Chapter 13 #2
“For making your dad think you’re getting laid instead of pining over a guy he coaches.” Hunter dropped both condom boxes and the lube onto the counter in front of the teenage cashier. “Think about it. He’s relieved. He thinks his son is finally getting some and being smart about it. That’s a win.”
“It’s a lie.”
“It’s a misunderstanding I chose not to correct.”
The cashier scanned the items without making eye contact, his movements robotic. “Do you have a rewards card?”
“No,” I said.
“Would you like to sign up for—”
“No.”
Hunter paid because I couldn’t pull out my wallet while my hands were shaking this badly. He scooped the plastic bag off the counter and steered me toward the exit with a hand between my shoulder blades. “Breathe, Tommy. It’s fine.”
“Fine? How is any of this fine? My father thinks I’m sleeping with you.”
“Worse things to be accused of.” Hunter pushed the exit door open, and the warm salt air rushed over us. “I told you, my ass—”
I stopped walking.
Hunter’s hand pressed harder against my back. “Tommy. Keep moving.”
But my feet had fused to the linoleum because my eyes had drifted left, straight down the long corridor to the back corner of the store. The family-planning aisle, where my father was standing with his back to us, scanning the shelves. His large hand reached up toward the top shelf. Magnums.
Hunter’s palms slammed over my eyes, no doubt seeing what I was seeing. “Nope. No. We’re leaving right now.”
I stumbled forward as Hunter’s chest pressed against my back, physically propelling me through the door. “Hunter—”
“You didn’t see that.”
“I saw it.”
“You saw nothing. Your brain has already deleted the file.” He steered me across the parking lot, his hands still clamped over my eyes, my Converse scuffing against the asphalt as I tripped over a speed bump. “Easy. Curb.”
I batted his hands away once we reached the car. “I can walk, you lunatic.”
“Can you? Because you’re as white as a sheet.”
I leaned against the passenger door, pressing my palms flat against the sun-warmed metal. The image had burned itself onto the back of my eyelids; every time I blinked, I saw my father’s hand reaching for that gold box.
Hunter unlocked the car and rounded to the driver’s side, his expression caught between glee and genuine consternation. He slid in and started the engine, not even waiting for my door to click shut. “Who do you think your dad is fucking?”
“Hunter. I don’t want to—”
“Because I’ve never seen him around a woman.”
“Stop.”
“Your mom’s been gone since you were a kid. He hasn’t dated anyone publicly in what, over a decade?”
“I’m begging you to stop talking.”
Hunter pulled out of the parking spot and turned onto the main road, the bay stretching out to our left. He was quiet for exactly four seconds. “Petrie.”
My stomach bottomed out. “What?”
“Coach Petrie. They room together on every road trip, right? And they’ve been inseparable for—how long has Petrie been on staff?”
“Seven years,” I said automatically, then immediately wished I hadn’t.
“Seven years. And now your dad is buying Magnums in a town twenty minutes from campus, where nobody will recognize him. Same play we ran.”
I stared out the window at the bay, the water flat and blinding in the afternoon sun.
My hands were cold despite the heat. “Petrie’s not—” Petrie was stocky and broad-shouldered, handsome in that rugged, square-jawed way that aged well.
More than that, he had kind eyes and a deep laugh and was the only coach who ever asked me how my classes were going.
It wasn’t that Petrie was unattractive. It was the scenario clicking into place, piece by familiar piece, that made my stomach clench.
Two men sharing hotel rooms on the road. Keeping things behind closed doors. A secret that existed only in the space between those doors and the morning light.
“You okay?” The usual easy cadence of Hunter’s voice was gone, replaced by a quieter, more serious tone. He glanced over at me, his brow furrowed.
“Yeah.” I swallowed hard. “It’s just…if that’s true. If my dad and Petrie are…”
I couldn’t finish the sentence. Because the parallel was too obvious. Alanis Morissette even made a song about it.
The secrecy. The compartmentalization. The careful public distance followed by the private closeness.
If my father had been doing this for seven years, then what did that say about where Evan and I were headed?
Was this how it started? A road trip arrangement that became something more that neither person could name out loud, buried under logistics and plausible deniability until it calcified into a permanent secret?
My father had never once mentioned a relationship.
Never brought someone home or let me see him as anything other than Coach Jenkins, the man who lived for the game and had no room for anything soft.
And if Petrie was the reason—hidden behind closed doors for nearly a decade—then my father had been doing exactly what I was doing. Choosing the secret over the risk.
“For the record,” Hunter said quietly, keeping his eyes on the road, “Petrie’s a good dude. If it is him, your dad could do a lot worse.”
“I know.” My voice came out rough. “It’s the parallel that bothers me.”
Hunter reached over and squeezed the back of my neck once, then returned his hand to the wheel.
We drove in silence for a while, the bay giving way to cityscape as we crossed over the bridge back into Wildbrook. I turned the plastic bag over in my lap, the condom boxes shifting inside with a dull rattle. Purchased for a future that might never arrive.
“Final away series is in ten days,” Hunter said, breaking the silence as we passed O’Malley’s. “You gonna talk to him? About what you actually want?”
“That’s the thing—I don’t know what I want.”
“Bullshit.” Hunter’s voice was gentle but firm. “You’re just looking at your dad and seeing a road map you don’t want to follow.”
I turned my head sharply, staring at his profile. He kept his eyes on the road, his jaw set.
“Don’t settle for the same secret life because it’s easier.
” Hunter turned into the parking lot behind the dorms and killed the engine.
Neither of us moved to get out. “For what it’s worth,” he said, turning to face me.
“I think your dad’s doing the best he can with what he’s got.
And I think you deserve better than a hotel room. ”
I glanced down at the bag in my lap. The gold Magnum box caught the light through the thin plastic.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I think I do too.”