22. Leo - The Gamble
The sky above the Regional stadium is a blue so clear it looks fake, an expanse of cobalt that perfectly reflects the jolt of electricity running under my skin.
Around me, the noise is a white ocean: shouts of encouragement, the rhythmic thud of feet on the rubber track, the speakers crackling names that aren't mine.
But I hear none of it. For weeks, we've lived in a forced silence, a claustrophobic isolation dictated by Nate's paranoia following Jones's visit.
Weeks of avoided glances, messages deleted after three seconds, and that professional distance that flays my soul.
Nate has become a ghost inhabiting my coach's body.
He is rigid, impeccable in his regulation blue polo, the stopwatch around his neck looking like a noose.
I see him trackside, a few yards from the starting blocks, talking to the race official.
He constantly adjusts his collar—a nervous tic he's developed ever since the Vice Principal went knocking on his door.
I'm done. I'm done with being ignored, with being a secret to be hidden, a shame to be managed between one practice and the next. If we have to burn, I want the flames visible from space.
Twenty minutes before the gun. Nate signals for me to follow him into the tunnel leading to the locker rooms for the final technical briefing. It's our only moment of relative privacy, if you can call this concrete corridor—where the echo of other athletes' spikes rings like gunfire—private.
He stops, his back to me. He opens his usual clipboard, but his fingers are trembling imperceptibly. "Sinclair, listen to me. The wind is coming from the northeast. Don't force the curve; let the momentum carry you..."
I don't let him finish. I move so close I can feel the heat radiating from his back. Nate stiffens, but he doesn't turn. He knows I'm violating the security perimeter he's desperately tried to build.
"Leo, stop. We've already talked about this," he murmurs, his voice reduced to a hoarse breath.
"I miss you, Nate. I miss you to death," I whisper, ignoring his warnings. I place a hand on the back of his neck, feeling the short, neat hair beneath my palm. I turn him with firm pressure, forcing him to look at me.
His eyes are a storm of desire and terror. He's on the edge of a nervous breakdown, torn between the man he loves and the Coach who wants to survive. He looks at me as if I'm the most beautiful and most destructive thing in his life.
"Leo, please..."
I don't give him time to push me away. I shove him against the cold tunnel wall and kiss him, but it isn't a goodbye kiss.
It's a claim. Nate moans softly, his hands trying to push me away but ending up clawing at my racing singlet.
I feel him buckle; I feel him surrender to the gravity of us.
I move my face to his neck, just below the corner of his left jaw.
It's an exposed, vulnerable spot. I inhale his scent—sandalwood and adrenaline—and then I bite.
Not hard, but with fierce determination.
I feel his warm skin, the accelerated pulse of his carotid artery beneath my mouth.
I suck hard, concentrating all my frustration and passion into that small patch of flesh.
Nate flinches, a shiver running down his entire spine. "What... what are you doing?"
I pull back, admiring my work. A vivid, purplish mark is blooming right beneath his jawline. It's a declaration of war against his silence. It's a mark that no polo, no matter how high-buttoned, will be able to completely hide if he moves his head the wrong way.
"I've marked you, Nate," I smile, adjusting his polo collar with mock care to partially cover the spot. "Now go out there and try to pretend I don't exist."
He looks at me with a horror that is already becoming something else. He touches the sensitive spot, feeling the heat of the hickey. "You'll ruin me, Leo. You'll ruin me on this very day."
"Or maybe I'll set you free. See you at the finish line, Coach."
The atmosphere in the stadium is saturated.
I'm set at the starting block for the 200-meter dash.
I feel my heart beating in my fingertips pressed against the rubber track.
To my right, Tyler shoots me a defiant look, but there's something different in his gaze: a suspicion that is becoming a certainty.
Nate is ten yards from me, standing on the sidelines.
He is a vision of pure suffering. He spends every single second adjusting his polo collar with his left hand, pulling the fabric up until he's nearly choking himself.
Every time another coach approaches him to exchange a few words, he stiffens, tilting his head to the right to hide the left side of his neck, answering in monosyllables.
He's sweating, not from the heat, but from the stress. I see him run a hand across his forehead, his eyes wandering everywhere but on me—yet I know every one of his senses is tuned to my lane. The silver whistle I gave him must weigh like an anchor under that blue shirt.
"To your marks!" the official yells.
I get into position. My thigh muscles are coiled, ready to explode.
I look ahead toward the curve I have to dominate.
In that moment, Nate looks up and locks eyes with me.
Just for a second. In that second, I see it all: the anger for the mark I left, the fear of what's about to happen, and a pride so deep it gives me the thrust of a thousand engines.
Boom.
The shot tears through the air.
I take off like a bullet. I don't feel my legs anymore; I only feel the wind whipping my face.
The curve comes fast, but I take it with a fluidity I've never had in training.
I feel the ground beneath my feet, the power of every stride.
Tyler is to my left; I see him in my peripheral vision trying to catch up, but I'm already gone.
As I run, the image of Nate touching his neck flashes before my eyes. I run for him. I run for the equipment shed, for the cereal eaten in his robe, for the silence that nearly killed us. I run to destroy the wall between us.
The final straight is a hallucination of colors and noise. The finish line is a white line claiming my victory. I cross it with a clear lead, stopping the clock at a time that will make state records tremble.
The stadium noise explodes. My teammates run toward me, Tyler included, ready to celebrate, to lift me up, to make the usual locker-room ruckus. But I ignore them all.
I don't stop to celebrate. I don't look for the glory. My eyes are fixed on a single point: the regulation blue polo.
Nate has remained there, motionless. His collar is now slightly rumpled from how much he's tortured it.
When he sees I'm heading straight for him, he turns pale.
He takes a step back, looking around frantically.
Jones is in the honorary stands. Tyler is a few yards from me.
Half the school district is watching us.
I walk with the confidence of someone who has nothing left to lose. I push past the security ropes, ignore the pats on the back from other athletes, and stop exactly in front of him. Nate is struggling to breathe, his hand still pressed hysterically against his jaw to hide the hickey.
"Sinclair, get back to the team. Now," he murmurs, trying to maintain a facade of authority that is sinking like the Titanic.
Instead of obeying, I lean forward. I grab his arm with a strength that allows no refusal and press my chest against his, still sweaty and panting from the race. I feel his heart beating wildly—a captured prey.
I bring my mouth close to his ear. I smell his aftershave mixed with the taste of the kiss stolen in the tunnel. In front of everyone, in front of the local cameras, in front of Tyler who stands petrified three yards away, I whisper words that are pure dynamite.
"Did you see how I ran, Nate? I did it just to hear you scream my name tonight, when we're alone and I have my mouth everywhere but on this whistle."
I pull back slowly, savoring the effect of my words. Nate's face goes from pale to a deep, bruised red that almost masks the hickey. He is paralyzed. His lips tremble, but he can't articulate a single sound. His composure has been atomized.
I give him one last brazen, almost angelic smile, and finally turn toward my teammates, who are looking at me like I just landed from another planet.
I look at Nate one last time. He has finally surrendered. He's stopped adjusting his collar. He's staring into space, with the mark I left on his neck shining like a war trophy under the Regional sun.