Chapter Thirty-Four

I ended up eating dinner with Orion and "the team"—which in this case meant the crew of folks Vix had put together for the tour, who were all nearly as tired as he was. The group of us camped out in the hotel dining room until it closed, at which point the manager, who was a massive soccer fan, told us that we could stay as long as we didn't cause any damage.

She was so starry eyed talking to Orion that I halfway thought she was going to ask if she could hang out, but she was clearly A Professional, so she excused herself, sent in a server to ask if we wanted drinks, and resisted the urge to moon over Orion from a distance. I appreciated the effort, since I was having a hard time not mooning over him from the seat next to him.

I didn't stay the night. What I did do, speaking of exceptional feats of self-control, was walk my boyfriend to his room, kiss him good night, and then get in my car and drive home. This time I googled the morning drive time, and with traffic (look at me learning!), I would have needed to leave the hotel at 4:00 a.m. to get to work on time. I reasoned that leaving Orion exhausted and zombielike at night would be way easier than leaving Orion warm and cuddly in the morning.

Also, I don't know, maybe I was still kind of nervous? What if we couldn't sleep together? Sex I had no concerns about, but sleeping, the fine art of being able to rest with another person in a bed ... we'd done it at the cabin, but that had been a world without cell phones and work schedules and all the other logistical details of daily life.

That had been in a bubble, and now we were ... not in a bubble.

But I felt virtuous as hell as I was getting back in my car to drive home. He told me he'd call me after he got out of his shower, but I marathoned a true crime podcast and was totally not surprised when he didn't call. I wasn't even convinced he'd made it to the shower, to be honest.

The strangest part was that I wasn't disappointed either. The idea, the visual, of Orion curled up asleep, knowing he could sleep in for the first time in days because they didn't have to leave the hotel until noon ... something about that made me feel so warm and fuzzy inside. It was really ridic. I may or may not have literally had the thought Sleep well, my prince before shaking my head and turning up my audio tale of gruesome murder.

What kind of nerdy asshole has that thought? Where did it even come from? Why wasn't I way more embarrassed by it? Would young Patton be embarrassed by it? Or would he consider it romantic? Sammy would consider it romantic for sure. In fact, I bet Sammy had said the words Sleep well, my prince out loud and not been embarrassed at all. I'd have to ask her.

Anyway, the drive home—which I made speeding at just shy of two and a half hours—went quickly. For once.

And then it was The Day. The culmination of Vix's campaign (or at least phase one of it; she had big plans for this brand relationship). Marlo's big gay soccer party, where she would at last be able to deck the stadium in rainbows and queers. The last day of Orion's madcap tour schedule for the year.

For me? Just another workday. It wasn't even technically my Friday, though since it was the last game of the year, it felt celebratory on the work side as well. Sammy, bless her, skated my coffee to the curb after I texted her that I was running too late to stop by. She kissed my cheek, told me it was on the house, and made me promise for the hundredth time that I would for sure bring Orion by before he left for "the mountains."

"Have fun today, hon!" she called, waving as I drove away.

Everything was rainbow striped at the stadium, from the area-marker poles in the lot (which were still being wrapped as I parked) to the rails at the bottom of each section of stands. CFC's usual orange and blue now swapped out for a dazzling kaleidoscope of colors. A more cynical version of myself would have rolled my eyes like a sullen teen, but this version of me? Could not stop smiling.

Even if a huge percentage of this event was a big Fuck you to whoever Marlo was fighting in her head, it still made me happy. Made a lot of the staff happy. Rainbow headbands and wristbands and bracelets and hats, most of which had the gay rainbow with brown and black and pink, because Marlo was not fucking around when it came to inclusivity. She might bitch about it, but she loved it, and this was the glorious rainbow-bedecked love child of two divorced middle-aged lesbians. It was the sweet sixteen they'd never had, and damn, it was chaos and beauty in Technicolor.

And Orion was here. So here. Here, on the premises, somewhere close-ish to where I was, though I was in my overalls, monitoring my section of the stands for trash and spills, while he was up in the commentator box in a swoon-worthy suit, being incredibly witty about soccer. Every time people laughed at something he said, I felt the weirdest sensation of pride, actual pride , as if I had anything to do with Orion's clever banter.

I spent so much of the game smiling to myself that my literal facial muscles were sore. Who does that?

My coworkers were loving every second of this party. The locker room was covered in empty or near-empty body paint tubes. Not on the face, we'd been told, but anyone who wanted to decorate other skin or uniforms with washable paint was free to do so. Guy was wearing a rainbow wig and had a black-gray-white-purple flag fastened to his overalls. "My youngest is ace, which I don't understand except she doesn't want to get naked with anyone, so I'm cool with that." He spun around to show off his asexuality flag. "What do you think?"

"Very nice," I told him.

It was a party, just like Marlo wanted it to be.

Vix was there, of course, because her best boy had a near-starring role. I liked that she and Orion got along so well, more like mother and son than even she and I were, constantly nagging each other. She'd shown up in the morning (having taken an early flight from LA instead of driving), and I'd been dispatched by Marlo to pick her up. Yet I hadn't seen the two of them together, and Vix told me Marlo would likely avoid her for the entire day.

"Didn't you guys used to, you know, live together?"

"And you see how well that worked out," she shot back.

I hadn't seen Marlo at all, and MBS only once, as she was running around on some other errand. She looked stressed AF while also looking like she wouldn't want to be anywhere else, like she was in the grips of some kind of berserker high and couldn't see past the present moment.

Not me. I could see past the present moment. I was enjoying it, sure, but also later I would get to have Orion all to myself, a thing I couldn't help but look forward to like whoa.

We lost the game, of course, though despite that it was still a good time. I wouldn't say the team was resigned to losing, but they definitely weren't shocked by the outcome. Something about the festive nature of the day must have rubbed off on everyone, because at the end of the game the players Marlo had recruited from other teams rushed the field, and, to pretty much everyone's astonishment, hugs and back-pats and wolf whistles were exchanged all around. (Except for Bram Hunter, who stood off to the side looking irritated, which was basically his brand anyway.)

I was standing with Guy and some other folks from janitorial down close enough to the field to get good footage I could post on the stadium's various accounts later, though in all honesty I was paying less attention to my phone recording than I was to the general atmosphere. Even the players had gotten in on the Pride-in-October vibe, wearing the special campaign merch or bedecking themselves in flags. Jesse Diaz, to whom I'd delivered a package addressed to James Bond, had wrapped a flag around his waist almost like it was a skirt. The whole thing was giving me feelings , is what I'm saying.

And then something else happened.

I didn't see who started it or where, but it caught on incredibly quickly. One second it was only a few scattered voices, then suddenly it was a roar.

"Oh-ri-on!"

More of the crowd picked it up.

"Oh-ri-on!"

The players on the field were chanting it and pumping their fists in the direction of the commentator box.

"Oh-ri-on!"

My coworkers and I joined in. Even grumpy Bram Hunter, still standing with his arms crossed, was actually smiling. Or maybe that was a grimace? But it looked like it wanted to be a smile.

The regular announcer's voice came over the speakers. "It sounds like they're welcoming you home."

"I . . ." Orion's voice was faint. "I . . ."

"Why don't you go join your friends on the field, son," the announcer suggested.

The stadium went bananas.

And so it happened that Orion Broderick, former soccer star, took to his home pitch in Conquistos, surrounded by rainbows, hailed like a superhero by his old teammates and rivals.

I definitely was not, under any circumstance, crying. And for sure when I looked over at Guy, who threw his arm around my shoulders, he wasn't crying either.

"I never thought I'd live to see anything like this," he shouted. "Not after the last few years. Maybe my kids aren't doomed to a world even more screwed up than the one I grew up in!"

On the field, Jesse Diaz was spinning Orion around so his flag skirt flew out, and Orion, the sap, was definitely in tears.