That world moved slower. Or didn’t move at all.
I thought about the guys on the team. Most of them were decent. Progressive, even, in that casual liberal arts college way. They’d probably say they were allies if you asked.
But there was a difference between theoretical acceptance and having a legacy guy bethatguy.
The gay one.
And even if they were fine with it—even if every single one of them was—there were scouts. Recruiters. Olympic coaches who remembered my father and expected his son to be cut from the same cloth.
I couldn’t afford to be a distraction. Couldn’t afford to be the story instead of the athlete.
So I stayed quiet. Kept my head down. Dated girls when it made sense, let rumors swirl about who I was hooking up with, played the part everyone expected.
And I hated it.
I hated that every time I looked at someone like Liam, every time my body responded the way it had in that shower, I had to calculate risk. Measure exposure. Weigh consequences.
I hated that I had to think about it at all.
I thought about Liam.
The way he’d looked at me in the gazebo. The fact that he kissed me even though we were at work. The way he didn’t seem to care about any of the rules I’d spent my whole life following. Maybe that’s what drew me to him most. Not just his body or his defiance or the way he pushed back when everyone else bent.
It was that he made me want to do the same.
I lay back on my bed and stared at the ceiling, chest tight, throat aching with everything I couldn’t say out loud.
Just one more thing to carry.
One more weight in a boat already heavy with expectation.
I closed my eyes and tried not to think about how tired I was of holding it all.
Chapter 13: Liam
I pushed into the dorm room and found Noah exactly where I expected him: hunched at his desk, hoodie up, surrounded by index cards, and one of those giant energy drinks.
The scene looked chaotic and deeply, aggressively Noah.
Without turning around, he said, “Good. You’re back. I need an audience.”
“For what?” I asked, dropping onto my bed.
“My debate. If I don’t rehearse it now, I’ll procrastinate until the night before and have a full existential crisis fifteen minutes before showtime. So, sit there and be supportive. Or at least be conscious.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Can’t promise both.”
He ignored me and cleared his throat. “Debate topic: Do competitive environments encourage emotional repression in male athletes? My position—”
“Let me guess. Athletes are emotionally stunted cavemen who can’t process feelings.”
“Well, you're not too far off.”
I dragged a hand over my face. “Christ.”
Noah forged ahead. “My thesis: Competitive athletic culture requires male-identifying individuals to compartmentalize emotional vulnerability in favor of performative stoicism, thus—“
“That is such bullshit,” I interrupted before I could stop myself.
