Footlights and Forever (Echoes of Us #1)

1. “Brainy is the new sexy.” — Irene Adler

Chapter 1

“Brainy is the new sexy.” — Irene Adler

Dylan

T here aren’t a lot of smells on this earth that could make me want to lose my lunch. For example, I had worked over at a Griffith’s diner on Fifth and Madison for the previous two summers washing dishes, bussing tables, and hauling the trash out to the large red dumpsters in the alley out the back. The stench from that alley on hot summer nights was something to be feared and avoided if at all possible. That being said, I could just about handle the smell if I only breathed through my mouth and ran as fast as I could.

That smell, however, had absolutely nothing on the giant off-white laundry bins in the locker room of my high school. The fetid stench of ball sweat and filth from the discarded jockstraps, jerseys, and track pants infiltrated my nostrils and clung to my skin. The warm damp material of a mud-soaked football jersey sliding across my face and neck caused bile and vomit to rise into my throat. I swallowed it down in hopes of staving off what I assumed would be a torrent of puke that would only serve to make the stench worse.

What exactly was I doing in a laundry bin, one might ask? Especially since I appeared to have such an aversion to them. Let’s just say my current predicament wasn’t exactly voluntary.

“Take a good whiff, Cooper!” the deep steely voice of Garrett Marks bellowed across the room. “Must be like Nirvana, the smell of all those cock and balls.”

Garrett Marks was the thing that all young gay boys feared, a super-hot guy that had the ability to both strike fear in your heart and give you an inappropriate boner with just a wink. Sadly, this story would not end with Mr. Marks falling head over heels in love with me. No, Mr. Marks was just a regular run-of-the-mill hetero bully. I had ‘come out of the closet’ at the start of my junior year, and by that, I meant someone had Sherlocked my identity on a popular gay dating app that I should not have been on until I was eighteen. A screenshot of my hairless pale-skinned twink chest, with a group of messages informing my suitor just how horny I was, had circulated around the school within two hours of my first day after summer.

All throughout junior year, I had just been the skinny nerd whom the jocks liked to make fun of, knocking the books out of my hand in the hallway between classes and occasionally shoving me into a locker door if the mood took them. I wasn’t saying I’d been okay with that, but it hadn’t been the worst. Then, after my big surprise coming out, it was like the gloves had come off. Now instead of making fun, it was turning into good old-fashioned hate speech. “What up, faggot?”, was basically my greeting most mornings. Instead of knocking books out of my hands between classes, being tripped and shoved to the floor While a group of jocks sneered at me and told me how I probably liked to be on my hands and knees became far too normal, and instead of being shoved against a locker door, being shut into a locker or being thrown headfirst into a dirty laundry bin was becoming something I expected rather than something of a surprise.

“I think you should definitely spend some more time in there, Cooper,” Garrett sniggered, which was a not-so-hidden message for ‘don’t even fucking think of getting out of that bin’. The cruel jeers and cheers of Garrett’s little gang of jock clones sounded along with his own, banging the bars of the bin and rattling the heavy fabric bag that contained their dirty castaway linens and me.

I still wasn’t sure what I had done to land myself in the laundry bin. I’d been stopping by to talk to the coach after he had sent a message to the theatre department that he needed to speak to me urgently. I had found his office empty, knocked and entered the locker rooms, only to be confronted by the sight of eight sweaty muscle-bound football gods semi-naked. Sure, maybe my mouth had hung open for a few seconds longer than what would have been considered socially acceptable. Sue me.

The cream-colored paint on the walls of the locker room was chipped and peeling away all over, leaving small flecks of paint visible on the sloping roofs of the bright pillar-box red lockers. Ugly orange terracotta tiles smeared with mud and god-knows-what lined the floors, and wood benches stretching down the centre of the room were littered with bottles of what looked to be off-colored protein powder mixes and balled-up towels.

Garrett had approached me from somewhere off to my left almost instantly, swinging his heavy arm around my neck and pulling me into what could be considered a sort of bro-hug, but was actually a covert act of dominance. His sweaty pits had pushed against the side of my face as he pulled me to him.

“Getting a good look, Sally?” he’d sneered, turning me around the locker room. I’d winced as I saw the other boys giving me disgusted looks, covering themselves up and dressing quickly. “Bet you’re gonna go home and jerk your meat to this later, aren’t you?”

I’d known there was no point in me trying for any type of defense. That wasn’t what this had been about; this was about an alpha asserting his superiority over the weaker members of the herd. He’d muttered some mild insults, shoving me towards Taylor Granger. The funny thing about Taylor was that other than being a linebacker for the school football team, he had also been one of my best friends in middle school. The gods of puberty had chosen to bless Taylor with normal growth, whereas I still kinda looked like I had in elementary school, just taller. So we’d drifted apart until a divide had become a gulf, and that gulf became what separated the bully from the bullied.

A few seconds later, Garrett had informed me that if I really wanted to get an up close and personal experience with their junk, he could help me out with that. This was how I’d found myself sitting in a heap at the bottom of the laundry bin.

The jocks always liked to think that we gay guys were lusting after them non-stop when in actual fact, our entire mission statement was staying as far away from them as possible, avoid eye contact at all costs, and keep our fucking heads down until graduation. Garrett and the rest of the team were in every way not my type. However, there were always exceptions to the rule.

“What’s going on?” I cringed as the locker room door creaked against its hinges as it opened fully, the tell-tale bang of the door against the rubber stopper on the wall. Please no.

“Hey, Austin.” Garrett’s voice transformed from the cruel biting tones he saved just for me to the friendly baritone he shared with everyone else. “Nothing man, just having a bit of fun, you know?”

“Fun in the locker room, eh?” The smile in the newbie’s voice was evident. “Something you want to tell me, Garrett?”

A chorus of ohs from the jocks sprung up around the room, a cold fear started to work its way up my spine, chilling each knot of bone along the way. While I could appreciate Garrett being taken down a peg or two, the mere mention that he was anything other than a straight alpha male would likely result in him needing to take that supposed humiliation out on someone, and that someone tended to be me.

“Fuck you, Ridge.” A deep groaning laugh croaked from Garrett’s throat.

“Seriously though,” the deep voice chuckled, “everything cool in here?”

“Yeah, it’s all good man.” I heard the sound of what could have been a faint high five. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure how much longer I could stay in here without either passing out, crying, or hurling. A low rumble in my stomach warned me that soon, option three would be thrust upon me whether I liked it or not.

“Boys, get your behinds out of the locker room and get moving towards your next class,” Coach Helmsley’s voice shouted from the other side of the room. “None of you dumb asses can afford to fail a class. You know the score: you fail a class, you don’t get to play football.”

Ah yes, the undisputed religion of my high school and for all intents and purposes, this entire town. I lived in a small town called Wickford in Ohio on the banks of Lake Erie. If you looked up the word ‘unremarkable’ in the dictionary, you would more than likely find a picture of me, but I would be standing pointing at a sign leading to ‘Wickford, Ohio, Population 24,560’. The town was small by any metric, but our town did boast that it was the best little town in all of America, which I suspected might be the slogan for nearly every small town in America. Red brick buildings lined the streets, each one as indistinguishable as the last. The shopkeepers proudly hung the Stars and Stripes from poles outside their shop fronts until the entire town’s Main Street looked like it was about to host some type of large-scale military parade. The perfectly manicured lawns of the suburbs in front of white and cream, two-story house facades gave the impression one was running down a repeating corridor like a scene from Scooby Doo.

In the middle of our small town, red bricks and in-your-face patriotism, was Central River High School, the banner outside proudly stating, ‘Home of the Red River Coyotes’. The Coyotes football team was the pride and joy of the school and the town in general, and the boys who played within its ranks were untouchable. I was pretty sure, as a certain Cheeto-looking ex-president would say, that a member of the team could shoot someone on Main Street and the town would somehow manage to spin it that the victim just got in the way of the bullet.

If I thought that the coach would have helped me out of my current predicament without somehow making it my fault, I probably would have called for help. Instead I stayed silent, the rancid smell now stinging my eyes and making rivulets of water cascade down my cheeks.

“Where the hell is Dylan Cooper?” the coach barked. I imagined a Mexican wave of shrugs and averted glances traveling around the room at the coach’s question. “That boy was supposed to be helping me out with the schedules for next week. If any of y’all see him, tell him I’m looking for him.”

“Will do, boss,” Garrett sang. His voice that made girls and boys swoon with its rich timbre, filled me with nothing but fear and dread. I heard the locker room door slamming, most likely with the coach’s departure.

“What the hell have you done now, Garrett?” Irritation laced the smooth voice from across the room.

“Like I said, just a bit of fun.” The motherfucker actually giggled.

My jaw went slack as I turned in the direction of the strange childlike laughter coming from the supposed butch jock who’d stuffed me in the laundry. As I turned my head, the textured fabric waistband of a jock slid against my lip. A burst of sour saltiness burst across my tongue. Unable to stop myself any further, I retched loudly. The sound echoed around the room like thunder.

“What the fuck!.” I heard footsteps moving quickly towards me. Hands grabbed the bars above me. Piece by piece, jockstraps and jerseys were pulled from the bin and discarded somewhere else. I looked up as the ocean of dirty underwear parted to reveal the angry face of Austin Ridge.

Austin was the exception to the rule I was talking about earlier: tall, strong, and beautiful. No matter how much I tried to keep my eyes trained to the ground in the school corridors, they always seemed to lift of their own accord whenever Austin turned the corner.

I tried to avert my eyes even now, but he was like every wet dream coalesced into reality. Austin had really thick but short black hair, and those piercing green/hazel eyes seemed to glow in the sunlight. I knew, because I’d spent countless hours looking at them across the room during AP Bio, the one class we shared. I may or may not also have stalked his Myspace page. With all his six-foot-two deliciousness standing right there in front of me, my mouth filled with saliva like a Pavlovian dog. I saw a small smirk playing on his lips as he caught my obvious perusal of him.

I’d have liked to say that Austin was always the savior of the nerds like myself, but that wouldn’t be telling the complete truth. Yes, Austin had never bullied me, or anyone as far as I was aware, but he chose instead to look away or peace out whenever his buddies would turn their attention on one of the unfortunate gazelles who had wandered away from the pack. Like that hyena episode of Buffy, they would track and pounce on their prey when they least expected it. I knew the old proverb that said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’, but this good man was seriously cute, so I chose to give him a pass.

Again, sue me.

Austin reached down into the bin, wrapping his large hand around my left bicep and gently pulling me up until I was standing in front of him on top of a pile of laundry. “Are you okay, Dylan?”

Okay, I wasn’t going to lie and say that I didn’t do an internal happy dance at hearing my name fall from his lips so easily, but that was tampered down quickly with the realization that I probably smelled like all his friends’ balls combined.

“Yeah I’m fine,” I snapped a little more harshly than I’d meant, pulling my arm away from his grip. The fabric beneath my feet kept shifting, not letting me get enough purchase on the ground to swing my legs over the bars to escape my jockstrap prison. I made a mental note to check later whether jockstrap prison was the name of a gay porn, as that would be something I would definitely watch.

“Here.” His voice was gentle and almost sweet. “Let me help. Please?”

I cast my gaze up to see a small smile on his face, his arm outstretched like a literal olive branch, mine for the taking. I looked around the room at the smirking faces of the rest of the football team, staring at me with a mixture of amusement and contempt. Only Garett near the back of the room glared at me with all-out disgust as I rested my hand on Austin’s shoulder, letting him wrap his hand once more around my bicep and almost lift me over the bar until I was standing flush against him.

My breathing faltered as I took in the spicy scent of cologne that lingered underneath his own earthy masculine aroma. The smell was heady and alluring, and I thought I almost leaned into it, taking a deeper breath than necessary, as if I was trying to store some of the scent for later.

“Thank you,” I muttered under my breath, pushing away from Austin, departing his personal space before the other guys in the room took my creepy proximity to the captain of the football team as their cue to start up with their bullshit again.

“No problem.” Austin took a small step towards me, concern etched into his marred brow. His worry and attention on any other day would literally make my entire week, but I really just wanted to get away from that locker room, go home, and burn those clothes. “Are you really okay, Dylan?”

My name on his lips stirred something in my gut, a low keening pulse pushing south. Unbidden, my brain worked its very own on the spot fantasy of his full lips and husky deep voice crooning my name as he spooned me from behind. His breath hot on my neck as I felt him pushing into me from… I shook myself out of my rapidly developing fantasy. I realized that I’d been staring at him silently for a good solid six seconds, which was a long time for silence.

“Other than needing a shower, I’m fine.” I gave a half-hearted shrug and made a move to walk out of the room.

“Oh, look who has himself his very own knight in shining armor,” Garrett sneered as I approached him. “That makes you our damsel in distress, right? Suits you, queer.”

For some reason, my first instinct was to apologize. Almost as if my apparent pathetic-ness was something I needed to say sorry for. My mouth opened to mutter the words which would seal my fate as a complete loser. I didn’t get a chance to, however, as two large hands wrapped around my arms from behind and I was physically lifted from my feet and deposited a few feet to the left. Stunned, I turned and lifted my hands, ready to shield myself from any incoming punches, when I saw a pissed-off looking Austin standing next to me, staring daggers at Garrett.

Yes, it completely defeated the purpose of Austin’s righteous indignation at Garrett, but as I stared at the profile of Austin’s head, it wasn’t a big stretch of the imagination to picture him as some conquering hero like Ivanhoe, defending the honor of the… Holy shit I really was the maiden in this piece.

“Come on Garrett, lay off the poor kid.” Austin leaned forward, giving his friend a playful shove. “Any more teasing and I’m going to start thinking it’s like when you used to pull Kelsey Grossman’s pigtails in first grade.”

Poor kid? Wow, just what every maiden wanted to be known as.

“Fuck off, man.” Garrett looked around nervously, a tight laugh escaping his throat. “I’m just having a little fun with Cooper. It’s no harm.”

Kelsey Grossman was almost like a rite of passage for the boys of the football team. She’d made it her personal mission to make out with or round a good third base with each and every member of the squad. I don’t know why they bothered with a mascot at all. They could have just sent out Kelsey onto the field, waving her very own scorecard around.

“Seriously guys, it’s all cool.” I hated how meek and scared my voice sounded. In my head I’d been trying for cool and aloof, but instead I ended up sounding like some kind of terrified chipmunk.

“See, look.” Garrett waved an arm towards me. “No harm no foul.”

I chanced a look at Austin, my eyes catching his. A friendly smile played on his lips as he threw an arm across my shoulder and pulled me in to his side. My brain short-circuited. If anyone had asked me to speak at that moment, I did not believe I would have been able to form any type of coherent sentence. His mouthwatering cologne once lit up all the arousal receptors in my brain, and apparently the hunger ones as well, as my mouth immediately filled with saliva.

“Listen, leave Dylan alone, okay?” Austin side-swipe kicked Garrett’s leg playfully. “He’s cool. We’re friends.”

“We are?” my voice squeaked. I craned my head up to see Auston nod his head once, almost imperceptibly to me. “I mean, we are,” I said with a little too much conviction.

I tilted my head high, trying for once to show some kind of backbone in the face of my bullies. The sneers and open looks of scorn quickly had my eyes trained to the floor. I kept my feet in tight and my arms down by my side, hoping if I didn’t take up too much of their territory they might permit me to pass unscathed, or well, less scathed than I already was at this point.

“Whatever man.” Garrett stared down at me with a little disdain mixed with confusion, like one might stare at some questionable old gum on the sole of their shoe. “Come on, let’s bounce.” He smirked at the rest of the team, gesturing over his shoulder to the door. They filed out the room, each of them looking down at me like a bug they could squish under the toes of their boots if they deemed me worthy of that level of attention.

The door slammed on the last vacating team member, leaving me alone in the locker room with the object of many of my moister dreams. I smiled briefly at him before pulling away from the absolute comfort of his arm and turning towards the door to follow the team out.

“Hey hold up.” Austin’s hand settled on my shoulder. I briefly considered the fact that this was the most amount of contact that had occurred between myself and Austin in all the years I’d known him. “Hang out for a few minutes.”

“Why?” The question escaped my mouth before I had a chance to stop it. He snorted out a laugh, equal amounts of confusion in his eyes as was probably reflected back at him from mine.

“Do we really need an excuse to hang out?” My mouth lolled open as I searched the archive of my brain for any valid reason for the captain of the football team to hang out with the likes of me. I prepared myself to blurt out some random words to stop myself looking like a stunned trout, when the locker room door burst open behind me.

“Fucker, are you coming?” Garrett looked between Austin and myself, just as confused as I was.

“I was just asking…” Austin started.

“I have to get going,” I interrupted him, thumbing over my shoulder, looking sheepishly between them before getting the hell out of there.

Fuck this day.