Fourth and Long

by Michele M. Rakes

  Beaumont pushes me away, his dick back under control, and he heads to the showers. I wait until he’s done, sitting at my locker, thinking. Not sure what’s my fault. His erection? Sometimes it happens when wrestling. The body mistakes the stimulation.

  Don’t take this as attraction, Jackson. I can see the headlines now: JACKSON MCCOY SLEEPS HIS WAY THROUGH LEAGUE. PICTURES AT ELEVEN.

  True, I miss the sex. I’d like to say it’s been a miserable three weeks without Terry, but I’d be lying, except for when I’m home alone in bed. At those times, I find myself thinking less of the big quarterback and more of the supple black skin of my team’s rising-star cornerback. Part of me wanted to take Irus Beaumont home that day so many weeks ago, instead of Branson. Take Beaumont home and let him do sweet, evil things to me. Wake up sore and sated with his long arms wrapped around me.

  Jesus, what am I doing to myself? Time to think of something else.

  Practice has been going great. I’m learning their system. The quarterback and I have fantastic timing. Mal’s a nice guy. He doesn’t berate me when I mess up a route or the ball doesn’t quite get to me. Mal just says we’ll get it next time, and we move on to another route. In an hour or two, we try the incompletion again, making it work. It’s timing. Our timing. The receiver has to be on the same page as the quarterback. Mal’s nothing like Terry.

  Terry. I’m spending less time thinking about him. Too busy studying plays. I’m here late with the jugs machine churning out football after football. For the most part I catch them with sure hands, until Coach finds me and sends me home.

  I look around. Everyone’s cleared out. I grab my towel. The shower room’s empty. My gut clenches. The smells of bleach, mildew, sweat, and soap assault my senses. My heart’s running a fucking marathon. I hate locker room showers.

  “Fuck this shit.” I toss my towel in the bin and go change. I’ll shower at home. Outside, the sun’s low on the horizon, and I head to my Jeep.

  “Hey, Jackson,” Haines calls from across the parking lot.

  I turn to find him jogging toward me. Some of the other guys are milling around their cars. While I wait for Haines to catch up to me, I toss my bag in the back of my rig.

  “Some of the guys go to this little bar down the road on Thursdays. Team building. Wanna come? There’s usually a band.”

  “A band, huh? On a Thursday?”

  “Yeah, usually a tribute band for some old rock group. The guys hate it, but the owner makes sure the locals give us our space. The crowd’s usually cool anyway.”

  “If you guys go on Thursdays, how come this is the first I’m hearing about it?”

  Haines turns a few shades of red before he speaks. “Well, you know how it is. Gotta get to know you first, right? You gonna come?”

  “I think I’ll just head home. I still need to shower.”

  “Why didn’t you use the facility showers?”

  “I prefer my own,” I say.

  “Come on, McCoy. Give the guys a chance to get to know you. Buy you a drink.”

  “I don’t drink much, but I guess I can hang out, if you don’t mind the stench.”

  “You don’t stink!” With a big kid grin, Haines heads back to his car, hollering over his shoulder for me to follow him. I hop into my Jeep and hit the road, tailing the line of cars only a few blocks down the road to what looks like a dark wooden shack with few neon signs in the dingy windows. Gilliam’s Tavern. Interesting.

  The guys hold the door for me. Inside, the room is dark, with long tables at one end. They border a tiny dance floor and small stage. There’s a U-shaped bar directly ahead and pool tables to my left. Haines turns to the right, heading toward one of the long tables. A band is playing. The lead singer, a redhead with square glasses and a guitar slung over his shoulder moans something into the mic. Obviously sharing guitar duties with the lanky blond whose face is hidden behind a curtain of long, stringy hair. The song is one I recognize. A Rolling Stones tune. “Paint It Black.”

  “Haines, why you always gotta sit by the band? Some old fogey Muzak playing,” says Rhodes.

  Brewster chimes in, “Give the guy a break. He can’t help that his momma’s white.”

  “Shut up, Brew. Leave my mom out of this.” Haines settles into a chair. I sit opposite him and check out the band. I swear I know the guy singing. A smile spreads across my face as I make the connection. High school can come back and bite a guy in the ass. Yep. Doug Strathen, local band geek at my high school. Wow. Small fucking world. Maybe I should split. Haines seems happy to have me here, though. Doug might not recognize me. I can hope. Don’t need a fuck buddy from the past causing me grief.

  “Shit, Haines, your momma be fine,” says Rhodes as he sits.

  “Yeah, she must be the reason white meat over here can’t rap.” Brewster laughs.

  “I can rap. You all know I can rap,” Haines says.

  “No, you can’t,” Brewster says as he raises a finger to the waitress. His silent order produces a pitcher of beer and four glasses.

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Boy, you can’t freestyle to save your soul.” Rhodes smacks Haines on the shoulder.

  Haines grins. “You’re right. I can’t.”

  All the guys laugh. Haines pours me a beer as the singer finishes his song. Doug fiddles with his guitar and starts another Stones tune.

  “I love this music,” says Haines. “Grew up listening to Stones and Zeppelin.”

  “So, what you’re telling me is, you’re not really black?” I ask.

  “Oh, you gonna start in on me too, huh?”

  Brewster leans forward, like he’s gonna tell a secret, and says, “Haines is a sperm bank baby.”

  I spit my beer across the table, nailing Haines in the face. Rhodes about falls out of his chair laughing.

  “Are you shitting me?” I ask as I mop up beer with a paper towel.

  That certainly wasn’t my smoothest moment.

  Haines swipes at his face with a napkin. “Yeah, it’s true. All I know is my dad is black and has some sort of genius IQ.”

  “Whoa, missed out on that chromosome, didn’t ya?” says Rhodes.

  Again the guys laugh. It’s an easy ribbing among friends.

  “So,” Rhodes says. “Since you can’t rap, then I think your rookie job is to get up and sing some of this shit every day at lunch.”

  “Man, I thought I was done with all that shit.”

  “You spent half your rookie year on some backup roster somewhere. Now you’re here. Dues got to be paid, son.”

  Brewster laughs. “I had to do it my rookie year.”

  The band finishes the song and heads offstage for a break. I don’t even notice Doug crossing the room until he calls out to me, “Jackson? Jackson McCoy?”

  I stand to greet him. “Hey, Dougie, how you been?”

  “Wow.” He puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “It’s been a long time, Jacks. What’re you up to now?”

  Rhodes laughs. “Are you kidding?”

  “He’s the best wideout in the league,” Haines says.

  “Football,” I clarify for Doug. “Professional football.”

  “No shit. You always loved that football thing. More than a lot of other things.” Doug still has a grip on my shoulder. My gut tightens. I don’t need an old high school flame coming out of the woodwork right now. Discreetly, I slide out his grasp. Doug drops his hand, but a sweet smile graces his pretty face. Yeah, Doug is pretty, in a nerdy sort of way. So much more filled out as a man than as a teen.

  “You wanna sit?” I ask. Don’t know why. Part of me panics when he smiles again and says yes.

  “How do you two know each other?” Haines asks.

  The waitress brings Doug a Guinness, and he sips it before answering. He licks the foam from his pink upper lip. Yeah, I did have a thing for him. Didn’t go anywhere, but he was a nice escape.

  “Jacks and I went to high school together.” Doug glances at me. “He was my savior.”
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br />   “Savior? How?” Haines asks.

  “I’m sure you guys wouldn’t understand, being athletic and all, but Jacks was the jock with a heart. I was constantly bullied.”

  Don’t say why. Please, I silently beg him not to out me.

  “Jacks stepped in and put a stop to it.”

  “You were bullied?” Haines asks.

  Doug nods and sips his Guinness.

  “I was bullied too,” Haines says softly, his dusky cheeks flaming pink, highlighting the faint acne scars.

  Doug appears rueful. “No offense, but I find that hard to believe.”

  “It’s true. We all were, in a way, right, Brew?”

  “If you mean being treated like the league’s asshole, then yeah.” Brewster leans back in his chair. “I was a runner. From home. School. A fuckup. My older brother’s football coach took me in and straightened me out. People made fun of me because I used to have a real bad stutter. Coach Pennachek paid for my speech therapy. Now I’m a smooth talker.”

  “I’m the only one drafted in the first round,” says Rhodes. “Nobody else in the receiving corps can say that. You all be misfits.” Rhodes laughs, but the guys don’t take offense.

  “That’s right. We be misfits, but we’re misfits together.” Haines looks at me like it’s my turn or something. “What about you, Jacks? You a misfit?”

  Doug glances at me. He knows what kind of misfit I am.

  “Um…well, my mom was sick a lot. Breast cancer. Just me and her, mostly. Spent time in foster care. Nothing really. Don’t think that makes me a misfit, I suppose.”

  Doug clears his throat and says, “Oh yeah, Jacks was a misfit. Instead of hanging out with the jocks, this guy came over to my house and hung out with us band geeks.”

  “Oh, wait a minute,” I say. Doug’s gonna out me. I can tell by the grin on his face.

  “Yeah, he made all of us cool by being the lead singer in our Rolling Stones tribute band.”

  “Bitch!” I slam my head on the table, throwing my arms over myself. I can hear Doug laughing. Undoubtedly revenge for how I broke up with him.

  Everyone at the table laughs at me too. I look up and Haines is in tears, he’s laughing so damn hard. “A tribute band? And you all made fun of me?”

  “Hey, you’re the one who can’t rap or much less hold a tune,” I remind him.

  “All right,” says Rhodes. “I got this shit figured out. Haines, if you can get your boy here to get up on that stage and sing us a song, then you’re off the hook.”

  Haines looks at me all hopeful.

  “No,” I say. “You laughed at me.”

  “Come on, be a hero,” Doug says. “Make another nerd into a cool dude.”

  “Haines is cool enough.”

  “Come on, McCoy, do a brother a solid.” Haines can be damn persuasive.

  Must be the gold-green eyes. I point to Rhodes. “I do this and white boy over there no longer has to stand on a chair and rap badly.”

  “Hey,” Haines says with mock hurt in his voice.

  “I do enjoy his freestyle,” Rhodes says.

  “He sounds like he has Tourette’s,” I say. “Oh, and Dougie, you’re a bitch. Thanks for telling everyone I can sing.” That particular secret I managed to keep from my Pirates teammates. Does make me feel good, though, to know the rookie hazing in the Highlanders’ locker room is nonviolent.

  “I may be a bitch,” says Doug, “but it’s going to be fun having you sing with me again.”

  “I never said I was doing it.”

  Doug rises from his chair, claps a hand on my shoulder, and leans down to say, “You’re the best kind of guy I know, Jacks. One who wants to help people. I’ll meet you onstage. Let me go round up the guys.”

  “You owe me.” I point to Haines and stand.

  He looks at me seriously. “Does this mean you’re gonna make the Highlanders cool too?”

  I glance at Rhodes and Brewster. “I think we can do that together, don’t you?”

  “I’m in,” Haines says.

  Sure, I want to smack him for making me get up on stage, but as I step up to the mic, I remember what a great escape Doug’s garage band provided for me. The only other place besides the football field where I had fun. Where I was happy.

  The band files in, and Doug joins me. “What song did you have in mind?”

  My mind goes blank. Shit. “I don’t know.”

  Doug looks sure of himself and says, “I know what song you should sing.” He steps up to the mic. We’re so close his sleeve brushes my bare arm. “This is a song off the Rolling Stones’ Bridges to Babylon album called ‘Already Over Me.’”

  Oh yeah. That’s a good song. Easy. I know all the words. I still feel rattled. Been a while since I sang it, but I remember the song. Please don’t let me fuck this up. I’ll never hear the end of it.

  My nerves settle down when the first gentle strings from the guitar whisper through the stacks. Until Irus Beaumont walks into the bar with Eldridge, followed by some guy I don’t know, and I almost forget to sing.

  Seeing Irus right now is too much. The memory of his hard-on pressed against me is indelible. A phantom feeling scored into my body. I close my eyes, shutting out his dark gaze, and let my voice slip out in a tremulous seduction. The song soft but filled with angst. The sadness of a jilted lover. All my pain seeps into the lyrics. I can’t help but think of Branson. Even as I open my eyes and my gaze lands on Beaumont, I wonder if I’ve been a fool. This song speaks of fools. Men played by heartless lovers.

  Was Branson a heartless lover, or was I just his fool?

  Irus sees the guys at the table. He starts walking over until he realizes I’m onstage singing. He stops dead in the center of the room.

  “…so cold…so cruel…”

  I was never Branson’s man. Never anyone’s man.

  The song laments over love and ecstasy.

  Images of Branson naked next to me are replaced by Irus, and I feel heat flush through me. I sing out my loneliness. My body moves to the music. Doug leans against me to join in the chorus.

  Makes me feel worse because I knew Doug loved me in high school.

  “…al—re-ady over me…already over me…”

  Irus spins away. His dark hand smacks the bar to get service fast.

  Oh yeah, I’d worship at the shrine of Irus.

  Never had a love that was divine. Always just sex.

  An image of myself on my knees for Irus leaves me mystified.

  “…confused.”

  “…burned.”

  “…bruised…”

  Yes. I’m a fool.

  Chapter Five

  Gilliam’s Tavern, University Place, WA

  Irus Beaumont

  Good Lord. My knees feel weak. What the hell is Jackson McCoy doing onstage singing? I scramble to the bar once I can get my legs moving. Els and Taylor Sims are right on my heels.

  “Cognac,” I say to the bartender. When I have the drink in my hand, I look to the stage again. Damn. Boy’s got his shirt all pulled up, flashing the bruises I gave him along with those tempting abdominals. His fingers glance across the deep purple swath. He sings about being bruised. Love and shrines… What the fuck has got into this boy? He needs to stop moving like that…singing like… Did someone get him drunk? Is it karaoke?

  “That boy’s got a little sugar in his tank,” says Taylor.

  Eldridge smacks Tay on the back of the head. “Shut up. That’s our new wideout.”

  “Ow. I know who he is. Don’t change the fact he’s pretty. Probably got a boyfriend at home.”

  Els looks at me. “I suppose you want to go now.”

  “What? I just got my drink.”

  “He’s got a bluesy voice,” Taylor says. “He sings like someone broke his heart.”

  “Don’t need a running commentary,” I say. Tay just has too much mouth to run. Goddamn.

  Taylor looks bummed. I don’t care. I’m in my head. To my surprise, I’m moving my nugget t
o the rhythm of the music, and realize I can’t get McCoy’s tormented voice out of my ears. The bluesy blond on the stage is killing me. What’s worse is he’s been the object of my lust for going on two years now.

  God, there is such an ache in McCoy’s voice. Is the boy’s soul bleeding? Can’t sing the blues unless you’ve felt the blues, as my auntie would say. The ability to sing like that only comes from a deep hurt… What the fuck am I doing? Fuck him. I don’t care how he’s hurting. No. Not one bit.

  Take a drink, Irus, and cool down.

  The cognac is so smooth I don’t even notice it slide down my throat.

  Why does he have to flaunt himself like this, tormenting and torturing me? Put a fucking shirt on, please. All right, so he’s wearing a tank top. Barely. It’s too big for him. Hangs off his body. Might as well not be wearing anything. Christ. I just want to smash his face in…or fuck the guy.

  The song finishes, but the band starts playing another one. McCoy appears surprised, but then he leans in, the sound coming from his throat so smooth and sexy. After a few lines, he scrunches his face and looks at the redhead playing guitar. Jacks has fucked up the lines. He mouths sorry to the guitarist. The damn redhead keeps playing as he slides in close to whisper in Jackson’s ear. The bastard grins as Jackson leans into him to hear, a sly smile on his face, and then red moves away. Who the fuck is this guy? Jackson picks up the song again. He sings of anger and foolishness.

  For a second, Jackson glances back to the guy playing guitar, and that redheaded bastard winks at him. Winks at him! Jackson looks away quickly and our gazes collide. The man stares at me, singing about being out of control, and my blood pressure drops straight to my dick.

  This is worse than popping wood rolling around fighting with the guy. Taylor Sims is here, and that boy’ll out me for sure. I’ve got to get out of here. I set my drink down and leave Els and Tay hanging. Els hollers at me. I don’t stop. They can find their own way home.

  Let Jackson McCoy give them a ride.

  * * * *

  Irus Beaumont’s Home, University Place, WA