All Hail the Underdogs (Breakaway, #3)

by E.L. Massey

PATRICK ROMAN HAS his mother’s eyes and his father’s nose, and on his face, they’re still a family.

LUCIFER WAS AN angel once. That’s what Damien thinks the first time he sees Patrick Roman.

The point is, he has a carefully curated look, and that look is fuck off. Damien wants to touch him.

Money is— I realize I’m crazy privileged when it comes to money. But no amount of money can change the fact that I’m not white.”

Kaner supplies. “One cannot subsist on hate sex alone. You also gotta get that tender lovin’, bro. And I don’t know if Rome does tender.”

Rome takes a breath. “I’m in the process of petitioning for legal emancipation. My court date is next month. My lawyer wants to come take pictures of my dorm to prove that I’m a functional human, or whatever. To include with my petition.”

“So you don’t actually hate me,” Damien says like it’s a revelation. “You’re just poor. Like…not Olly-poor. Really poor. And I keep rubbing your face in it.” “Fuck you. But, yeah. Mostly.”

“My point is you don’t have to worry about that. Not with us. You need equipment or help with fees or whatever, we got you. And it’s not charity. Because it’s not a big deal for us. It doesn’t count unless it would be…an imposition.”

“And if you do want to keep track and pay us back some day with your stupid huge NHL salary, then that’s fine too but, like… I could buy you a car, and my parents probably wouldn’t even ask about the charge, okay? A one-hundred-dollar health center fee is nothing. I have significantly more than that in my wallet right now.”

“I do hate you; I’m just poor too.” He nudges him a little, just to make sure Damien knows he’s joking.

“Elle?” Damien repeats, one eyebrow up. “Elle the lawyer?” “Yes. And if you make a Legally Blonde reference, no one will find your body.”

“Hey,” Damien says. “Legally Blonde is the shit. It focuses on, like, strong interpersonal female relationships instead of heterosexual romance, and Elle doesn’t have to give up any of her feminine-coded personality traits to be successful. Yeah, it could use some diversity, but for 2001, it was pretty damn progressive.”

I wish I was smaller. I wish I was a tidy thing I could place in your hands.

You don’t realize how much power you have. I hope you never do. I hope you’re careful anyway. He writes: I would give too much to touch you.

Rome realizes what Damien is about to do a split second before he lunges into the closet. Damien takes out the whole tension rod in his haste and starts furiously sorting through the cascade of clothes around him, tearing off tags.

PATRICK ROMAN WATCHES Deadliest Catch like it’s a spectator sport. If he’s in the common room in the evening and he’s yelling at the TV, it’s usually over the Discovery Channel, not hockey. He has favorite crew members and gets all bitchy about incompetence, and he croons over machinery with an adoration that most people reserve for small animals and infants. It’s adorable, is the point.

And sometimes, when Rome comes back from a snack run to the caf, he’ll bring up a few cookies or a slice of pie to Damien. He won’t say anything. Just knock on the door, push it into his hands, and then disappear again.

the two quiet knocks happened again. And he knocked back again.

“They were talking about Damien’s dick!” Rome says, well, yells, really. “Damien and Wooster,” he corrects at a slightly more normal volume.

Rome ignores him. “And I was so pissed that I went over and just…told them that Olly has the biggest dick.” Olly chokes on his hot chocolate. Or Kaner’s hot chocolate, which he has stolen. “You did not,” Olly says.

“I did. I’m sorry. But I was so mad, and I didn’t—I’m not like you guys with a damn file of memorized elegant speeches to give when people are saying fucked up shit. I improvised.”

“I cannot believe,” Olly says faintly, handing Kaner back her mug, “that this is going to be my legacy. And it’s not even true. My dick is average. Maybe even below average. Which was something I wasn’t even worried about until now that the entire school apparently thinks I have some sort of monster cock. Oh my god.”

“If you were really trying to fight racist stereotypes,” Chai says to Rome, “you should have told them it was me. And it also would have been the truth.”

“Mama was right,” Olly says. “Yankee schools are full of heathens.”

“Right,” Rome snarled, “but sometimes violence is the question, and the answer is yes.”

“No. I try to be gentle about it. Turn things into jokes. Point out fucked up ideas people have without causing a scene. But doing that all the time is exhausting. Making sure I’m not stepping on people’s toes while trying to advocate for myself…it’s easier to just let it go. Especially when you don’t think it will have any effect anyway.”

“Kaner. The guys. You. I know you’ll listen. Someone like Chad…” “Lost cause?” “Not worth my time or energy.”

“I wanted to make sure he still pulled an all-nighter studying for the exam. Feels better, doesn’t it? Knowing he put in a full semester of work before he failed the class.” And that is so marvelously spiteful, so—so Rome that Damien could kiss him.

“Because the smell of scotch is tied to every single memory I have of my dad beating the shit out of me. So give it to me and take the fucking water, or I’m going right back to the train station.”

“No. Shitting in the woods is gross. The feelings I have for you are not gross.”

“Marriage,” Rome repeats flatly. “Yeah. If you’re seventeen, you can get married as long as you have a parent’s or guardian’s permission. So if your uncle was cool with it. And anyone who’s married gets automatic emancipation. I checked.”

“You think it wouldn’t stress me out to be fucking married to you?”

I like the idea of that. That things can be damaged and remade—maybe not the same as they were before the damage, but still beautiful afterward.”

THERE’S A JACKSON Pollock painting hanging on the wall in Damien’s house.

“So,” Damien says slowly, “you’re saying you’re having some sort of crisis because you’re the crayon drawing on the refrigerator in this analogy. And I’m the Jackson Pollock?”

He tucks two curled fingers under Rome’s chin and rubs his thumb over the crest of Rome’s cheekbone, where Rome knows his freckles are most dense. “I thought we’d already established that you were the Jackson Pollock.”

“The point is that some art critics were calling Pollock a prodigy, but others looked at his work and just saw ugly chaos. The only reason that painting costs millions of dollars is because someone thought it was worth millions of dollars.”

sometimes i feel like i am out of season a pale and tasteless imitation of myself i am too much i am not enough i am tired but in the gray post-night when I am sleepless and left only with my thoughts my thoughts my thoughts at least sometimes now they are of you.

“Holding your fucking hand,” Rome says. “You got a problem with that?” “…No.”

“They’ll love you,” Rome says roughly, and everything about this moment feels illusory. He doesn’t understand how anyone couldn’t love Damien. How he didn’t, initially. “If they don’t,” he adds, “they’re fucking idiots. Come on.”

Love is supposed to be a reckless thing. But all I’m made of is caution.

He will never be so cruel, so selfish as to create something that needs love and then abandon it.

“You’re going to sit there,” Rome says, pointing to the far side of the futon, “against the wall.” “Okay.” “And I’m—” Damien keeps waiting. “I’m going to sit in front of you and lean back against you. And you’re going to hold on to me. Really—” He swallows. “Really fucking tight. And you aren’t going to say anything.” “Okay.”

Rome knows how to deal with sadness. He knows how to deal with pain and disappointment and regret. But this is a different sort of beast than mourning. This is grief mixed with anger mixed with triumph. And it sits like a fiery, screaming thing inside him that he doesn’t know how to let out or even if he should.

“I hate you,” Rome says, slamming the passenger door. “Don’t play,” Damien says. “You love me.” He might. It’s sort of becoming a problem.

They hold hands again, without either of them discussing it, while they drive back to the house. And when they get there, Rome slips his hand back in Damien’s as they walk across the yard, and up the steps, and onto the porch, just because he isn’t quite ready to stop yet. Because Damien will let him. Because he wants to. Because it makes him happy, and he’s decided he deserves happiness.

What if knowing is worse than not knowing.

“No talking,” Rome says. “If you’re holding my hand, you’re not allowed to talk about holding my hand.”

Rome kisses him. Well. There are things that happened leading up to it. Like Rome closing the space between them and pushing him up against the door and wrapping one of his big, callused hands around Damien’s jaw. But the point is: Rome kisses him. It’s quick and rough and more of an argument than a gesture of affection. It’s still a kiss. “I fucking care,” Rome snaps. “Oh,” Damien says. “Well. Okay. Good.”

“Does that mean we can talk about hand-holding now too?” Damien asks innocently. “I’m going to fucking kill you,” Rome says.