Love Is In the Hallways Read online

  Eddie, unofficial second in the team after Cam, was nothing more than a beer swilling Neanderthal in low slung jeans and a T-shirt. Luke didn’t have to see the front of the shirt to know it would be emblazoned with one of his many insulting logos. It amazed him how far Eddie could push it and not be told to go home and change. Eddie was flanked by Jack and Joe; the two Js were Eddie's shadows.

  "You need to stand down. We all agree, right?" The Js were nodding enthusiastically, and Eddie did what he usually did—fed off the adoration.

  He leaned toward Cam and raised his voice. "If Coach won't bench your fag ass then you'd better get your shit together and take yourself off the field."

  "Why would Coach want to bench his best player?" Dan laughed sarcastically. He was standing up for Cam, who, to Luke, looked shell shocked and pale. Cam's hair was messed and spiked, evidence maybe of pulling at it with his hands, something Luke had observed him doing before when he was stressed.

  Eddie didn’t even bother lowering his voice. "When the captain spends more time groping our asses than playing, that’s why."

  "I wouldn’t go anywhere near your ass," Cam replied, then shut his mouth immediately. Luke approved. There was no need to rise to this shit, and keeping quiet was how Luke tried to deal with any and all confrontation.

  Sometimes though, it was impossible to hold your tongue.

  "Try telling that to the team when you're on your knees in the showers."

  Eddie's words were vicious, and the Js laughed in unison while Eddie just looked smug.

  "You're an asshole," Dan snapped.

  "Joe here will tell Coach how you wanted to fuck him," Eddie faux whispered and then grinned, like this was some sort of huge joke.

  Luke was close enough to hear, and something snapped inside him. His need to stay the hell away from the bigoted idiots in the school evaporated in the face of the accusation Eddie was prepared to take to Coach. It was enough to get Luke to move the few steps to Cam's side. Dan sidestepped to stand right in front of Cam, and Luke wove around them to arrive right next to Cam.

  He wasn’t sure what use he would be, although standing here, he could see what Cam meant about how he actually towered over the rest of them.

  That was a new one since last term. He wished he had the muscles to match.

  "Luke, what's going on?" Cam's voice held uncertainty, and the words were so low only Luke could have heard. Eddie was staring right at him, expressions passing over his face so quickly it became hard to keep up. He watched Eddie’s face change from surprise to shock and finally to the realization of what Luke might be doing. Before Luke could say a word to Cam, Eddie interrupted in a tone that dripped with contempt and superiority.

  "Jeez, I should have known you'd have Toilet Boy in your pocket." Eddie sneered.

  Luke felt shame rise in him. Toilet Boy was what Eddie and his cronies had called him since they'd met in his first week at the high school. Getting his head shoved down a toilet was just one of the miserable and shit things they had done to him when they got him alone. That was way before the “Luke Holston is gay” rumors started flying. It was way back when he was a new kid at the school with a flair for math and computers and an unfortunate habit of raising his hand in class. There’d been too many situations where the teachers asked Luke to explain answers, and any level of cool he could have attained was obliterated, with teacher's pet added to his list of transgressions.

  His first year had been hell, his second not an awful lot better. By the third, it seemed to settle down some. Those that bullied needed his tutoring skills to stay on their teams, in school, or in the case of Laura Stevens, to stay in the town at all.

  "Leave Luke out of this," Cam snapped, imperceptibly moving closer to Luke, causing their arms to brush. Wait. Something was wrong with this picture, and Luke couldn’t figure it out. Cam was getting all this shit thrown at him, and suddenly, in the middle of it all, he was worried about Luke?

  "Oh my god," Eddie mocked. "Look at our Lukey. He's all grow'd up and has himself an ass fucking butt buddy."

  Luke had heard worse, but this was new to Cam, and he knew Cam would move even as the words left Eddie's mouth.

  Cam was suddenly, forcefully, right up in Eddie's face, his hand twisted in Eddie's shirt. There was potential for real violence there, and Dan was in between them almost as fast. Words buzzed in Luke's head, muttered threats that snapped and carried in the midday air. More cursing, a scuffle, and then Eddie was somehow out of Cam's reach and standing back, the Js still his wingmen and Dan with Cameron in a tight hold.

  "Fuck you, fag, and watch your back, Toilet Boy," Eddie snapped. Then with a final smirk and a rake of his gaze from Luke's feet to his face, he was gone, the Js in tow and the yard quiet around them. A familiar fear stole into Luke. He had managed to stay off their radar for so long, and now suddenly, he was right back there with a target on his back. He looked straight into Cam’s furious gaze. Stumbling, the back of his knees hit a trash can, and he had nowhere else to go as Cam took the few steps toward him.

  "You don't go anywhere." He emphasized the words with a finger poking Luke's chest. "Nowhere on your own. Are you listening?"

  Shame flushed through him at Cam's words, and he felt the heat of other kids’ stares on the two of them. Dan paced behind the two of them and between them and the growing crowd. His rapid movements showed his agitation.

  "Cam… "

  "You promise me." Inches apart, it would look to an outsider like Cam was angry with him, but Luke saw something in Cam's face. A concern, a fear so primitive and real that Luke could almost reach out and touch it.

  "I do… I mean… I will," he managed to stutter out. Then in a flurry of motion, Cam left, heading to the gym by the looks of it, and suddenly it was just him and Dan.

  Dan stopped his pacing and stepped closer.

  "He told me in homeroom that you're scared," Dan said in a low voice.

  Luke cast a glance around. No one was staring at them now. It was like once Cam had walked off the center of attention was gone and people were bored.

  That was a good thing. Luke had cultivated a quiet ghost-like presence at the school, and it had worked well for him so far.

  "He did?" Jeez, of course Cam would have told Dan everything; they were best friends.

  "He understands, Luke. Don't think for one minute that he doesn’t see what it’s like for you. Or that he can't see the shit he's probably in for now."

  "Okay." There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. Maybe Dan would be a good person to talk to? Dan knew Cam enough to form an opinion on what Cam might do if the peer pressure to “not be gay” became too great. He could ask Dan what might happen if Cam changed his mind about being gay.

  Well, not changed his mind so much as deciding it was more trouble than it was worth and that hiding was the best option. Would Cam become a tormenter? He had never shown an interest in bullying before, and it didn’t seem like it could ever be part of Cam's psyche. But… could Luke trust him?

  "Luke. Luke." Dan snapped fingers in front of Luke’s face, and Luke instantly moved back to the here and now. "Are you listening to me? Do what Cam says, okay? Keep your freaking head down."

  "I will… "

  "I gotta go. Idiot said this morning that he's pulling out of the team."

  With that, Dan left at a jog to catch up with Cam. Suddenly, Luke was alone. The ebb and flow of school life moved around him. He had ten minutes until fifth period, and he had nowhere to go and nothing to do. It was too late to get to the library, and even with his iPod buds in, he couldn’t lose himself in the music as he did normally. What the hell had just happened? Was Cam leaving the team a good thing? Or a bad thing? He'd be out of reach of the jocks tackling and fouling him on the field, but that didn’t stop any physical intimidation in the hallways. Luke followed the masses back into the corridor and to his locker, listening as people spoke. Every so often someone would point to him, or he would hear his name mentioned.
r />   This was something he had grown used to when he first started high school, but then he had just become Luke, math nerd, weirdo, the guy who worked at Tony's Diner. No one of any great importance. He ignored it all, worry gnawing in the pit of his stomach about what Cam was doing. Would he really leave the team? Would it have been worse if they had walked in together? Should he have made a stand? Hell, should he have told Cam about things from his past and his deepest fears about the aftermath of a possible rejection and got everything in the open?

  They had talked about “Forever” when they’d sat in the dark at the park and the opportunities they had in life. It had been easy to talk about it then. Not so easy to carry out now that they were back in reality. And wasn’t that the hell of it? He leaned against his locker, wishing he was anywhere but here in the last periods of the day. At home, in the park with Cam, in the diner?

  Anywhere.

  "Hey," Mitchell said gently. The interruption to his musings startled Luke as his friend leaned against the next locker. "Didn’t see you in the cafeteria. Then Dan found me and said something went down in the yard.

  You okay?"

  Luke looked left at his friend. Mitchell. The first person who knew Luke was gay, the first one to see Luke's crush on Cameron Anders. His best friend and probably the only one in the school who hadn’t at some point made fun of him in a bad way.

  "Not so much," Luke finally answered.

  "One on one after school?" Ah, the usual way that he and Mitchell talked, hot sweaty physical basketball in Mitchell's driveway. He leaned in closer to share a confidence. "I heard Eddie spouting off in class, some shit about Cameron. I'm guessing this involves you?" Mitchell sounded so damn serious, and warmth stole across Luke as he contemplated his answer. He had texted the whole kissing Cam incident in great detail to his friend on Saturday, and all he had received in return was support and best wishes, with an added slice of crowing that Mitchell felt he had brought them together. Luke didn’t argue; he didn’t actually care how it had happened, just that a few months after his eighteenth birthday he had kissed the most gorgeous boy in school. Mimicking Mitchell's stance, he leaned in.

  "Eddie and the Js are all over Cam to leave the team." He glanced around him to see if anyone was listening, but those nearest were a group of sophomore girls who probably wouldn’t hear the school bell over their giggling let alone two boys hiding their discussion behind a locker door.

  Mitchell rocked back on his heels, and the immediate shock on his face subsided only to be replaced with a grim expression.

  "Guessed that would happen," he said. "Eddie's a retard, and he's not big on alternative lifestyles."

  "He's a fucking bully." Luke couldn’t stop the hate that seeped into his voice. All Mitchell did was nod.

  "Keep your head down. Okay?"

  "Dan said the same thing."

  "Well, Dan's right. The things I was hearing? Your name is mentioned with Cameron’s."

  "Jeez, I might as well have held his hand," Luke muttered under his breath.

  "You held hands? Is that what all this is about? I thought you said you were going to talk to him about that."

  "No, we didn’t. I wanted to, but… no." He was not going to go into details in the freaking hallway. Mitchell didn’t push for more as the bell for next period sounded.

  "You have math next? I'll walk you there."

  Luke was alternating between gratitude to Mitchell for having his back and anger that he even needed the help. Math was his one high point normally. It was the only class he shared with Cameron, and that was a bright spot for him. Now though? He was dreading the shit storm that was beginning to form around them both.

  * * * * *

  Math was quiet. Mr. Evans knew his stuff, and he was a pushy and dedicated guy. The ton of homework he handed out and the fact that he took time with each student kept results high. Luke loved math and excelled at it.

  Formulas and graphs, shapes and order, it normally kept him glued to his papers. Today was different. There was tension in the room, and Luke was distracted. In fact, the only thing he could focus on was the nape of Cameron's neck where his dark hair curled to touch his shirt.

  "Luke, did you have an answer for question seven?"

  Shit, Evans was talking to him. He snapped back into the here and now and looked down at his paper for inspiration. He had nothing. Staring at Cam's back was clearly a very bad thing to do in math. Glancing at the question, he calculated in his head as quickly as he could, covering it with a shuffle of his papers.

  "Y equals… um… three x plus 4, sorry, 3x squared plus 4," he finally offered. Mr. Evans just raised a single eyebrow. Luke didn’t blame him. It was quite possibly the first math question Luke had ever answered wrong in class.

  "Close," Evans finally said, then threw it out to the rest of the class. "Anyone else?"

  And so the class went on, forty minutes of feeling wary and jumpy and sensing stares. Forty long minutes of watching notes being passed from one person to another. As soon as the bell sounded, Cam was the first to the door, sprinting away like he had the hounds of hell on his heels. Luke tried not to make it obvious he was watching him leave. Miserable, he gathered his papers, grimacing when a passing hand pushed them to the floor with a loud laugh and a muttered “fag”. And so it starts again. Great.

  He went with the flow of kids to his last period. After some jostling and a whole lot of staring, he was finally in his seat. One more class and he was out of here and over to Mitchell’s. He pulled out his cell. One text. From Cam.

  park. 8?

  This was it. This was Cam meeting him to tell him he was a cowardly, spineless, complete waste of space. He sent a reply.

  I'll be there.

  He contemplated adding a kiss, but that wasn’t something Cam probably wanted from him, and it struck him as being just this side of girly.

  Sighing, he pressed send. What else could he have said? Should he have added a sorry for what Cam was going through? Or a sorry for not being the kind of person that maybe Cam had needed today?

  He pocketed the phone and opened his text book as the teacher for the period walked in. There was no time to worry about anything now.

  * * * * *

  The one on one was brutal. Mitchell was good, but Luke was slightly better. Of course it helped that Luke had five inches of height on his friend, but Mitchell had always been the more athletic of the two. Surprisingly, it was only on the makeshift court here that Luke's inherent clumsiness seemed to vanish. Growing to near six foot in one long growth spurt last summer meant he wasn’t entirely used to the extra height or the length of his legs. Mitchell was shorter, but he was one hell of a blocker and wasn’t scared to use his body to stop Luke's jumps. It made the games interesting, and hot, and physical, and sweaty.

  They drew level at ten each, and it was Mitchell that called time, grabbing at the bottled waters and throwing one to Luke. That was a new one.

  Luke was the player who usually called time. Mitchell could keep going for hours if he was determined to win. Clearly this was talking time, and Luke was so wound up he could get behind having some time to sort through his feelings with his best friend. Together, they lay back on the grass looking up at the clear sky. Familiar sights and the smell of cut grass settled Luke's nerves, and he waited for Mitchell to guide the conversation.

  "Mary-Beth Facebooked some shit about hiding Cameron's secret for years," he finally said.

  "She did?" Jeez, Luke thought resentfully, she didn’t waste any time, did she?

  "That's complete bullshit. Right?"