17. Leo - The Third Wheel
The afternoon mist rises from the track like a ghostly veil, but it's not enough to hide the tension vibrating between me and the man with the whistle around his neck.
Nate is there, at the edge of the field, a monolithic figure in his dark blue tech gear.
He doesn't look at me. Or rather, he pretends not to, obsessively focused on the times recorded on his tablet.
But I feel his gaze burning the back of my neck every time I sprint from the blocks.
I feel his punitive silence for what happened in the equipment shed—that strategic retreat into professionalism that makes me want to either slap him or kiss him until he forgets how to breathe.
It's into this empty space, this frozen crack Nate created to protect himself, that Tyler inserts himself.
Tyler is the kind of guy everyone likes: long brown hair, a squared jaw, a smile made for toothpaste commercials, and a total lack of filters. He's the team co-captain, a solid athlete, but above all, he's a magnet for attention. And lately, he's decided his new favorite target is me.
"Hey, Sinclair! You look a bit jammed up on the hundred meters today. Want me to show you how to drive your arms better on the start?"
Tyler pulls up beside me while I'm doing dynamic stretching. He leans down next to me, flaunting a flexibility that is anything but natural, and gives me a knowing look. It's an uninvited closeness, an invasion of territory that at any other time would have annoyed me, but today, it's a weapon.
I see Nate, ten yards away, stiffen his shoulders. The tablet in his hands gives an imperceptible jerk.
"Thanks, Ty. You're probably right; my legs feel a bit heavy," I reply, raising my voice just enough for the wind to carry my words toward the Coach. I smile at Tyler—a smile I've never given him, one of those I usually reserve for the mirror when I'm getting ready to go out.
"Need a ride after practice? I've got the new car; we could grab a protein shake downtown. I'd be happy to give you some posture tips—you know, from champion to future champion."
Tyler rests a hand on my shoulder. It's a heavy, warm hand, way too familiar. I feel Nate's skin, from a distance, go up in flames. I feel it without even looking at him. It's like a radio signal I receive on the frequency of my own blood.
"A ride? That'd be great. I walked today and left my car at home," I lie shamelessly. My car is in the school lot, but the thrill of seeing Nate grit his teeth until his capillaries pop is worth any lie.
Practice continues under a pale sun that provides no heat. Nate has become a machine of clipped orders. "Sinclair, less talking and more repeats! Tyler, get back in position!"
But I don't let go. Every chance I get, I seek contact with Tyler.
A pat on the back after a sprint, a loud laugh at a mediocre joke of his about how short the girls' uniforms are this year, a whisper in his ear while we stretch.
I am turning into Nate's worst nightmare: a brazen boy flirting with his teammate right under his nose.
Nate tries to ignore us. He focuses on the other athletes, corrects Miller's stride, talks to the assistant coach, but his iron mask is cracking.
I see it in the way he fumbles with his whistle.
His rigidity, that wall of "professionality" he erected after the equipment shed, is trembling under the blows of my provocation.
"You're really strong, Leo. If you keep this up, colleges will be fighting over you," Tyler says as we head toward the locker rooms. He throws an arm around my neck, pulling me in comrade-style. "And I'll be there to say I taught you everything."
I laugh loudly, a crystalline laugh that echoes in the hallway leading to the showers. "Oh, I'm sure of it, Ty. You're an excellent teacher."
We pass in front of Nate. He's standing by his office door.
Our gazes lock for a microsecond. What I see in his eyes is no longer just fear of the rules; it's a primal desire, a possessive rage screaming to the world that I don't belong to that hallway, I don't belong to the team, and I certainly don't belong to Tyler.
I belong to him. And he's about to explode.
The locker rooms are saturated with the smell of bleach, sweat, and cheap body wash.
Most of the guys have already left, headed for class or home.
I hear the voices of Miller and the others fading out in the parking lot.
I stay behind, lingering at my locker, pretending to look for something at the bottom of my bag.
Tyler is still there, pulling on his shirt, his eyes fixed on me. "So, that ride? Meet you outside in five minutes?"
"Sure, Ty. Just finishing up here and I'll be out."
He winks and heads for the exit, letting the door slam behind him. I know he's straight. But maybe he wants to try getting his cock sucked from another guy, no homo, down low. The silence that falls over the locker room is sudden and heavy, broken only by the drip of a leaky shower.
Then, I hear the footsteps.
They aren't the light steps of a student. It's a heavy, decisive walk, charged with a gravitational force I know well. The locker room door opens and closes with a metallic click that sounds like a sentence.
Nate is there. No clipboard, no tablet. He just has that look of an approaching storm. He walks toward me slowly, his brown eyes narrowed into dark slits.
"What do you think you're doing, Leo?" His voice is low, a vibration I feel deep in my bones.
"Changing to leave, Coach. Tyler's waiting for me," I reply, turning my back to him and pretending to ignore him. My heart is beating so hard I'm afraid it might jump out of my chest, but the feeling of finally having shaken him is too powerful a drug.
I feel his heat behind me. I feel his short, broken breath.
"You're not going anywhere with him."
"And why not? He's nice, he's a great athlete, and unlike someone else, he's not afraid to be seen in public with me."
Nate approaches me with a step that has nothing of his usual authoritative posture.
It's a quick movement, almost impulsive, but when his hands find my shoulders, I don't feel the brute force of the Coach; I feel the tremor of a man losing the ground beneath his feet.
He guides me against the metal lockers, but he does it with a strange care, as if he wanted to soften the impact.
His arms rest on either side of my head, closing me into a niche of heat and the scent of sandalwood, while his chest seeks mine in search of a balance he seems to have lost.
"Stop it," he whispers, and his voice isn't an order; it's a plea that breaks in his throat. "Stop smiling at him like that. Stop letting him take up every inch of your space."
I look into his eyes, so close to mine that I can see the golden flecks in the brown of his irises. The Nate in front of me isn't the jealous predator; he's a vulnerable man drowning in doubt.
"Why do you care so much, Nate?" I challenge him, but the tone is soft—a caress masked as a question. "On the track, you pass by me like I'm invisible. But Tyler sees me. He offers me rides, he makes me laugh... he's free to seek me out. What are we when there are other people around?"
"We are a torture, Leo," he replies, closing the final millimeter of distance until his nose brushes mine. "We are the only thing I can think about while I'm trying to look professional. But don't ask me to stand by and watch while he touches you. I can't do it."
His hands slide from my shoulders to my cheeks, his thumbs stroking my cheekbones with a tenderness that steals my breath. It's a gesture so intimate, so far from the violence of possession, that I feel myself melting. Nate presses his forehead against mine, closing his eyes.
"You're mine, Leo," he murmurs, and this time it's not a cry of power, but a confession whispered in the darkness between the two of us. "And not because I decided it, but because I don't know where I end and you begin anymore. Every breath you take on that track is a blow to my heart."
His breath smells of coffee and that domestic sweetness I've only come to know within the walls of his home.
His hands move down my neck, lingering on the warm skin before sliding to my hips.
He doesn't grip to mark me, but to anchor himself to me, as if I were the only solid thing in a world spinning too fast.
"Say it again," I whisper, half-closing my eyes and seeking him out. "Say it again, Daddy."
He lets out a sigh that is almost a surrendered smile and buries his face in the crook of my neck.
There is no bite, only the warm, reassuring pressure of his lips against my skin, right above the collarbone.
He kisses me there, a slow, deep contact that makes me arch my back toward him.
I feel his fingers slip under the hem of my shirt, but the touch of his palms is cautious, almost timid—an exploration seeking comfort instead of submission.
"Don't leave me in the shadows, Leo," he whispers against my skin. "You're driving me crazy because I can't hold your hand in front of them, but don't let Tyler think he has a place that is only mine."
"No one will ever have your place, Nate."
I grab his hair, but the gesture is an invitation, not a constraint.
I guide him toward my lips and the kiss we exchange is thick, loaded with a tenderness that seems to want to heal all the tension of the day.
It's a slow dance, a recognition of mutual needs where hierarchy disappears to make room for two souls that belong to each other.
Nate draws me to him, lifting me almost imperceptibly to make me press against his body, and I finally feel safe, protected by his very uncertainty.
We are wrapped in this bubble of heat, lost in each other, when the sound of the locker room door swinging open hits us like a bucket of ice water.
Clack.
Tyler's whistling echoes in the metal corridor as he trots in, oblivious to everything.
Nate reacts with a promptness that leaves me stunned.
In the blink of an eye, his posture changes.
He doesn't let go of me abruptly, but transforms the embrace into a "technical support" maneuver.
He pulls back a few inches, keeping one hand firm on my shoulder and the other on my arm, pretending to examine my posture while I'm still leaning against the lockers.
"...and as I was saying, Sinclair, if you don't keep your back straight during the drive phase, we risk a lower back strain. Is that clear?" His voice is back to the Coach's: firm, authoritative, without a single crack.
Tyler stops a few yards away, looking at us with a confused expression. "Hey... everything okay? Coach, you still here?"
Nate turns slowly, with Olympian calm, without taking his hand off my shoulder. "Sinclair felt a twinge in his back during the last set. I was helping him do some decompression against the lockers. Tyler, did you forget something?"
Tyler stares at Nate's hand on my shoulder, then looks at me. I try to regulate my breathing, forcing a grimace of fake pain that I hope looks believable.
"Yeah, my phone," Tyler murmurs, moving toward the bench. He looks at us again, narrowing his eyes. The closeness between us is still excessive for a simple technical tip; the air is saturated with an electricity that a keen eye could perceive. "You look... flushed, Leo."
Nate doesn't blink. He slides his hand off my shoulder with masterful naturalness, giving me a professional pat on the shoulder blade.
"It's the exertion, Tyler. When you learn to push as hard as he does, you'll be flushed too.
Grab your phone and get going; I still have some charts to check before I close up. "
Tyler retrieves his phone, gives us one last indecipherable look, and heads for the exit. "Sure, Coach. Guess I'll see you outside, Leo. If your back is acting up, don't push it too hard."
The door closes. Silence reigns again, but this time it's broken by the thumping of our hearts trying to slow down. Nate leans against a locker, running a hand through his hair, visibly shaken.
"We got away with it," he whispers, looking at me with a mix of relief and terror.
I looked at him, still pinned between his massive frame and the cold metal of the lockers, and I didn't feel the relief he did. I felt the hunger. The adrenaline of the near-miss was singing in my veins, more intoxicating than any trophy I'd ever won on that track.
"We got away with it this time, Nate," I whispered, reaching up to straighten his collar, my fingers lingering just a second too long on the pulse point of his neck.
He caught my wrist, his grip tight, halfway between a restraint and a caress.
For a long moment, the only sound in the locker room was the heavy, synchronized thrum of our breathing.
The mask of the Coach was back on his face, but his eyes were still wide, still haunted by the ghost of the man who had just confessed he didn't know where he ended and I began.
"Go," he commanded, though his voice lacked its usual bite. "Tyler is waiting for you. Don't make him come back a second time."
I leaned in, my lips brushing the shell of his ear one last time. "He's not the one I'm going home with in my head, Nate. Remember that."
I grabbed my bag and headed for the door without looking back. As the heavy metal door swung shut behind me, the late afternoon sun hit my face, bright and unforgiving. Tyler was leaning against his car, waving his phone at me with a grin that didn't reach his eyes as clearly as it had before.
I walked toward him, feeling Nate's gaze through the small, reinforced window of the locker room door.
We were invisible to the world, just like he wanted.
But as I climbed into Tyler's passenger seat, I knew Nate was standing in that cooling silence, poisoned by a jealousy he couldn't name and a desire he couldn't kill.
The game had changed. We weren't just running a race anymore; we were navigating a minefield. And I was the one with the map.