Free 151 Days by John Goode Page B

Gunn’s voice boomed out.
    The stipulation I had to shower separately had gone away along with, supposedly, discrimination in sports based on sexual orientation. From what Josh Walker told me, Coach and some lady who was a member of the school board had asked everyone on the team if they had a problem with me showering with all of them. No one spoke up. And I started showering with the other guys again.
    So at least the guys didn’t think I was going to be some weird creeper trying to hump them in the showers.
    There are two types of guys in a team shower. There are the ones that are so weirded out by being naked in a room full of other naked guys that they feel the need to be loud and obnoxious to cover it. They make stupid jokes, ask asinine questions, and generally try to get everyone involved, like somehow that covers up the fact that we’re all buck naked and trying not to look at each other’s junk. Mostly everyone else is the quiet type. They go in, wash their hair, soap up, rinse off, and get the fuck out. They don’t make eye contact, spend a hell of a lot of time looking at their own feet, and try to make the entire process as painless as possible.
    I had always been a type two, since it made the whole being in a room full of naked athletes a lot easier if I never looked at them. I mean, everyone, and I do mean everyone, looked; it was just what you looked at and for how long that mattered. Guys like Kelly were the complete opposite. They went on the assumption that if they could walk around naked and have a conversation like nothing was wrong, then they were beyond suspicion. I always felt it did the complete opposite, since straight guys seemed to be more than a little squeamish when it came to other naked dudes. I had always done my best to be a rinse-and-run, but today I just stood there and stared at the wall in front of me.
    What was I going to do when he told me I was off the team?
    I suppose I could try to see if Granada had an opening on their team, but their tryouts were this week too, so the chance I could just walk onto their team was remote to none. They had Shayne Fuller this year, which meant they were all but guaranteed a trip to the playoffs. Also, I didn’t want to throw a fit and force them to take me on the team; it would just look like I was a little bitch who was whining ’cause I didn’t get my way. That wasn’t an attractive image at all. The worst part was going to be telling Kyle. The second he found out I was off, he would declare a jihad on the school that would most likely end up getting us both kicked out before graduation.
    I hadn’t even paid attention to how long I had stood there until I realized I was the last guy in the shower.
    “Awesome,” I muttered to myself. “So I am off the team and look like a gay Peeping Tom all in the same day.” I turned off the water and toweled myself half-dry at my locker. A lot of the guys had already taken off, knowing that if they even looked like they were trying to find out who made the cut before tomorrow, Gunn would have them running laps all night. I threw all the stuff in my locker into my bag since I wouldn’t be coming back to it and made my way to the office.
    Before I knocked, I took a deep breath and forced myself not to show one ounce of emotion.
    I knocked twice and heard his voice come from the other side.
    Gunn’s office was a shrine to all things baseball. He had played himself in college, and the rumor was he had been on one of those feeder teams for the Rangers for a while but had never been moved up to the show. His wall was adorned with pictures of every team he had coached, more of them winning seasons than losing. He had three state banners on one wall, a reminder to anyone who saw them that in Texas, where baseball was a religion, being in the same office as the coach was actually standing in the presence of, at the very least, a demigod.
    “Sit down, Greymark,” he ordered, sliding a chair over to me. His