Page 67 of Built To Perform

“It has been pointed out to me,” he said, only a little grudgingly, “that while our competition record speaks for itself, I have perhaps been neglectful of some of the other aspects of being a successful team.”

“I see,” I said, which was a lie.

“Good,” Coach replied.

Silence, for a stretching moment.

“Oh, for merry fucks’ sakes, Anthony,” Luke exclaimed. “You’re unbelievable.” There was a distinct affection in how he said it, amid the exasperation. “Look, Eoin, it’s a camping trip. There’ll be a bonfire, and fishing, and a chance for someone who says he’s concerned his team will go out unprepared into the big, wide world to work on that. If, y’know, you’re interested.”

I swallowed, my thoughts racing.

“I... I’ll check with the other guys,” I told him, then practically fled from the hall.

Chapter Thirty-One

“Coach’s what?” Brayden’s expression suggested his follow-up question would be asking if I’d received any more hard bumps to the head recently.

“His boyfriend,” I repeated, not for the first time. “Luke.”

“Luke,” Brayden echoed, blinking. He made the name sound like a title.

“Is he hot?” Donny’s grin was playful.

“What?”

He nudged me in the arm. “Coach’s boyfriend. Is he hot?”

I screwed up my face, trying to process the multiple trains of thought currently fizzing in my head. “I mean... I guess so?”

I’d found them in the cafeteria with the stack of celebratory carbs which, if hooking up in the locker room showers was the first post-successful-competition tradition, then counted as the second. I hadn’t even paused to shower, yanking on shorts and a t-shirt in my haste to share the news - and confusion - with my teammates. Now, after a rush across campus, I was beginning to regret that self-imposed urgency.

“Not the point, guys,” Jefferson interjected.

I blushed at the implicit scold; Donny didn’t look at all chastened.

“Did it seem like Coach really wanted us to go, lil bro?”

I weighed my memory - hazy and confused as it was - of the conversation, against Jefferson’s frown now. He seemed skeptical.

“I mean, he did say he’d wondered if we’d want to go,” I said, slowly.

Jefferson nodded, expression thoughtful. “And his... boyfriend. Luke. He just came up and introduced himself, after everyone else had left?”

I could feel the heat in my cheeks; knew they must be glowing already.

“Well, we’d kinda already... sorta... met.”

Jefferson didn’t need to say the words: his deepening frown was question enough.

I sighed. It’d felt like the right thing to do, keeping Coach’s presence at the club a secret. Respectful, even: the most pressing issue had been my getting caught, and his ultimatum, and the uncomfortable fallout from that. Not my place to share details of Coach’s sexuality, even with the men I trusted most in the world.

Only now the patchwork of things I’d shared and details I’d held back was getting impossible to keep up with. The most important person to Coach knew the full story, after all; I wasn’t sure why I shouldn’t be able to discuss it with the most important people to me, too.

“They were in the audience, at the club. That second time I danced, when you weren’t there,” I explained to Jefferson. Knowing that the others were hanging on my words, too, but only really able to hold my team captain’s eye as I explained the mortifying saga. If I pretended it was just the two of us, it felt ever so slightly less wretched.

“Coach has a boyfriend and they go to strip clubs?” Brayden sounded genuinely shocked.

“Considering you were dancing there a while, and never got pulled up in front of him,” Jefferson pointed out, “it doesn’t sound like he went often. But who knows.”