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Hands waving at the edge of the stage yanked me back into the moment.
I shuffled forward. Trying to remember to grin, to flex subtly. The afterglow of the climax fading, replaced by the sensation of dollars being shoved into my singlet and tucked into my sneakers.
It was a little easier to hear them, crouched down at the stage’s lip. Exact words still hard to make out, but laughter clearer. Remembering how Harvey had said there were a couple of groups in tonight, and suddenly curious as to just who came to celebrate in a gay strip club.
The lights were still glaring, but I could dip my head, try to peer through the gaps in the floods of color. Make out the tables and the distant glow of the overpriced bar; pockets of people, all laughing and drinking.
A hand pushed between my legs - not rudely, but confidently - to slide what looked like a folded twenty into the dangling singlet. Just next to where my cock jutted over the sweat-soaked spandex; I felt his wrist brush against my half-hard prick.
A dip in the floodlights, just for a moment. Enough to see the grinning man who’d just tipped me - older and handsome - and I was about to smile back, wink even, when I saw the face of the guy just behind his shoulder, pulling on his arm.
Coach Bennett looked like he’d been slapped.
I stumbled back, almost falling on my ass, horror flooding through me like ice water. Doubting my eyes, what I knew I’d seen, even as the spotlights shifted and left me freshly dazzled. Blinking away the burning spots in my vision, or at least trying to, as the knot in my chest tightened and tightened until I wasn’t sure I’d ever breathe again.
Certain I could feel his eyes on me, the weight of that shock, I fled from the stage.
Chapter Fourteen
Just a glimpse, that was all it had been.
My imagination playing tricks on me.
The lights were in my eyes, after all, and everyone looked the same in the dark.
It couldn’t be him.
It just... couldn’t.
Harvey had grabbed my arm as I tripped over my feet to escape into the wings. My momentum almost spinning us both, as his fingers dug into my bicep.
“Whoa, slow down already. You wanna get paid, don’t you?”
He brandished a wad of bills. For a moment all I could do was goggle.
A grunt of annoyance. “Take it, okay?” He slapped the cash against my bare chest; barely waited for me to grab it before yanking his hand away. “And put your dick away, kid. You’re making the place look cheap.”
Mortified, I fumbled the singlet up. The straps tangled and twisted, one still threatening to slip from my shoulder. Fear a leaden plug in my throat, making it almost impossible to swallow without feeling like I’d choke.
I snatched my bag up off the floor, ignoring Harvey’s question about when I’d be coming in next. Conscious only of the door to the club, the exit, and the deepening terror that I’d find Coach standing outside the building. Waiting, apoplectic, on the sidewalk.
Nothing, though, beyond the cool night air and the ache in my jaw from gritting my teeth.
#
I’d wanted to go to Jefferson’s, or Brayden’s, or Carlos’ place. Any of my bros from the team, really: anyone who could tell me I hadn’t just royally fucked up. Laugh about it, like we laughed - when we were sure he wouldn’t hear us, anyway - after Coach balled us out. For being clowns in practice, or not focusing, or just because he was frustrated that we weren’t catching on to his ideas quickly enough. Delivering on the high expectations he had for his team.
I went home instead. Crossing my fingers that Adam would be in bed when I got there; silently grateful, as I pulled the door shut on the darkened room, to hear the soft noises of sleep coming from his side.
And then lay there for what felt like every hour until the sun began seeping lazily past the edges of the blinds. Staring at the ceiling and telling myself no, it was okay, I wasn’t going to throw up.
The only thing I could think of to do - even though it felt just as much like walking into the mouth of the dragon in the process - was go work out.
Early still, the big quad on campus quiet. Frost lingering on the concrete in the shadows of steps and benches; the places where, during the day, groups of friends and classmates gathered and the sound of their voices filled the space. I’d been self-conscious walking across, the first couple of weeks. Tense and awkward on my weaving path through those little clusters, feeling the occasional stares, the curiosity. Waiting for what’d seemed so commonplace as to be inevitable back in high school: jokes about my size, my dedication to training at the expense of everything else. Probably not even meant as anything beyond teenage humor, but enough in aggregate to leave me cringing all the same.
But those jokes never came. The glances turning to nods of recognition, even if we didn’t know each others’ names. Strange, how you could feel more at home with a campus of thousands of strangers, compared to a little high school where you’d known most of the people since everyone was a kid.
It was empty now, though, the quad. Enough that I could hear the rubber soles of my sneakers on the ground, as I tugged my backpack further onto my shoulder and ducked my head against the cool morning breeze.
