Page 5 of Built To Perform

He looked away, seemingly embarrassed. Too embarrassed, even, to make eye contact with me.

Something in my stomach did slow, unhappy backflips as I swallowed down on the nausea.

“You’re worrying me,” I told him.

The sigh sounded like a tired one; the noise someone makes when they’ve been mulling over a problem when they should’ve been sleeping. Brayden rubbed a hand across his face.

“You’re on a scholarship, right?”

I nodded, still feeling confused. “Half-scholarship.”

Brayden smiled. “My lil bro’s clever as well as being a fuckin’ kick-ass athlete.”

Usually, praise from one of my big bros would be enough to puff my chest, fill me with those indescribable sparks that left my palms itching. Right now though, all I could think about was that sigh. How I’d never expected to hear anything like it emerge from Brayden’s lips.

“Your parents handle the rest, yeah?” He waited for my nod. “I bet they’re proud of you, dude.”

They were, I knew they were, even if they didn’t always understand my motivations. Why I’d become so single-minded; so utterly focused on making wrestling something I didn’t just do as a fun hobby, but actually took seriously. Maybe even eventually hold my head up in the company of amazing teammates like Brayden, and Jefferson, and the others, and feel like I actually belonged there. Part of their group, worthy of it, not just some kid looking in from the outside.

One day I’d feel that way. One day.

Brayden apparently took my silence as agreement. “Right, and what’s not to be proud of. Fuck, I’m kinda jealous of you, lil bro.”

He couldn’t be talking about my athletic prowess, the very idea of that was ridiculous, which only left a couple of options.

“You and your family... don’t get on?”

The snort was familiar - Brayden was often entertained - only no amusement reached his eyes. “Not really. I guess you could say we’re estranged.”

“Estranged,” I echoed.

“I’m not quite the son they were hoping for. Actually, I’m nothing fucking like the son they were hoping for.” He made a face. “I cuss, lil bro, and I don’t think before I speak, and I suck dick. I’m a ‘bad son,’ apparently.”

My throat felt thick. “They know you suck dick?”

“They know enough. Enough for an ultimatum, anyway. A ‘get straight or get lost’ sort of thing.”

“So...”

“So I got lost.” The grin was more like the Brayden I knew: heavy on the “fuck you” confidence.

He sighed, dropping his head back.

“And the job?” I prompted.

“Oh, they’d really hate that.”

I briefly considered kicking him in the foot. Just a light kick, enough to make him focus.

“And the job is...”

Brayden slung out an arm, groping for his phone where it’d been tossed down onto the couch. Head still tipped back as he unlocked it, held high above his face. Tapping and scrolling before he finally turned the screen to me.

Murky grays all I saw at first, before things tilted and I realized it was a video. The music a moment later: thumping bass made tinny through the cellphone’s mediocre speaker. Enough, though, atop the yells and the whistles, and then the sudden flicker of red lights.

The guy who strutted out into the crimson glow of the stage was wearing a mask. But I didn’t need to see a face in order to recognize the bare chest: I’d clung to it enough times, pressed my face to it, tongued down its contours, to know who it belonged to.

“You... dance?”