An Accidental Romance

Chapter 16

Saturday, June 30 — early September

We had non-romantic dates, too, although we were careful not to— call them dates. We weren’t out. I didn’t know when we would be. I was getting more comfortable accepting I was gay. Not with other people knowing it, though.

We threw a party at my house that included swimming, hot-tubbing and gathering for games in the basement. Dad and Mom bought pizza and two large tubs of wings and cases of soft drinks that were put in a trash can full of ice. We partied into the night. The pool had underwater lights, and I put dark-blue filters over them to make it more romantic. The kids hung out both outside and inside in the basement where the pool and ping-pong tables were busy all night. While a lot of two-gender match-ups were occurring, there were also lots of boys hanging together. I didn’t think they were gay, just shy or more comfortable with their own kind. Jeff was there, of course, and he had several of his friends in for the party, too. Some of them were girls. Cute girls. Jeff was no slouch, but wore a somewhat bewildered expression when a couple of the girls started flirting with him. I kept grinning at him, which didn’t seem to help him much.

I’d intentionally invited boys and girls, not couples. There was some hooking up going on that night, not the sexually explicit type of hooking up, but the getting-together-and-I’ll-call-you-later type. The last kids to leave didn’t go till a little after one in the morning. The food was all long gone. There’d been tons of it, too. Teenagers. Just what you’d expect!

I was proud of Jordan. I introduced him to a horde of kids, and he did what I’d recommended: kept focused for five seconds, said something inane, and survived. He got better as the night wore on, too, and I could see him gaining confidence. He even chatted with one boy for a minute or so. Then I realized the kid was cute. Hey, wait a minute. I didn’t try to fix his shyness so he could hit on other boys! Well, I wasn’t really worried, but I sure had something to tease him about now.

Then I realized if I accused him of hitting on cute guys, he’d ask me how I knew they were cute. Best leave this alone.

We went bowling and roller skating, too, on some of our non-romantic dates. Jordan had never been on skates before. He had to hold onto me a whole lot. I didn’t mind. We laughed a lot.

I’d never been Go-Karting but knew there was a place in town. I took Jordan there. We had a blast! So much fun. I promised myself we’d do this again.

We played soccer several times a week. We were coming to the end of the summer, and the games were starting to be more competitive. The guys who’d be playing varsity and junior varsity were trying to get in shape, trying to up their games and make themselves known. That led to the occasional skirmish which the rest of us always hurried to quell. It was the park, the games were mostly to have fun, and fighting just wasn’t part of that. There were younger boys around, too. Still, boys have tempers. There were flare-ups.

We were playing a game not long before school would be back in session, and maybe that was why everyone seemed more focused than usual. We were usually a laid-back bunch, just enjoying our freedom and doing something we liked to do. That day, people were snarlier, more combative, taking offense quicker. I blamed it on the fact we’d all be regimented into school life again soon, and that was on everyone’s mind.

Jordan was on the other team from me. Jeff was on his side along with Bax, each playing a wing forward. I had several juniors on my team. I was a midfielder and setting them up. We were winning but not by much. It was a close, intense game.

Jordan, playing midfield for their side, had the ball and was bringing it down the field, passing it to Jeff who’d pass it back out to Jordan in the middle. I was falling back to help our defense, letting the play come to me. Bax was on the left, moving diagonally up the field, trying to get into the action. A defensive back was closing on Jordan.

He passed to Jeff and ran past the fullback, breaking clear while managing to stay onside. Jeff returned the ball to him.

Bax was a little behind Jordan, still off on the left side. He called for the ball. “I’m open. Ball! Ball!”

Jordan glanced at him, moving forward. He had one man to beat and the keeper. The defense was running toward him, two other guys and me.

“Ball, ball!” Bax shouted again. Jordan ignored him. Instead, he took another stride forward, the defense closed, and he somehow got the ball to Jeff, who was now wide open, the defense having caved in on Jordan, caring much more about him than Jeff, a little kid.

Jeff took it and had only the keeper to beat. He pushed forward, fast, and the keeper came out to stop him. Jeff waited and at the last moment, he returned the ball to Jordan. He only had one defender to beat now: me! He saw that, grinned, and kicked a Beckham-like curveball around me and into the inside of the side net. Tie game.

Their team surrounded Jordan but quieted quickly when Bax ran up. “What the hell. I was open. I was calling for the ball. We don’t need no ball hogs out here. I was open.”

Jordan just stared at him, completely unsure what to say. Then, out of nowhere, there was Jeff. He ran up to Bax and, with two hands outstretched, ran into him and pushed him back away from Jordan. I couldn’t believe it. Bax probably outweighed Jeff by 80 pounds. But Jeff didn’t care. He was furious. And he was defending his friend.

“Get away from him. What’s wrong with you? Back off!”

I called out as I was nearing them, hoping to prevent disaster, “Bax, stop it! You’re way out of line!”

Bax didn’t know what to do. It had to be hard being confronted and pushed by someone he could squash with a simple backhand swat. But he couldn’t do it! Jeff was too small, too defenseless, and everyone on both teams was watching.

Bax did the only thing he could. He glared at me, then turned around and walked away. I ran over and hugged Jeff, who didn’t want a hug. He wanted a fight. Well, he wasn’t going to get it. He was going to get a second hug, though. From Jordan, who told him how brave he was and hugged him till he was blushing and squirming.

One of the guys watching Bax stride off said to me, “You didn’t make a friend there. Better be careful around him.”

The game broke up then. A tie was good for all of us. Except maybe Bax, and no one cared what he thought.

 

School began during the last week of August that year. Jordan was excited about going to a new school. His dad had had his transcripts sent to Lincoln High, our school, and Jordan had registered a couple of days before classes began. We’d all get our schedules in emails the day before the first day of school; anyone without a computer or phone would have to go to the office to get their schedule the old-fashioned way: on paper.

Jordan had been living at his and his dad’s apartment but biking to my house every day. He’d often eat breakfast with me at around eleven in the morning, well after our parents and the twins had eaten. Jeff got up just as late as I did, so he usually joined us.

Jordan hadn’t had any cooking lessons. I knew how to do some basic things, and I taught him how to make bacon and breakfast sausages and how to scramble eggs. How to make them sunny side up, too, but for him, that usually meant scrambled. He didn’t seem able to slip a spatula under a fried egg without breaking it.

When we got our schedules, we compared them. We had most of our classes together. I was taking the academic path, preparing for college; Jordan was doing the same, which was probably why we were in the same classes so often.

On the first day, we had an after-school meeting with the soccer coach. A whole lot of boys showed up—varsity, junior varsity and hope-to-be’s. I hauled Jordan with me. I hadn’t heard a word from the coach about the video I’d sent him. At the team meeting when he went over the rules he had for us and the practice-schedule times and handed out practice uniforms, he smiled at Jordan as he passed by, but didn’t say anything. He did give him a practice uniform. He spoke to me, though, asking me to stay behind when he dismissed everyone else.

I assumed by me, he meant both of us. Whether he did or not, I took Jordan with me into his office when the rest of the kids had gone out onto the field to do exercises led by the team captain. Coach had us sit down, and he perched on his desk in front of us to speak.

“You’re Jordan?” he asked. Jordan nodded, not showing any of his erstwhile shyness. Man, he’d come a long way in a short time.

“I saw a video of you.” He turned to me and smiled, but then back to Jordan. “You got game.”

Jordan said, “I hope I can be on the team. Varsity.”

“From what I saw, you’re a sure thing. What I saw was you against varsity defenders, and it was impressive. What position do you prefer to play?”

“Last year I played center midfield, but David’s got that position locked. He’s better at it than I am. I can play anywhere you need me, but I might be most effective at right wing.”

“Okay. We’ll do that. I agree. Your talent would be wasted anywhere else other than striker. It’ll mean I have to push the guy I’d planned on putting on wing back to a midfield position, but I doubt he’ll mind. He was a bit tentative playing there. Anyway, it is what it is. You need to earn your position on this team by your performance. If anyone can’t handle where they are assigned, or if a better man should be replacing him, they get moved. That’s how it works in life and on the soccer field.”

I spoke up. “I have something to tell you, Coach. You need to know. You have a right to know. Jordan and I, well, we’re boyfriends. If that jeopardizes our place on the team, well, then it does. That’s up to you, and we’ll honor however you want to handle it. If you don’t think the team can come together in the face of that, then we’ll resign.”

“You’re gay? You?” The surprise on his face was almost comical, but it wasn’t really funny at all.

I was about to argue my case, that ‘gay’ was just a word and all the other thoughts I’d had about it, but why bother? I was the one to convince, not him, not the world. If I had a boyfriend, to him and most people I was gay, and the niceties and nuances wouldn’t matter to them. So, I nodded.

“Huh. Never have guessed it. We’ve had gay kids playing before, and it’s never been a problem in the six years I’ve been here. Sometimes the guys’ve come out, sometimes not. How you handle it is your affair.”

“Do you think I should tell the team? What’s your opinion?”

“I always leave it up to the boys. What I think is, just my opinion, it’s best if it’s out in the open. But some boys aren’t ready to be out. Once you tell the team, you’re telling the whole school. If you’re not ready for that, then you should act accordingly. But it then becomes harder when people find out and you haven’t been open and honest with the team. I just can’t make that decision for you or advise you, really. What if I advised you to tell them, you did, and then you had serious problems from someone not even on the team because they’d heard about it? I don’t want to be part of that. I’m glad you told me so I can watch for and stop any problems here on the field or in the locker room, but for the rest, you two have to do what works best for you.”

The rest of the boys were back from their exercise session and in the locker room when we left the office. Some were stripping off to shower, some were just leaving. Jordan and I left with them. We got our bikes and took off for my house. We needed to talk about this.

We sat in my room, both on my bed, cross-legged, facing each other. “I’ve always been scared to death about letting anyone know I’m gay. But that was the old Jordan, not who I am now. I feel safe here. I never felt that living with my mom. I think I could handle being out here. I’m new here. People don’t have to think of me one way, then change when they learn I’m not who they thought I was if I come out right away. And I really think it’d be okay. You saw how the coach was. It was of no importance at all to him. He was developing and coaching a soccer team, and the sexuality of his players was of no concern to him. I’d like to think everyone will handle it that way.

“I guess what I’m saying is, either tell the team or don’t, but this affects you more than me, so you should make the choice.”

Great! Just what I wanted! Not! I had to decide this.

I’d already thought of all the reasons not to come out and then what the advantages were. There were a lot more reasons not to come out than to do so.

Then I thought of Jordan, telling me he was gay because it was the right thing to do before sharing a bed with Jeff. He did it because it was right. I’d be showering with a bunch of boys who assumed we were like they were, interested in girls, not boys. Should it matter to them that we were gay? No, it shouldn’t. But would it? Maybe.

I had to decide, and it was difficult. I was a guy who wanted to do the right thing at all times. That was important to me. Mom and Dad both were honest, straightforward people who did the right thing. I’d always tried to. It was a reason I could hold my head up and be proud of myself. That was who I was.

I dithered and sweated it, and in the morning, I told my family I was going to tell the team I was with Jordan. I still had problems saying I was gay. Saying I had a boyfriend probably meant I was gay to everyone else, but to me there was at least a little wiggle room.

At school, I told Jordan I’d made up my mind. I was going to tell the team after practice today.

 

Coach separated the boys in the locker room before we hit the field into varsity and junior-varsity players. He had a volunteer assistant coach who took junior varsity guys and the wannabes to the practice field, leaving the varsity squad to practice with Coach. We went out to our practice field, and he assigned positions, told us who’d start and who’d be on the bench as subs.

I was starting where I wanted to be, center midfielder. We had two other midfielders, a senior and a junior, playing to the left and right of me. Bax was left-wing forward, Jordan right-wing forward, and a senior name Raul, a Mexican by birth who’d grown up playing soccer in Monterrey, as center striker.

Coach had the starters playing against the subs for the first practice. He told us we had to get to know each other and our positions really fast because our first game was at the end of the week. The football team played Friday nights. We played Saturday afternoons. This was Tuesday. Not much time to prepare, but we’d all played the game for years. Getting ready in time was far from impossible.

We were starters, and every single one of the subs wanted our jobs. This was their chance to make an impression. To say the game we played that day, which was termed a practice, was hard fought, rough, and sometimes physically over the top, was a wake-up call after a summer of playing in the park for fun. Calling it a run-of-the-mill practice session was understating it by a mile. The coach let it happen. I guess he wanted to see who was tough enough to play varsity. High-school varsity soccer wasn’t a tea party. It was often a grueling contest of will and fortitude. The tougher team that stayed within the rules was often the winner.

There was fierce tackling going on, and the field was often littered with kids slow to get up. Coach did hand out a few yellow cards, but no red ones. He wanted to let kids play so he could evaluate us. Hard to evaluate a kid sitting on the sidelines.

In spite of the rough and tumble, the elbows and knees, I had a team to run from midfield. I ignored the bruising and got after it. The subs were certainly strong and even sometimes vicious, but they weren’t as fast or as crafty as the starters.

They might go for a dangerous tackle, but we could avoid them for the most part, and the tackler would be left behind as we moved the ball forward.

No one could keep up with Jordan. He was too fast, too tricky with the ball. One sub decided the way to slow him down was a hard knee to the thigh. You can’t run fast and limp at the same time. Jordan somehow twisted away from the knee just in time; it glanced off his leg. It hurt, but nothing like it would have had it connected as intended. Coach gave the kid a yellow card and told him any more of that and he’d be off the team.

Our speed made a difference. I was moving the ball quickly to my other midfielders and wings, moving it fast enough that the sub defenders were tiring themselves out chasing. This also kept bumps and trips to a minimum. This was a practice with everyone on the team on the field, so there were no substitutions. Anyone not in shape would be dying on their feet with the pace at which we were playing.

As the game progressed, the wings and the striker were getting open, and I was getting the ball to them. Bax scored the first goal off a pass I made that, when he ran to it, opened him for a clean shot. He nodded at me afterwards. Then I did the same for Jordan, then Raul, Bax again and Jordan again.

The subs were tiring. Well, we all were, but they’d been playing mostly defense and were about baked. Their hard-nosed tactics had worn them down about as much as the pace I’d set. In the final minute, Jordan was free on the right side, and I gave him a ball he could take without breaking stride. He didn’t collect it, though. He passed it on the fly to Raul, who tapped it back to me, and I again fed Jordan. His man played off him this time, expecting another pass, and Jordan kept it, ran past him, and put a floating ball into the top of the net.

In the locker room, everyone was so exhausted that the normal cacophony of locker doors slamming, cleats clattering on the floor and voices yelling back and forth across the room was missing. I took advantage of it.

The locker room was one large, open space with lockers surrounding the space on all four walls. I stepped up on one of the benches and called out, “Guys, can you all step closer? I have something to say, and you all need to hear it.”

Tired as they were, they got up and did come closer. Jordan stood next to me, but on the floor. I took a deep breath.

“This isn’t easy for me, but it’s the right thing to do. Jordan and I are boyfriends. Yes, that means we’re gay. Jordan has known it for years. I figured it out this summer. That’s why I’ve never told any of you before. I didn’t know.”

I paused for a moment, then pushed on. “I’m telling you now because I don’t want you to find out after we’ve been showering together. The fact we’re gay has nothing to do with anything, but to some people it might matter. I just thought it important that no one on the team thought we were trying to hide it.

“Anyone have anything to say?”

Raul did. Raul was a senior and one of the guys on the team that everyone was a little in awe of. He was wickedly handsome with the dark, Latin looks that seemed to drive girls crazy. Black, curly, shining hair, gleaming white teeth, slightly darker complexion than the rest of us, a ready smile and a body most high-school boys could only dream of, to aspire to. He also had an outgoing personality. Everyone liked Raul.

Now he looked at me and asked, “Does that mean you’re going to be ogling my equipment in the showers?” Then he grinned. I realized just that fast that he was trying to help, making a joke of what some kids might feel was serious.

“No, Raul,” I said. “I’ll only be ogling the good-looking ones.”

“Hey!” he said, then broke out laughing. That certainly eased the tension that had grown in the room.

Then Bax stepped forward. I thought to myself, uh-oh, and got ready for an assault, hopefully a vocal one, but still . . .

He turned so he was facing both the room and us. “What I think is, if Jordan can score a hat trick and you can have as many assists as you had today, I don’t care if you’re both Martians, I’m just glad you’re on my team.”

And that was that. I got off the bench, a few of the guys came over and slapped me on the back, Jordan as well, and life went on.

 

Lying in bed that night, reliving the practice and its aftermath in the locker room, it was easy for those thoughts to drift backwards, to reflect on the past few months. I thought of all that had happened in such a short time, of how my life had changed. I now had a boyfriend who loved me, a boyfriend I now knew I was in love with, too. I had two parents who not only accepted that I was gay but accepted us as a couple; more than that, they loved us and gave our relationship their blessings. I had a little brother who loved me and was proud of me even if he would go farther in life than I ever would. The varsity team was behind us, and I was sure the school didn’t care if I was gay or not.

I finally, finally, realized that yes, the gay tag fit. I was gay. I was more than that, just like every gay person in the world was more than that, but it was who I was. I had a boyfriend I was in love with. Or did I already say that? Doesn’t hurt a bit to repeat it, though.

Life was good, really good, I thought, and I was still thinking it when I finally drifted off to sleep.

The End