat anyway? I haven’t seen you around the teacher’s lounge or the cafeteria.”
“Were you looking for me?” Emerson gapes.
“Well sure,” Jason answers easily. “We hit it off so well that first day.”
All Emerson can do is blink. They hit it off? That’s certainly news to him. He’d liked Jason well enough, in the way you like a complete stranger seeing you at your worst when you don’t really like anyone. He supposes he likes him more this morning than he did before. Probably not something he should voice out loud, though.
“Anyway,” Jason continues, saving Emerson from having to figure out how to continue the conversation. “I usually have an open door lunch in my office for the kids on Fridays but the LGBTQIA+ club and the football team, which are the kids who usually come by, are busy. There’s some kind of last minute meeting. I saw the notification in my group chat with Stevie who heads the club. Have you met Stevie? He’s great; he teaches sophomore algebra. Anyway, my assistant coach is running some plays by my guys after lunch since we’ve got our first game tonight which means my office is all free.”
Emerson sits up straighter. The head football coach and PE teacher at Santa Leon high hosts some of the LGBTQIA+ club in his office with the football players? Emerson has never heard of anything like it. At his old school there hadn’t even been any kind of queer club, and the kids who were openly queer, like Emerson, were absolutely never allowed to associate with the jocks.
“That is, if you’d like to join me. We could have lunch in the cafeteria if you’d rather but—” Jason stops, his lips curling up at the corners. “I’ll take it that’s a no.”
“Was my face answering before my mouth again?” Emerson asks with a sigh. No one was ever able to train him out of that. Turns out, he can’t force the socially acceptable expressions onto his face when he is supposed to, or keep the unacceptable ones off his face either. His entire personality is like one of those giant orange traffic cones, no one can look away from but everyone avoids.
“It was,” Jason laughs. “To be fair, the cafeteria is pretty fucking loud. I think I’ve got some Loops in the center console, which Andrew left, but you’re welcome to borrow them if you want. Honestly it’s not my favorite place to eat though. I usually make an appearance once a week because the kids like it. And my freshman players especially need the morale boost, but once the semester goes on, I’m usually free to eat in the teacher’s lounge or in my office in peace.”
“Except Fridays,” Emerson notes.
“Except Fridays,” Jason agrees.
“Why?” Emerson questions.
“Meet me in my office for lunch and I’ll tell you,” Jason says as if trying to entice him. As if he wants Emerson to be there. It makes absolutely no sense. Jason King makes no sense.
Normally, Emerson hates things that make no sense, but something about Jason feels less irrationally annoying and more like a puzzle he eagerly wants to piece together.
“I could do lunch,” Emerson says.
“Great, I’ll see you?—”
“Coach,” someone shouts, hitting the front of Jason’s car with a football. Emerson jumps a foot, but Jason just laughs, high tailing it out of his truck and grabbing the ball, throwing it all the way across the quad and back to the group of players in the grassy area. One of them, the blond kid who’d interrupted them that first time, makes a perfect catch leading to a series of catcalls and hoots as the players cheer—whether for Jason or their own, Emerson has no idea. But he suddenly feels far less like he belongs here than he did when it was just him and Jason hidden away in the cab of his truck.
