—nothin’ll wound you.
It was cause for celebration, and after the meeting ended Jimbo instructed everybody to grab one article of clothing with our old logo on it. That done, we walked to the players’ lot and, forming a long caravan led by Devonté’s Grand Marquis, drove out of West Campus, out of Blenheim, and into the countryside, past nouveau riche subdivisions with their McMansions and three-car garages, past cypress swamps where the trees were flooded to their navels. We entered spreading farmland, acre upon acre of soft red earth turned a burning blue by the night. With a right, we rumbled down a long gravel road that cut through a tobacco field. We parked next to an old farmhouse and walked to an uncultivated patch of earth bordered on the far end by forest. The farm, I learned, belonged to one of Devonté’s uncles.
As Jimbo unloaded the cases of Natty Light he’d grudgingly purchased as payment for his lost bet about Reshawn, Devonté led a group of players to fetch firewood from a half-cord stacked against the side of the farmhouse. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, only thickly clustered stars and a moon so near to full you had to stare to figure out where the missing slice was. The wood-gathering group returned and Devonté oversaw construction of the bonfire, proudly explaining how this field had been the site of Sanders family activities for three generations—graduation parties, pig pickings, haunted hayrides, footraces between boy cousins. The fire was lit, and as we waited for it to gain strength, we chugged beer and collapsed the empty cardboard Natty Light cases, feeding them to the flames.
I stood with Chase, sweating and laughing about my first day of camp last year, when he and Fade had told me I would be taken out to a field much like this and branded with an omega symbol. Chase needled me about my gullibility, while I relished just how far I’d traveled since last August, how much bigger, better—in every possible sense—I had become. The fire started to roar, and Jimbo told everyone to grab their article with the old King crown.
On his word, we threw the shirts, hats, shorts, and socks into the fire, chanting:
One one two three
Who the fuck you came to see?!
King King motherfucker!
Three hours later we finished the last of the beer, doused the fire, and got back into our cars to return to the Football House for a party. The drunkest of us drove down the wrong side of the country highway, racing the others home. I was bringing up the rear of the caravan, concentrating on steering between the lane lines, when Chase pulled alongside me in his truck. He rolled down his window and yelled over his engine that he stank of wood smoke—he was heading to his apartment to change into fresh clothes. This was code. He wanted me to come back to his apartment so we could have another of our secret talks.
We dropped our passengers off at the Football House and continued to Central. I parked in the lot next to Chase’s building and texted Thao, telling him I’d be in Carsonville soon. He wrote back:
Gwen: I can’t keep hard all night, you know.
I followed Chase upstairs. He went to his bedroom to change, and I went to the fridge for a beer. The Sadie photographs were gone. I was happy to see this.
—Get me one?
I turned to find he’d changed into a clean pair of cargo shorts and was bare-chested, a T-shirt slung over his right shoulder. Like all light-skinned football players’, Chase’s torso had a hallucinatory farmer’s tan. The contrast between his sun-darkened neck and arms and his milky chest was so severe you’d have thought two different people had been stitched together.
I got him a beer, but when I tried handing it to him he slid between my arms and kissed me, gripping the back of my T-shirt.
Each of my hands held a bottle, his lips were much softer than they looked, and I could smell the Old Spice deodorant he’d just reapplied. He opened his mouth and tried to pry mine open with his tongue, which is when I finally made myself step back.
He was breathing heavily, and I could see the swollen head of his cock outlined in his shorts. He saw I had an erection too, but when he stepped up and laid his hand on it, I pushed him away with my elbow. He smiled and took the bottles from my hands, setting them on the kitchen counter.
—I’m supposed to be at Thao’s, I said, trying to move past.
—Just sit with me.
—I need to go, Chase.
—Please?
I sat on one end of his couch, he on the other. My heart was still pounding, my cock confoundingly hard.
—Where are you meeting Thao? he asked.
—His house.
—And then what? You guys going to Stefan Knows? Or the Football House?
—No.
—Have you been on a date anywhere that’s not at his place? —Not yet. He nodded.
—“Not yet.” That was like me and Henry’s motto.
—It’s not the same.
—Why not? he said. ‘Cause his house is bigger than a dorm room? You’re still stuck inside. How many times have you guys seen each other on campus this week?
Not once. I didn’t want to concede this, but I didn’t need to; Chase already knew.
—You and me, he said, we could go anywhere we wanted. Nobody would think shit of it. You could come over here every night, no questions. And next year we could get a place together on Central. You two haven’t fucked yet, right?
—That isn’t your business.
He smiled.
—You’re waiting? Until when? When we have a day off? But what happens if you get called in for a meeting or we have a special lift? Then you have to wait another week. Then another.
He slid over on the couch.
—There’d be no waiting with me. We could fuck right now. You could fuck me here. Or in the kitchen. Wherever you wanted.
His hand was
