Jock Auction (25 page)

exaggerated muscles, down on all fours, and looking crazy slutty. He was then near-mortified when the teacher chose that moment to walk past and look down at his pad.

I had to stick half my fist in my mouth in order to muffle the laughter.

When the bell rang and we were walking out of the classroom, Jake put his hand

on my shoulder and stopped me.

“Look, dude, I know we joke around about that shit, but I hope you know I’ve got

your back, yeah?”

I nodded, suddenly lost for words. Jake being sincere was a weird mix.

JOCK AUCTION | 175

“Okay, later, dude. And remember, no checking me out in the showers; we don’t

want you getting any of those uncontrollable boners again.” He winked at me and

walked off down the corridor as I shook my head, grinning. I was already trying not to look at Louis in the locker room, and now I’d probably have to add Jake to that list too.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out, doing a double take as I did

when a shadow on the denim made me think for a second that all the talk in class had left a wet spot on my jeans. Thankfully not.

Outside cafeteria. Big problem
, the message read.

Craig.

A problem.

I felt ice grip my stomach and chest, wrap frosty tendrils around my suddenly

pounding heart.

I knew things had been going too well.

176
|
ALEX PENDRAGON

Chapter Ten

I very nearly ran. I would’ve run, if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew I’d get pulled up and delayed by some teacher or hall monitor with a stick up their ass. So I didn’t run, but I walked really, really quickly.

Like, as quick as you can walk and still say with a straight face that you’re not

running.

It still seemed to take too long, and all I could think about was what might’ve

happened, what might’ve gone wrong. I cursed Craig for being so vague in his

message. “Big problem”—what the hell did that mean? Then again, if Jeff had somehow snuck back on campus or if one of his dumbass cronies had decided to get some

revenge on his behalf, maybe that was all Craig had time to say.

I had visions of him down on the floor, some fucking jock laying into him, and

had to pinch myself hard to stop myself from feeling nauseous.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

I pushed my way through the slow-moving crowd of people headed to lunch,

ignoring the few complaints I got in the process, trying to scan the hallways, see if I could find Craig or the inevitable group of rubberneckers that a fight produced.

Where was he?

Eventually I saw him, seemingly slumped up against a wall. I elbowed my way

through a group of giggling cheerleader types and rushed over to him.

No blood, no wincing like there were broken bones to consider. I grabbed his

shoulders, stared at him.

“What happened? Has someone been giving you trouble? Fuck, Craig, I was so

fucking worried!”

JOCK AUCTION | 177

He looked at me in astonishment, eyes suddenly wide, and he started to shake his

head and then took a breath.

“Jesus, Kyle, no. It was…well. I guess it was a booty call. I had a ‘big’ problem.

The sort of problem I was hoping we could sneak away and take care of.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, felt my head drop forward a little as I took what felt like the first proper lungful of air in about a year. Relief washed over me, and—if I was being honest—a little frustration too.

“Oh fuck, you had me so scared.”

Craig looked around, a little awkwardly, then reached up and put his hands on

my forearms, his fingers gently squeezing.

“I’m so sorry, Kyle; I should’ve realized how you might read it. I just… Well, I

thought it’d be sexy.”

I took a step closer to him until there were just a few inches between us. Craig

slipped his hand around the back of my neck, his fingers kneading.

“And you came rushing to my rescue, didn’t you?” he added quietly. Was there

some surprise in his voice too? “You’re my fucking hero, Kyle.”

I glanced up to see if he was joking, but his face was suddenly serious. That

smudge of a blush across his cheekbones. I wanted to kiss him.

“I got scared. I thought… I don’t really know what.” He nodded at me.

“You came for me. That means a lot.”

We stood there for a moment, and then I grabbed his hand in mine, pulled him

away from the wall.

“How about we go take care of that problem, then?”

Craig grinned at me, a wicked twinkle suddenly in his eye again. I resisted the

urge to trace the outline of his cock through his skinny jeans; even without looking down, I could tell it would be thick and clearly visible against the denim. The idea of it made my own dick lurch.

178
|
ALEX PENDRAGON

My phone buzzed again.

Your father and I need to talk with you right now. We’ve heard everything. Come home
immediately.

I turned the screen to Craig and watched his reaction as he read. He looked as

horrified as I was suddenly feeling.

I was almost disappointed when my car started the first time, sorry to not have an excuse for not going home. In the passenger seat beside me, Craig’s leg shook

nervously. He’d insisted on coming along, even after reading the message—maybe even more so because of it—and even though I wondered if that was actually a bad idea, I suddenly felt like I could use the moral support.

It could only be the gay stuff. The boyfriend stuff. Someone must’ve told them, my parents I mean, and they were freaking out, wondering what the hell had happened

with their only child.

It wasn’t something we’d really talked much about, sexuality. Sure, we lived in a

pretty conservative town, but we didn’t go to any of the many churches; they didn’t bring me up in some crazy, morally-obsessed way. It was just a nonsubject, not even broached.

My dad had given me an awkward safe-sex talk when I was hitting puberty, the

two of us nearly equally mortified sat side by side on the bed as he um’d and ah’d his way through growing hair and the perils of getting a girl pregnant. Explaining what to do—and how he and my mom might feel—if it wasn’t a girl but actually a boy that I

was sleeping with hadn’t come up.

Though I think I would probably have melted through the mattress in

embarrassment if it had.

Would they be angry at me? It was one of the few things I was legitimately unsure

about. They’d told me, like I guess most parents do with their kids, that they’d love me unconditionally, but the tone of their message hadn’t exactly sounded open and

understanding.

JOCK AUCTION | 179

It sounded like they were royally pissed.

I found I’d been driving home on autopilot and that I’d almost gnawed through

my lip worrying. Craig was staring out the passenger window, and I could see his tight-lipped, clenched-jaw expression in the reflection.

All too quickly we were pulling up outside my house. It was weird to see both my

parents’ cars there in the middle of the day, not that I’d normally be home at this time myself.

I glanced over to Craig again. “Okay, so this might get weird,” I started to tell him, but he shook his head to silence me.

“They’re watching us.”

Startled, I looked past him. My mom was at the window, staring at the car. I took a deep breath, opened the door.

“Guess I should go in, then.”

Craig turned, his expression unreadable. “I don’t know where I should go,” he

told me, his voice odd and kind of flat. I opened my mouth to reply, but he didn’t give me time to speak. “This sort of feels like a private thing, a family thing. But then I think about you holding my hand as we walked into school, and I wonder if this is my turn to be bold, and open, and show who you are to me and who I am to you. But I guess that’s your call, Kyle.”

I shut my mouth, blinked. Holding his hand had felt natural; nothing about this

situation felt natural now. Going in without him or going in with him.

So I guess it was just what felt right to me.

“Please come in with me,” I asked him.

The door was open when we reached it, Craig a step or two behind me. I knew my

parents were in the living room, but I still felt compelled to call out “I’m home,” as if my arrival had been a surprise. They didn’t answer.

180
|
ALEX PENDRAGON

My mom still stood by the window, my dad on his favorite chair, his leg doing a

good job of competing with Craig’s for bouncing with nervous tension. Neither of them seemed in any rush to talk.

“I got your message,” I said, after it became pretty clear we could stand in silence for a good while yet. My dad looked pointedly over my shoulder where Craig was

standing, then down at where his feet met the carpet. “This is Craig,” I told them.

Did my mom sigh? She had still been facing the window, but now she turned

around, hands tightly clasped together in front of her stomach. I couldn’t really read her expression.

“We wanted to talk to you, Kyle,” she said, voice quiet and measured. I glanced

back at Craig; I knew he’d go if I asked him to, whether that meant walking home or sitting in the car, but I didn’t really want him to do either.

“I thought you should meet him,” I replied, looking between them. My mom was

refusing to look anywhere else but my face; my dad was still staring down at his shoes.

I could feel a knot of tension growing in my chest, the urge to scream or do something that would shatter the awkwardness one way or another.

“We know who he is, Kyle,” my dad said, stumbling a little over the words. “We

just don’t really understand…what’s happening…how…”

He trailed off, shook his head. He still wouldn’t look directly at me.

I closed my eyes. I’d known something like this would happen, eventually, I

guess. I just hadn’t really thought it through, how it would all play out.

“I didn’t really understand it either,” I began to explain. “It just, sort of…did.”

“But what about Melissa?” My ex-girlfriend. I shrugged, eyes still closed.

“That felt right at the time. This feels right now. I don’t know any more than that.”

My mom exhaled, a sort of exasperated sound. I opened my eyes.

“I didn’t think you’d have a problem with my being who I was,” I told her, trying

to keep the edge of frustration out of my voice.

JOCK AUCTION | 181

She shook her head slowly, but it was my dad that answered. “It’s not that… We

just, we just weren’t expecting it, Kyle. You’re our son, obviously, and we…well, we just weren’t expecting it, is all.”

It felt like there was something wedged in my throat, a growing hardness that was

making it difficult for me to breathe. “I’m sorry if I disappointed you.”

Dad looked at me, eyes sad. “You’re our son, Kyle. We just feel a bit…blindsided.”

“Maybe I should go,” I replied. I was starting to feel light-headed. This wasn’t

how it was supposed to go, wasn’t how they were meant to meet Craig for the first

time.

“You won’t go and stay with him,” my mom snapped, suddenly. “I’m sorry,

but…no, we won’t…we won’t stand for that.”

I shook my head. The sadness was washing over me in waves, leaving layers of

misery in its wake.

“Then I’ll go stay with Jake, from the team,” I said, halfway to a sneer. I don’t

know why I’d picked his name out of everyone I could’ve chosen, but I guess having spent time with him in class, he was the first to come to mind. “If that meets your all-important standards?”

My mom looked like I’d slapped her. My dad rubbed his eyes with his hand, his

other looking like it was trying to stop his leg from bouncing and only half succeeding.

“It’s not like that, Kyle. I’m sure… I mean, we’re sure Craig is… We’re sure you

and Craig have…think you have feelings right now, it’s just…”

I couldn’t stop the hiss of anger from escaping, had to clamp my jaw shut to cut it off. “Don’t. Just, don’t. I’m packing some stuff and going to Jake’s. His number’s on the board if you don’t believe I’m there.”

I turned around before they could reply, took the stairs two at a time, and stuffed handfuls of clothes into a rucksack. I knew I was probably forgetting something, but I 182
|
ALEX PENDRAGON

couldn’t stop my thoughts from racing, couldn’t stop replaying the exasperated sound my mom had made or seeing the look of disappointment across my dad’s face.

Craig was by the front door when I came back down the stairs still tugging the

zipper closed on my bag. My parents hadn’t moved, and I didn’t say anything to them as I pulled the door closed behind me and we walked to the car.

I drove. I drove with a single-mindedness, even if I didn’t have a direction. Part of me was aware Craig sat next to me, quiet, staring not out the side window or at me but straight ahead. Giving me time, I guess.

We’d been driving for ten, maybe fifteen minutes when I let the car slide to a stop next to some anonymous house. Fingers still wrapped around the wheel, ten and two.

Not sure what came next.

“They’ll adjust,” he said eventually. I felt that lump again, wasn’t sure whether it had ever gone away. “It’s just a shock.”

“They’re supposed to be on my side,” I pointed out.

Craig shrugged, sighed a little. I found myself wondering again about his

relationship with his own mom, what she’d said when she realized he liked boys, not girls.

“They will be. It’s unexpected is all.” He grimaced. “You’re the big stereotypical jock, remember. You’re meant to be a pussy hound.”

I wanted to cry, to bust up into big, heaving sobs. But all I could do was grip the wheel.

“I don’t want to be two-dimensional.”

Craig looked over at me. “You’re not, Kyle.” He looked down at his hands where