SULLIVAN #2
Still, I’m not sure how I feel about this. Or if I’m going fucking crazy, and he’s just being nice, and I’m imagining the rest.
This is complicated for me. And confusing.
I have to assume Knight sees something in me.
Maybe the same thing Adrian saw. Maybe it’s something else.
Something that tells him I might be okay with flirting.
That I might want part of him touching part of me.
That I might want more from him than conversation.
Do I? His leg, though it feels like a burning log, is sturdy, and I haven’t moved away from it.
I’m warm and overly aware of everything.
The crackling of the fire. The bouncing chatter between the other guys.
The taste of whiskey on my tongue. The cold brick of the tunnel against my back.
And Knight’s scent of amber and leather that I still smell above everything else in the forest, including an entire fucking bonfire.
He starts to pass the bottle to the next person, but I reach across him and attempt to take it back.
My hand lands on his, and I let myself feel it, allow my fingertips to brush his knuckles.
I note the catch in his breath, and the way he swallows convulsively before I pry the bottle away from him to take another sip.
Then I lean past him, my other hand on his side to keep myself balanced as I pass the bottle on.
The man has no body fat. Like the one place where most people have an inch or so of extra fluff, he’s all hard muscle. I find myself in this weird state that’s both intrigued and nauseated. It isn’t homophobia. It’s not a fear of who he is or who I might be. It’s a much messier feeling than that.
It’s memories of hot breath on my skin. Hands on me I didn’t ask for but didn’t refuse either. Curiosity that was denied. The reluctant acceptance of things I didn’t have it in me to refuse. That I didn’t have the permission to refuse.
“So, what’s up?” I ask.
He stares at me like he’s trying to come up with an answer.
I ask a different question. “Is there something else you wanted to ask me?”
“Um…am I bothering you?”
“I don’t know.”
He frowns like this troubles him but not like he’s upset. “What don’t you know?” he asks quietly.
I don’t know—despite the fact that I’ve been in a relationship of sorts with a man for nearly two years—if I’m gay. But I think Knight is.
I don’t answer, turning my attention back to the other guys.
Up to this point, the conversation around the bonfire has been future focused—the guys talking about what they want to be when they grow up—what they’re looking forward to in college.
But it’s shifted to what they’ll miss. Deandre is talking about his mom’s cooking, particularly a lasagna she makes with three different kinds of meat.
“Okay, okay,” Tyson says. “Besides your parents and grandparents—if you disappeared out here tonight, who’d be the one hounding the police to find you?”
“Is that one for me?” Deandre asks.
“It’s for everyone.”
Deandre answers anyway. “Well, for me, it’d be my high school football coach. He’d be pissed if all the sweat he put into me wasn’t gonna pay off. You wanna go next, Ty?”
“Probably my girlfriend. But she’d be convinced I was with someone else.”
That brings up laughter from the group.
Knight leans closer and asks, “What’s your answer?”
My honest answer is not one I’m willing to share with the group or with anyone. “My sister, I guess.”
While it’s true that I have a sister, her ability to understand a disappearance is limited. She has Down’s syndrome and is somehow perpetually happy. The real answer, of course, is Adrian. I doubt his ability to cut his losses, but what do I know? He lies as well as he sucks dick.
“Younger or older?” Knight asks.
“Hey—QB. Share your thoughts with the group. We’re bonding,” Dillon says.
“I was gonna say my sisters,” he answers. “Mostly my middle sister.”
“No high school sweetheart you left behind?” asks a guy whose name I don’t remember.
“Nope. I’m single. And I better not be the only one.”
He’s not the only one by far according to the reaction he gets.
Meanwhile, my pulse is thrumming. I can feel the vibration of the rapid beats in my neck. I deepen my breath to calm myself from whatever’s getting to me. Anxiety? Excitement?
“New topic,” Deandre says. “Who here’s planning to go pro?”
I’m surprised only a handful of the football players raise their hands. Knight, the twins, Deandre, which I already knew, and Rod. Tyson shakes his head.
“What’s the plan then, Ty?” D asks.
“Look, I’m gonna play my ass off, guaranteed.” Tyson looks at Knight when he says this. “But I came for the education. No one in my family ever graduated college, and I have always wanted to be a lawyer. The game’s my full ride.”
“Cool. What about you, Cope?”
Another one of the players with his hand down is one of the guys I played somewhere in the middle rounds.
His name is Braden and he seemed like a nice guy if a little quiet.
“Same. I wanted the full ride. The NFL is just—I don’t really see myself being happy playing ball professionally.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the game, and like Ty said, I’ll play ‘til I collapse, but nah. Going pro’s not for me. ”
Knight clears his throat softly beside me, but I swear everyone hears and looks over at him. “I really am just here to play ball,” he says with all the guys’ attention on him. “Going pro’s sort of in my blood.”
“Is that a lot of pressure?” D asks.
“No, not at all,” Knight says. “I love the game. Everything about it, literally. The strategy, the competition, the rivalries, the fans. But it’s also, you know—well, you can make a difference once you’re pro, you know?”
“What kind of difference?” I find myself asking. For some reason I don’t feel like he’s gonna say anything about being a role model on social media.
“My dad and uncles started a foundation that gives scholarships to kids like the guys I played with in high school. Saginaw is a shit town that lost half its population to better places with more work. Most of the guys on the team were living below the poverty line. Football was their only way out, and they fuckin’ hated me when I transferred in. ”
Tyson mumbles, “My team wouldn’t have been too happy to have someone like you show up either.”
Knight doesn’t take this in a bad way. He nods in total understanding. “I get it. And I also get that a lot of the guys saw sports as their only way out. But like—not everyone was good, you know?”
Some silence, some nodding.
“But playing isn’t the only way to have a career in sports. I mean there’s a ton of ways to take your love of whatever game and turn it into something meaningful and make a living. Coaching, sports medicine, PT, journalism, agenting. It’s a whole industry.”
“And so what? You’re gonna start a charity for people who can’t get on a good team?”
“I don’t know,” Knight says. “Something like that? What I’m more interested in is people having opportunities and not feeling trapped. I’ve got plenty of time to figure it out. Meanwhile, the NFL is just the first step, and I love the game. I bleed football.”
Deandre sticks out his fist, and Knight bumps his knuckles against it as naturally as any reflex. “Hell yeah, QB.”
As one of the other guys explains why he’s not going pro I ask Knight, “Did you mean all that?”
He nods, acting like he’s listening to the other guy talk, but I feel his attention on me in the press of his leg.
“So, your name’s literal then.”
He grins and shakes his head. “I just don’t think all that fame and money should go to waste. Or towards a bunch of bullshit that doesn’t matter.”
Meanwhile, the conversation around the fire has moved on to girlfriends.
I watch the way the guys who have them get excited and sentimental as they speak.
The phrase first love comes up a lot. There’s uncertainty among them too, though.
Like they’re not sure the long distance relationships most of them are in can work.
Weirdly, no one is worried they’ll find someone new.
They’re more concerned their girlfriend will.