And sure enough, when Jules turned he saw a flash of neon pink that could only be Hobbit. Today had been matching hot-pink-shirt day for Hob and the Esses, and it was highly unlikely that it was Shelly or Sadie lurking just inside the entrance to the boy’s locker room.
“It’s a great idea,” Harrison continued. “Not only do we get a round number for sparring, but you can run together during the week. It’s a solid let’s-just-be-friends activity that lets you give him some of your time without any... shall we say,misunderstanding.”
Was he... really getting advice from a crusty former Marine about how to handle a younger boy who was obviously crushing on him? Yes, apparently he was, and in fact... “That’s actually a good idea,” Jules said.
“I’ve been known to have a few,” Harrison deadpanned as he headed out of the gym. “See you in class tomorrow, kid. Say hey to your mom.”
Jules went into the locker room, but Hobbit had vanished. Joey and Topher were already gone, too—they hadn’t needed the extra several minutes of discussion on home workouts. They already knew the drill.
As the door clunked shut behind him, the vast, not-great-smelling, windowless room, with its nooks and crannies for rooms of toilets, urinals, sinks and showers, its rows and blocks of lockers that created a labyrinth of hiding places, felt dangerously empty and ominous.
On theTen Places Not To Linger if Gaylist, a boys’ highschool locker room in a rural American town was in the top three.
Jules wasn’t going to bother to change out of his sweat pants. He hustled toward his locker where he’d locked his backpack with his books and his jeans—his plan being to grab everything and boogie. The combination was still new, but he remembered it—oh God, he hoped. If not, he’d written it on his left foot, but that would require taking off his sneaker and tick-tock, he wanted to get out of here.
He spun the dial and—cah-chunk. Shit. That was the sound of the door that opened into the hallway—on the opposite side of the big room from the door that opened into the gym, to which he was slightly closer. As Jules spun the dial on his combination lock, searching for the seven, he listened hard for the closingclunk. Which didn’t come and didn’t come, and shit, how many assholes were coming into the locker room?
Someone giggled. Someone else whisperedShh!
Then, “Ke-vin! Oh, Kehhh-vin,” a voice made purposely high wheedled, drawing out the name, like a cartoon character stalking his prey. Whoever these assholes were, at least they weren’t callinghisname, but whoever Kevin was, wherever he was hiding, he certainly didn’t need this bullshit.
So instead of trying to be quiet, when Jules finally landed on that final seven, he gave Kevin what he hoped was a diversion and a chance to escape, opening his locker with a resounding bang as he called out loudly, “Hey, Kev, meet you out in the gym, okay?” Hint hint, run kid, run! “Oh, hey, Mr. Harrison. Yeah, we’reallstill here.” He slapped the metal surfaces of the other lockers around him, and the sounds echoed in the tiled room as he grabbed his pack and his jeans and hustled toward the door to make his escape into the gym,where hopefully he and Kevin, whoever he was, would have more room to defend themselves should it come to that. “Hey, guys, sh, sh, sh! Shut up for a second, these lockers make so much damn noise. Did one of you leave your hat in the gym because, nah, it’s not mine.” He pitched his voice lower. “Nope, not mine. Hey, Bill, you have your hat?” Back to his normal voice. “Maybe it’s Kevin’s. Or hey, Bobby, is it yours?”
But right before he reached the door to the gym, steps away from salvation, it opened and Jules dropped both his backpack and his jeans and looked wildly around him, hoping to find a better place than this narrow hallway to defend himself from an attack both from the front and the back.
Except it was Topher and Joey coming back into the locker room, led by Hobbit who looked fierce, like he was ready to throw down.
“Oh, thank God,” Hobbit said when he saw Jules. He scrambled to grab Jules’s bag and jeans and tossed them to Topher, then grabbed Jules’s arm. “Come on, let’s go!” He pulled him through the door and out into the empty gym. Shit, whoever Kevin was, he hadn’t made it out there.
“I saw Rodney and his idiots heading for the locker room,” Hobbit continued, “and I knew you were in there alone, so I ran screaming for Topher and Joey. Thank you guys,so much.”
“I’m pretty sure we can take ’em,” Joey said just a tad too eagerly, loosening the muscles in his neck.
“But do we really want to?” Topher posed the question that Mr. Harrison included in their prep-to-fight mental checklist.
“I think we’re gonna have to.” Jules planted himself despite Hobbit’s persistent tug across the gym to the far door that led to the parking lot. “They’re after some kid namedKevin, and I think he’s still in there. I’m sorry, I can’t just leave him there.”
All three of the boys turned to look at him. Joey looked confused, Topher was definitely puzzled, but the expression on Hobbit’s face was a mix of disbelief and found-Jesus. For a hot second, Jules didn’t know if the younger boy was about to laugh or cry.
But then he said, “I’m Kevin.” He laughed a little as he held out his hand to Jules. “How do you do? Kevin Clark. My friends call me Hobbit.”
Behind them, the locker room door opened with its telltalecah-chunk, and all four boys turned.
Topher dropped Jules’s pack and jeans, and he and Joey both went into a crouch that Jules tried to imitate because it was undeniably menacing looking—like something from a panel in a superhero comic book. Hobbit/Kevin, seasoned improv actor that he was, was just a heartbeat behind. And whoever opened that door took one look at them and shut it fast without coming out.
And they still didn’t come out and still didn’t come out. In fact the door didn’t open again as quite a few seconds ticked by.
It was almost anti-climactic.
“Wow,” Hobbit said finally straightening up. “That was... wow.”
“Fucking pansies,” Joey muttered.
“Yeah,” Topher said. “Let’snotuse gay slurs.”
“Shit.” Joey’s eyes widened. “Yeah. Sorry. God. Fucking...babies?”
“Babiesworks nicely,” Jules said as he scooped his pack and his jeans up from the gym floor. Sooner or later his heartrate would return to normal. But he had to clear histhroat a few times before he could ask, “You guys need a ride home?”
