The Penalty for Holding by Georgette Gouveia

Author:Georgette Gouveia [Gouveia, Georgette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Gay, Contemporary, Romance
Publisher: Less Than Three Press, LLC
Published: 2017-05-10T04:00:00+00:00

eighteen

Quinn thought he'd be delighted to leave behind the provincialism of Misalliance. He thought he'd revel in the freedom of university life, particularly as lived on the so-called Left Coast. But what he discovered when he arrived at Stanford was that Aunt Josie, who barely allowed him to kiss her goodbye, had done her job too well. Rather than burst forth from the cocoon she had woven, he found himself knitting it more tightly around himself. Not that there was any time for him to explore and experiment. It was football and studies, studies and football as he was determined to keep up his 4.0 average in an environment in which the learning curve was much steeper—on and off the field.

Head coach Brian Olds was a decent sort, less naked in his ambition than Coach Redfield but ambitious nonetheless that Stanford should win the Rose Bowl. He admired Quinn's running game.

His teammates and classmates seemed less certain. There was a pecking order at Stanford—as Quinn supposed there was everywhere—one that would take longer to climb than it had at Misalliance High. One teammate in particular seemed to have it in for him, Casey Kasmerek. He was a defenseman whose tattooed, fat-dimpled arms looked like marbled hams hanging in a butcher's shop. It was definitely a tribute to just how grotesque they were, along with the belly spilling over his pants, that Quinn didn't first notice his most salient characteristic: He was nuts. Certifiable.

His psychopathic tendencies took the form of a relentless hazing that was characterized as "team-building" by the coaches, who, Quinn thought, were just too lazy or terrified to do anything about it.

Even Coach Olds told Quinn in effect to cowboy up, adding, "Consider it good practice for the day the doc tells you that you have Stage 4 lung cancer."

Needless to say, Quinn was not comforted. He learned to keep nothing of value in his locker, after Casey flushed his cell phone down the toilet and stomped on his laptop. Quinn also repeatedly instructed his absent-minded roommate—science whiz Ivan Ivanovitch, who spent most of his time in the lab—to keep their door locked at all times.

Quinn bore it when Casey shaved his head as teammates held him down or when he found his clothes shredded in the locker. In a way, he thought, it was only the universe righting itself. He had been given so much and deserved so little. Without him, Aunt Lena would probably have still been alive, enjoying her life and career in New York. He deserved to be punished, he thought. But when Aunt Sarah came to visit with some of her friends, and Casey set her in his crosshairs, Quinn drew a permanent line.

"I'm gonna rape her every chance I get," Casey texted him. Quinn, who was genuinely afraid that Casey was as much walk as talk, marched over to his stall in the locker room and in a loud voice announced, "You can say or do whatever you like to me. But if you ever go near my aunt, I'll kill you.

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