Page 78 of Built To Perform

Luke coughed. It sounded a whole lot like someone trying to hide a laugh.

“Don’t you start,” Coach scolded, but there was a hint of a grin there, too.

His boyfriend’s expression was the study of innocence. It was about as convincing as when Brayden attempted it.

“I’m never going to live that down, am I,” I complained.

“I think it’s just that Anthony didn’t expect to see you like that, is all,” Luke suggested.

Coach scoffed. “Oh, please. Like I haven’t accidentally walked in on them all doing much worse.”

From the expression on Luke’s face, I wasn’t sure allowing this conversation to keep going would do me any favors. Certainly not if my goal was to avoid spending the whole weekend fire truck red.

“I... I think I’ll go find, uh... find Jefferson,” I squeaked out.

The two men each gave me a smugly - infuriatingly - knowing look.

“Of course,” Coach said, and it was clear he was trying not to laugh.

#

I wasn’t entirely sure which was worse: Coach being furious with me for dancing at the club, or him teasing me over it.

No, that wasn’t true. Angry, he was terrifying; the joking version of the man was simply less familiar. So at odds with how he came across at school.

I told myself it was ridiculous, that I couldn’t feel their amused stares on my back as I headed to where we’d set up the camp in a loose circle.

I’d figured, from the few times I’d been to Jefferson’s condo, that he wouldn’t be content with dumping his stuff in one corner of the tent. Sure enough, when I poked my head through the flap it was to find him carefully hanging up a lantern from the curved pole overhead. Its light illuminated neat piles of clothes and other supplies.

“Hey, lil bro.” Jefferson’s grin was broad. “Did they send you to find me?”

I shook my head, stepping inside the tent. With my minimal camping knowledge, I’d assumed it was meant to be a reasonably large one. That hadn’t taken into account someone of our team captain’s scale trying to sleep in it.

“Carlos and Brayden are playing pyromaniac,” I explained, “and Donny went for a shower.”

He nodded. “And Coach, and his... and Luke?”

It was interesting, I thought, how we were all struggling - just ever-so-slightly - with this new man in Coach’s life. Well, not new, since he predated anyone on the team. New to us, anyway, and forcing us to look differently at someone who’d seemed so predictable and unchanging.

That’d unnerved me, and I was still relatively fresh to the group. For Jefferson and the others, who’d known Coach for years now, I could see how unsettling it might be.

“Unofficial fire marshal duties. So that Carlos and Brayden don’t start the next wildfire.”

Jefferson chuckled. “They make each other worse, I swear.”

I nodded agreement.

“And what about you, lil bro? What’ve you been doing?”

There was something warm about his attention on you. That sensation of being the one, single thing he was focused on in that moment. A feeling I relished, as much as it made me shiver at that unflinching scrutiny.

“Just walking with Luke. We talked, some.”

I wasn’t sure if he’d ask me what Coach’s boyfriend and I talked about, or skirt around it somehow. A joke about a second performance wasn’t impossible, either.

Instead he just kept watching me. Giving me the space to either fill, or to try to feel comfortable with.

“I don’t think I ever really talked with someone who’s older and, well... y’know,” I admitted. “Not older-older, anyway.”