Down By Contact (Wilmington Breakers Book 1)

by Johnson, Sloan

  “Have to,” he responded. “Trust me, it’ll all be okay.”

  “Love you.” My words were even more slurred now. As much as I didn’t want to sleep, my body wasn’t going to let me up.

  “Love you, too.” I smiled, knowing Griffin really meant what he was saying. He bent over me on the bed, kissing his way along my jaw, from my chin up to my ear. “Never stopped. Never will.”

  Fifteen

  (Zach)

  Brutal. That was the only way to describe Nix’s treatment of us players the first day back at camp. By mid-afternoon, I was praying for another meeting where I’d struggle to stay awake, because every muscle in my body was screaming for a break.

  “If you want to be the best, you have to work harder.” Nix’s brand of encouragement reminded me of drill instructors trying to whip their recruits into shape. “You call that effort? My grandma could do more reps than you!”

  Those of us who were used to his moods ignored Nixon and kept working. A few of the rookies looked ready to piss their pants. Despite the fact that I’d kill for a comfy couch and a fat, juicy burger, it was good to be back in the office, so to speak. I’d been nervous about today, worried that everyone would’ve heard about me coming out at deShawn’s, but so far, it seemed everyone who’d been there was keeping their mouths shut. Hale shied away from me in the locker room this morning, but that wasn’t unexpected. It’d take time for everyone who knew to believe I wasn’t in there to perv on their asses. Why was it that so many straight dudes automatically assumed gay guys wouldn’t be able to help themselves from a quick peek or grope? It wasn’t like most of their hairy, pimply asses did anything for me. And the ones who did, well they were like brothers to me, and I’d never perv on my brothers.

  “Kendricks, Coach wants to see you,” Nixon said. I fumbled the bar, almost dropping it on my chest. I’d been so deep in thought I hadn’t realized Nixon had come over to watch me. Sitting up, I reached down for my towel and water bottle. I didn’t want to get up. Didn’t want to make the long walk across the quad to Coach’s temporary office. Nixon scrolled through some notes on his phone before looking up to see my concern. “It’s nothing bad, Zach. Come on, let’s go.”

  Nixon followed me out of the training room. I could feel Griffin behind us, following silently, recording my trek. I wondered if, in the final cut, there’d be dramatic music dubbed over this footage. Nix’s presence wasn’t helping my anxiety. He made it clear he had better shit to do with his time than meander back and forth all day, escorting players to their meetings. So why was he here?

  Coach was waiting for us outside his office. Another bad sign. He glanced past me to Griffin, shaking his head subtly. I wanted to see what was going on, but we’d all been reminded again this morning that we were to ignore the cameras which were crawling around everywhere. “Please, this is a private meeting. If your team gives you any shit about it, they can talk to me.”

  I heard Griffin sigh, and a door closed behind us a few seconds later. There was a pang in my chest, and my worry shifted from whatever my own boss was going to say to me to what Giles was going to say to Griffin about him not staying with me as directed. I remembered the deal we’d made, that I would worry about my job and let him worry about his, and tried to push back every scenario running through my mind.

  “Please, have a seat,” Coach urged. I sat in one of the club chairs, feeling even more uncomfortable when Nixon and Coach both began pacing around the room. I felt like a slab of meat dropped into the lion’s cage. “Before we get started, how are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” I responded, my words drawn out and tentative, as though I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to answer.

  “No one’s giving you a hard time?” he asked as a follow-up.

  “No?” Again, my response came out more like a question than a statement. There was something going on, but I felt completely in the dark. My heart dropped through my stomach to somewhere on the floor at my feet when I realized what he wasn’t saying. “Is there a reason you pulled me away from training? Has someone said something to you? Fuck!” Now I was the one pacing. My eyes darted around the room, looking for something I could hit that wouldn’t break my fucking hand. “I swear to you, Coach, I’m the same guy in that locker room now that I was last year. If anyone’s trying to say otherwise, they’re full of shit. I wouldn’t do anything to risk my job. Or hell, my face. Do you have any clue what some of those fuckers would do to me if they thought I was checking them out?”

  So much for assuming my teammates were on my side. Now that I felt threatened, I was acting as though they were all enemies who’d just as soon bash my face in as they would play ball. I hated myself for thinking so little of them, but fuck that. If it was me or them, I wasn’t going to be the one in the wrong here.

  “Calm down, Zach,” Coach urged. I jerked away from his hand on my shoulder. I didn’t want his comfort. This was why I hadn’t come out sooner. Because even though I’d done nothing wrong, I was going to be seen as the pervert. The threat to the masculinity of everyone else in that fucking locker room. When Coach grabbed me again, this time with more force, I flinched. “Sit. Down.”

  I glared at him.

  “Zach, no one’s said anything,” Nixon assured me. They were playing good cop, bad cop with me. I’d have pegged Nixon for the bad cop, but apparently not. His voice was softer, kinder, like he was the one who was used to dealing with feral animals and shitty attitudes. “Coach is trying to make sure nothing’s happening that we’re not hearing about. We’re trying here, but this is a new situation for all of us.”

  “It shouldn’t be a situation at all,” I argued, still defensive. “Who I fuck when I’m at home doesn’t mean shit when I walk through those doors.”

  “You know that and we know that, but it’s still something a lot of these guys have never had to deal with,” Nixon pointed out. “And you’re right, the only thing that matters when you’re here is your ball handling and how fast you can run the forty. Speaking of, your times this morning were a bit slow. Work on that.”

  “It’s the first day. No one has their best times the first day.”

  “True, but you’re not most players. I hate to say it, but once word gets out that you’re gay, everyone’s going to be watching you. They’re going to look for anything they perceive as weakness and use it against the entire organization.” Coach didn’t sound happy about what he was saying, but the words still fell from his mouth. I respected him for saying what was on his mind, but I also hated him a little, because we shouldn’t even be having this conversation. Rather than sitting behind his desk once I calmed down enough to take my seat, Coach sat in the club chair next to me and Nixon leaned against the desk. “It’s not fair and it’s not right, but that’s the reality you’re facing right now. The reason I wanted to meet with you this morning is to make sure you know you’re not alone. Hell, I think Nixon is salivating over the opportunity to push you to your breaking point.”

  “It’s true,” Nixon confirmed. When I gaped at him, he shrugged and offered me a crooked smile. “What? If you were me, you’d feel the same damn way. You have so much fucking potential locked up in that body, and now that you have some added motivation, I’m looking forward to seeing what you can really do. Someday, they’re going to look back at me and say I’m the guy who worked with the best damn receiver the league’s ever seen.”

  “Oh, so it’s about you?” Coach and Nixon both let out a sigh of relief that I was back to being a smart-ass rather than a raging bull.

  “No, it’s about you,” Coach insisted. “You’re a damn good kid. The fact that you’ve performed as well as you have with that weight on your shoulders is a testament to your dedication. Now, it’s time for you to let us help you go the rest of the way. Now, there is one other thing. And given how well you took the last bit, I’m almost afraid to tell you this.”

  “Just hit me with it.” I slumped forward in my seat, wondering how this meeting could get an
y worse.

  “There’s footage of you talking to some of the guys,” Coach informed me. He pinched the bridge of his nose, like shit was about to turn ugly. “Specifically, there’s a conversation between you and deShawn. We’re going to be calling him up here next, because this fiasco is spinning out of control and we’re hoping to minimize the damage.”

  “I haven’t said anything I’m not willing to have out there,” I said resolutely.

  “Zach, I know you’re trying to make it seem like this is just you proving that you’re a normal guy, but it’s more than that. If it wasn’t for those fucking cameras, it wouldn’t be an issue. But they’re there, and that asshole producer is drooling over you right now,” Coach said. “This isn’t going to be pretty by the time everything’s cut and pasted together. And the league is pissed, because they feel blindsided. I spent half of yesterday on the phone trying to assure them that this wasn’t going to blow up in all of our faces, that you’re here to play football, not make political statements.”

  “Well, they can go fuck themselves, because I didn’t realize having a conversation with a friend was a political statement.” I felt the vein in the side of my head throbbing. That was bad, because there was no way I’d be able to stop the migraine that was forming. Afternoon rest time needed to hurry up and get here.

  “True, but the public has a way of twisting what they see and hear, and public perception is what really matters,” Nixon interrupted. “Now, so far it’s just you talking about a boyfriend you lost because you were too focused on the game. That’s not so bad, because it happens to a lot of guys, not just gay guys. More relationships fail than make it, especially when you’re trying to make a name for yourself. But you need to be careful going forward. Don’t give that production team any more ammunition than they’ve already gathered. I know you’d talked about coming out to the rest of the guys, but we need you to hold off, at least for now. Let us figure out how to deal with this, and we’ll be in touch.”

  Great, my sex life was now a problem that was going to require strategy meetings to figure out how to handle. I was a PR nightmare. And I was still fucking pissed that it mattered at all. I wanted to go back a few hours in time and hit the pause button. This morning, waking up with Griffin in my arms, was like a fucking dream. If not for the fact that our bodies were sweaty and sticky from the early morning sun beating down on us, I’d have thought it truly was a dream. But it was so fucking real, and now I was going to have to tiptoe around him. I was going to have to pretend he was nothing to me, even when the cameras weren’t rolling. I was going to have to break my promise that he wouldn’t be a secret this time around. Fuck, he was going to hate me.

  “Is there anything else?” I asked, lurching out of my chair toward the door. I wanted to get out of there and run. Not on a treadmill with the rest of my teammates; I wanted to hit the streets and let my mind drift back to when life was easier. I wanted nothing but the music in my ears and the cadence of my feet hitting the pavement to drown the rage swelling in my body.

  “Nope, that’ll do it,” Coach said, resignation thick in his voice. “Just please try to remember we’re not the enemies here. We have faith in you, but right now, we’re all stuck playing games with the league and the production team. We’re not telling you to ignore your identity, we’re trying to make it easier for you to be that clown we all know from last year without who you are casting a shadow over what you’re capable of on the field.”

  Waving dismissively, I left the room without another word. His pep talk wasn’t helping. Maybe later, when I wasn’t so fucking angry, I’d believe him. But first, I needed to run until I couldn’t go any further.

  Sixteen

  (Griffin)

  I sat outside the quad waiting for Zach to get done with his meeting. I should’ve been focused on how Giles was going to ream my ass when he found out I hadn’t reminded the coach that they’d agreed to have every moment outside the locker room captured on film for the series. It’d been drilled into our heads that no matter how many times we were told to get out of a room, we were to insist that we had a contractual right to be there. If it’d been any other player, any other situation, maybe I would’ve stood up to Coach, but knowing it had something to do with Zach, I chose to back out of the room quietly, hoping Zach would tell me what’d happened when he got done. Not the camera, me. The man he’d told repeatedly on the drive from Wilmington to Raleigh that we were going to be okay.

  Okay was far from how I felt when I watched him storm out of the administration building. I tried to flag him down, but he already had headphones shoved in his ears as he took off at a jog in the opposite direction. Looking down at my camera, I knew I was supposed to follow him. It was time to do my job. But dammit, I couldn’t. Something happened in there and Zach was running. Literally, but hopefully not figuratively. There was a golf cart parked next to the building; I knew I could hop in there and follow him, turning on the mounted camera so I was still doing my job. Dammit, it all kept coming back to my job. Not his. Not our relationship. The job. The job that was going to screw up his entire world.

  It was a huge risk, I knew, but I stepped into the administration building and knocked on Coach’s door. He called out for me to enter, but his demeanor changed the moment he saw who was interrupting his day. “Look, if you’re here to bitch me out because I didn’t want you filming what happened in here, save it. I know you have a job to do, but so do I. And if I feel like you’re interfering with my job or my players’ training, I will send you away every single time.”

  “Yes, sir,” I responded quietly. I kicked at a clump of dirt on the floor. “And as strange as it sounds, I admire that about you. Zach needs to know there are people here who are looking after what’s best for him, because I’m almost certain you can count on my crew to shred his life apart.”

  “And now you understand why I asked you to leave.” He sounded smug, like I’d actually come in here to cuss him out or beg him to never shut me out again. I wanted to be open with him, explain why it meant so much to me to know he had Zach’s back, but I couldn’t. That’d be a betrayal of his trust. If Zach wanted his coach or the other staff to know more about his personal life, he’d tell them. Until then, I needed to remember my place in this mess.

  “With all due respect, sir, I understood at the time,” I responded, trying to sound unaffected. “Remember, I’ve been with Zach for the past two weeks. Anything you’ve heard about, I knew first. It may be a breach of protocol, but when the cameras weren’t rolling, who do you think he was talking to about his fears for this year? Who was the one who went with him when he told his parents that he was done hiding who he was just to play a game? So please, don’t belittle me by making it sound like I don’t know what’s going on. And for what it’s worth, I meant it when I said it’s good that he has you in his corner. It’s going to take time for him to believe that, but keep telling him. This is something he’s wanted for a hell of a long time. He’s given up more than you will ever know in order to get here. Now, he needs to understand being true to himself isn’t going to cost him everything he has left.”

  Coach leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled in front of his mouth as he studied me. I resisted the urge to shuffle from one foot to the other under his scrutiny. The camera bag slung over my shoulder made it nearly impossible to stand upright, and I knew my back was going to be sore as hell later. “You picked all that up in a week? You sure you weren’t a psych major?”

  “No, sir.” I chuckled, because I had briefly thought about going into that field, but was turned off by how much schooling would be necessary before I could do anything with my degree. I didn’t have the personality or patience for any more time than necessary in a classroom. I had to think fast to figure out how to explain away knowing so much about Zach and his family. Family. That was it. “As I said, I was there when he talked to his parents. When you’re expected to fade into the background, there’s not much to do but listen.”

>   “So, you’re telling me that when you’re not recording, you’re eavesdropping, trying to figure out what you can try to get on tape later?” Coach was seething now. He didn’t trust me. Even worse, he was accusing me of doing to Zach the very thing I was trying to figure out how to keep anyone else from doing.

  “Why would I stand here telling you how hard it’s going to be for Zach to hold it all together if I was the one trying to undo him?” I quirked one eyebrow, waiting to hear his rebuttal. There was none. “I won’t go into details because I don’t owe them to you, but I’m the last person in this circus who’d try to turn Zach into a media spectacle. If you need proof of that, think for a moment about the fact that, if I was doing my job, I’d be halfway across campus by this point, following Zach with my camera. But I’m not. Instead, I’m sitting in here talking to you because I know he needs time alone. I also know that if the producers find out that I’m refusing to do the job I signed up for, I might be out on my ass by the end of the day. I’m hoping that doesn’t happen, because I need this job, but I’ll be okay with it if it does. Because sometimes, doing the right thing is more important than following the rules.”

  Now it was the coach’s turn to stare at me. His bottom lip jutted out slightly and he started nodding slowly. “Well then, I guess you put me in my place.”

  Another man burst into the room at that point, nearly tripping when he heard Coach’s response. “You need me to get this kid out of here?”

  Coach shook his head. “No, Nix, he’s fine. In fact, I think he might be part of the solution to our problem.”

  “Excuse me?” “Huh?” Nixon and I responded at the same time.