Rough and Tumble
by Shae Connor
Copyright © 2020 by Shae Connor. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Chapter One
Hi, my name’s Grant Clark, and I have managed to screw up my entire life. In triplicate.
Number one: I fell in love with my best friend.
Number two: I thought he was straight.
Number three: Because of number one and number two, I didn’t make a move.
Until it was too late.
…
It’s a sunny and windy mid-September day, a few weeks into the fall semester of my sophomore year, and I’m feeling pretty good when I walk into my dorm room. I’ve been sharing with Darryn Kaneko since our first semester, and we’ve gotten to be super close since we first got tossed together because we’re both on the gymnastics team. Darryn’s better than me, but not by much, and sometimes I get the best of him in the gym. Usually on floor exercise.
Darryn gets the best of me this time, because when I push open the door, he’s on his bed. Naked. And decidedly not alone.
I’m frozen at first, stunned by what I’m seeing. It takes my brain a few seconds to work out that the person wrapped around my best friend and super-secret crush is a guy.
“Holy shit! You’re gay?”
The words burst out of my mouth before I can even think of stopping them, and that’s what it takes for the two of them to realize I’m there. Darryn’s wide eyes meet my gaze from where he’s lying on his back with the guy over him, and he’s as frozen as I am for a second before he scrambles to get the sheet pulled up in a vain attempt to cover up what’s going on.
“Do you mind?” he snaps out. “I put a goddamned note on the door.”
His uncharacteristic anger yanks me out of my fugue, and I spin around on my heel so at least I’m not staring anymore. At their naked bodies. Their naked, sweaty, oh my God my roommate is having gay sex bodies.
“Jesus Christ, Grant. Could you at least wait outside while we put some clothes on?”
Oh shit. Dammit. I fumble for the handle to escape and the next thing I know I’m in the hallway, staring at the door. Right below the room number is our sticker of the University of Atlanta logo, complete with gray-and-blue tornado in the center. And below that is a mess of colorful papers. There’s always some new flyer showing up on the door, and I never pay any attention to them anymore. This time, though, next to an ad for some off-campus party this weekend, there’s a folded piece of paper attached with a piece of tape. My name is scribbled on it in Darryn’s messy handwriting. I reach for it on autopilot and unfold it.
Got company. ;) Give me till 3? And knock before you come in. ~ D
It’s actually after 3—I know, because it was a few minutes before when I left the student union—so I don’t know how he thought that part would help. Which makes me wonder, how long have they been making the beast with two backs?
Which brings me back to—how in the hell did I not know he’d be willing to make the beast with two backs with a guy?
The realization finally hits me then, and a cold chill runs through me, starting from the chest out. My vision blurs and my knees buckle, and I have to catch myself with both hands against the wall to keep from crumpling to the floor.
Darryn is gay. My best friend, teammate, and roommate. The guy I’ve been sharing most of my life with for well over a year…and crushing on for most of that time.
Is.
Gay.
And somebody else got to him first.
Fuck. My. Life.
“Hey man, you okay?”
I recognize the voice as Pace Solomon, who lives a few rooms down the hall. I turn my head without removing my forehead from where it’s pressed against the wall, because if I do, I might start pounding that spot until I bash my skull open.
“Yeah,” I lie. Pace is a nice guy—and hot, too, all piercing eyes and lean muscle and massive thighs from catching for the baseball team—but he tends toward the clueless side sometimes. “Just forgot about something.”
Pace doesn’t look convinced, but for once he leaves me alone, and that’s all I care about. I’m so out of it I don’t even take the chance to secretly watch his fine ass as he ambles away. My mind’s still stuck on the fine ass of my roommate and the guy he’s fucking.
“Argh.” I do beat my head against the wall then, though not hard enough to bruise.
The one who’s really getting fucked here is me.
The door a foot to my right opens, and the naked-guy-who’s-not-my-roommate-and-also-isn’t-naked-anymore comes out. The dude gives me a once-over and sneers. “He’s all yours,” he says, as if he has any claim to my best friend other than the fact that he’s been naked in bed with him and I haven’t.
“You said it, not me,” I spit back.
I don’t give him time to come up with a response. I’m inside the room with the door closed behind me and my backpack hurled onto my bed in seconds.
“I’d say I’m sorry you walked in on that, but it’s your own fault.” Darryn’s in boxer-briefs and a tank top, though his skin still glistens with sweat and maybe other bodily fluids. He’s standing next to his bed with his hands on his hips, which only serves to show off his massive arm muscles. “I left a note. Like we talked about.”
Post-coital Darryn makes for quite the vivid picture, but I won’t let myself be distracted right now. “Like we talked about over a year ago,” I shoot back, waving my arms for emphasis. “When we first moved in together. Not once since then has either of us used it. I had no idea you’d suddenly decided to start bringing back hookups or whatever that was. So no, I didn’t see the goddamned note.”
I don’t even care how mockingly I repeat his words (complete with head tilts). I’m still too busy being pissed off—at him for being gay, fucking hell, and at me for not figuring it out until someone else got his hands all over that perfectly sculpted body.
“Well, excuse me for getting some.” Darryn stomps over to his closet and starts rummaging through it. Probably looking for the right pair of jeans to show off his bubble butt to all the men on campus who would love to get a piece of it. Me included. “Not my fault if you can’t get a date.”
Wait, what?
“I cannot believe you.” I’m in his face before I know I’m moving, even though that puts me halfway in his closet. Poetic. “I’ve spent every waking hour of the year that I wasn’t in class or at home for breaks with you. Practice, meals, studying, sleeping in the same room. When, exactly, was I supposed to find a hookup, much less a date?” And that brings me up short. “For that matter, when, exactly, did you have time to find one?”
Darryn pushes past me to his bed and starts shoving his legs into his jeans. “We make time for the things that matter.”
And I’ve spent over a year making time for you, I think, though I manage not to say that out loud, at least. “And in all this time you couldn’t mention once that getting fucked mattered to you? You’re supposed to be my best friend.”
Darryn’s shoulders droop, and he doesn’t look at me. “For a best friend,” he says, “you sure don’t seem to want to be honest with me about who you are.”
The words hang between us like he’d shouted them, and the icy ball in my gut sends up a spike that threatens to pierce my throat. “I don’t—”
He shakes his head and goes back to fastening his jeans. “I knew you were gay within a month after we met,” he says. “I figured eventually you’d trust me enough to tell me.”
He might as well have slapped me across the face.
“You didn’t tell me, either!” I lash out. “If you’re gonna talk about trust, you could have told me.”
He finally looks up at me, and the pain in his eyes matches the pain in my heart.
“There wasn’t anything to tell,” he rasps out. “Not to start with.” He yanks a T-shirt over his head and then grabs his keys and phone off his bedside table. “It took another good six months before I figured out that I liked guys, too.”
He shoves his feet into flip-flops, grabs his duffel bag from the floor at the end of his bed, and pushes past me.
My heart races the farther away he moves. “How did you know?” The question jumps out of me, and he stops with his hand on the door handle. I can feel the tension in his body from three feet away.
He finally turns his head far enough for me to see his profile, his features etched with pain.
“It took me six months to realize that I was falling for you.”
He’s out the door and gone then, and my knees finally do give out.
At least my bed is there to catch me.
…
Darryn doesn’t come back until late. Late enough that I’m half considering calling everyone I know to find out if they’ve seen him, and then maybe the campus police if that doesn’t pan out.
I’ve spent the rest of the evening alternating between staring at the wall and pacing the floor, the last few hours running in a loop in my head, but I keep getting stuck on the same thing.
I was falling for you.
How could I be so completely oblivious? Six months. Six months of pining after Darryn, and if I’d ever once gotten my head out of my ass, I might have realized that he felt the same damn way. Might have finally had a chance to do more with a guy than just a few kisses. Might have Darryn in my bed every night, and not only in my dreams.
And now it was too late.
Finally exhausted from pacing and stressing, I threw myself in bed around eleven and proceeded to check the phone every ten minutes. More like every five.
My phone’s just finished telling me it’s 12:13 a.m.—and Darryn’s always been an early-to-bed type, even on weekends—when the door slowly eases open, like he’s trying to sneak in.
Which he is, of course. Because this is how we operate now, apparently. Hiding from each other.
“Don’t bother.” I get a sick sort of joy from the way he jumps. “I’m awake.”
Darryn sighs and tosses his duffel back into its usual spot. “Go to sleep,” he grumbles. “We’re not talking about this now.”
I think I hear him mutter “or ever” under his breath. Like that’s gonna happen. I will give him a break tonight, though, only because I know he has a calculus exam coming up that’s had him tearing out his hair, almost literally. And even though I’m pissed at him on so many levels it’s like a parking garage all up in my brain—level one, anger; level two, hurt; level three, oh my God, you’re gay??—we’re still supposed to be friends.
And that’s something I’d like to retain out of whatever else happens, at least.
“Okay. Tomorrow, then.” I roll over, putting my back to him and the bed that changed the entire course of my life a few hours earlier. “Good night.”
We lie there in silence, neither of us sleeping, until finally we do.
…
In the morning, of course, we don’t talk. Darryn’s up and out the door before I’m awake enough to stop him, and I don’t see him again until gym. Where we proceed to ignore the hell out of each other. Because reasons.
Well. I try to ignore him. But my traitorous gaze keeps seeking him out anyway. Does he look different? Happier? Is this guy really what he wants, or is it—
“Clark! You’re up!”
Fuck. Worst practice of my career. That’s the third time Coach Everson has had to prompt me, and he’s pissed as hell about it. I shake my head once, hard, and focus my frustration into the job ahead of me.
I blow out a long breath, bounce onto my toes, and start the long run up to the vault. The empty stands blur in my periphery, and I can tell as I hit the board that I’ve got it nailed. My hands slam the wide, curved top of the vault, and I punch off with all my strength and pull my arms in tight, twisting my body as I fly through the air.
I hit the mat with my balance a tiny bit off-center, and I have to take a small step to recover, but as I punch my fists into the air, I know it’s one of my best efforts. Vault’s never been my strength, but the new routine that works in more height and an extra half twist rather than trying to add a flip seems to be doing the trick.
I jog over to get my notes from the assistant coach as Coach Everson sends the next team member down the lane. Coach Sato gives me a nod and a tiny, tiny smile. He’s the one who worked up my new vault, and he’s got to be feeling good about it.
“Good form,” he says, back to all business. “Watch the angle when you hit the vault. Your right hand was too high up, and that put you off at the end.” He nods again and pats my flank with the hand not holding his ever-present clipboard. “Take a couple of laps to cool down and hit the showers. You’re done for today.”
For once, I don’t argue. Usually I’m all for more time in the gym, more time on the apparatus, but my head’s not in it today. Hell, I’m surprised Coach Everson didn’t pull me out of the line for the vault. Not paying attention is a problem with any of the six apparatus, but the vault’s particularly dangerous if you aren’t laser focused.
I give Coach Sato a nod and head for the track that runs around the perimeter of the gym. In less than a minute, I’ve settled into a slow, steady jog, and I let my mind wander.
Unfortunately, my eyes do, too, zeroing in on Darryn just as he takes off for his turn on the vault.
His body is a solid, taut line as he runs, legs and arms pumping, and then he launches himself into his routine. He’s several steps ahead of me in both difficulty and execution on vault, his best event, though we’re even on the others except my own specialty, the floor exercise. I watch as he takes a cartwheel into the launch and backflips onto the vault, the muscles in his arms bunching and flexing as he pushes into the air. He pulls his body straight and flips around twice before planting into the mat, not a wobble or step to be seen.
That’s okay. I almost make up for it by tripping over my own feet. I snatch my gaze back from ogling my teammate and concentrate on finishing my run. Well, mostly. My mind takes the opportunity to run even more laps around the same questions. Why did I wait so long to say anything to Darryn? How could I have missed my chance so badly? Have I screwed up so much that I’ve lost my best friend for good?
I’m not sure I want to know the answer to that last one, which is why I can’t exactly blame Darryn for avoiding me the next few days—okay, hell, yes, I can blame him. Yeah, I’ve been in avoidance mode, but I’m not the one who’s been staying out every night until after I’ve given up and fallen asleep.
Not this time.
Thursday night, I stake out our room, determined to have this conversation whether Darryn’s ready for it or not.
When he opens the door at a quarter to midnight and sees me sitting on the foot of his bed, he takes half a step back as if to turn around and walk right back out.
“Enough is enough.” I point to his desk chair. “Sit your ass down and let’s talk.”
He’s going to say no. I can see it coming. I try a different tactic.
Honesty.
What the hell, right?
“I miss you.” It’s the God’s honest truth, and he knows it. “Whatever else is going on, you’re still my best friend. Okay? Can we just…talk about this?”
He hovers halfway between yes and no for an eternity before he finally lets out a sigh like he’s deflating and kicks the door shut. “All right,” he grumbles, dropping his backpack on the floor and his ass into his desk chair. “Talk.”
That, of course, is the moment when my natural logorrhea decides to get constipated.
My lips flap uselessly, not forming any words for another eternity, before Darryn rolls his eyes. “Look,” he says. “I meant what I said before. When I figured out you were gay, it genuinely did not matter to me. You were a nice guy and a good teammate, and that was all that mattered.”
He falls silent, and that’s when my words start flowing again. “And then you, what, discovered the flamboyant side of life?”
I wince even as I say it, and before he can yell or leave, which is what I deserve, I put up a hand. “Sorry. That was stupid. I just…” I let my hand drop. “When you figured it out, why didn’t you say something?”
“What was I supposed to say?” Darryn looks at me then, his dark eyes wide and pained. “You obviously didn’t trust me enough to tell me about yourself. And I wouldn’t have known where to start.”
His words slam like a fist into my stomach. “You think I don’t trust you?”
Darryn gives me one of his patented raised eyebrows at that. “We’ve been friends for a year, Grant.” His words are slow, as if talking to a small child. “And you still haven’t told me you’re gay. What the hell else am I supposed to think?”
He’s gotta be kidding me. “You can’t think of any reason an athlete on scholarship to a college in the Deep South might be reluctant to come out?”
“Not come out, come out.” Darryn waves a hand. “I’m not talking about a Sports Illustrated cover here. Or even telling the team or anything. I’m talking about telling me.” He lays his hand over his chest. “The guy you’ve been living with for a year. The guy who’s supposed to be your best friend.”
That one I’ve thought about long enough that I have an answer. “I was afraid,” I admit. “I haven’t even told my parents yet. My sister knows. I didn’t even have to tell her.” Some kind of twin thing, I figured. “The first person I told was a friend in high school I kinda had a crush on. I thought maybe…” I shrug. “It didn’t go well.”
Darryn’s hands curl into fists. “Did he hurt you?”
My heart gives a little leap at his concern. “No. Not…not physically, anyway.” I lower my head to my chest and curl my arm across my stomach at the memory. “He called me several choice names and never spoke to me again.”
The rawness in my voice must affect Darryn, because in my periphery I can see him shift forward, as if he’s moving to hug me. He gives great hugs, even though I’ve only gotten them in celebration or consolation after great or terrible performances in meets. My skin aches, as if it’s pulling away from my body, reaching for Darryn’s touch.
But he slides back into his chair, and the ache gives way to a jolt of pain. I bite back a gasp, but I can’t stop the full-body flinch.
“I’m sorry you went through that.” Darryn’s voice rasps like his throat is coated with sandpaper. “I thought you knew me better. If I ever did anything that made you think I’d treat you like that—”
“You didn’t. But what makes it my job to come out anyway?” The frustration of the last few days wells up, spilling out as my voice rises. “You figured out you were gay—”
“Bi, actually.”
I pause for only a second. “Okay. Bi. You still didn’t tell me.” The words tear at my throat. “Why was it all on me to come out? You’ve had months, and you didn’t say a word, either.”
He does that one-shoulder shrug again. “You had plenty of chances, too.”
“But I didn’t know!” I’m on my feet then, my heart and head pounding, the bitter taste of adrenaline in my mouth. “As far as I knew, you were straight and an athlete. You know damn good and well how most jocks treat gay guys. Or if they even think they might be gay.”
“I’m not just any guy, Grant!” Darryn pushes to his feet, too, fists clenched at his sides. “You know me. We’ve talked about everything.”
My shoulders slump as all the fight drains out of me. “Everything except this.”
The truth falls into the silence between us.
We keep cycling through the same arguments, getting nowhere. I only wanted to talk and clear the air, get my best friend back, and maybe see if what’s-his-face is a permanent fixture or if there’s still a chance that we could—
Darryn turns away and picks up his backpack. “I have to get going. I have plans tonight.”
My stomach drops like a rock. Guess that answers my question.
“With him?” I can’t stop the way it sounds like an accusation.
Darryn freezes and carefully doesn’t look at me. “His name is Rich. And yes, with him.” He hooks his backpack over his shoulder. “Probably gonna have plans with him pretty often.”
The “you better start getting used to it” goes unspoken.
I slump down onto my bed, hollowed out, and watch as he walks out the door.
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