The Endgame (Atlanta Lightning 1)

Two weeks.

I wouldn’t even know what to do with that much time with him, but I knew we needed it. Training camp started again in July, and that was always a hellish month for me. August was preseason, and then it was time for the grind of the regular season again.

“Hey. Yo. Why you spacing off over there?” Darren’s voice called to me. I looked over in time to see the basketball flying at my head.

I caught it just as Elias said, “He’s been doing that a lot lately.”

“No I haven’t,” I lied and shot the ball. It bounced off the rim, going toward my brother, who caught it and shot it himself, getting nothing but net, the bastard.

“Fuck yeah!” Darren said, and the two of them high-fived each other. “Now back to you. What’s up with you, bro?”

I’m gay and in love with a United States senator. I really love sucking his cock, and I miss him, and oh, I’m hoping eventually he’ll want to fuck me because so far I’ve been the one to fuck him.

Well, shit. Obviously I wasn’t going to say all that, and I didn’t know where half of it had even come from, but clearly that was a thing I wanted. “Nothing’s up with me other than I’m trying to play ball with a couple of gossips who won’t shut up.”

Darren got the basketball again and began dribbling in front of Elias, faking like he was going to go for the basket. When he tried to weave his way around the chair, Elias shot his arm out and stole the ball.

“Fucker!” Darren called out, but he had a smile on his face.

“That’s how we do it!” Elias replied, and I smiled, even as pain pinched my chest. I wished West could be there with us. Wished Elias could know him. Wished Darren could too. That Mom would talk Elias’s ear off about West and how much she loved him, the same way she did to me about Carly.

I shook those thoughts away and tried to get my head in the game. We were at my place. Elias was already here when Darren had called to see what I was up to. I had a full court in the backyard, and while I’d never been as good at basketball as I was at football, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed any sport really, but basketball was right behind football, and that made me think about West again and how he’d played just to impress his dad. Somehow, everything led back to West. I was a fucking mess over the guy.

We played for a while, then went inside for Grand Theft Auto. We were simple people. I grabbed some water for all of us, and when I went into the living room, Elias and Darren were already into it.

I wondered if West ever played video games. Now that I thought about it, I didn’t think I’d seen any gaming systems at his house.

When it was Elias’s turn, Darren asked me, “Did you see Martin’s still bitching about that play in the fourth?”

He played for North Carolina. There had been a questionable call in the last quarter of the Super Bowl, where NC thought the refs got it wrong, but fuck that noise, they hadn’t. He’d been crying about it since the end of the game.

“Jesus Christ, he needs to let it go. We beat their asses fair and square. Get the fuck over it and do better next year.” I hated people who blamed others for their losses.

“He’s such a fag. I’ve always hated him,” Darren replied before taking a drink of his water as if…as if nothing. As if it were normal to talk like that. As if it didn’t matter. To him, it was normal. Not that Darren used the word all the time, but it wasn’t the first time I’d heard it come out of his mouth. I’d heard it from probably every guy on the team, guys on other teams, people in my life, and I’d always let it go, had never said a word.

Guilt and maybe a bit of self-hate began gnawing away at my heart. I opened my mouth to call him on it when Elias said, “Hey, watch your fucking mouth.”

Darren’s brows pulled together. “What’d I say?”

Anger burned a path down my spine. “You said fag, man, come on. Get a clue. There are other words you can use. I don’t like it, and I don’t wanna hear it, okay?”

“Oh-kay.” Darren drew out the word, obviously a little confused. I felt Elias’s hot stare on me. I didn’t look at him, just rubbed the back of my neck and watched the character on TV stand around until Elias made him move. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” Darren added. There was uncertainty in his voice, like he knew he’d done something wrong but didn’t quite understand what. The thing was, I didn’t believe Darren was homophobic in a way that would make him freak out when he found out about me. Deep down, I knew he’d have my back, but he didn’t get it either. He saw nothing wrong with throwing that word around—because it wasn’t directed at someone who was truly gay. I’d heard him make fun of people for looking gay, whatever that meant. I didn’t think he knew an out gay person and maybe never had.