Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KELLAN
“Get your costume on, K. We’re bonding. I won’t take no for an answer.
” It’s Sunday night, and Coop is parading around the house in his toga like he’s in the running for Miss Massachusetts.
We’re all supposed to dress as Greek gods for Halloween, which is about as unique as you’d expect us to manage given that we spend every available second we have either in class or playing, practicing, or studying.
We got back from our away games late last night, and my costume showed up outside my door this morning, much to my chagrin. Any other year, I’d go along with it, but I’ve been off all weekend.
“He’s still being mopey,” Dutch calls from his bedroom to Coop, who I can tell is standing at the foot of the stairs from the loud, off-tune song he’s singing. And calling it singing is a very generous term for the sound assaulting my eardrums.
“I just wanna dance all night. And I'm all messed up, I'm so out of line,” Coop screams up the staircase, the sound reverberating through the narrow hallway, like he’s singing right in my ear.
“I’m having an off weekend, so sue me,” I yell back from my bed, where I’ve been throwing a hockey puck and catching it for the last hour. I’ve only hit myself in the face twice doing it.
Dutch comes to stand in his doorway, diagonal from my own, his toga stretched across his massive frame.
He looks more like an insane asylum patient who’s ripped the sleeves off his clothing and is about to terrorize an unsuspecting small town.
“We went 1-1 in games against one of the best teams in the conference. On their turf.”
I ignore his reframing of the situation and eye his costume instead. “I didn’t know they made bed sheets in slim fit.”
“Fuck off,” he says with a boisterous laugh before stepping across the hall to take up my entire doorway. “But really… I didn’t know you were such a princess about not putting up the most goals. Success really has changed you.”
And usually, I’m not. But after last weekend, a goal-a-piece in each game feels like failure, especially because I let my team down and we lost the game last night.
I couldn’t find my rhythm, feeling like I was always half-a-step too late to make any big plays happen.
And it’s definitely not the type of playing that will get me noticed by pro scouts.
“I’m just walking through the games in my head–trying to figure out why things went so differently this week. ”
I’m not going to tell him that I have a pretty good idea about what has me all screwed up, and that I was so unfocused heading into this weekend–since Thursday, actually–that it’s impressive that I didn’t trip over my own skates on the ice.
Dutch gives me an appraising stare. “You need to let loose, man. All work and no play isn’t good for a young, virile man like you.”
I scoff. Dutch is even less slutty than I am. “Great advice. And I’m sure going to a house party with lukewarm beer is just what the doctor ordered. Maybe someone’s facepaint will rub off on me if I’m lucky.”
“There will also be lukewarm Jello shots.” He picks up my costume off my desk and throws it at me. “If you’re in a rut, the best way to get out of it is to change up the pace of things.”
I lift my eyebrows. “I don’t think that’s true at all,” I say, thinking about how I’ve perfected the art of getting my mom’s old car out of the snow on many occasions with gentleness and precision.
He folds his arms across his chest. “Costume or not, you’re coming out with us. I won’t take no for an answer.”
I know he’s right. I can’t keep hanging out in my room, driving myself insane about the last couple of days. I need something else to drown out the noise in my head. Music. Alcohol. Idiots making questionable choices.
I rip the plastic on the sheets open. “Give me ten minutes.”
It takes closer to thirty minutes for me to get ready.
No one explained how hard it is to actually tie a toga, and by the time I was dressed, Dutch, Coop, and I had already downed a few beers while we watched instructional YouTube videos–neither of them feeling the need to mention that they’d stapled their togas together from shoulders to ass earlier.
“It’s not like I’m ever going to wear this again,” Dutch says as he drops his empty can in one of the recycling bins littered along the street before gesturing at his costume. “I’ll just rip it off at the end of the night like I’m the Hulk.”
I twist uncomfortably in my toga and re-adjust the metal crown that’s digging into my forehead. “I’m sure that will improve our already stellar reputation on campus.”
Dutch points emphatically back toward the recycling bin. “I don’t even litter. I have no idea what you people want from me.”
“They want us to win the national championship,” Coop says at the same time he does a cartwheel in the middle of the street.
We look like a bunch of circus clowns as far as I’m concerned, but still, I start to relax a little.
It feels good to be out with the guys, and I’m hoping that, for at least a few hours, I can avoid my troubles.
There’s an abundance of parties going on tonight, with it being the actual day of Halloween, but one house about a hundred feet up the street beckons louder–and rowdier–than the rest.
I have zero doubt that it’s our destination.
I’m still on the sidewalk when I see Wells.
He’s standing on the porch with his back to me, a red solo cup in one hand, the other one braced against the railing.
I could spot his dark blond hair anywhere, the edges buzzed tight without a single hair out of place.
I watch as he tips his head down and whispers something in the ear of the guy he’s talking with, who I can’t see around Wells’ solid frame.
I realize, then, how close they are to one another.
There’s a familiarity–an affection, even–between them that I doubt Wells would ever show to me. And I have no idea why, but that bothers me more than I expect, my stomach churning uncomfortably.
In spite of my warring emotions, I’m momentarily transfixed by the long, smooth planes of muscle running down his exposed back until Dutch’s solid form knocks me forward. “Waiting for an invitation or something? This is Mac’s house. I know you’ve been here before.”
Which is true, I realize. Except it’s usually for a kickback on a Sunday afternoon and not whatever-in-the-Dionysus is happening right now.
Two people are dry humping on a loveseat near the corner of the porch while others make out against the railing, and if this is what’s going on outside in the almost freezing weather, I can only imagine what’s playing out on the dance floor or in the bedrooms upstairs.
It’s not until I’m on the porch that Wells’ eyes meet mine, and I watch as they immediately darken. He doesn’t like that I’m here. Well, I don’t like that on Thursday, he left me with a case of blue balls that caused me more physical pain than a check into the boards ever could.
Wells… I realize I don’t actually know his last name, which means that I can’t even properly think about hating him. Everyone knows that’s a full name activity.
Whatever. He isn’t worth one anyway.
I take a step toward him, my muscles tightening in anticipation.
My frustration does the trick, pushing any messy, complicated feelings into my peripheral.
Heat and adrenaline flood through me, and I finally feel like myself again.
We aren’t on school property anymore, and he’s a menace to my sanity.
Seeing him in the flesh, dressed in a kilt and bare chested except for a tartan sash that cuts across his impressive pecs only heightens my irritation.
I’ve never thought of another man as beautiful before, but that’s what he is. Long eyelashes. Full lips. A head of hair that begs to have hands running through it. And a body that would make the gods weep, like he’s been chiseled out of marble purely for the pleasure of my eyes.
But in spite of my body’s physical attraction, it goes so much deeper than that. I know, on some instinctual level, that Wells knows exactly what I need. He showed me that last week and then ripped it away like I wasn’t worth his time anymore.
We’ve barely scratched the surface on the tension between us, but he’s retreated like giving into it would burn him alive.
His mouth is set into a thin line, but I see him square his shoulders toward me. I’d love nothing more than to feel his skin on mine again, even if it’s from a swift punch to the jaw.
I take consent seriously and would never push things between us, but his ass seems set to torture me just for the fun of it. And that, I do have a problem with. Especially when it comes with his holier-than-thou, ‘I’m so much better than athletes’ attitude.
Pompous prick.
I take another step closer. It’s not lost on me that neither of us has said anything yet, and I can feel that same thrum of electricity that happens whenever we’re in the same place.
Because seriously, fuck this guy. He acts like I’m the jackass for being enthusiastic.
For actually wanting to feel good. And it’s not like it isn’t as obvious as a punch to the face that he gets just as much out of it as I do.
I’m surprised that he didn’t come in his pants last week while he watched me jerk myself off.
Maybe he did, but I couldn’t tell through his pretentious woolen slacks.
I’m about to tell him as much, the other people on the porch be damned, when Dutch’s head pops through the front door.
“You better not be trying to bail already. Let’s get you a drink and see where the night takes us.
” He reaches his long arm out and drags me into the house, even as I can feel Wells shooting daggers into my back.