Truth, Pride, Victory, Love by David Connor & E.F. Mulder

Author:David Connor & E.F. Mulder [Mulder, David Connor and E.F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-63477-688-2
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2016-12-30T05:00:00+00:00

13

THE SEASONS passed again, all four of them, and before I knew it, I was a junior in college and Devon was a high school sophomore. My parents weren’t thrilled with the latter, since they felt he was passed through his first year of high school without really grasping what he should have. I was looking into a program at Cloverton that might be able to help him.

He was doing well with his swimming, moving up the ranks, and still seeing Amy. Though the span of nearly two years had brought quick advances for my brother in his athletic and romantic endeavors, my trajectory had slowed down considerably. Coach Keller had decided not to try to get me on the national team in 2013. He’d had his reasons, and though I hadn’t altogether been able to decipher what they were, I hadn’t put up a fuss. The Cloverton coach had, but I’d decided to side with the one I trusted implicitly, the one who had made me as good as we all thought I was.

It only dawned on me later Coach Keller’s reasons might have been financial. That was why, by 2014, on top of my grueling training schedule, I had three jobs I tried to keep secret from him along with a full load at school. It was well worth it, I thought, as things started to move again. In just a few weeks, I actually would be attending the US team trials—finally—as Coach Keller thought the perfect moment for some national exposure and my proverbial coming out had at last arrived. My times were better than almost every other guy in the sport.

“You’ll make a big splash when we finally show you off to everyone. A big splash… get it?” Coach Keller had used that joke a million times. Now, it was actually about to happen. I was both petrified and excited.

I had sponsors now too, businesses and philanthropists, who, according to him, had “tons of throwaway cash they love to throw at up-and-coming athletes.” Accepting the checks left me feeling uneasy. “Then let me deal with it,” he’d said. “This is how it works.”

Mathias had been on the national team the summer before. I’d seen him on TV—him and his mother. There she’d been in close-up after close-up, taking up my entire TV screen as she smiled broadly. I’d found the whole thing quite the ruse. Now she was interested in her son’s pursuits and athletic quests? I’d never seen her at a local meet—not once—and would have bet the woman’s entire bank account her presence had something to do with Mathias being on the precipice of celebrity. Finally, it seemed he was worthy of her time. Or maybe, once again, I was somewhat jealous, because I knew flying to Spain for Mrs. Webber was less of a financial burden than the Watson family taking a car trip eighty miles south to New York City to see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree some December.

Mathias had been a

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