151 Days (33 page)

“Yeah, it’s great,” I said quickly. “I was just trying to imagine you playing baseball, and it didn’t work.”

“Couldn’t do it,” he answered as my dad and I grabbed our coats. “The balls are too small.”

He said it so deadpan that it took me a second to realize it was a joke. I burst out laughing as we walked out of the hotel room.

“How about we swing by the dining hall, which is called Sbisa to everyone else, and grab some breakfast?” He had a golf cart that was painted A&M maroon. When he got in, it looked like a clown car. On the seat was an A&M cap. “That’s for you,” he said to me casually as my dad got in the back. I picked it up with reverence, like it was priceless.

Danny chuckled. “I had that same face the day they recruited me and handed me a cap. I must have worn that all summer before my freshman year.”

I realized that I looked like an idiot and slipped it over my head.

“Looks good on you,” he said with a smile.

I was not going to blush over a straight guy complimenting my cap. “So, food?” I asked, getting into the cart.

“Food it is!” he said as we took off toward the campus.

W
E
SPENT
the next few hours walking around the A&M campus as Danny informed us of the history of each building or statue. It was hard not to hear all those stories and not feel a sense of reverence as we walked; this place was a Texas tradition. By the time we got to Olsen Field I was feeling a little overwhelmed by all of it. As we walked up to the building, Danny said in a low voice, “Don’t worry, my first time I was kind of awestruck too. It takes some getting used to.”

As I looked up and saw the three arches, I said, “There is no way I will ever get used to this.”

“And this is where I hand you off,” Danny said as three men walked out of the building toward us. One was Coach Perkins, but he was following the other two men a couple of steps behind. It was kind of obvious they were important.

“I hope Mr. Devin here was a good guide?” the man in the middle asked.

“He was great,” I said truthfully. “If I wasn’t obsessed over this place before, I sure am now.”

“Thank you, Danny,” the man said. “You can go.”

The basketball player nudged me and gave me a quick wink. “Good luck, man.”

I shook his hand. “Thanks for the tour, man.”

“I’ll be seeing you later.” He waved to the three men as he walked off.

The middle man walked up to me. “So you are this Bradley Greymark I’ve been hearing about. I’m Rodney Peterson, head of athletics here.” I shook his hand mutely. “This is Bud Freeling from our alumni association, and you know Coach Perkins.” I nodded and shook each man’s hand. “We have a lot to discuss. Why don’t you and your father follow us?”

“Nice place you got here,” my dad said as we walked into the huge stadium.

The alumni guy smiled and answered, “We try to live up to the motto ‘Everything is bigger in Texas.’”

My dad began to joke with them casually, as if my entire future didn’t depend on it. “Well, that tour guide of yours must be fourth-generation Texan to be that big.” The other men laughed, and I realized this was what my father did for a living. He was a salesman, and right now he was selling me.

Not going to lie, I was a little unsure how to feel about that.

“If I remember, Danny is a military brat, but he did go to high school in Texas, so I think we can claim him,” Mr. Peterson said as we walked into a conference room. There were drinks on a table to the side and an ice cream bar from Blue Bell. I wasn’t sure if I was in a baseball stadium or Willy Wonka’s. “Have a seat. Either of you need anything?”

I shook my head, but my dad took a bottle of water. Once everyone was sitting down and situated, Mr. Peterson got real serious. “From what I have been told, we have had our eyes on you for a while.” He looked over at Coach Perkins, who nodded. “Since your sophomore year, I believe.”

“Coach Gunn told us about you pretty early on,” Perkins added. “We were going to come to you with an offer before the season, in fact.”

My dad asked casually, “Then why didn’t you?”

Mr. Peterson cleared his throat. “I think we all know why that didn’t happen.”

Perkins and the alumni guy looked away, and my father’s face got red as he clenched his jaw. It was a classic sign that he was about to lose it. I, on the other hand, was completely clueless. “I don’t get it,” I asked in the uncomfortable silence. “What did I do?”

All three men looked at me, none of them wanting to say whatever it was out loud.

Then I got it. “Oh, I came out,” I said, more to myself than to them.

“Yes, that,” Mr. Peterson said. “That changed a lot of things.”

“Why?” my dad asked, his voice gruff with anger. “Does who my son decides to sleep with change the way he plays ball? And by the way, if it does, then you should pray your team is gay as well.”

“Dad,” I said trying to calm him down.

“Shut up, Brad,” he snapped at me. “Are you saying that my son isn’t getting a scholarship because he is gay?”

Mr. Peterson seemed unaffected by my dad’s anger. “No, I am saying that
if
we were to offer your son a chance to go here, there would need to be conditions.”

“Like?” my dad asked before I could.

“For one, he cannot be vocal about his sexuality to anyone. Not the press, not publicly, period. For the next four years, as long as he is on the team, he does not comment on his preference at all.” My dad looked like he was going to say something, but Peterson kept talking. “Two, we are giving him a scholarship, not his boyfriend or his future boyfriends. If he is going to date, he can do it off campus and away from where people can see. If he wants to pursue a relationship during the summer, away from here, I don’t care. But while he’s here, that is a nonstarter. And three, if for any reason he does violate these conditions and is released from his scholarship, he is going to sign a nondisclosure agreement not to discuss why he was let go. I am not going to put the school into jeopardy by having its name dragged into the press over this.”

The alumni guy broke in. “Look, it’s nothing personal. It’s just a lot of our budget comes from donations from alumni, and they are not ready in any way, shape, or form to embrace a gay athlete being an Aggie. No one at this table cares what you do on your own time. We just can’t risk making certain people upset.”

“So this is about money,” my dad said after a few seconds.

“It’s about reputation,” Peterson corrected him.

“Right, it’s about money.” My dad looked at me and then back to the men. “Can I talk to my son for a moment? Alone.”

The three of them got up. “Of course, take all the time you need. We’ll be across the hall in my office.” They all gave me a half smile as they passed. Coach Perkins paused and said, “This isn’t as bad as you think, Brad. You aren’t the only gay baseball player out there, trust me. They all played under this rule.”

I nodded, and he walked out.

Once the door was closed, my dad looked me straight in the eye. “At the end of the day, this is going to be your decision. I can’t make it for you, Danny can’t make it for you, no one can. You have to make the choice and be able to live with it.” I nodded, feeling overwhelmed by it all. “But if you want my advice, take the deal.” I opened my mouth to say something, but he talked over me. “Look, you’re broken up with Kyle, and you were never vocal about this before. All you have to do is keep your head down, play ball, and you have the best education money can buy on their dime. You feel lonely, then maybe you find someone on the side who can keep it quiet or we invest in more porn for you. But I am telling you, Brad, you are not going to get another deal like this. I was wondering why there weren’t more people knocking at your door, and this makes sense. No one is ready to sign a gay ballplayer yet. It just won’t happen.”

His words were like someone was punching me. Not hard, not enough to knock me out, but enough for each one to hurt. One by one they were nothing. All together they were devastating. “You want me to just lie?” I asked him, trying not to show how hurt I was.

“Why not? You spent eighteen years doing it,” he countered. “It was just the last six months that you felt the need to
express
yourself, and look how that turned out. If you had lasted eighteen years and six months, you’d be beating schools off with a stick.”

“But—” I began to explain.

“Look, Brad, I said it was your choice, and it is. But if it’s not this, then what? You going to work at that sporting goods shop while you go to junior college? How gay do you think you’re going to be able to be in Foster working a part-time job? You want out of that town, and I don’t blame you. This is the only way you got right now.”

I honestly just wanted him to stop talking.

“Okay, fine,” I said bitterly. “I’ll take the deal.” I felt a part of my soul begin to shrivel up and die because I knew, the second Kyle heard word of what I did, he would never, ever talk to me again. And I can’t say I’d blame him. “I just don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

I saw my dad’s face blanch at the tone of my voice, and he leaned over and put a hand on my arm. “Brad, life is making hard choices and doing things you don’t want to get to things you do want. It’s part of being a man.”

I looked at him squarely in the eyes and asked, “You mean like coming back and raising a kid with a woman you left behind?” I was rewarded by his face going even paler. “I said I’d take the deal. We don’t need to talk about anything else.”

He slowly took his hand away. “You can be mad all you want,” he said, standing up slowly. “But this isn’t my fault. You can hate me for a lot of things, but the advice I just gave you? That’s not one of them.”

Before I could respond, he walked out to get the men back in there.

I missed Kyle.

S
O
THE
deal was, they were going to write up a contract for me to sign the next day. In the meantime, they said, some of the guys on campus were having a party, and I was welcome to join them to experience what college life was like after class. I didn’t feel like going anywhere, much less a party, but my dad reminded me that this was still an interview, and if I refused, it gave the impression I was rocking the boat.

God forbid the boat is ever rocked.

So around nine there was a knock on the hotel door. I wasn’t that shocked to find basketball Danny standing there. “You ready for some trouble?” he asked with a devilish smile.

I was wearing a button-up shirt and khakis, not sure what proper dress code was. “This too much or not enough?” I asked him.

“As long as you don’t mind having beer spilled on them, it doesn’t matter.” He began to laugh at his own joke when he saw my dad lying on the bed behind me. “Oh, hi, Mr. Greymark, didn’t see you there.” He scratched his head as he tried to find a way to cover himself. “I didn’t mean actual beer. I was talking about….”

My dad waved him off. “I’m not completely ignorant to what goes on at a college party. Go and have fun,” he told me. What he meant was, go and don’t draw attention to myself as a problem child. I grabbed my letterman jacket and followed Danny.

“Your dad is a lot like mine,” he said as we got into his jeep.

“Your dad is a raging asshole who’s distant and unavailable?” I said, buckling myself in.

I saw him give me a sideways glance as he started the car. “Okay then. I guess they aren’t that alike.”

He took us by the campus, and the school looked completely different to me now. Instead of this great institution where Texas history had been made, it looked like a huge beast just waiting to devour me. All the joy of the place had been drained out of me. Now it was just another jail that I was willingly committing myself to.

“So how did the meeting go?” he asked me, turning down the music. “They all slobbering on you to get you to sign?” It would have been easier to dislike this guy if he wasn’t so freaking cute. I don’t mean to say I was attracted to him; I’m just saying he was ridiculously cute for a guy who was taller than most field goals.

“No, nothing like that,” I assured him, not wanting to get into it.

“Ah, well. I don’t know how the baseball department works,” he said, making a turn. “I had UT, USC, and Arizona after me, but I wanted to play here.”

“Must be nice,” I grumbled, trying not to sound like a complete bitch.

“There are going to be some baseball players at this party. You can ask them how they were courted. It’s different for everyone.” We pulled in to what looked like an apartment complex. “Welcome to Northgate,” he said as we parked. “One of the best places to live off campus.”

There were cars parked everywhere, and I could see people milling around, some heading out to party, some heading in to do the same. It was exciting, despite my mood. I’d never been to a college party, but this reminded me a lot of when I was asked to a varsity party when I was a freshman. I followed Danny, who waved to a few people as we passed by. “I was going to pass you off as a new student, but the letterman jacket is a giveaway,” he said as we went inside. “If anyone gives you shit let me know, but shouldn’t be a problem. Most of these guys are my bros.”

We walked up a couple of flights of stairs. When we got to the third floor, Danny opened the door, and the sound of the party came crashing out. As we walked down the hall, I saw nearly every door was open, and there were people everywhere. It was insane. I was thinking of, like, a party at a house or something, but this was the entire floor. “A few of us on the team got the same floor, and we lucked out since just about everyone else were either jocks or cool with partying,” he said over the music. “The RA is a huge basketball booster,” he added, smiling. “Well, more correctly he is a wannabe, so he lets us get away with hell.” We got to the common area, where there was a keg set up while a crowd of guys sat around a big-screen TV playing COD against each other. With each death, the guys either cheered or groaned. I instantly cheered up.

It was exactly what I pictured a college dorm to be like.