Taking Chances Read online

  By JOHN GOODE

  FROM DREAMSPINNER PRESS

  NOVELLAS

  Tales of Foster High Series:

  Maybe With a Chance of Certainty

  The End of the Beginning

  Raise Your Glass

  NOVELS

  Tales from Foster High Series:

  Taking Chances

  FROM HARMONY INK PRESS

  NOVELS

  Tales from Foster High Series:

  Tales From Foster High

  (YA edition of the Dreamspinner Press Tales of Foster High novellas)

  End of the Innocence

  Lords of Arcadia Series:

  Distant Rumblings

  Eye of the Storm

  Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  Copyright

  Published by

  Dreamspinner Press

  5032 Capital Circle SW

  Ste 2, PMB# 279

  Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

  USA

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Taking Chances

  Copyright © 2013 by John Goode

  Cover Art by Paul Richmond

  http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com

  Cover content is being used for illustrative purposes only

  and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Ste 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA.

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  ISBN: 978-1-62798-058-6

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-62798-059-3

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  August 2013

  This is dedicated to Gina and Mark, two people who have proven that love doesn’t have to be anything harder than saying “I love you.”

  Foreword

  HOPE is life.

  Hope is the knowledge that the odds of you coming out to be you are so astronomical, it is easier to predict weather than to figure out how special it is that you are here. Hope is the belief that you being here is not a random occurrence, that you are here because there was a shocking lack of you in the universe before you were born and now, it is filled. Hope is that the reason you are here will affect others in a positive way, that just by being you, people are made better. Hope is that no matter how dark it gets, there is always a light just around the corner. Hope is that no matter how lonely you may seem, you know at the very least you are your own best friend. Hope is the belief that things that have not happened yet will turn out to be good. Hope is also knowing that some of those things will turn out bad, but it’s okay, because there is always more good than bad in the end. Hope is throwing a football of faith to a receiver you cannot see and knowing that even though it may take time, he will catch it and score. Hope is that you are wrong, that things are not as bad as you think. Hope is that if it is that bad, it can’t stay like that forever. Hope is not that you turn out perfect, but that you find people as messed up as you someday. Hope is not about winning the lottery; it is about having enough money to play. Hope is the candle that flickers in the night of your soul. Hope is that even if it goes out, someone will come by and light it again with their own flame. Hope is not wishing for the impossible; it is knowing the impossible can happen.

  Hope is everything, even if you don’t believe it, because it believes in you.

  —John Goode

  Author’s Note

  THIS book takes place in the imaginary town of Foster, Texas. Tyler has been featured in my other series, Tales from Foster High, which is where Brad and Kyle’s story can be found. This book takes place during End of the Innocence, Tales from Foster High: Book Two, where the events at the end of that book are dealt with in greater detail.

  Matt

  IF THERE is anything harder than growing up gay, it’s growing up gay in the Midwest.

  There are few places on the planet nicer than Foster, Texas, to be raised in, but as with all forms of perfection, there are some rules. There is a reason movies like Children of the Corn and half a dozen other horror films were based on little towns like this. They are pleasant, accepting, and loving people who respect each other under God as long as you are exactly like them in every way that counts. If you are not, you are an outsider and must be removed.

  It’s a lot like anthill thinking except, in Foster, there was no queen, no one overriding presence that made us all do the same thing. Guys like my brothers conformed because none of us wanted to be different. We all wore the same kind of clothes, had the same short hair, and we all talked the same way about the things we liked.

  Well, they talked about the things they liked; I just repeated what they were saying and nodded at the appropriate times. The things I liked were not things young men were supposed to like.

  I remember growing up thinking I was the only person in the world who was like me. I was one of those mutants you read about in the comic books, a normal-looking person on the outside but a hideous creature just under my skin, and that forever set me apart from everyone else. My reaction was so stereotypical that I am loathe in this day and age to repeat it out loud to other gay people. I was a pariah in my own mind; the scarlet letter was invisible to others but plain as day to me—a huge pink F that followed me wherever I went; and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake it.

  I remember being on the edge of seventeen, that dangerous time between childhood and young adult when the concrete is still wet in your mind. That part of your life where things get stuck and form who you are for the rest of your life, wanted or not. Offhand comments, distant laughter, anything a boy’s fragile ego could mistake for a slight could affect the kind of man he would one day become. There is never a time in your life when love is so sweet, pain cuts so deep, or memory is so undeniably carved in stone.

  Though I am closer to thirty than I am to twenty, I can still remember moments of time from when I was a teenager that are so vivid, they could have taken place yesterday. Ask me the name of the guy who talked to me at the gym last week or Sophia’s boyfriend’s name and I draw a blank. But ask me about the time I saw the boy down the street mow the lawn shirtless for the first time and I can still smell the cut grass and the way the sun beat down on me unmercifully. It could have been this afternoon instead of a decade ago.

  And that is not always a good thing.

  “So….” Sophia swirled the straw around in her glass in the same manner a cat plays with a mouse before eating it. “…home for the holidays, huh?”

  I groaned as put my head down on the table. “Why won’t you let this go?” I begged.

  “Because, my dear friend,” she teased, “sometimes I feel like I’m best friends with James Bond and not some fag hag to an uptight hick.”

  “I hate that word,” I mumbled into the table.

  “Which one?” she asked. “Hick or fag?”

  “Both,” I grunted.

  “I know; that’s why I use them,” she answered airily around sips of her drink. “So, spill. What’s a real Texas Christmas like?”

  I winced as images crowded my mind. Both my brothers and their families annually invade my parents’
living room. Both of them are in some demented race to have as many offspring as they can, so I can expect a new baby to coo at and be spit up on by every other year. I end up cowering in a corner trying desperately to remember their kids’ names. The stifling heat, because my mother thinks the moment I moved out of state I lost the ability to handle a “proper North Texas winter.” The painful smile I keep on my face as my sisters-in-law ask, again, “What’s it like living in such an exciting place as San Francisco?” and “You must have the best time!” The entire time, I try to convince myself what they’re saying isn’t code for “So what’s it like having a ton of gay sex in the big city?”

  “Long,” I said miserably as I looked up and saw the cute barista walk by and flash me what had to be a pity smile.

  “And that’s what she said,” Sophia added, laughing at her own joke. “So when do you leave?”

  “Day after tomorrow,” I answered, trying to find a way to turn around and look at him without seeming like I was turning around and looking at him.

  Sophia looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Just ask him out already,” she said in exasperation. “Or better yet, go corner him in the bathroom!”

  I tried not to blush and failed miserably. Sophia learned everything she knows about gay culture from watching Queer as Folk and was constantly miserable that I am nothing like them. “He just reminds me of someone,” I said as I sneaked a peek over my shoulder.

  Of course, that was exactly when he walked back with a few empty cups. He smiled and stopped. “Did you need another?”

  “Another what?” I blurted out, turning away and seeing the empty coffee mug in front of me. “Another coffee, obviously, because I’m in a coffee shop and what else would you be asking me about?” And then I realized I said all that out loud. My head hit the table again. “No thank you.”

  Sophia cackled as the blood rushed to my head. I hate Christmas.

  “He’s cute,” she commented, while I prayed he was out of earshot.

  I looked up in exasperation. “Of course he’s cute. He works at a gay coffee house for tips.” I pushed my mug away dejectedly. “The only other profession that depends more on looks is a male stripper.” I glanced over at him; he was smiling and taking another order behind the counter. “’Sides, he’s not that cute.”

  “Who’s not that cute?” Whatshisname asked, wiping his hands on his jeans.

  “The guy behind the counter,” Sophia explained to her boyfriend, whose name I still cannot remember.

  He looked over and then back with a lewd smile. “Oh yeah, he’s hot.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You seriously know you’re dating a gay guy, right?”

  “Hey! I’m not gay!” Whatshisname said as he took a sip of his coffee. “I am an enlightened man of the times.”

  “You dress better than I do and are constantly pointing out cute guys,” I said, tiring of this never-ending argument. “You’re gayer than I am.”

  “That’s not saying much,” Sophia muttered under her breath. I pretended not to hear her.

  But she’s right; I am hands down the worst gay guy in the world.

  The other horrible part about growing up in Foster is that I had no gay role models to speak of. There was that gay uncle on Bewitched, the weird guy on Too Close for Comfort, and Mr. Roper batting his eyelashes on Three’s Company, but I wasn’t that type of gay. I had played football since I knew how to walk and did both at about the same skill level, which was to say not very well at all. My brothers and I were all jocks in high school. Although I was the least jockish of the bunch, I still passed as more than straight to the general populace. When I moved to the West Coast, I thought I’d finally be free—able to explore my sexuality and all the joy that would come with it.

  I realized I had moved from being a misfit in a culture I wasn’t a part of to being a freak in the culture I was supposed to be in. I didn’t believe in casual sex; I didn’t like to get drunk. Bars were too loud, smoky, and sad for my taste and frankly, I had never met a man who could measure up to the ideal I had in my head.

  “He means he’s not cute compared to the boy with the red door,” Sophia said with a wicked smile.

  “I hate you,” I said, meaning every word.

  “The guy with the red what?” Whatshisname asked.

  “There was this boy that lived down the street that Matt here was in llloooveee with when he was in high school.” Her laughter chewed my eardrums like the sound of nails on a chalkboard. “Of course, being Matt, he never once talked to him. Matt only stalked him from afar and now judges every man he meets against that guy.”

  Whatshisname looked over at the barista and back at me. “This guy with the red thing must have been hot.”

  “Okay, honey,” Sophia interjected, quietly patting his arm. “Little too much sharing.”

  She was right. I did judge everyone against that one boy. Of course, because he was a figment of my imagination, and, therefore, perfect, everyone else I met over the years was found wanting. That probably makes little sense, so let me try to explain it a bit better.

  When I was growing up, there was a boy who lived two blocks down, and he was the reason I knew I was gay. Foster is an odd place; we are still small in terms of an actual town, but in population, there seemed to be more people than was ever seen. We were the closest thing to a real town within seventy-five miles, so Foster ended up being the hub for a few dozen towns that were too small to support a high school, and who also depended on us as a means of existence. I remember thinking at the time that the idea of people who came to Foster for fun didn’t compute in my high school mind, but it was the truth. There were enough people that we supported two different high schools, and there was no pattern on who should go to which one.

  My brothers and I went to Foster High, the school that was an odd mix of yuppie kids combined with those from the wrong side of the tracks. Its buildings were aged, its textbooks and computers ragged, its uniforms were worn, and the band had trouble marching in a straight line. In every way, Foster High was and is looked down on by the students at Granada, the newer school. That made our rivalry that much fiercer. The Boy went to Granada, and because he went to Granada, he automatically became a Capulet to our Montagues.

  He was a jock just like my brothers and I were, playing a variety of sports much like we did. Everyone knew him, walking down Main Street in his letterman jacket, easy smile, tattered white T-shirt that looked so soft you just wanted to touch it. He was always with friends and was always surrounded, as if the entire town wanted to touch him, be near him, draw what warmth they could from his presence. If he was comfortable with the attention, he never showed it. Instead, he always had a nervous smile on his face and unconsciously ran his fingers through that golden hair, which made the T-shirt ride up. Like a comet, that brief glimpse of skin between his shirt and jeans was worth waiting for weeks to appear.

  Sophia snapped her fingers in front of my face, breaking me out of my stupor as I remembered him. “Okay, back to Earth. So how long are you staying?”

  “As little as humanly possible,” I said, looking at the time and realizing I was close to being late. “Shit, I need to go.”

  “So does his family still live in town?” she asked as I pulled on my jacket.

  “I’m not seeing him.” I grabbed my messenger bag and darted for the door. “I’ll call you later.”

  “Bye!” the cute guy behind the counter called out. I turned to see him waving at me.

  I’d started to wave back when I slammed into the front door and fell onto my ass. He covered his mouth in horror as I shook my head and realized the entire place was staring at me.

  “Fucking Christmas!” I cursed as scrambled to my feet and fled the scene.

  For a long time I had secretly blamed The Boy for making me different. As far as I could see, it had been his fault that something in my mind switched from girls to boys when I saw him for the first time. I might have had thoughts before, might have wondered, bu
t it wasn’t until the day I saw him mowing the lawn that I knew, I knew for sure. I wanted someone who looked just like him. And if not, as close as I could get would do.

  IT WAS a Saturday afternoon, one of the few he wasn’t roaming free across our small town with his pack mates like they owned the town. It was obvious that he had been resigned to mowing his lawn instead of running free, and it was that day as I walked by on my way to First Street that I knew… I was never going to be the same again.

  He wore a pair of blue jeans that had been old the previous year. They were frayed and faded to the point of distraction, with the band of his white boxers just hanging out, almost daring someone to comment on them. He pushed the lawnmower around as if it owed him money, he was so angry. Two white headphone wires trailed down his back as he ignored the world around him and took it out on his chores. His hair was matted from the heat and drops of sweat trailed down his face. The world stopped spinning while I watched the sun reflect down the tanned perfection that was his shirtless form. I paused in the street, completely floored by the Adonis in front of me. And there, in the middle of the explosion in my mind, he looked up at me. Our eyes met, and if he knew what or why I was looking, he gave no indication. His eyes blazed under the green John Deere hat as he kept moving across the lawn… looking away slowly as if he hadn’t seen me gaping at him.

  My brothers, of course, had nothing good to say about him when I asked them if they knew who he was. He went to Granada, which meant he was obviously the enemy. They explained how he and his friends were the bad guys and that I was to tell them if he even looked at me wrong. We were teenage boys, and most of us just waited around looking for a reason to get into a fight. As the youngest, I had sworn to hate him; but seeing him there, alone for the first time, things had changed.

  I had always known I was different. My brothers and their friends seemed to live for spitting, farting, and endless competitions to see who was better than the other. They would talk endlessly about girls and what they had done, what they would do, and then finally what they would settle for if they ever had the chance to be with one. Their various comparisons left me cold, though I went along with them because the alternative was sitting alone in my room longing for something I couldn’t explain. I never had a name for what was inside me. No, to be honest, I never wanted to name it. I came from the old school of superstition that if you didn’t give an evil a name, it couldn’t quite possess you. So I never said the word out loud, never thought it to myself. I knew I was different and left it at that, but inside I craved to be like my brothers and their friends so bad, I just ignored it and hoped one day it would pass. But seeing him there, shirtless, sweat pouring down every muscle he had, the feeling inside me suddenly received a name, and it wasn’t one I liked.