Time Bomb(6)

That night, they’d just talked—about the team and the upcoming season and what the two of them wanted out of life beyond high school. Nothing earth-shattering. Just . . . talk.

The next day, Tad got a text asking if they could meet up and practice running some plays—only the final play that day didn’t involve throwing the football. Tad could still feel the way their hands brushed. At first, Tad thought it was accidental. Then it happened again, with a shy smile. And he knew they both were interested in being more than friends.

Tad rolled over and reached for his phone. The display remained dark. How hard was it to return a text? Or to say, Hey, I’m not sure I’m up for this relationship. Yeah, the conversation would suck, but at least there wouldn’t be this void. There wouldn’t be seeds of hope and resentment growing in the silence. There wouldn’t be the desire to see the phone light up with the message telling him that he was worth paying attention to. That there was nothing to be ashamed of.

Music, if anyone could call the crap his brother liked to listen to that, suddenly shook the walls.

Ugh. Tad grabbed the football from the floor and sent it flying against the wall, hoping his brother would get the hint.

Sam cranked the music louder, if that was possible. Damn him.

Tad stormed into the hall and banged on his brother’s door. The decibel level went up again. He pounded on the door with both hands and yelled, “Turn that crap down!”

Suddenly the door flew open. The volume level was now earsplitting.

“What do you want?” Tad’s older brother stood in the doorway with his guitar slung around his neck and a scowl on his face. They were only a year apart in age but eons apart in everything else.

“What do you think I want?” Tad asked, rolling his eyes. “I want you to turn that noise down.”

Sam shook his head and crossed his arms. “Not in this lifetime. You’re supposed to be at practice, which means I get to play my music as loud as I want. That’s the deal.”

A deal Sam conveniently ignored whenever he felt like it, and their mother, who brokered the compromise in the first place, always let Sam get away with it. If Dad were around, it might be different. Or maybe if Tad were different . . .

“I don’t have practice today.”

“That’s not my problem.” Sam smiled. “This is my time. You can stay or you can go, and if you have an issue with that, feel free to take it up with Mom. She and her friends just came in.”

“Sam, could you cut me a break this once?” Tad asked. “Things suck right now, and I just need to be able to think without my head feeling like it’s going to explode.”

Sam leaned against the doorjamb as the screeching song ended and a slower but equally loud ballad began. “Having trouble with the team or with your boyfriend?”

Tad stiffened. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

He’d come out to his family a few months ago, but his mother still hadn’t told any of her well-meaning friends, who thought Tad would make a great boyfriend for one of their daughters or nieces. Just thinking about it made his head hurt worse.

Sam laughed. “Sure thing.”

“I don’t.”

“You forget that it isn’t just music that can be heard through these walls. I might not have caught everything you were saying on those late-night calls a few weeks ago, but it was enough to guess what was going on.”

“I was just talking to a friend. No big deal.” Tad jammed his phone into his pocket.

Sam shrugged and adjusted the guitar strap on his neck. “Well, this is no big deal either.” The door slammed in Tad’s face, and the lock clicked into place.

No big surprise there.

His brother never used to lock his door or avoid him this way.

His mother’s friends didn’t used to bring their daughters over quite so much.

If his father were here, he’d tell Tad to hang in there. That everyone would settle in with time. That people would get over it.

Only they never did.

The phone in his hand vibrated, and he hated how his heart jumped, then fell as he looked at the screen and saw it was from Jimmy, the team’s center.



TEAM PARTY AT LAKE TODAY. MEET AT MY HOUSE AT NOON. NO ONE IS TO GO NEAR THE SCHOOL OR JV PRACTICE TODAY. CAPTAIN’S ORDERS.





Don’t go near the school. Captain’s orders. And when their captain gave an order, most of the team fell in line, because Frankie was the guy no one crossed without getting benched in favor of a player Coach had suddenly realized was better. Tad always fell in line. He didn’t like to make waves because, he told himself, he’d already made waves by being who he was: Not black. Not white. And on top of that, not straight. So he shouldn’t rock the boat. He should just be grateful when people acted normal around him.

Well, screw that.

Tad looked down at the text message again.

After being pushed aside for weeks, he knew he was done pretending everything was just fine. Nothing was fine, and he was done taking orders. He was done being ignored.

The bass of his brother’s music pulsing in his chest, Tad went back to his room and grabbed his gym bag. Locking his door, he went through everything in the bag, just to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.

Everything on the list he’d made was there. Ready. Today he was going to insist on being noticed. No more sitting around, waiting for someone else to take action.