“So?” he asks.
“I was looking to see if there was a game.” I nod at the kickball field.
“Nah, let’s keep it just us,” he says.
Right. Sexy butch date. Intimate butch date. I go through the sporty camp things to do that aren’t team related—archery, hiking, tennis. TENNIS.
“How about I show you how to play tennis?” I say. This could be terrible, of course. He said he was bad at tennis, and I’ve gotten okay at it, but I suspect his definition of bad and mine of okay might be on completely different scales. “We can work on your serve.”
He grins. “Okay.”
We walk over to the tennis court, me going over serving form in my head. He gets out the tennis equipment. The court is empty, so we stand next to each other on one end, Hudson looking at me expectantly in the light from the lampposts around the court.
“Right,” I say. “So … this is, um, a …” And the name for the long stick with the round bit with the grid of wire or string or something is completely gone. I shake it like I’m doing jazz hands, like it’s all very exciting.
“Racket?” Hudson asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes. That. And this is a ball!” I bounce the tennis ball on the court and it flies upward at an odd angle before I can catch it, rolling away to the other side of the court. Hudson eyes it suspiciously.
“I thought you said you were good at this,” he says.
“Well … I don’t know about good,” I say. “I mean, I can hit the ball with the …” I swallow. “Racket.” Phew. “Sometimes.”
Hudson laughs. “Are you messing with me?” he asks, stepping closer and putting his hands on my hips, his thumbs finding the space between my skin and my clothes, just under the waistband, and gliding back and forth.
I look down at his hands and my mind is blank. Well, not blank. It’s just been invaded by one thing. And it isn’t tennis.
“Maybe we should just go to the boathouse,” I say, my voice breathy.
He laughs, stepping back. “Uh-uh. You’re showing me how to improve my serve. Come on.” He takes a ball, throws it into the air, and slams it—right into the net. “See? I always do that.”
“Okay,” I say, stepping behind him and letting my hands run over his shoulders. He presses his back into me, his whole body warm, my body warm. I have a sudden urge to just start nibbling on his ear, to lick down his neck, to keep going, taking his shirt and pants off so I can have him right there on the tennis court.
But no. I have to hold back! I won’t be a two-week conquest! He’s not going to be Hal for me.
“So, do you like tennis?” I ask, adjusting his shoulders and the way he holds the racket. “Do you play much?” Turn the conversation less sexy. Then I won’t be as quick to give in. Get to know him, get him to fall for me. That’s the plan.
“I don’t know. I think I like stuff where I’m really competing with myself more,” he says. “That’s why I like the obstacle course. I actually really love track and field. I’m on the varsity team.”
“Yeah?” I say, impressed, as though I don’t already know this. I try to bend his arm for a volley, keeping it raised. His skin is so warm, it’s intoxicating. I pull my hand back.
“Yeah. So tennis always seemed less my thing. How about you? Why did you get into it?”
“They have dogs that retrieve the balls,” I say without thinking.
He laughs and turns to look at me. “What?”
“There are these videos online, they train dogs to retrieve the balls when they go out of bounds,” I say. It’s the truth. It was my second-favorite discovery when googling sports, after some of the really fun uniforms they have out there. Well, third-favorite, if you count the men in the uniforms. Fourth-favorite if you count the men out of the uniforms. But a top five, for sure.
“So you’re into tennis ’cause of the dogs?”
I shrug. “I mean … sort of?” I’m into tennis because I wanted a sport because I’m into you! I almost tell him, but that would give it all away. “I like the way you have to watch, I think,” I say, trying to come up with something. “You have to read your opponent, find out what they want to do, and then give them a variation on that—something where they think they know what’s happening, but then it goes all sideways.” There—that’s kind of like theater, like how actors play. That’s true. That’s Randy … through a Del filter.
“So you like competing against people,” he says.
“I guess.” I shrug.
“That’s cool. I think they’re both good ways of improving yourself, you know. Making yourself better.”
I nod. “That’s why you got into sports?”
“I mean … sort of,” he says, stretching his arms up and looking at the sky. “So, I always liked running around and stuff. I was always an active kid. And my dad loves sports—they were always on. Not just baseball and football, but like track meets, the Olympics, snowboarding. And he was always trying to get me into them, too, and I had all this energy, so, like, being in Little League was fun, sure, but it also was something to do and my dad would always cheer from the stands—‘That’s my boy’ kinda crap, y’know?”
“Yeah.” I nod.
“So I just did it. But I never loved Little League like I do track. Baseball, you have a team, other guys you have to rely on to throw you the ball …”
There’s a long pause as I can sense him swallowing something.
“They don’t like a queer kid on their team?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Kinda. I mean, they never called me a fag or anything, but … they used that word a lot.”
I shake my head. “I don’t like that word.”
“Yeah,” he says, looking up again so I can’t read his face. “Me neither.” His voice is weird, a little cold. But then he looks back at me, all charming smile. “Did you have trouble when you came out?”
I shrug. “I mean, some. Mostly people just ignore me.”
“You said that before, and I still can’t imagine it,” he says, his eyes running up and down me.
I blush. “Well, I’m quiet at school. I mean, I’m out to some people, and I don’t lie when people ask, but … people figured it out. Not much changed, though. No one was careful to stop using gay as a bad word or anything. Once someone wrote fag on my locker. My parents got so mad, stormed the principal’s office. They found out who did it and suspended him. Since then, mostly they leave me alone. Dirty looks, laughing … as long as I don’t stare at anyone, keep my head down, though …”
“Wow, that’s cool your parents were so … good.”
“Your parents aren’t?”
“Well, there was that thing with a swim class once. None of the other guys, a lot of them from the baseball team, would get in the pool, said they’d catch my gay, didn’t want me staring at them or copping a feel underwater, stuff like that. This is when I wasn’t really out yet. Like, I knew, and someone had caught me looking at pictures of Instagram thirst traps on my phone in study hall, so everyone else kind of knew, but no one was talking about it to me. Until this swim class. And then everyone knew. I could have denied it, I guess, but I didn’t. I told them I was just going to swim alone, then, get my gay all over the water as I practiced for the swim race at the end of the semester. That was my coming out to the school. Kinda like yours. Oh, but I came in first place in the race.”