Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2012 22:48:02 -0800 From: Douglas DD DD Subject: The Big Time Chapter 54 Greetings to all you loyal readers and welcome back. This chapter has the last summer games for the Falcons in the summer between the junior and senior years of Eric, Noah, the twins, and their class. This entire chapter tells the high school story line. It is also the last end of that story line in "The Big Time." We will pick it up again in Part 3 of the trilogy when the other story line catches up to the high school line. The last six chapters of the big time will be about the Mayfield boys and the end of their seventh grade year. It will be about the amazing highs they experience, before learning in Part 3 that life doesn't play out the way people plan it. Remember to give to Nifty. This story is mine. And, as always, be safe. CHAPTER 54 COMMITMENTS "Nice to see you Lars," my dad said as Lars entered the living room with me. Dad was watching the Mariners, who were getting beat as usual. "Where's Noah tonight?" "Well, Lars is going to spend the night and Noah is staying at home," I said. "Oh? Is Noah in one of his moods again?" "Nah. Lars and I just want to hang out for a night." "Well, nice to have you here, Lars. This is kind of like old times in middle school, when I never knew who was going to be spending the night here, although usually it was Scott—at least in sixth and seventh grade." "Eric and I just decided to be different tonight," Lars said, being careful not to give away the reason he was really here, which was sex, of course. "Noah is cool with me staying tonight and so is Kevin." "Kevin is your boyfriend," Dad said, making it as much a question as it was a statement. "Yes, he is." "I swear somebody put something into the drinking water in this town. There has to be more gay high school kids per capita than in any other place in the country." "Look at it this way, dad. You've never had to worry about me getting some girl pregnant." "There is that. And to think the time I wasted for both of us trying to teach you about the birds and the bees," dad said with a chuckle. "Well, you kids have fun doing whatever it is you're going to do and I'll see you in the morning. I'm going to join your mom in bed." "Okay, dad. You have fun doing whatever it is you're going to do and I'll see you in the morning." Lars and I stayed to watch the last inning of the Mariners game. They were only down by two, but in the case of the Mariners they might as well be down by twenty-two. I sometimes think some of us Mayfield kids could produce as much offense playing for that team. "I wish my dad was as understanding as yours," Lars said. "Well, he's never kicked you out like some dads have done." "No, but we did go through all the crap in eighth grade. He's not an asshole about it any more, and we get along okay, but I still feel like he thinks I'm not good enough. It's hard to explain, but it's like there's this little wall between us sometimes. It gets tiresome after awhile." "I understand. I mean my parents are great, but I know they'd rather I was straight and in line to produce a grandkid. They never say anything, but you always know they have that idea in their heads. Dad says he loves me and accepts me for who I am, but that doesn't mean he is happy about it." Lars nodded and said, "And I think little Alex might be like me, but he sees how dad gives me the cold shoulder sometimes. I think Alex is afraid of being himself and is going to end up in the closet and really unhappy. I talk to him about it, but hell, he's young and he could end up being a breeder and chasing fish." Alex was eleven and would be starting sixth grade. "He could. Look at what happened with Scott by the time he was thirteen." "I looked. He became Tama's slave." "He was pussy whipped from the moment he sniffed between her legs," I agreed. "That is one gross concept." "I'd love to sniff between your legs," I told him. "I can take a hint." Lars squeezed the bulge forming in his shorts to let me know he was ready. We headed up to my room and were naked within seconds. I love looking at Lars's boner—it is long and skinny with a sexy upward curve to it. His balls hang low and are naturally smooth. He shaves his pubic area because Kevin likes him that way, not that he has all that much pubic hair, especially for having just turned seventeen. His body was smooth as were his legs, and he even shaved what little underarm hair he had. Lars dropped onto my bed and curled himself back, licking the head of his well over six inch cock, just because he could and liked showing off. Of course, I loved watching him do it. "Okay, that gets the preliminary out of the way. I can tell I'm getting old, I used to be able to get almost the whole thing into my mouth." "You need to do more stretching exercises, that's a talent you don't want to lose." "I do this every chance I get, but I just can't quite curl up as much." Lars isn't the only one in our group who, at one time, could lick his dick or get a little of it in his mouth, but he was the only one who could suck his entire cock. Chandler came the closest—on a good day he could get over half of it into his mouth. I got on the bed next to him, my naked body touching his from my right shoulder down. "I was happy I got matched with you," Lars said. "I always wanted a good excuse to do this with you." "Funny how if you and I asked our boyfriends if we could spend a night together, we would have been all nervous about it, even if we could work up the guts to do it, but this pairing thing makes it okay." "The pairing thing was kind of a dumb idea in a way." "Hell, it was a dumb idea in a lot of ways. I just wanted something different for us, I knew a lot of us would like the idea, but I never figured everybody would vote for it. When everybody argued about it I thought it was the dumbest idea ever, and then everybody voted for it, even if they didn't really want to." "It made Blaine seem almost human," Lars said. "That's something. And after tonight, it's going to be finished." "Blaine and Kevin are together tonight?" "I thought you knew. They were talking about it and left together." "All of us voting for the pairing was surprising enough, but all of us actually DOING it...wow, that is amazing." While we talked my hand had been lightly stroking Lars's smooth, lightly tanned chest. His boner hadn't gone down since he licked himself, and mine was definitely at full mast. "Enough talk," I said, and I leaned in to kiss him. I discovered right away that he was a master kisser. We kissed with our tongues dancing for quite a few minutes as our hands explored each other's body. Lars spread his legs wide and told me that if I truly wanted to sniff between his legs that now was the time. I took up his invitation, and I not only sniffed, I tasted as well. I kissed and licked his smooth white ass cheeks before putting my tongue into his crack. I licked his light brown pucker and was soon pushing my tongue deep into his crack. "Oh, fuck yeah, that is so good. Kevin loves licking my ass—you're as good as him...yeah, put your tongue in me deep...Korey and Kraig are good, too...oh shit, that feels soooooo fucking good." Lars was another one of us who rarely cussed; hearing him spew dirty words was a huge turn-on. "Fuck me Eric, you gotta fuck me now. Motherfuck, I need you inside my ass." Lars was a natural bottom. He loved having a dick, or anything else for that matter, up his butt. I know he's had a butt plug up his ass at school just for the feel of it. I also know that he'd taken Kevin and all three of his brothers up the ass in one evening. The only boy he fucked with any regularity was Alex, his little brother. I grabbed some lube and got us both slicked up. His legs were raised back, just like when he sucked himself, and were spread to give me unfettered access. I entered him and found him to be warm and moist and tight. I started slowly, but he wanted nothing to do with slow and easy. "Damn it, fuck me hard. Ram your pole in me, Eric. Fuck me so I scream!" "Let's not shock the `rents," I said. "Fuck, they know what we're doing." Sweet, blond Lars, who was definitely the quiet type, was turning out to be a fiend in bed. I was soon pounding his ass, knowing that there was no way I could pound him like Kevin, the big, muscular catcher, could. But I gave it my best shot, and soon we were both grunting and sweating and cursing. I could feel the sweat pour off of me and drip down on Lars's beautiful body. Both of us were getting to the point of no return. I was thrusting my six inch cock deep into the ass of my friend and teammate as he squeezed his ass against it. There soon was nothing I could do but cum, and felt myself let out a long low wail as I poured my cum into his ass. I think Lars said something, or cried something, or grunted something, but I wasn't sure. All I knew was that his cum was shooting over his face and neck and chest as he erupted with a no touch cum. Lars dropped his legs and I collapsed on top of him. We kissed, our bodies slimy with sweat and cum. "Oh, wow, that was just fucking awesome," Lars said. "I've got no complaints." It had been totally amazing sex. I couldn't help but think how my one night stands with Marty and now Lars had turned out to be so much better than I had imagined it would be. We finally headed to the bathroom and took care of peeing, brushing, and cleaning ourselves up. We went back into my bed, cuddled and kissed some, and fell asleep with our arms around each other. As with Marty, that would be the only time I went all the way with Lars. But I was thankful to Chandler and Korey for pairing the two of us. I couldn't imagine a better way to get to know a good friend and teammate more intimately. We had a Sunday afternoon game against Longview at home. Lars and I were both up early. Since mom or dad didn't say anything about hearing strange noises in the night, I could only assume that the two of us weren't as noisy as I thought. Noah and I know to suppress our moans and groans. But last night Lars and I just went at it like a pair of wild boys. Of course, it could be that mom and dad were being polite by not saying anything, but that really wasn't dad's style. If he'd heard us he would have gotten some kind of good natured dig in. When we got to the ballpark I saw that Marty and Rich were going to be the grounds crew for the game. That meant they didn't have a Legion game and would be hanging around to watch us. I found I liked it when any of last year's seniors watched us play. It turns out there wasn't much to watch as Austin dominated us from the mound. Scott was our starter and he pitched very well. But Austin was just a superior pitcher, even better than Ben was over at Kentburg. If Austin lived in our county, he'd be the best A level pitcher in the county. We lost 2-0, getting only three hits. I had two of those hits, both singles through the hole between third and short. It was the second time this summer that Austin shut us out, but the first time was a no-hitter. After the game, Austin joined some of us at the Burger Barn, along with his boyfriend, Devon. Yeah, it turns out Austin is gay, but not out. Longview, after all, is not Mayfield. The two of them drove up together from Longview, and since Devon had just turned eighteen he could legally drive Austin. Austin wouldn't even be seventeen until next month. Noah, Lars, the twins, Hunter, Korey, Chandler, and I were the team members at the Barn. Marty and Rich joined us as well. After having burgers we headed over to Noah's for some skinny dipping. I wasn't surprised to see Devon and Marty head to the cabana, and later Austin and the twins went there as well. After the twins came out I turned Austin around and led him back into the cabana. He sucked me off. By that time he was recovered enough so I could do the same to him. I really liked Austin and he was just as sexy as he'd been when we met in seventh grade. We were all such a horny crowd of gay boys, including the sophomores, Korey and Chandler, who sported boners from the time we got naked until they made the last visit to the cabana. We found out what Kevin and Blaine had done yesterday to complete the pairings. Blaine had decided he loved getting his dick sucked, and after smoking a joint he let Kevin go at it. Kevin turned down the pot, it simply wasn't his thing. He didn't mind getting buzzed on booze on occasion, but drugs didn't interest him. "You wouldn't fit in on our team," Austin said to Kevin. "I swear we're a team of stoners just like you're a team of gay guys." "Does that include you?" I asked. "Think about it," Austin replied. "Me and Devon can fit well into either team. Being a stoner on our team is like being gay on your team. It's just the way it is. Hell, I found out I was gay hanging around you guys, maybe you'd find out you were really a stoner hanging around us." I told him I doubted it. Austin mentioned that getting high with his teammates had the advantage of some of them becoming horny enough to mess around with him. It was a fun evening as we swam until after dark. Austin and Devon spent the night at Hunter's house, since he had plenty of extra space. I heard later that the three of them didn't do anything beyond a circle jerk, with a little mutual masturbation. But that would have been plenty good for me. It must have been for Austin, since that was his third orgasm of the day. I wonder what he enjoyed more, the orgasms or shutting us out in the game. I know I would have loved the orgasms, but it's hard to beat the good high of a big win. I got a call from Noah that woke me up. "Can you come over and hold me?" was his simple request. I knew he was in one of his moods, that his demon had surfaced as soon as he woke up, and I knew why it happened. It always did on this date. But this was the first time he'd asked me to be with him when he fought the demon. Maybe his plan for our August demon fighting trip was already paying off. I dropped the phone, dressed, grabbed a banana on the way out the door and rode to Noah's house as quickly as I could. I had a feeling I was going to get this call considering the date and the changing of Noah's attitude. I chided myself on the way to Noah's house for not going there before he called. I reminded myself he had never called me before when he had issues with his demon. He spent the morning naked on his bed, with me holding him tight to let him cry some. I was stripped down to my briefs—to be naked would seem almost like sex. That afternoon we meditated, our bodies touching and our minds moving into a private space in the quiet of his room. I think the meditation, more than anything, calmed him down and let him quash his demon for the time being. Right around lunch, Noah surprised me. He smiled and suggested we eat lunch and lounge around the pool. I thought he would maintain his funk all day to the point of missing our game, but that isn't what happened. "Thanks for being with me," Noah said. "I should have done this long ago. I shouldn't have fought this by myself. I am more sure than ever that when we take our trip you and I are going to vanquish that demon." We ate, and lounged naked at the pool. Nobody but Noah was home, and our time together continued to be special. We didn't have sex that day. Sometimes sex wasn't needed between us; there were other ways for us to show our love. A couple of hours before game time I rode home to get into my uniform and retrieve my gear. I felt really good about what happened between Noah and me that day; it was a day I would not forget as a small battle had been won by my lover. I hoped it was a start towards winning the war. We ended up winning three games during our busy four day stretch. On Monday we beat Meadow Park 7-1 on their field with Blaine going all the way. Tuesday Hunter started and we beat Clark Pass 11-4 at home. We finished against Monte yesterday, with Korey and just about everybody else pitching against the dismal Monte team as we won 19-3 in five innings. What it all meant was that we qualified for the league tournament. But our 10-8 record wasn't good enough for a first round bye into the double elimination part. We had to play a loser out game against the Harborview Tugs, a team we only played once with our league's unbalanced schedule. They beat us 6-5 in our first league game back in early June. Noah and I were sitting by his pool, naked of course. Jeffrey and Nicky were both in the pool playing water hoops, although it looked to be more grab ass and grab dick than it did hoops. Ever since I got to know him better at his own house, Jeffrey had become much looser on the sexual end when I saw him at Noah's. While it is hard to imagine The Hurricane as being intimidated, I think my presence did just that for a long time. I was the boyfriend of Nicky's brother and someone Jeffrey couldn't seem to get to know well. I know I can come off as kind of distant at times, but Noah says that's just until I expose my true inner self, whatever that is. Lisa came over and sat next to us. She was naked as well. I noticed that Jeffrey didn't even give her a second look, which either meant he was used to her naked presence or naked females simply didn't interest him. I suspected it was a little of both. "When are you going to spend a night with me, Eric?" Lisa asked, not for the first time. "About the same time the sun rises in the west," Noah said as he expressed my thoughts perfectly. "Now, Noah, let your boyfriend speak for himself." "Yeah, Noah," I said, giving him a friendly punch. "So, then Eric, when are you going to spend a night in my bed?" she asked again. "When you're not in it?" I said, more as a question than a statement. "You boys are impossible," she said. "Eric, you're going to be starting your senior year real soon, and ending it almost as soon. You don't want to graduate from high school without ever having had sex with a girl do you?" "I can't say it would be the end of the world if I did," I said. "Just keep it in mind. I'm leaving for college in a few weeks, but I will be back a lot. My offer is always open, even if I have to kick Shane out of my bed." I knew that she and Shane didn't sleep together any more, although they still enjoyed making out and masturbating each other on occasion. "What about Jerome?" Noah asked. "Would you kick him out of your bed for Eric?" Lisa laughed and said, "Jerome might just love a three-way." She got up and jumped into the pool to harass Nicky and Jeffrey. I knew that Nicky slept with Lisa sometimes, and that he loved sucking her breasts, but as far as I knew he'd never fucked her. Jeffrey seemed indifferent to her and to having sex with her, although I'm not sure she was all that interested in seducing a twelve year old. She was into boys with big cocks, like Jerome. I also knew that Lisa kept trying to get Noah to fuck her as well to lose his virginity. She told him that it was worth losing, even if it was to his sister. She thought both of us should take her up on her offer. The only thing I could say was that if I ever did decide to have sex with a girl before graduating, I'd do it with Lisa before any other girl, including Scott's sister Lindy, who I'd been naked with. Our conversation turned to baseball, which ranked right up there with trains and sex as favorite topics. "If we don't win tomorrow we're finished playing baseball until February turnouts for school ball," Noah said. "We've been at it almost six straight months." Noah's father could have gotten us into an invitational tournament the first weekend in August. Our organization had the money for it. But we all agreed we were ready to finish the season. If we placed in the top three in league we could go to the Western Washington regionals put on by our national organization and that would be fine by us, but we didn't want to tack on anything extra. "If we lose tomorrow, does that make our summer season a failure?" Noah asked. "You mean like the eighth grade school season?" "Yeah." "I don't think so. Sure we'll have a losing season, but we learned a lot and got better. We even managed to put together a winning season in league. Coach Miller and Coach Sanders learned who can play what and who can do what on the field. And we for certain learned that we have a hell of a lot of work to do in the offseason if we want to successfully defend our state championship." "I'd say we have a lot to do just to defend our league championship." Noah said. "Some guys even learned another important thing?" "What?" "That getting your dick sucked by a teammate isn't the end of the world and that's it's cool to play with gay teammates." I smiled at my lover. "What you're saying is that the pairings wasn't a total waste of time." "I think it did more good than some guys want to admit." Our chat was interrupted by a screech from the pool. "She grabbed my dick." Jeffrey yelled, pointing at Lisa. "So?" Nicky asked. "You get your dick grabbed all the time." "Yeah, but she's a GIRL! My dick's for boys only." Lisa pointed at Nicky and Jeffrey. "You two have been hanging with those two," she pointed at us, "way too much." She climbed out of the pool saying she needed to call Jerome. "I am one horny bitch right now," she stated as she headed to the house. "Come in the pool, Eric," Jeffrey said. "You can grab my dick if you want." It was a hard invitation to resist, which is how I got finally ended up getting Jeffrey off. After a lot of grabbing and fondling in the pool, I sucked him as he sat on the edge of the pool, tasting his very watery cum for the first time. Noah made sure his brother Nicky was taken care of as well, and then the two hairless middle school kids reversed roles and took care of our needs. It was a most satisfactory afternoon, one I had to be sure to tell Marty about. "You still have to fuck me," Jeffrey told me as we sat out in the sun. "Maybe some day." "For sure some day. Marty did it, now you have to do it. You can't get out of it again." "I promise I will before I graduate," I said, using the same deadline Marty had used on me. "By the time you graduate I'll have pubic hair and will be old." "It's less than a year." "It's enough time to get old in," Jeffrey said with his usual illogical logic. "I think you just committed yourself to something," Noah said with a wide grin. "I think I did, too. But I think I can handle it," I told him. "Oh, I don't know. We are talking Hurricane Jeffrey here." "Once again, my love, you make a valid point." And that was how, on the day I got him off for the first time, I realized I would have to find a day to fuck a skinny little twelve year old boy. When we played Harborview the first time we had nothing going right for us and still only lost by one run, but had a 1-6 record. Since then we'd had a winning record overall. It wasn't a great record (16-13), but we had shown a lot of improvement. We were confident that we could beat the Tugs and get into the double elimination part of the league tournament. Win this game and we were guaranteed two more games. The pitcher for the Tugs was good, but not in the same class as Ben or Austin. Still, he was having a good game and we simply couldn't touch him. It didn't help that the Tugs made a couple of great plays behind him. But we flashed some good leather, too, as Lars ran down a long fly in center that showed how much more confident he was in that position, and Danny made two great plays at third that showed his growth as well. "Maybe we need to reach back to middle school and have a boner rally," Chandler said. He'd been a fifth grader and one of our bat boys back then, and had been a big part of that interesting time. "The layout of the dugout isn't as private," Korey said. "Not to mention we aren't in middle school any more," Danny pointed out. "I know, I was just saying," Chandler said. "I'd do it with Korey if people couldn't just look into here whenever they wanted. I want the season to keep going, and I'd do anything to help." While the idea was intriguing, we all knew that what really needed was to simply get our bats going. Danny started out the inning grounding out to short. Then Kevin singled and Chandler was called on to run for him. "It's a good thing he didn't have his cock out of his pants," I told Noah. Lars then popped to short and we were down to our last out of the season. That ended up being Gavin, who hit a long fly to left that got us excited, but their left fielder had it all the way and our season ended with a 2-1 loss. We shook hands with the Tugs and wished them good luck. We all hung out in the parking lot forever before deciding we needed pizza and headed off to Pooh Bear's. Gary, the owner, let us use the back room. We were all still dusty and sweaty. He said the sodas were on him and he'd provide the first two pizzas free. That helped out our mood by a lot. We did get serious for a moment, setting up Monday afternoon at Noah's for our last Go to State team meeting of the summer. Then we started talking about the summer season, the state tournament, and especially, about how our team would stack up next spring when the school season started. We all agreed that we'd become more of a team as the summer progressed. Last year at the end of the summer season we knew we were going to be good in the spring. This year we figured we'd be decent, but we could tell we didn't have the same cocky confidence. The road to the state tournament had been a tough one, with a lot of close games, comeback wins, and two clutch wins in loser out games. We could all tell that next spring it would be even tougher. We had no doubt we'd have a good team, but while none of us would admit it to the group, we all wondered if we were good enough to be the great team we needed to be. Our meeting of the Go to State Team had been pretty routine. There really wasn't much for us to discuss. The biggest topic was what would happen to the group after us seniors graduated next spring. There was some question if there was a desire to keep it going as it was. There were two other choices: it could be disbanded or it could be turned over to the adults to run without the players being the governing board of directors. One thing we had to say as seniors was that we hoped the group would continue as it was constituted, but that we understood if they didn't want it to. It did mean a lot of extra work by everybody involved, but it was also a lot of fun and very satisfying. We also said that we would not be involved in any decision, except to say no decision should be made until after the first of the year. It was also announced that there would be a season ending barbeque put on by Coach Sanders, Coach Miller, and the parents at the coaches' house. We all looked forward to that, because there would be badminton and volleyball in the back, basketball in the driveway, swimming in the lake, and water skiing. The coaches, as well as Carl's dad, had boats to ski behind. There also was going to be an unofficial party Wednesday night at Vince's house. A keg would be available and it would be a great way to forget a disappointing summer season, was how Vince told it. Vince, Connor, and Jerome would be the graduates at the party. It turned out that the incoming seniors who didn't attend were me, Noah, Justin, and Hunter. A lot of parents looked the other way, including the twins' parents, who seemed to have loosened up the subject of drinking since way back when they grounded Keith. But they always insisted Keith was grounded for lying about where he was going, not for getting drunk at a kegger. Noah and I just weren't into the beer party scene. Justin was leaving with his parents on a vacation trip, and may or may not have gone. Hunter had been drunk at parties before. He decided it wasn't something he wanted to keep doing, but he was cool with Kraig being there. From what I heard everybody had fun at the kegger, a lot of them lost their pants, and quite a few dicks got sucked. I guess that happens when you have a party full of gay and bi boys, with a straight boy or two in the mix. Somebody brought weed. But Gavin, Blaine, Scott, and Chandler were the only non-graduates to toke. I have no complaints about missing the party. One of the things Noah and I talked about that night was our trip to Montana. We had tickets to leave August 6. Noah had only had one demon visit since we talked about going. He said that the way he saw it the demon was on vacation, waiting to come back and catch him during an unsuspecting moment. What he needed to do was purge it, and he was confident that this trip to see his Indian friend was going to do the trick. After our talk we had some great sex, with us simply rubbing off against each other twice as we engaged in what seemed to be a perpetual kiss. To me there was no time better than my time with Noah, no matter what it was we did together. The official party was a blast. The weather was sunny and in the low eighties, a perfect summer day in the Great Pacific Northwest. There was no lack of things to do, and we did them all. The hamburgers and fries seemed to be unlimited, there was always enough of Coach Miller's homemade lemonade, and if we didn't have enough to eat there as a table of chips, dip, veggies, cookies, melons, with ice cream available on demand. I water skied for only the second time and had a blast. Noah and I ended up being a formidable badminton team, fending off some of the bigger boys with our quickness and teamwork. I think if everybody who was at both parties gave their honest opinion, they would all say they had more fun at the official party then at the kegger. I know I was close to exhausted when the party started breaking up. We had a little more than a month of summer left, with no baseball. For some of us club soccer would be starting soon, and for others football practice at school wasn't that far off. There were still family trips to be taken by some, and Noah and I had our own trip coming up. My family wasn't doing a summer trip because dad had something planned for Christmas break, but my dad still wasn't saying what it was. As we were leaving the party, Blaine came up to me. "Life is funny, you know," he said. "Do tell." "I never felt part of this group. Then I let four guys suck my dick, and suddenly I'm one of the gang. I didn't know it would be that easy." "Four guys?" I could only think of two, me and Kevin. "Kraig and Korey got me at the party. They said they didn't want Kevin having all the fun sucking a big uncut cock. It was a brother thing, I guess." Trust me, I was totally surprised when I heard that bit of news, not because of what Kraig and Korey did, but because Blaine let them do it. Give a straight guy a few beers and a couple of joints and you never knew what he might do. Maybe next time he'd be willing to stick somebody's boner into his mouth. "You know something else?" "What?" I knew this was it, he was going to confess to sucking somebody off at the kegger. Instead, it was something bigger, something that struck me hard and deep. "I was on the JV last spring and didn't play any varsity. But I watched all of the league playoff games, and one of the district games, and rode the rooter bus to a regional tournament game, and rode the bus to Pasco for State." I wasn't aware that he'd done that. I know other JV players did, and they weren't shy about hanging around with us when they could. I don't remember seeing Blaine, but that was most likely because of his standoffish personality at the time. "A lot of guys are thinking there's no way we're as good as last year's varsity, that we don't have a chance because we lost some really good seniors, but so did a lot of other teams. Look how many good players with experience we have coming back. Maybe it's because I wasn't part of the team last year, but I really think we have the players to have a really great team next year. And I think your pairing idea ended up being a good one. A lot of us saw each other different after that." I was surprised again as he admitted in his own way he didn't have a problem with the pairing. I wondered what else he was going to confess as we stood in the coaches' driveway. "I thought you were all stuck-up and full of yourself until you went down on me. Nobody all stuck up would go down and suck the cock of somebody he didn't like, no matter what the reason." I knew he wasn't entirely right about that, but I let it go. "I like you, Eric. I'm proud to be your teammate and I want to be your friend." "I like you, too, Blaine. I think you and I will get along just fine." "I think you and me and everybody else are going to surprise everyone, even ourselves, by winning a second straight state championship next year." He gave me a light punch in the arm and walked over to Gavin's car, which was parked across the street where Gavin was patiently waiting for him. As I watched him get into the car, I realized that Blaine had me truly believing for the first time this summer. Next: Spring Fling