“What happened?”
“The walls of Shaw’s room were covered with posters of guys in shorts. Fighters, actually.”
Ray waited for what he thought was coming.
“I asked if he was a boxing fan. But he pointed out that the guys were all barefoot and they wore gloves that were a lot smaller than boxing gloves. He said they were all MMA fighters.” Persichetti hesitated a moment and then grinned. “Well,” I thought, “this kid must play for the sarge’s team. No offense.”
“None taken…yet.”
“It wouldn’t matter, would it? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being gay. I just assumed that any guy with all those posters of muscular men in shorts would probably be, um, gay.”
“I sense there’s a but coming.”
“Yeah. Turns out Shaw used to be am MMA fighter himself. Said he did it for about two years and the
