by Ariel Tachna
“Hey, Kit.” Phillip stuck his head in the door. “How was your day?”
“Work was great, and tutoring was even better,” Kit replied, not hiding his grin at the memory of Linc. Phillip would listen if Kit talked about work, but the details would leave him with glazed eyes, so Kit would keep that part to himself for now. Maybe he’d tell Uncle Blake about it on Sunday.
“That’s not your usual answer.” Phillip flopped down on Kit’s bed. “Spill.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Phillip rolled his eyes. “Only if you’re going to tell me you ended up tutoring Lincoln Joyner.”
Kit spluttered with laughter. “Actually….”
Phillip’s eyes narrowed as he tried to bore through Kit with his gaze. “You’re shitting me.”
“Nope. He was on my schedule when I got there, so I tutored him in physics today. Oh, and he prefers to be called Linc.”
“You… met Lincoln Joyner… at the tutoring center today. On a scale of one to Phil ‘I watched you while you were sleeping’ Coulson, how big of a fool did you make of yourself?” Phillip demanded.
“Zero,” Kit replied. “I was perfectly professional.”
Phillip snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“Are you two coming to eat?” Ephah called from the other room.
“We’re not done,” Phillip warned as he stood up, poked Kit in the chest, and headed toward the kitchen.
“Of course we’re not.” Kit rolled his eyes and followed as Phillip grabbed a plate and served himself. Kit got one as well.
“Kit claims he tutored Lincoln—call me Linc—Joyner today and didn’t make a fool of himself,” Phillip told Ephah as he sat.
“Oh for Chrissake, Phillip, it’s not a big deal,” Kit exclaimed. “He came in for tutoring, and I helped him.”
“Uh-huh,” Ephah said. He fluttered his eyelashes and continued in a falsetto, “He’s so dreamy. And he’s gay. He came out on national television. He’s my hero.”
“Fuck you. I’m not that bad.”
Ephah laughed. “Not quite, but you’re pretty ridiculous when you get going about him. Did he live up to your expectations?”
Kit took a bite of the meatloaf Ephah had prepared and considered the question.
“Is the sky blue?” Phillip asked before Kit could respond. He grunted, making Kit grin. Ephah had kicked him under the table.
“I don’t think it’s a question of living up to my expectations,” Kit said slowly, going back to Ephah’s question. He’d been asking himself the same thing since Linc left. “Or maybe it’s that my only expectations were that he was a nice guy. I mean, he’s attractive, but that’s not going to change from seeing him on TV to seeing him in real life, so that wasn’t an expectation. He’s always been humble in interviews, insisting everything the Cats do is a team effort and he’s just playing his part, so I wasn’t surprised he’d ask for help when he needed it. And I do know how to help people with science. It’s kind of my thing, so that part was easy. And it’s not like I ever expected to get to know him beyond maybe getting his autograph, so I didn’t have real expectations of what he’d be like beyond that.”
Linc had been so grateful, which made Kit feel really good, but he wasn’t about to tell them that. Linc wasn’t just a celebrity anymore. He was a person now, in Kit’s mind, not some unreachable hero who would never know Kit existed.
“What is he like?” Ephah asked. He might not be enrolled at UK, but he was every bit as much of a Cats fan as any student on campus.
“Genuine,” Kit said. “He’s the real deal, you know? He introduced himself like I might not already know who he was, and he didn’t make any big deal of his stardom beyond saying he had to pass in order to play, but that’s true for any athlete. You’ve heard me complain about the athletes acting like they’re doing us a favor by being there, even though they’re the ones who need our help, but Linc wasn’t like that at all.” And that made him even more attractive, but he kept that observation to himself. Ephah and Phillip might not care Kit was bi, but they didn’t share his interest in men, so he tried not to rhapsodize over men’s bodies in their hearing too often.
“I can see it now. We’ll all be in the nursing home, and Kit will still be telling the story of how he once tutored the great Linc Joyner. It’ll be his claim to fame,” Phillip said.
“Not just once,” Kit replied without thinking.
“What?” Ephah asked.
“He made another appointment for tomorrow.” Him and his big mouth. “He said what we went over today finally made sense, so could I go over the rest of it with him too.”
“Kit’s got a date with the hottest guy on the basketball team,” Phillip crowed.
“It’s not a date. It’s a tutoring session, asshole.”
“To-may-to, to-mah-to,” Phillip retorted.
Kit flipped Phillip the bird and focused on his meatloaf. See if I tell him anything else. Asshole.
LINC sat on the locker room bench to pull off his shoes after morning practice when a basketball bounced off the back of his head.
“Hey!” He twisted around to see who had hit him. His best friend was leaning against the row of lockers. “What the hell, Pete?”
“What the hell me? What the hell you? I ain’t seen you that distracted in practice since we were freshmen.” Pete crossed the room to join Linc on the bench. “You got something on your mind?”
“Just my physics exam,” Linc said.
“How’s that going?” Pete asked with a sympathetic wince. He’d gotten his science requirement out of the way as a freshman, the bastard.
“Not as bad as I thought it would. The tutor yesterday was actually helpful. I’m meeting him after class to see what else he can beat into my head.”
“Is he cute?” Pete bumped their shoulders together with a wicked grin.
Linc had never been so grateful that his darker skin hid a blush the way Pete’s paler complexion couldn’t. “It wouldn’t matter if he was Cardinal red, had two heads and a tail. He can explain physics.” If Kit hit all Linc’s buttons, well, that really was a side issue.
“I don’t know, if he were Cardinal red, he’d never make it onto campus.”
Linc laughed, as Pete had intended, because if Kit had skin the color of their archrival University of Louisville, Pete was right, he wouldn’t have made it far on campus. Since he didn’t, though…. “Not the point and you know it.”
“Yeah, but I also know you’re more distracted than you were yesterday, after your successful tutoring session. What gives?”
Linc debated what to say, but Pete had been the first person on campus he’d come out to and the one who’d convinced him the rest of the team wouldn’t care. He’d stood at Linc’s shoulder when Linc came out to the team and when he came out to the public a year later. If he could tell anyone about Kit, it was Pete.
“The tutor—Kit—really was helpful with physics, and that’s the most important thing right now, but….”
“But?” Pete prompted.
“Gimme a minute, will ya? This ain’t the easiest thing to talk about.” He took a deep breath and tried to put some order to his thoughts. “Guys like us, we’re all flash and show, you know? Sure, we bring visibility to the school and people like us for it, but nobody expects us to be deep. Kit’s smart. He might never get the name recognition we will, but he’ll do something worthwhile with his life. He’ll make a difference.”
“You made a damn big difference when you came out last year,” Pete said.
Linc shrugged. “Maybe, but it’s still the celebrity thing.”
“You aren’t a dumb jock, no matter what your physics grade ends up being. You know that, right?”
“How many people care about that, though? They care about how many shots I make on the court, not whether I can do physics. Kit cares about the physics. He mighta been kind of flustered when I first came in, but once we got to work, I was just another guy who needed his help. It
was… nice.”
“Nice?”
“To be me for a few minutes instead of being Number 13, Senior Lincoln Joyner, Center Forward, six eight, two hundred twenty pounds.” He pitched his voice in imitation of the announcers at Rupp Arena. “I don’t get to do that much these days. It feels like someone is always watching, like any little slip in my public persona is going to be captured by someone’s cell phone and broadcast all over the internet. So I have to make sure whatever goes out is something I don’t mind people knowing about. I didn’t feel that way while we were working on physics.”
“Sounds like he’s a pretty awesome guy.”
“I think so. He agreed to meet me again this afternoon to help some more. Maybe this ain’t gonna lead nowhere besides me passing physics, but I want the chance to see where else it might could go.”
“Anywhere you want it to,” Pete said. “Ain’t that what Coach always tells us? We can go anywhere we want if we’re willing to work hard enough for it.”
For one moment, Linc allowed himself the imagined luxury of a life that wasn’t centered around basketball, but he had commitments, not just to UK, but to his family back home. If he gave in to that dream, he would disappoint his whole family, and his brothers and sisters might never have the chance to pursue their own dreams. No, no matter how tempting it was, he had to stay focused.
Chapter Three
LINC tossed his pencil down and leaned back in his chair, tipping it up onto the two back legs. Kit set his own pencil down and took a mental step back. Every line of Linc’s body betrayed the frustration he was feeling, and that didn’t help anyone. “Let’s take a break. We’ve been at this for a good forty-five minutes. We’ve got vending machines in our staff room. Do you want a Coke or something? It’s nothing fancy, but it’s a change of scenery and a break for our brains.”
“My brain, you mean,” Linc said with a grimace.
“No, I really meant our brains,” Kit said as he stood up and rotated left, then right, stretching his back. “I took enough physics to do this with you, but I’m a biochem major. I’m having to remember all this stuff to be able to explain it to you. Seriously, come on. Take a break. It’ll help.”
Linc huffed like he didn’t believe a word Kit said, but he stood up, their proximity driving home to Kit just how much taller Linc was. If he didn’t look up, his gaze landed squarely on the collar of Linc’s blue-and-white henley, right below the hollow at the base of his throat. Kit swallowed hard and forced his attention back to their tutoring session, specifically to their break.
“Where’s this break room?” The question helped draw Kit back even more.
Kit led Linc deeper into the tutoring center and through the plain door into the break room. It was nothing special, a threadbare couch still covered in horrendous ’70s floral fabric against one wall, a plain white refrigerator that had seen better days next to the vending machines, and a table and hard plastic chairs in the middle of the room. “What do you want to drink? My treat.”
“Oh, um, a Powerade or something, if they got it.”
“No caffeine for you?” Kit asked as he fed money into the machine.
“Not during basketball season. Coach has our diet all laid out for us. During the off-season, I’ll get a Coke or coffee sometimes, but I’m not really used to it, so it leaves me jittery,” Linc replied.
Kit handed Linc his drink, paid for his own, and flopped onto the couch. “As awful as this thing looks, it’s pretty comfortable. Sometimes I take naps in here if I had a late night and my break is too short to get home and back between classes.”
“You don’t live on campus?” Linc asked, sitting beside Kit and cracking open his drink.
“No, I have an apartment over on Maxwell Street. My brother, my cousin, and I snatched it up when I was a freshman. It’s great, but it isn’t close enough to run home for a quick nap.” Kit took another sip of his Coke. “That’s why I still had on my business casual last time. No time to get home from my internship to change and still make it here for my shift.”
“Where are you doing your internship?” Linc asked, with every indication of true interest. Kit didn’t squee like a fanboy at the thought of Linc liking him enough to want to know. Really, he didn’t. Okay, maybe just a little. On the inside.
“Alltech. They’ve been my dream job since I moved to Lexington. Well, other than the one year I was going to be a stage manager at the Opera House.”
“Theater?”
“A legacy of my misspent youth,” Kit joked, not wanting to go into how he’d ended up working in Henry Clay’s drama department.
“Now I know that’s not true.” Linc leaned back against the arm of the couch and looked at Kit appraisingly, the slightest gleam in his eyes. “You ain’t a troublemaker.”
Kit blinked. Was Linc flirting with him? No, he had to be reading the situation wrong. “Okay, maybe not misspent, but don’t make me into something I’m not.” He winked at Linc, hoping he wasn’t overstepping. “I enjoy a little fun as much as the next boy.”
“Oh, really?” Linc drawled, then took a long swallow of his drink without ever breaking eye contact with Kit.
Holy shit, Linc was flirting with him. Well, two could play that game.
“Oh, you know, a DLP party, lots of gay boys in tank tops or shirtless, a good basketball game, all those fit bodies in silky shorts.”
“If I look at the coverage of last week’s game, will I find you with my number on your cheek?” Linc leaned forward into Kit’s space.
“I missed Saturday’s game,” Kit admitted. “Family thing. But if you look up in the stands at the next game, you’ll see me for sure.” Painting Linc’s number on everyone’s cheek hadn’t been Kit’s idea, but he’d been the first on the bandwagon after last year’s frat president suggested it.
“And would that be a new development?”
Kit silently cursed the heat in his cheeks, but he met Linc’s gaze boldly. In for a penny, in for a pound. “No, but it will mean more now.”
“Now?”
“Now that I know you, not just your image,” Kit explained. “You have to know you’re a hero to every queer person on campus, out or not, because you said fuck you to all the haters, came out, and then proceeded to trounce them all on the basketball court.”
“I ain’t the only out athlete,” Linc demurred.
“No, but you’re by far the most visible one at UK, and that makes you our hero. But now I actually know you a bit.” He’d like to know Linc a lot better, but he’d take what he could get. “So when I cheer for you now, I’m not just cheering for a gay icon. I’m also cheering for the guy I’m helping with physics.” And flirting with. “Maybe that doesn’t seem like much difference to you, but it makes you a real person to me.”
Linc nodded. “That makes sense. When I first came to UK, Luke Bishop was still playing, and I felt the same way. I was so in awe of him when we first started practicing, but after a few weeks, he was a teammate—a really talented, amazing teammate—but the awe had given way to respect and camaraderie.”
God, but what Kit would give to be able to claim respect and camaraderie from Linc. “Exactly like that. You ready to give physics another go?”
As much as he wanted to keep talking, they had a purpose and Kit was on the clock.
“It’s worth a shot.”
“And if it still doesn’t work, we’ll call it a session and pick back up in a day or two,” Kit replied with an easy smile. He didn’t want Linc to feel like a failure if he’d absorbed all he could for one day. Everyone had their limits.
LINC grunted as he finished the final set of bicep curls. Coach had added five pounds this week, and he was still struggling to finish all the reps of the last set. Still, it kept his mind off Kit and physics and his frustration at not being able to stay focused through the whole session. Part of it was information overload, like Kit said, but part of it, Linc could admit to himself, was Kit. He might have messed up, flirting with Kit like h
e had.
“You okay there, Linc?” Pete asked when Linc didn’t immediately move on to the next set of exercises.
“Yeah, my mind’s just elsewhere, I guess.”
“Uh-huh. Are you dwelling on physics again? You gotta get past that and get your head back in the game, man. We got the Duke game in two weeks, not to mention the three games between now and then.”
Linc took a deep breath and gave himself a mental shake. Pete was right. The team was depending on him to play his best, in all the games, but especially in the big ones. They’d pulled out a win against U of L over Christmas break, despite playing in Louisville, but it had been closer than it should have been. That one wasn’t on Linc, but if he couldn’t get his act together, a loss against Duke would be on him, no matter what Coach said about winning or losing as a team. They had the talent to beat Duke if they all brought their A games to the court. If they didn’t, they’d go down, and Linc wasn’t going to let that happen. Not on his watch. At least the Duke game was in town so they’d have the home-court advantage. Nobody but nobody did basketball like UK’s fans. Twenty-three thousand seats, give or take a few hundred, a butt in every chair and crowded into the bleachers on the upper levels, and only about a thousand of those seats for the opposing team. Home-court advantage couldn’t be undervalued in Lexington. “You know me. Once we get in the locker room at Rupp and the band starts playing, all that’s left is the game. Everything else falls away.”
It had always been that way, from the first time his gym teacher had put a basketball in his hands when he was five years old. At first it had been an escape from the stares of his classmates when his pants were too short or his shirt too big, all his parents had been able to afford. He’d never gone hungry and he’d always had a roof over his head, but he’d gone without most other things at one time or another, depending on the sorghum yield from the farm. As he grew older, though, it had been a way to distinguish himself. Look at me. I might be poor, but I’m still worth something. And then it had been a necessity. Get a basketball scholarship to get a good education. Get drafted to the NBA. Take care of everyone and never be poor again.