Heading into the facility where the drafts are taking place is a surreal experience. My entire body is covered in chills. There’s no guarantee that I’ll be drafted. I know that. But being invited here is a huge honor. Itisa huge win.
There are a whole bunch of people taking my name and pointing me along a path that I can’t see. I’m so damn nervous. My palms are sweaty.
Every dozen steps, I look back to make sure the most important people in my life are still there. That they haven’t somehow been ushered off, and I’ve been separated from them. I’m terrified of being alone right now.
Silly. It’s just the draft. Not a huge deal. Not life-changing or anything.
But they’re still there. Kendrick, in his black suit with a charcoal-gray shirt. He looks like one of the many important league people. As if he’s on the wrong side of the evening.
My brother is here too. Cody took the time off to fly out to Tennessee to support me. He flashes me a smile.
At my side is Coach Lemon. He’s wearing a one-piece leggings set with a long, split skirt that fans out behind him like he’s a queen over heels that terrify me. I think those heels areweapons. Covered in sparkling diamonds and perfect make-up, he’s gotten more attention than literally anyone else I’ve seen so far.
He grips my wrist, probably knowing that I’m so damn nervous, I could likely combust at any moment. “Head up, Brevan,” Coach says. “This is your day.”
His words always give me a moment of calm.
We’re led to a seating area. There are televisions and speakers everywhere. There are people with cameras everywhere. I probably look like a deer in headlights right now. This is so damn overwhelming, I think I’d rather be home than here.
“Take a breath, sweetheart,” Kendrick says as he sits beside me. I do as I’m told.
When my eyes meet his, I relax a little. He’s here with me. Once our relationship was out to the administration, there was no reason to hide it anymore. So we made the decision that Kendrick would join me.
I’m so glad he’s here. There’s no one else in the entire world that I want to share this moment with. Don’t get me wrong; Coach and Cody being here mean everything to me. I’m so damn grateful they were both able to share this experience with me and lend me their support.
But Kendrick being here means something else entirely. There’s no putting into words what it means to me. In so many ways, this moment together feels like we’re truly a real couple. Partners. This is a real event in the real world. Not something taking place at or for the University.
We’re still not sure who tipped someone off about our relationship. As it turns out, what they’d been going on was seeing me come and go from Kendrick’s house with Martha. I guess walking the dog wasn’t a good enough reason for beingthere so often. I thought it was believable. But then, no one asked, so it’s not like I could spread my story, right?
Theydidn’t have anything to go on but that. In our various meetings, we gave away the true nature and depth of our relationship far more than the accusations against us. Maybe they weren’t accusations, but they sure as hell felt like it. I was sure I was under arrest or something.
It doesn’t matter. That day guaranteed that Kendrick could be here with me.
“We’re sitting in a room surrounded by people who are going to be millionaires soon,” Cody says.
He’s not a huge football fan, but I think he follows it enough to understand it. We’d always talked about football growing up, and while I don’t think he’s ever been passionate about the sport, he held his own in conversation. I’m pretty sure he did it for me.
“We’re sitting beside one,” Coach says, giving me a sparkling smirk.
“You’re the prettiest person in the room,” Cody says with a wide smile.
“I know,” Coach says. “That’s why no one can look away. I’m going to live rent-free in their minds for a very,verylong time.”
I’m not naïve enough to know that many of the looks in Coach’s direction aren’t admiring. I may live under a rock often, but I’m not oblivious to the world around me. Well… maybe I’m less oblivious these days.
I’ll never forget the stories that the other ambassadors in Iceland told while introducing themselves. I’ve asked my friends about what made them choose RDU in the days following the return of my trip, and a solid half have similar, if not worse, stories to add to my collection of horrors.
The faces I look into as my gaze wanders around the room fill in the blanks of the ugly people in those stories. Now that I am aware of just how much negativity and hate surround peoplelike me in the world, it’s not hard to see the disdain in people’s expressions as they watch Coach. I can see those whispering. Pointing.
“There’s a lot of fragile masculinity in pro sports,” Coach tells me, and I meet his eyes. He doesn’t appear at all bothered by the way people watch him. I wonder how I’m looking at them. “Do you know why I dressed like this today?”
He stands and does a little twirl for me. I grin and shake my head.
“Fine diamonds are rich and powerful armor,” he states as he takes a seat again. “I’m challenging their ideas of what defines a successful, proud man right now,especiallybecause I’m a well-known coach who sends, on average, a dozen people into the drafts every year, and at least half of them are picked up for the pros. I have more athletes under my belt who have made it big than any other college coach in history. And I’m not done. You’re next, Brevan. And I’m going to be here putting a face to the name that everyone whispers in mortified, sometimes hateful, reverence. I’m everything they’ll never be but wish they were brave enough to emulate. My masculinity isn’t hidden by femininity; it’s simply redefined.”
“Legend,” Cody says and makes a show of bowing to him like Coach is a pharaoh.
With his words ringing in my ears, I look around again and grin. They only hate because they’re afraid that someone who looks like Coach Lemon Frost is actually far more secure in his masculinity than they are. Facing the truth of their fragility makes them angry.
