151 Days (12 page)

“Fight!” I said, pointing outside the door.

He seemed confused for a moment and then pulled a pair of earbuds out and looked at me. “What?”

I was slightly stunned that he owned an iPod, but I let it go. “Fight!” I said again, pointing like I was a damn dog trying to get someone to understand that
Timmy was drowning in the fucking lake.

Luckily he heard the shouting and realized exactly what I meant.

He pushed his chair back and stood in one smooth motion. Coach Gunn is more than just a man; he is like a force of nature once he got moving. He was a wide man, and I am in no way calling him fat. He was like a dwarf, a big-ass, axe-wielding, half-drunk dwarf with fists the size of human heads, and when he started moving toward something, it got out of his way.

So I got out of his way.

He barreled into the hall, and the few kids who stood near his office door scattered like roaches in the kitchen startled by someone turning on the light. He had that someone-is-in-trouble face, and no one wanted to be a handy target for all that anger. I could hear Tony talking his shit from where I stood. I pushed past another group of people as Gunn stalked past them to get back to Jennifer.

“Tony Wright.”

He sounded like God. No, he sounded angrier than God. He sounded like an angry, dwarven god who was bent on dishing some epic vengeance. “Did you just call someone a faggot?” Tony looked to his left and then to his right, definitely searching for his backup, but they had fled the second they heard the coach’s voice. The coach grabbed Tony’s arm and yanked him toward him like the football player was a rag doll. “I asked you a question.”

“I-I didn’t say nothing” was all he got out. He looked like a six-year-old who had gotten caught on a stool stealing a cookie.

Jennifer shook her head and pushed a few buttons on my phone’s screen. I was about to ask her what she was doing when Tony’s words came playing back from the speaker. “What did you say to me, you little faggot?”

Everyone stared over at us. Jennifer pretended to be all shocked and asked, “Oh, I’m sorry, was I not supposed to record that?”

Her finger hit the replay button, and she held the video up to Coach Gunn as it played again.

Tony just looked at the ground, sighing as he realized he had not only been caught cussing but had also been caught lying to a teacher.

I looked over at her and said loudly enough so everyone could hear, “In his defense, ‘I didn’t say nothing’ does in fact mean he said something. So not so much a lie as just bad grammar.”

The crowd burst out laughing, and almost instantly the tension that had accumulated in the hallway uncoiled.

Gunn dragged Tony down the hall toward his office. “Congratulations, Wright, you just became the first student at Foster High to meet Kelly’s Laws. If you’re lucky, your name will go up on a plaque with the rest of the intolerant people who will come after you. I’m sure your dad will be so proud.”

From the look on Brad’s face, he wanted to say something to the coach about not wanting to get Tony in trouble, but I stopped him. “If we want the rules to be followed, then we have to let them dole out the punishment.” It was way obvious he wanted to argue with me, but he knew I was right, so instead he just sighed and silently watched Tony get pulled into Gunn’s office.

I was about to suggest getting out of there when Josh threw his arm around Brad’s shoulder and leaned against him. I was disgusted that they looked so good together. If someone took a picture of them, you’d assume it was an Abercrombie ad. “So, Kyle, how does it feel to be the boyfriend of the captain of the varsity baseball team?”

It was the first time anyone on the baseball team had directly spoken to me, and I was kind of stunned by it. I had always been a nonentity to these people. And now here was Josh Walker looking at me, asking me a question in front of them all.

I said the first thing that came to mind. “I guess it means I have to start coming to games.”

He must have liked the answer because he roared, “To the Cowboys!” Everyone else echoed him again and again. By the third time, I was chanting with them.

It was the start of a good day.

B
RAD
AND
I spent most of the weekend looking for a place to be alone.

It had never seemed that big a problem before because we’d spent a lot of time in each other’s rooms making out. The fact that our parents were in the house never seemed to matter, but now it did matter. A lot. There was no way we were going to get naked with a chance of being walked in on, but being naked was all we wanted to do.

We ended up down at the lake Saturday night, but I was way too paranoid that someone was going to come and tap on the window, so we just sat on the hood and made out some more. By Sunday I understood all too well what a bad case of blue balls felt like. I had gone eighteen years without sex, and here it was less than a week since I’d had it, and I was dying. Brad thought I was funny as hell since he had been suffering like this since we started going out.

I gave him several hundred bonus points for not breaking up with me when I wouldn’t put out.

By the time Monday rolled around, I was walking around half hard and looking for places that might double as a place to have sex. I was slowly losing my mind. I was lost in thought, trying not to think about what it felt like to have sex, when Sammy nudged me. “Are you having a stroke?” she whispered to me during class.

I looked over at her, confused. “What do you mean?” I asked her back.

She looked around to make sure no one was looking at us and said, “Well, I know you like school, but you’ve been sitting there looking like a mental patient with that smile on your face. What’s up?”

I felt my face go, like, fifteen shades of red as I firmly reined my libido back in. “Just been… a lot on my mind,” I explained lamely.

She didn’t say anything for a while, and I settled back in and tried to focus on the class. My mind began to wander back to what Brad looked like naked, and she nudged me again. “See?” she whispered. “There you go again.”

I sat up straight, but it was no use. I felt brain damaged.

Was this how straight guys felt? I literally already felt dumber as I walked around wishing I had lower hygiene standards so I could consider grabbing Brad and throwing him in one of the broom closets for a quickie. Did I just really think that? Broom closets and quickies? Oh God, I was like a pair of sunglasses away from calling other guys “brah.” I needed help.

During lunch we all sat on the steps, and I tried not to obsess over the way Brad’s T-shirt had hitched up under his letterman jacket and I could see the back of his boxer briefs in the gap his jeans made. When he got up to throw our trash away, I turned to Jennifer in a panic. “I need to go see Robbie.” Small pause. “Like now.” Her eyes were wide with surprise as I tried to release the death grip my hand had on her blouse. “Can you cut class?”

“I have prom committee, but after that, sure. Everything okay?” she asked, which was a perfectly reasonable question considering I sounded like a serial killer.

“I just need some… advice,” I answered, trying to get the rest of my brain to forget what Brad’s skin tasted like when he was sweating in passion….

Stop.

“I can wait,” I told her, feeling like I was a drug addict waiting for my next hit.

After lunch I hid in the library and tried my best to think about anything else but sex. Of course, much like someone telling you not to think of pink camels, once brought up it was all you could think of. By the end of the period, I almost ran to Jennifer’s car and waited for her to meet me.

She still had that concerned look on her face when she unlocked the doors. “You sure you’re okay?” she asked.

I got in and strapped myself in. “When you and Brad were together, was he all over you for sex?”

She paused for a few seconds. “No, not really,” she answered carefully. “But then again, I recently found out that I really wasn’t his type. Why do you ask? Is he pushing you?”

I sighed. “No, other way around.”

“He’s not pushing you?” she asked. “Or you’re pushing… oh.” And she got it. “Oh! You’re like in heat, right?” I scowled at her, but she just laughed. “Okay, now I get it. Yes, the first time Brad and I had sex, he was all over me for like the next month or so. But that is pretty common after a guy’s first time.” She shook her head. “I would have never guessed you’d be all horned up.”

“Me either,” I said under my breath, pouting as we drove toward Robbie’s store.

When we pulled up, there weren’t any cars out front, and I wondered for the millionth time how Robbie could keep the store open when there was never any real foot traffic around. Some Broadway song was blaring when I opened the door. One of these days, someone was going to come in and rob him, and he wouldn’t have a clue that anyone had been in there, the music was so loud.

He was behind the counter, singing along. Thankfully that was drowned out by the music as well.

“I am going to browse dresses while you boys have your
talk
,” she said, patting me on the back.

I felt like such a pervert.

Once he saw me coming toward him, he turned down the music. “Oh, I was expecting this a couple of days ago. You’re slipping.”

His voice was laced with attitude that took me back. “What?” I asked, stunned.

“Right. Meathead comes and tells you I was mean to him and you come running to defend his honor. How original. If he was a real man, he would fight his own fights.”

To show you how messed up my mind was, it took me a full seven seconds to figure out he was talking about Brad. “What did you say to him?” I asked, my horniness now completely forgotten.

“Oh please,” he said, dismissing me with a hand. “Don’t play dumb with me.”

“I don’t play anything,” I said, pissed all over again. “Brad didn’t tell me a thing, so what did you say to him?”

Confused, he blinked at me a couple of times, and then he got it. “Well, if he didn’t say anything….”

“What is your problem?” I demanded, losing what little patience I had left with Robbie. “What in the hell did Brad ever do to you?”

“Well, what does it matter? Even if I had a list, you’d just deny it since your precious boyfriend seems to walk on water for you.”

“I never said Brad was perfect. In fact, the only person who ever accused him of that was you.”

“Oh, he’s far from that,” Robbie shot back.

I paused and tried to take a deep breath. “I’m curious. Is this a real something that Brad did to you, or is it another imaginary one like Tyler?”

If I ever wondered what it would be like if I slapped Robbie, I now knew.

He seemed not to breathe for several seconds before he reached over and turned the music off. “We’re closing. You guys are going to have to leave.”

“Really?” I asked him sarcastically. “You’re just going to take your toys and go home? Very mature.”

He looked over at me, and I felt like a small piece of gum that had become attached to his shoe. “You don’t get to tell people what is mature and what isn’t.” There was none of his normal sass or sarcasm. If anything, he sounded tired. “And I can close this fucking store anytime I want. Now get out before I say something stupid and regret it for about fifteen seconds.”

Jennifer came up behind me and said, “Come on. He’s not joking.”

There was something in Robbie’s eyes that made me realize that no, he wasn’t joking at all.

We left the shop, but I looked back before I let the door close behind me. He looked like he was torn between outright fury and breaking down and crying.

It was the first moment I realized that Robbie might, in fact, be human.

S
O
THE
rest of the week was brutal for both of us.

Once they posted the team roster, practices were harder and lasted longer than during tryouts. They ran drills for hours and hours, and by the time Brad got out, he was like a dead man walking. I just couldn’t bring myself to try to fool around with him. He looked so tired. I guess what I’m trying to say is, that week I jerked off more than when I had first figured out how to. It was the only way to alleviate my urge to throw him down and take him, even if he fell asleep halfway through it.

On the third day, he asked me for a back rub because he felt like he had pulled something and everything was sore. I didn’t know much about it, but he assured me just moving over the muscles with some oil would help. I didn’t need a reason to have him strip down and rub him with oil, so I said yes quickly. I watched as he pulled his shirt up and over his head, and I hated that I licked my lips automatically. He flopped down on my bed, sounding like he was already asleep by the time his head hit the bedspread.

His back felt like it was carved out of stone as I began to move my hands over it. I wasn’t sure how much of that was tension and how much was muscle, but he sighed contently as I pressed down. “Oh God, that feels good,” he said, wincing, making it sound more like he was in pain. I remembered the way his hands felt in Kelly’s shower and tried my best to replicate his technique. I moved down the line of his muscles and got a sound from him each time I did it. “You can do it harder,” he prompted.

I tried not to take his words sexually.

“So how is the team?” I asked, trying my best to keep my mind off his half-naked body.

“They are… ah… they’re good,” he said as I hit another knot of muscle. “I think we have a real chance this year.” I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or not, but his back seemed to be getting more and more relaxed the more I worked on it.

“And you like being captain?”

Another vocal emission that sounded way too sexual to me. “Oh God, yes.”

“Was that to my question or the backrub?” I asked, pausing.

“Both.” He chuckled. “You’re really good at this.”

“I’m just copying what you did,” I explained, moving lower and lower on his back.

“Then I’m pretty good,” he said, burying his face in my bed.