The Brotherly Shove

1. Breaker

CHAPTER 1

brEAKER

Eighteen Months Ago

Texas State University locker room

"What team?" I roar, and my voice echoes off the tiled walls of the locker room.

"Panthers!" The team yells back to me.

"WHAT TEAM?" I scream even louder, and they meet my energy with their equally pumped up cadence.

"PANTHERS!"

I'm surrounded by teammates in this smelly locker room, standing on a rickety bench that I'm about ninety-nine percent sure is going to give out under my weight any moment now. I'm covered in sweat, grass stains, and the celebratory champagne that Coach sprayed all over us just a moment ago, and I don't care. I have never felt higher.

"That's fucking right! College Football Championship winners, baby!" I beat my chest while the guys trade shoulder bumps and one-armed man hugs. Our star tight-end, Marshall Jenkins, holds the gold football shaped trophy over his head while we all celebrate. I might be the starting quarterback, but as a Junior at Pennbrook University, I'm not yet eligible to be captain. Of course, I'm certain I'll have the team's votes when Jenkins graduates and starts training with whatever NFL team inevitably drafts him this spring.

Coach Simmons makes his way to the middle of the crowd of dudes and holds his hands up in attempt to calm us down.

"You fucking did it, boys. This season started out rough, but you muscled through. You all killed it, I couldn't be more proud. You're bringing the trophy home to Penwood, and you deserve to celebrate. I'm not going to be a buzzkill, but don't forget the rules. Underagers — no drinking, period. And when you inevitably drink anyway, make sure nobody takes pictures of you. No hard drugs. No public indecency. No arrests. You're still representing Pennbrook, me, and most importantly, your future selves. Now hit the showers and then go have fun."

We all give Coach a collective "whoop whoop" with accompanying fist pumps as we all start losing our clothes and hop into the showers. I give myself a quick soap up and rinse off before I wrap a towel around my waist and head to my locker to get some pants on. I've been out as bisexual to the team since the end of my freshman year season, and I thankfully haven't dealt with any homophobia from my guys, but I'm still self conscious about being the only queer player in the locker room. I'm not a pervert, I would never check anyone in here out in real life, let alone naked in a locker room.

I know that my team knows that as well. They've never given me any reason to feel like the odd man out. Even still, I never want my guys to feel uncomfortable, so I'm always in and out of the showers the quickest.

"B!" I hear my best friend and our team's center, Lennon Griffith, call out behind me. He smacks a large hand down on to my shoulder and gives me a shake. I'm thankful that I've already pulled my shirt over my head before his skin has the chance to make contact with mine. Len is a super touchy-feely guy. He's a self-proclaimed hugger, a fact that he told me the first day we met when he picked me up and squeezed me so tight that I thought he'd bruised one of my ribs. It's something that shouldn't really bother me, and yet…

Platonic physical affection is not usually an issue for me. My ma is a hugger. Half the people in my neighborhood back home are huggers. Hell, I'm almost always game for a good tight embrace. The problem is not that Lennon always wants to hug me. It's more so the way my nerves start to fire on every single cylinder when Lennon touches me. It feels nothing like just a hug between friends.

"We did it, man," I say, keeping my back turned until I hear Lennon buckle his belt.

"Fuck yeah, we did." He says, and I see him rub his hand over his right side where a bruise is already forming. He took a hard hit late in the fourth quarter that he is most definitely going to be feeling tomorrow.

"You alright?" I ask, nodding to the spot.

"Yeah," he answers. "It's just sore. I might bitch out after one drink tonight, though. That fluffy hotel bed and an ice pack followed by a hot compress combo is calling to me."

Damn, that actually sounds nice. The NCAA really pulled out all the stops for the championship game against Texas State University in Houston. The beds in those rooms really make it feel like you're sleeping on a cloud lined with angel wings and unicorn dust.

"I'll dip out with you. I'm exhausted, and I don't really feel like getting trashed tonight." It's true. I threw for 236 passing yards tonight, not to mention the touchdown I sunk in on a particular kind of quarterback sneak that Len, the starting offensive line, and I developed in practice. It's pretty sick, actually. On this play, I koala bear myself on Lennon's back after the snap while he surges forward, and the offensive line shoves us over the line of scrimmage by pushing us. Basically, instead of all hands on deck , it's all hands on Breaker's ass .

That particular play that no defense seems to be able to stop cemented the win for us.

I'll take a low key night with my best friend over watching the guys getting plastered and finger blasting jersey chasers under tables at the bar.

"Yesssss! Roommate movie night!" Lennon punches the air with both fists and then starts to floss. Not his teeth, no. He's doing that cringe ass old video game dance. At 300 pounds and covered in body hair, Lennon is the epitome of a teddy bear. Big, squishy, and cuddly. Looks like he could kill you on the football field, thighs that could crack a skull like a walnut, but actually just a big, real life plushie.

Unfortunately for me, he's exactly my kind of man. And he's painfully, painfully straight.

I haven't always had a crush on Lennon. Truly, for the first few years that we knew each other, he was just my buddy. We work well together on the field and we get along off of it. We both love card games and Tom Hanks movies, and we would both rather spend a night in with a six pack each than out partying on frat row. I've always known Len was attractive as hell, and sure, there were one or two 'what if' scenarios I let myself indulge in while trying to sleep over the years, but I swear that's all it was.

Until, of course, it wasn't anymore.

It was that cursed Christmas Eve game in Alabama. The Christmas Eve that changed everything. The December night where Lennon showed me exactly who he is at his core, and when he started to feel like more. Like mine.

Lennon feels like mine, and because of that, I have been living in my own personal hell for months.

We hang with the guys for a bit, and then an hour later, Len and I have Irish goodbye-d our way out of the bar and away from the team and are back at our hotel room.

Yup.

It's not bad enough that I developed a crush on my best friend and teammate. Nope, of course he's my permanent roommate at away games. Six games a season, typically a few nights in a row each time, I have to share my most private space with him and Lennon has absolutely no shame, nor sense of personal boundaries.

Them's the breaks, I suppose.

As soon as we're in the room, Lennon strips out of the suit we're required to wear post-game and slips into a pair of flannel pajama pants and nothing else, because much to my own demise, he prefers to be shirtless and commando. I, too, change into something more comfortable, opting for a pair of briefs, black joggers and a white t-shirt. Lennon flops onto my bed like he always does and grabs the remote, searching through the onscreen guide for something to watch.

"Yo, Forrest Gump is on cable," he calls out as I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I throw him a thumbs up to indicate that, yes, I do want to watch that before spitting into the sink and wiping my face off with a towel. I take my sweet time flossing, battling the demons in my mind that want to curl up on his thick, hairy chest while every ounce of my self preservation is telling me to stay away.

I know Lennon isn't purposefully trying to screw with me by lying in my bed. He's just a physical kind of guy. He likes to be close, even if he's not touching me. It's not his fault that he doesn't know I'm head over dick in love with him. That little plot hole is all on me.

With no other seating options in the room besides his bed — and that would just be weird, me sitting on his bed while he lies on mine — I slide onto the mattress next to him, careful to keep enough distance between us so that my heart and my cock don't get too confused by his nearness. The movie has only just started, and we watch it quietly, breaking the silence between us to laugh or quote our favorite parts every so often.

At some point around the time that Forrest is running through the desert, Lennon turns on his side from where he's laying and looks at me. I turn back to him, and for a moment, I let myself get lost in the neon blue and white flecks in his eyes, the way he looks up at me through his thick black lashes, the slight scent of citrus and vetiver from his fading cologne that I know I will get high on as soon as he falls asleep and I'm left to my own devices.

I catch a glimpse of the now-dark blue bruise on his ribs and quietly gasp. I reach my fingers out and lightly trace them over his side.

"You need an ice bath," I say, my voice shaking.

"I had one at the facility before we left for the bar. The trainers and docs checked me out. Nothing is broken, don't worry," he answers with a knowing smile.

"I wasn't worried for you, dick, I was worried for the team. Who else is gonna lug me over the line of scrimmage if you're on IR?"

He laughs, even though we both know tonight was our last time playing together before the pros. There's no injured reserve list in his future, at least not as a Penwood Panther.

The likelihood of us ending up on the same team and the same string? One in a million. Even so, his face turns more serious. From where we're sitting on the bed, he's below me and I'm looking down at him, his bright blue eyes shining behind his dark lashes back up at me. My heart skips a beat when I think…

No.

He didn't bite his lower lip. There's no way.

And even if he did, it has nothing to do with me.

"B," he says softly, reaching out and running one single finger tip up and down my bicep, and every single nerve in my body stands at attention. I shiver and goosebumps erupt over my flesh.

Jesus. Fuck.

"Yeah, Len?" I answer, the butterflies in my stomach threaten to lose their minds and fight their way out of my throat to escape. He shifts on the bed, finding a more comfortable position on his side and inadvertently bringing his body closer to mine. He runs his tongue over his puffy, biteable pink lips that are practically hidden behind his beard and mustache, and I inwardly groan. I feel like I'm imagining the eyes that are raking all over me, taking in my face and my body slowly and tortuously.

Of course I'm imagining it. Real life isn't a goddamn romcom. His eyes aren't 'raking' anywhere. He's just looking at me. No subtext.

And still…

It feels like too much.

I have to tell him. I have to tell him how I feel. It's not fair of me to be lusting after the guy who thinks he's just chilling casually with a friend. I worry so much about not creeping my teammates in the locker room and yet here I am, in bed with my best friend and I can't stop thinking about sinking my teeth into that bottom lip of his. I know I don't have to worry about him reacting in any sort of crazy or scary way but admitting the way I've begun to see him? That will probably ruin what we've got going on here. Knowing I've thought about him this way…yeah. I can't see our friendship surviving this.

But…maybe…

I have to tell him. I'm not being fair to either of us.

I open my mouth to speak, knowing that I have no idea what I'm going to say.

Hey Len, I know we're best friends and teammates and you're strictly into pussy, but I can't stop thinking about what your mouth tastes like and how badly I want to run my hands over your chest and what it would feel like to fall asleep in your arms.

Yeah, no.

I close my mouth again, and though he looks like his eyelids are drooping, he's still looking up at me through his thick, dark lashes. He looks like he's about to drift off, having forgotten that he said my name in the first place. To my surprise, Lennon speaks up, his voice sounding harsh and breathless.

"I love you, Breaker," he says softly, blinking up at me with a smile that makes my heart skip a thousand beats.

"I…umm. Huh. You love me?" If I thought the butterflies were going crazy before, it's a goddamn mosh pit in my stomach right now. It takes him a minute or two to respond, and I'm on edge the entire time.

"Yeah," he smiles, sleepily, cuddling further into the pillow and therefore, closer to me. I see his pupils go wide, just for a moment, but he blinks quickly and casts his gaze down to the pillow where his head rests.

"Of course, I do. You're like the brother I never had," he whispers, and my heart sinks.

A moment later, his eyes are shut and he's snoring softly, and my lips tremble. Reality slams into me like a folding chair at a wrestling match, and it's worse than I could have ever imagined. Five minutes ago, the delusional part of my brain thought that maybe, just maybe, there was some part of Lennon that could see that he and I were meant to be. That sexuality, or whatever is in our pants doesn't matter, because he's mine. His heart, his body, his soul; it all feels like it belongs to me.

I close my eyes and picture myself crawling into my brain, finding that delusional piece and crushing it under my foot, because it has no business taking up space in my mind anymore. Not when Lennon just told me he doesn't see me as a friend.

He sees me as a goddamn brother, and that is a line that I could never, ever cross.

I fight to be brave. To take the words in stride, to remind myself that even if Lennon hadn't just said what he said, there was never a chance of him reciprocating my feelings so there's no point in being upset.

Try as I might to muster all the courage I can manage, hot tears win the fight and begin to spill over my eyelids and slide down my cheeks.