In My Dreams I Hold a Knife(33)

Danny Grier, the Phi Delt brother who’d just come out. The one frat guy I knew in all the years I’d been at Duquette to come out—which only meant he was the brave one. Anger welled inside me, but before I could speak, Jack was stepping forward.

“What are you doing?”

I felt a moment of fear for him—Jack was a junior and well liked, but these were seniors, popular Phi Delt brothers. They had power, and there were more of them than us. But Jack stood his ground, head held high.

“What does it look like?” one of them asked. He was tall, and I remembered having a crush on him when I was a freshman—a crush I now clawed back in my head. “Cleaning up the composites.”

“It’s 2008,” I said. “How are you this backwards?”

“Yeah, that’s some retrograde bullshit,” Coop said. “No wonder I never wanted to join your stupid cult.”

“Frankie, come on.” One of the other brothers, who hadn’t stopped drawing on Danny’s face when we walked in, raised an eyebrow. “Set your friends straight.” He turned to Jack. “Frankie gets it.”

We turned to Frankie. The conversation had woken Heather, and now she stood on her own two feet, shaking her head groggily. Frankie looked like he was staring down the barrel of a gun. I tensed, waiting for him to tell his brothers to go to hell.

“They’re right,” Frankie said instead, voice thick. “Danny doesn’t belong here. You can’t be that way and be a Phi Delt. It doesn’t work like that.”

His words punched me in the chest. Next to me, Caro rocked back in surprise.

“Wow, Frankie.” Jack drew his arms over his chest. “You sound just like your dad. Congratulations.”

Frankie glared back at Jack, anger and embarrassment warring on his face.

Coop lifted his phone and snapped a picture of the Phi Delts. As one, they jumped back from the composites, cursing and tossing their Sharpies.

“Why don’t you fuck off,” Coop suggested pleasantly, “or I’ll send this to the chancellor?”

“Look, no harm, no foul,” said the tall one, lifting his hands. “Just a few guys playing a prank. No need to go nuclear.”

They skulked off. After a few minutes searching, we found cleaning supplies and started scrubbing the glass. It was hard, nail-splitting work, and no one talked, the shock of Frankie’s words still with us.

After the composites were finished, Caro and I decided Heather needed to go home, so we walked her to our suite, only a short distance away. I waited until both Heather’s and Caro’s lights clicked off, then snuck back to the frat, hoping I’d been fast enough and Coop was still there.

The foyer was empty, the cleaning supplies gone. I crept upstairs to the second floor, thinking he might be huddled over some end-of-the-night drinks, but found all the doors locked. Just to be thorough, I opened the basement door and jogged down the steps.

Near the bottom, I froze. In the corner of the room stood Frankie and Jack. Jack’s arms were braced against Frankie’s shoulders. He leaned in close. Frankie’s eyes were red.

“You don’t have to come out to anyone,” Jack said, rubbing Frankie’s shoulders. “I’m not trying to pressure you. Obviously, I’m the last person to talk. But you can’t do that. You can’t gay-bash, Frankie, even if it feels like protection. It’s wrong, and it makes me worry you secretly hate yourself.”

“I don’t. I just—” Frankie’s voice was strained, so low I could barely hear it. “What I said is true, isn’t it?” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I can’t have both. You see anyone out in the NFL? No, and I have to get there. That’s what it’s been about my whole life. Training, working my ass off, eating healthy. No drugs. Total discipline. All so I could be what the NFL wants, do what my dad couldn’t. You don’t understand. He’d kill me if I messed up. He’d kill me.”

“Whoa,” Jack said, touching Frankie’s jaw until he opened his eyes. “First of all, I do understand. Have you met my parents? Second, please don’t talk like that. I get what you’re dealing with, but it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom, the end of the world. I need you to have a bigger imagination.”

Frankie eyed him skeptically. “What, like you, me, and my parents, one big, happy family? Going to mass together? Tossing around a football on the beach?”

Jack shrugged, drawing Frankie closer. “Sure, bud. If that’s your version of dreaming big, let’s do it.”

Frankie sighed and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. But after a second, his eyes fell back down to Jack’s face. They were tender. “You know…I think shit like that’s possible when I’m with you.”

I’d never seen a look like that on my friend’s face. My heart swelled with affection.

Jack leaned in, and Frankie closed his eyes. That was when it slapped me in the face, overdue and obvious: I don’t belong here. I turned to leave, but suddenly my foot slipped, and I gasped, clutching the banister to stop myself from tumbling down the stairs.

Jack and Frankie whirled to face me.





Chapter 13


Now

Frankie hurt Heather?

There was a moment of shocked silence, and then everything happened at once. Caro gasped, Courtney shrilled, “You asshole,” Coop shoved Frankie onto a radiator, and Mint let him. Eric walked in a half-moon around Frankie, hands behind his back.