Page 75 of Built To Perform

Luke smiled. “It wasn’t like we were regulars. A friend of ours had a birthday, and we foolishly let him pick where to celebrate.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “If it helps, Anthony was hardly comfortable, even before he saw you. And it’s not like we’ll be going back. Given, well, everything.”

“Everything,” I echoed, softly. Sometimes the reality of what’d happened there, in that back room - and what’d almost happened - could still knock the wind from me.

“Sorry.” Luke touched my arm, just for a moment. His hand gentle like his tone. “I don’t imagine you want to think about it.”

I shrugged, the gesture feeling tight. “It wasn’t one of my top ten decisions,” I conceded. “And there are definitely times I wish I could just forget it all. But our team medic is a mandated reporter at school, and since Adam took photos of those guys...”

It’d been Jefferson who’d convinced me; Jefferson who’d insisted that worrying about potentially getting him in trouble would also mean letting the people who’d manhandled me get away with it. Maybe leave someone else to fall prey to the same messed-up situation I’d been in, only without a big bro to rescue them. I still wasn’t exactly sure what came next - whether the medic’s description, and the injury report, and the pictures would be enough - but Coach had promised he’d come with me if I needed to make an official statement.

“He might not show it very well, but Anthony really does care about you all.” Luke scrunched up his face, like this wasn’t the first time he’d had to deliver such an explanation. “He’s just very private. Our friends - like the one who picked that club - think we’re terribly old-fashioned, or maybe just boring. Home-cooked dinners, monogamy, TV nights with my feet in his lap. They think they’re shocking him with their wild stories.”

“But they’re not?”

He flashed me a grin, one which made him look younger.

“They know we met when we were juniors, and started dating. He never got around to telling them he spent his freshman year hooking up with most of his wrestling teammates.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. Coach had hinted at it before, had certainly let me assume that his relationship with his fellow athletes had taken a similar trajectory to mine. Somehow it landed differently, now, having it confirmed.

Luke cleared his throat. “So what, exactly, does your family know?”

I frowned, looking out across the river. “It’s just my mom, and dad, and me, really,” I explained. “And they know I’ve wanted to be on the college team for so long; like it’s my dream, pretty much all I’ve ever talked about. Not that they weren’t supportive.”

I glanced at him, worried Luke might’ve briefly thought badly of my parents. Instead he was smiling.

“I was thinking more along the lines of: what do they know about you and... the guys.”

“Oh,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek. “That.”

He nodded, slowly. “Only if you don’t mind talking about it, of course.”

“They don’t know about, well... y’know.” I shrugged. “I’m not sure how you break that news.”

Luke chuckled. “Mom, Dad, I’m into guys. Oh, and I’m having sex with most of my teammates, too.”

My cheeks were red, I just knew they were. Which was ridiculous, given it wasn’t like Luke didn’t know the truth - or like he hadn’t seen me do far more intimate things.

“Is it bad, not to tell your family about the important things in your life?”

For a while, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. That maybe the question was naive, or upsetting even. Or overstepping, somehow: Luke now thinking that even if his boyfriend had signed up for all this, he’d never asked for any of it.

“I think there are different types of family, and they can coexist or one can replace another,” he said, finally, breaking the stretching silence. The words came out slowly; like he was trying to taste the shape of them before each was set loose. “And just because one might be biological, that doesn’t make it any more valuable than the family you might build with people who feel the same way about those important things that you do.”

“What about your family? Your biological one, I mean.”

It wasn’t a frown. More like a shadow passed across his face; an expression so fleeting, I second-guessed whether I’d even seen it.

“I came out to them just before I went away to college. They didn’t take the news well.”

“Ah.”

I wanted to say more - to be sympathetic, outraged on his behalf - only the icy clench of fear around my ribs stopped my tongue. As though it might be tempting fate, a similar reaction from my own parents, if I dared speak ill of Luke’s, now.

“It wasn’t so unusual a response at that time. I knew that.” He smiled, though it was a fragile, pasted-on thing. “But I was still surprised, even if I thought I was prepared for the worst. I suppose everyone believes, deep down, that their family will be the good one, the supportive one.”

I swallowed, feeling awkward.

“But you had... Coach.”