Chapter 13 #2
“Okay, well”—Asher rubs his temples—“I’m starting to think I am canonically not all that straight.”
“What led to this startling revelation?”
“Remember when I was all doom and gloom about being concussed and Caleb nursed me back to life?”
Ava nods solemnly. “Yes, you physically couldn’t shut up about it.”
“I was dying—oi, stop taking advantage of my inability to hold on to more than one thought.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You have a solid three thoughts per hour. Four on a good day.”
“Very funny. Anyway. The night before we flew to Omaha he may have, um, kissed me?”
At this, Ava practically clambers up onto the counter, their studded nose now large and blurring half the screen. They enunciate each word. “Elaborate. Right. Fucking. Now.”
“I also may have kissed him back.” Asher clears his throat. “More than once.”
That’s an understatement if Asher’s ever uttered one. It’s just that Asher has no way of verbalizing how kissing Caleb felt endless and all-encompassing, drowning and being brought back to life all at once. How he felt that kiss everywhere and everywhen and didn’t ever want it to end.
“So, it wasn’t completely awful?”
“Surprisingly pretty decent, considering how I thought he had the personality of white bread—Ava.”
Ava puts both hands up in a placating gesture, but it is betrayed by the catlike grin plastered across their face. “Sorry. Go on with your crisis-slash-epiphany.”
Asher groans, spinning around on the spot, head in his hands. “How are you not freaking out about this?”
The live feed goes shaky as Ava picks up the phone. Switching the feed to the rear-facing camera, they move down the hall, past their violently ugly tufted rug that declares GO FAST EAT ASS, and into Asher’s old bedroom. The set of weights from his father still sits in the corner collecting dust.
Ava’s disembodied hand comes into view and they jab a finger at Asher’s bed. “You had a poster of Caleb—do not gaslight me into thinking I made it up—hanging above your bed! Do you know how extremely unstraight that is?”
“It was inspirational!” Asher wails.
There’s movement again as Ava brings them back to the kitchen.
The camera feed switches once more and Ava points a bagel at him.
A wave of sesame seeds barrel into the lens.
“You practically cohabited with him during your concussion era. You are literally a walking, talking vine. A whole cliché on legs! What’s next?
Is your mom going to sell you to One Direction? ”
“Okay, I get it! So, am I, like, not straight?”
Ava puts down their bagel and purses their lip. “You can be whatever you want to be.”
“I know I don’t have to put a label on it, but Caleb said something about wanting to feel like he’s part of something bigger than himself, and I just think that would be really helpful to me right now.”
Ava taps their little finger against their chin thoughtfully. “What about bi?”
Bisexual. Asher runs the word over his tongue, trying it on for size. It wraps around his shoulders, cozy like a weighted blanket, and something inside his chest untwists. A small laugh startles out of him.
“So, what are you going to do?” Ava asks.
“Die like my heterosexuality?”
What Asher doesn’t tell Ava is that the one thing he does know with a ferocious certainty is that he wants more.
More kisses, more displays of affection, more of whatever Caleb is willing to give him.
This thing between them—whatever it is—feels new and delicate: something precious that he wants to tuck away and protect for a while.
“Hey, dumbass,” Ava calls out. They wink. “I’m proud of you.”
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA
Asher smooths his gear, untangling the ruby tassels that clink together at the hem of his shorts as he hovers at gorilla position.
He’s aware that he’s bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet, but he can’t seem to stop.
Beyond the fact that tonight is his first big match after returning from injury, tonight is also about reclamation, a fight for what was unknowingly taken from him.
Redemption for what he now understands is Mr. Prichard’s blindside.
“Hello.”
And there’s this fact. Asher turns on his heel, and there he is—250 pounds of life-ruining shoulders and glorious muscle. Asher’s favorite problem.
Caleb has swapped out his usual blue pants for a pair of white-and-gold tights with diamonds coming up the sides.
He looks unfairly good—GEW championship belt hung over his strong shoulder, slightly crooked nose, ridiculous crown perched on top of his perfectly tousled hair.
Asher wants to rip it off and kiss him senseless.
It’s the first time they’ve seen each other in person since flying out, lodging in different hotels through Kansas to Oklahoma.
They do text fairly frequently though. Caleb sends him screenshots of the books he’s reading and videos of Bailey howling along to Led Zeppelin and the Cranberries while Asher sends him hyperspecific memes captioned you (derogatory).
He spends nights curled around his phone and a newly acquired Verizon Unlimited plan, talking until either one of them dozes off first, feeling strange and untethered having to relearn how to fall asleep without the comforting pressure of arms around his chest. It’s nice to close his eyes; it lets him pretend Caleb is by his side.
What they don’t talk about, however, is Caleb’s lips on his under the starlight, in the shimmering moon-painted waters.
It’s as though they’ve carved out something of their own, a world where they can both set down their weapons and just be, but it is encased in a little glass bauble.
One wrong move and everything shatters. Yet all Asher can think about is that kiss.
The taste of it says they shouldn’t have crossed that line, but Asher doesn’t care.
That should be surprising. Scary, even. But it isn’t.
Not even a little bit. That is what terrifies him.
“Hi,” Asher echoes. Finally being in the same room again overwhelms him. The corner of his mouth lifts, far beyond his control, and Caleb’s face breaks into a smile. A flush creeps up his neck.
“Can’t wait to kick your ass tonight,” Caleb says. This threat lands differently from all the ones that have come before. This one still holds heat, but that of a different kind. Asher might fucking scream.
“I’d like to see you try, sweetheart,” Asher volleys back breathlessly, drawing his lower lip between his teeth.
“Mmm,” Caleb replies affirmatively—a soft sort of melodic lilt that makes the air around them vibrate—and beckons Asher over with a finger.
They stare at each other for a beat. Something flares white-hot in Asher’s chest, caught between hate and the other side of the same coin, something he suspects has long put down roots there. He feels absolutely giddy with it.
“Knight, ready on standby,” comes a producer’s voice, tinny over the backstage intercom.
They freeze. A line cracks down their glass bauble. Caleb’s shoulders droop. As he makes his way down the hall to his entrance, Caleb looks back and cocks his head. “Ross—” he starts, then something stops him. “Good luck, Asher.”
Getting a leather collar clasped around his neck is a heady feeling.
Having Caleb fucking Knight at the other end of a ten-foot steel chain with an identical collar clasped around his neck, however, is about to send Asher into orbit at terminal velocity.
When he’d flung the idea of a dog collar match at Caleb two months ago, it had been done in anger, his vision colored red.
Now all Asher can think about is how bonkers it is that some random dude in the seventies decided that it would be a fun and not at all homoerotic idea to chain two men together by the neck.
The sold-out Oklahoma crowd and flashing Titantron are probably still making sounds, but it’s all faded into static. Asher can’t hear anything beyond the rush of blood in his ears.
The GEW championship belt is hoisted high in the air in the middle of the ring, and the bell rings.
The bout starts with a tug of war, both men trying to—literally—learn the ropes.
Caleb yanks hard and Asher stumbles forward.
The momentum pulls Asher into Caleb’s big right boot, one that connects against his chest and knocks the wind out of him.
Asher falls to the mat as Caleb follows up with a quick series of elbows dropped onto his torso.
Fending him off, Asher kicks Caleb’s legs out from beneath him. He ducks out of the ring, maneuvering the chain such that it doesn’t get in his way and springboards off the top rope, hitting Caleb with a flying lariat—an outstretched arm that connects with Caleb’s chest.
Scrambling to his feet, Asher runs back to the ropes and hops onto the top turnbuckle in the corner of the ring.
Before he can complete the cutter maneuver—falling back and catching Caleb in a facelock before dropping him onto the mat—he’s intercepted by Caleb, who yanks on the chain.
There’s a sharp pull on the leather around his neck, a dizzying moment of inertia before he crashes hard.
On the mat, a stuttering inhale pushes up Asher’s throat, his fingers coming to clutch at the strap. He blinks once. Twice. Wonders if it should feel as intoxicating as it does. Caleb stares back at him, pupils blown wide open.
Caleb follows him down onto the mat in a body lock grapple, wrapping his strong thighs around Asher’s midsection and squeezes.
Asher gasps past the pressure around his sternum, in part chasing the air that’s forced from his lungs, but mostly because the hold presses Caleb up against his back and Asher can feel everything.
As time ticks by, Asher collapses farther into Caleb, eyes half-mast.
“You good?” Caleb grunts. This close, his lips graze the tip of Asher’s spine.
An involuntary tremble ripples through Asher. “Is that my championship belt in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” he pants, baring his neck.