Superhero

by Eli Easton

  I pulled back and looked at her in surprise. She rolled her eyes and sighed. “I’m not an idiot. I think I always knew. Owen and me, we never had what you guys did, even though I wanted us to.” She pulled away and smoothed her shirt. “God, I’m going to have such a gay guy complex.”

  “Added to a long list,” I deadpanned.

  She snorted. “You’ve got that right.” She looked at me thoughtfully. “Think there’s any chance I might luck out and become a lesbian?”

  “It’s never too late,” I said sincerely.

  The very worst, though, was telling Owen’s parents. Owen wanted to face them straight off, the very day we’d committed to being a couple. They came into the house that night, and Owen and I were standing in the living room, waiting for them. He held my hand.

  His mother looked at our hands, then up at our faces and started sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Owen…,” his dad said, half warning, half plea. His voice cracked.

  Owen dropped my hand and put his arm around my shoulder instead, drew me close. He was shaking, but his jaw was set.

  “Mom, Dad, I’m sorry if this hurts you, but Jordan and I are together. And nothing’s going to change that.”

  His mother ran sobbing up to her bedroom. And the look Owen’s dad gave me, I swear to God, you never want to be on the receiving end of a look like that. It was something like, you fucking faggot, you’re ruined my brilliant son’s entire life, and I hope you rot in hell for it.

  Yeah. So it went like that.

  They’ve come around, mostly. I always go home with Owen for the holidays, and they even let us share a room. They’ve insisted I call them mom and dad. They’re trying. The fact that Owen is still wrestling helps a lot. If Owen was the most astonished person in the world that the UW Badgers still wanted him, his dad was number two. And the fact that Owen has obvious supporters helps. But I know there’s a conservative nugget at the heart of his dad that’s ashamed about his famous gay son. He tries hard not to show it, though. It is what it is.

  Last Christmas we were at Owen’s house. I was peeling potatoes with his mom in the kitchen when she started telling me a story.

  “When Owen was a baby, he was a big little guy—ninety-seventh percentile for his age.”

  “Yeah?” I chuckled. I’d seen some pictures of baby Owen, and for sure, he’d been a bruiser.

  “Even when he was three months old… if he liked something you couldn’t get it away from him. He had this rattle, and boy, did he love that thing. He’d get the ring of it in his fist and you could not pry those baby fingers off it.” She was smiling at the memory, but her eyes were damp. She started to cry.

  I put down the peeler and went over to her. I felt a little awkward—she’d been huggy with me when I was young, but not since I’d come out and certainly not since Owen and I had gotten together. I put a hand on her shoulder.

  Mom, I’m sorry we disappointed you. I know this isn’t want you wanted for Owen.”

  She drew a deep breath and looked at me. “But that’s just it. It’s what Owen wanted—since the day he met you, Jordan. And that’s what matters.” She put her arms around me and hugged me awkwardly. “I want you to know that we see what you boys have to put up with, the integrity it takes…. I guess what I’m trying to say is, Owen was always my hero. And he still is.”

  I thought about that for a minute, about all that Owen was, about the true golden core of him. I thought about how he’d always stuck by me, no matter what. I thought about how brave he’d been when he put our relationship first, about how he went out on that gym floor at every UW match knowing there were people in the crowd who hated him. I thought about how he’d given up being perfect for being real. For us. For me.

  And I realized that Owen Nelson was the greatest superhero ever.

  I hugged her back. “Mine too, Mom. Mine too.”

  THE END

  BONUS: Desperately Seeking Santa - sample

  “Superhero” was written in 2013. In 2017, I published a Christmas novella called “Desperately Seeking Santa” that had Owen and Jordan as side characters. The main romance features their friend, Gabe, and a wrestling teammate of Owen’s named Mack “The Mountain” McDonall. Enjoy this sample. You can learn more about the book here.

  CHAPTER 1

  Nov 28, 2017

  Madison, Wisconsin

  “You want me to write a story about what?”

  Visions of cutesy reindeer automatons, paper snowflakes, and cheesy mall Santas danced in my head as I stared in horror at my editor.

  Randall glared at me from around the papers on his desk. His whole office looked like it should be on a reality show called Hoarders at Work. There were stacks of newspapers and magazines, enough coffee cups to supply a Mormon family reunion, his commuter biking clothes, and even a small fake Christmas tree resting on a cardboard box. The Christmas tree was not a sign of the impending holidays. It had been there since I started as an intern in August.

  “The Elks Christmas Charity Dinner,” Randall said slowly, as if I were hard of hearing. “It’s a city tradition.”

  “So is roto-rootering the toilets at the YMCA. But we don’t write about that,” I pointed out.

  Randall glared harder. “You’ve been bugging me for weeks to give you a story. I finally give you one, and all you do is complain. What? You got something against Christmas?”

  I squirmed inside. He was right. I’d been working at the Wisconsin State Journal for only three months. So far, my part-time internship had been spent editing other people’s work or doing basic cut-and-paste columns like the weather and stocks. I’d begged Randall for a chance to do an original piece and knew I should say “yes, sir, thank you, sir.” But I couldn’t help my disappointment.

  “Hey, I love the holidays. It’s a break from classes,” I said cheerfully. “But if I have to write a story about Christmas—”

  “Your employment was ‘at will’ last time I checked,” Randall retorted dryly.

  “—how about something interesting? Like an exposé about how the bell ringer at the East Towne Mall spent his take on booze? Or black market scams for the most-wanted Christmas toys? Something that can draw more than regional interest?” I added a hopeful and deliberately cheesy smile.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.” Randall wiped his face with his hand. He was in his fifties and had been at this newspaper since his first toddling steps as a journalist. I respected his editing skills and his instincts, not to mention the fact that he still had all his hair and was in pretty good shape for an ancient person, being a big bike rider and all. However, in my humble opinion, he’d lost his hunger. Fortunately, I had plenty of my own.

  “Gabe,” he said patiently. “I need a nice, cheerful piece for the holidays. Something feel-good. We’re not the Washington Post and you’re not Bernstein.”

  “Who?” I frowned. Honestly, my first association was the Berenstain Bears. Then my history class clicked in. “Oh. You mean, like, Watergate?”

  Randall rolled his eyes. “Anderson Cooper then. You’re not Anderson Cooper.”

  I made a face.

  He sighed. “Okay, then who? Who’s your idol, Gabe? Seriously?”

  “Is this a ‘understanding millennials’ sort of question?”

  “Yeah, let’s call it that.” He folded his hands on what looked like a stack of invoices on top of a Chipotle wrapper.

  I shrugged. “I dunno. Will Ripley. Errol Barnett.” They were two of my favorite international CNN correspondents. In the trenches. Reporting from war zones. Standing firm against hurricanes. That was my future.

  Randall’s dry expression said I was naive. “Okay. Well, right now, you’re not Will Ripley. Right now, you’re an intern for a little Wisconsin print newspaper. So we’re not going to do a thing on black-market crimes during the holidays.” He glowered. “Cutesy. Christmassy. Heart-warming. That’s what I want. You have to start somewhere, kid. Christ, I wrote recipes as Mama Llewellyn for three years befo
re I got a break.”

  I snorted. “Mama Llewellyn? Seriously?”

  He gave me a lopsided grin. “She was a widow from the U.P. Hey, I got fan mail! Even a marriage proposal from a farmer once. Don’t knock it.”

  I had a good chuckle over that one before remembering my own predicament. “But… an Elks charity dinner?” I gave him one last pleading look. “Will anyone read about the Elks? Aren’t they all, like, over eighty years old? I’m asking for business reasons. Surely you have subscription quotas to fill.”

  Randall jabbed a finger at the door. “The dinner is Saturday, December 16th. So you have two weeks to dig up some background. You’ll attend the dinner and your piece will run the following Monday. If you’ve got that much fire in your belly, Gabe, take this story and make something out of it.”

  I walked to the doorway and turned around. “Oh I’ll make something out of it!” I insisted, in a tone that promised I’d show him and his little dog too.

  But later, as I slumped at my desk, I despaired. I had no idea how I’d make something out of a bunch of seniors sitting around in some crusty old dining hall eating mashed potatoes and turkey.

  Mierda.

  CHAPTER 2

  That night, I met my friend Jordan Carson at Union South to get a snack before our evening festivities. It was already dark at 6:00 p.m., and it was damned cold outside. The lounge was all decked out. There was a huge Christmas tree in the center of the space, and greenery and fairy lights were draped over the fireplace and around the coffee bar. The campus had been tinsel-bombed since Thanksgiving break, as if fashionista elves had invaded the UW while we were away. The place looked and felt cozy as fuck, though I would never have admitted that out loud.

  “I can’t believe I’m going with you tonight,” I said with genuine amazement as we stood in line for coffee. “Dios. I feel so sporty.”

  I thought I looked sporty too, with my black skinny jeans and red Badgers hoodie under a black parka. My mom was originally from Mexico City, and I had her dark hair and eyes, plus pale skin from my gringo dad, so I looked good in black. It made up half my wardrobe. The red, however, brought out my inner matador, which was apropos tonight.

  “I can’t believe you’ve known Owen and me for three years, and this is your first time going to a wrestling match,” Jordan complained. “What kind of friend are you again?”

  “Well if someone had only invited me….”

  Jordan rolled his eyes so hard it was practically a selfie MRI. He only invited me constantly, but this was the first time I’d agreed. It wasn’t that I fundamentally objected to the idea of seeing two sweaty guys in tight singlets grapple with each other. But I wasn’t a sports fan, and it sounded like it’d be boring after the initial ogle. Like, paint drying boring. Like tennis and golf on TV boring. My Texan father was very much a “guy,” and he always had ESPN on. It made me want to run around his house naked singing “Oklahoma!” in sheer rebellion.

  Besides, I was super busy. It was my senior year, and between my classes, working twenty hours a week at the newspaper, and trying to have a social life, this was my craziest college semester yet.

  “If you honestly loathe it tonight, I’ll buy you coffee for a week,” Jordan promised.

  “Ooh, that’s risky. What if I just say I hate it?”

  “You’re a smart-ass, Gabriel Martin, but you’re not a liar.”

  Jordan was right. Even if I hated it, I’d never tell him. I knew how much Owen meant to Jordan, and Owen was a big-time wrestler. It would be like insulting his family. Mi mama raised me better than that.

  We ordered our drinks, along with a huge peppermint cupcake for Jordan, and looked for a spot where we wouldn’t disturb people trying to study. We ended up at a small table by the window. As soon as we sat down, I told Jordan all about my less-than-exciting first byline story at the newspaper. The fabulous “Elks snooze in their eggnogs” story.

  He wiped chocolate crumbs from his mouth and shrugged. “It makes sense they’d start you on something small. See how you do.”

  “I know that.” I grimaced. “It’s not that I’m being a prima donna. It’s just that I didn’t think it would take until almost December to get my first shot. So I’m sort of screwed.”

  Jordan gave me a questioning look.

  I sighed. “I need a decent final project for my Advanced Investigative Journalism class, and I was hoping I could do it during my work hours at the paper. I pitched a bunch of different ideas to the editor that would have worked. But no, I end up with a fluff piece. Christmas cheer. Warm and fuzzy. Tra la freaking la. And I’ve only got a couple more weeks to turn in that assignment for my class.”

  “Ah! I see the problem. You procrastinated and now you’re fucked,” Jordan summarized cheerfully.

  I sipped my drink, giving him a death glare over it. “It was an efficient and logical plan, thank you very much. I told myself if I didn’t get a good story at the paper by Thanksgiving, I’d write something over the break. But then I ended up in Texas with my dad, step-mom, and her kids for Thanksgiving, which was so depressing it leached all the motivation out of my bones.” I made a dramatic slurping sound. “Honestly, I was lucky to even survive.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jordan said dryly.

  “Now I’ve got to do this silly Christmas Elks story and come up with my investigative project and finish all my other coursework and prep for finals.”

  “Sucks to be you,” Jordan said, but his smile was genuinely sympathetic.

  I huffed. “Sorry. ‘Do you want some crackers with that whine?’ Dios, I’m so boring.”

  Jordan laughed. “Boring is the last thing you are. And the whole point of having friends is so you can whine.”

  “True, but it’s your turn now. How’re things going?”

  Jordan smile was soft and his brown eyes were all happy. “Oh, you know. Busy. Between wrestling season, end of the semester, and getting ready to go home for Christmas, it’s a bit nuts. But we’re good. Very good.”

  It was always “we” with Jordan. He and Owen had been together since, like, the second grade or something ridiculous like that. Or at least they were friends for that long before they hooked up in high school.

  “I’ve got a couple of big art projects due by finals too, only mine are nearly done.” He gave me a gloating look. Asshole. “Owen is focused on wrestling, which is its own reality this time of year and pretty much takes over everything. But it’s fun too. I’ll miss it once we graduate. Hard to believe this is Owen’s last wrestling season, at least as an athlete rather than a coach.”

  “Fun?” I said dubiously. “Didn’t you tell me Owen spends all his time training and lives on salads and shit?” I nodded at the pathetic remains of Jordan’s peppermint cupcake, which consisted of a few crumbs too small for a mouse and a partially gnawed wrapper. “Obviously, sugar is forbidden at home. How is that ‘fun’?”

  Jordan smiled knowingly. “Tonight you’ll find out, my friend. Trust me.”

  We got to Field House at 6:30 for a 7:00 p.m. wrestling meet. A distinct odour d’ locker room hit me as we walked inside. I’d only been in the place once for a volleyball game during freshman orientation week. It was a good-sized arena, though not huge like the football stadium. There were tiers of risers on three sides, and a big red circle with a W in the middle of the shiny gym floor. Over the center hung a big black scoreboard with Wisconsin, in red along the top of it. So collegiate! I was glad I’d worn my Badgers sweatshirt. Like, me and the arena were twinsies. Jordan too, for that matter, only he was pretty much all screaming red with his red jacket, red T-shirt, black jeans, and red Converse tennies.

  He snagged us a spot in the middle of the first tier on the home side, an area reserved for friends and family. He said hello to approximately a billion people as we took our seats. He waved both arms overhead to a group seated up behind us in the second tier. They waved back with small rainbow flags.

  “Owen! Owen!” they chanted. I recognized some of th
em from the LGBT center on campus.

  Oh yeah. Right.

  Jordan’s boyfriend, Owen Nelson, was one of UW’s wrestling stars, and wrestling was huge in Wisconsin. He’d also been the first openly bisexual college wrestler when he joined the team as a freshman, so he’d gotten famous. Like, nationally famous. But that had been four years ago and, according to Jordan, most of it had died down by now. Like me, Jordan and Owen were both seniors.

  Seeing the group of LGBT fans, though, I realized it hadn’t entirely died down.

  After Jordan sat down, I leaned in. “So Owen doesn’t get shit for being out anymore? Really? Like, not at all?”

  Jordan shrugged. “He still gets sneers and comments. Then there’s the occasional homophobe asswipe in the crowd holding up a sign or something. But Owen is super focused. It just bounces off him. It bugs me more than it bugs him. Sometimes, I get pretty pissed off, but that’s the price of being open, unfortunately.”

  It was brave of Owen to be out as an athlete. And brave of Jordan, too, to come to every match, sit proudly in the stands, and stare down the faggot-haters. Joder. I’d never thought about it like that. Now I felt guilty for not coming to a match before. I was a shit friend.

  Jordan opened up his backpack. “Okay, so, warning. Do not be alarmed at all the spirit.”

  “Huh?”

  In quick succession, he donned a red Badgers scarf, fuzzy red Badger ears, and strung glowing necklaces on top of the scarf around his neck. He forced a couple over my head too.

  “Hey, I’m into it,” I pronounced as I grabbed some red fuzzy gloves from his backpack and tugged them on. “I am a fucking Badger bitch.”

  “Yeah. That’s not a thing, Gabe.” Jordan laughed.

  I stood up and waved to the rainbow flag contingent. “Owen! Owen!” I started the chant again, pumping my fuzzy red fists in the air. They chanted back. I finished up with a “Yeah!” and sat back down. I gave Jordan a raised eyebrow.