Chapter 5
By the time I get Colten into Julian’s room at the Hagley house, I’m sweating like I just played ninety minutes in August.
“Why are you so heavy?” I mutter, carefully moving through Julian’s mess of a room.
Colten does not respond, probably because he’s passed out. I drop him onto the bed, where he bounces against the mattress.
Colten groans faintly and rolls onto his side, immediately hugging a pillow to his chest like I didn’t just drag him up a staircase.
I grab an empty cup from the nightstand and refill it in the bathroom down the hall, then bring it back and set it next to him.
I have to move a few textbooks on the nightstand to the floor so he’ll actually see the water, but Julian has so many textbooks I’m sure he won’t care if a few get mixed up.
Colten’s phone is in his pocket, half charged. I unlock it with his mother’s birthday and make sure his alarm is set for the usual time before finding Julian’s phone charger and placing the charging phone next to the glass of water.
“You’re welcome,” I tell Colten’s unconscious form. He snores quietly, shuffling closer to the pillow.
I stand there for a second longer than necessary, just looking at him.
His hair has come loose from the ponytail, dark strands spilling across the pillow. I can just barely see his roots, the slightly lighter brown starting to become more obvious. It’s been several weeks since I last helped him dye his hair black.
His face looks softer asleep. Less sharp, and less like he’s about to fight me or ignore me for whatever stupid reason.
My hand reaches out toward him, about to push the hair out of his face before I realize what I’m doing.
Hah, that’s weird.
I shake out my hand and take a step back, nearly tripping over one of Julian’s many piles of books.
Colten remains peacefully asleep, as he is likely to remain for the next eight hours.
There’s a strange tightness in my chest, one that started in the bathroom and hasn’t let go. It makes me feel keyed up, my skin buzzing like I could play a game right here and now.
The glowing disappeared from earlier almost right away, fading before I had any time to really process it.
Why were we glowing? What started it? Was it part of the reason I now feel so…weird?
And what was he trying to do earlier? It was almost as if he was going to…
Colten’s sleeping face reveals nothing.
Whatever. It’s fine.
I text Julian to let him know Colten’s passed out in his room and head home after saying my goodbyes.
Despite feeling keyed up, I don't really want to stay at the party anymore. I briefly consider hopping the fence to run a few laps or work through some drills, but quickly decide against it.
Running in the dark seems like a great way to reinjure myself. Maybe if I could control the glow, it'd be worth the risk, but it's not like Colten's about to tell me how.
My mind flashes back to us glowing in the bathroom. I scrub a hand over my face, frustrated, and shove it aside. It’s fine.
I still have no idea what set it off, and I'm feeling too much to think it through right now.
The walk home helps. The cold air clears most of the alcohol from my head, but it does nothing against the restless energy simmering beneath my skin.
When I get to the apartment, the quiet hits me immediately. Despite Colten avoiding me in his room all week, without him, the place feels empty.
Rolling my shoulders back, I try to ignore it and grab a beer from the fridge. I take a long sip, the chill pouring down my throat as I consider what to do next.
I could go back out, text some of the guys, maybe see if there are any girls I could interest at the bar.
A nice date with a nice girl would be good right now.
But that still doesn’t seem like enough. There’s some laundry I could do, a whole basket of dirty, grass-stained clothes sitting in the living room where I left it earlier, planning to do it after my PT sessions with Colten.
But the apartment is empty, which is rare. I could be as loud as I want, watching my reality TV shows or even something a lot hotter—
My brain suddenly supplies the memory of Colten’s hand gripping the back of my neck, tight and in control.
I cough on my beer.
What the heck? That was weird.
I set the bottle down and run both hands through my hair as a shiver goes down my back.
“Focus,” I tell myself. The evaluation is in less than a week, and Coach doesn’t go easy on anyone, not even the scholarship students.
I don’t have time to waste right now. Colten asking me if I really want to go pro was a good reminder of what my focus should be.
I exhale slowly and decide to be responsible.
Plopping myself on the living room couch, I turn on the TV and hook it up to my laptop so I can review footage on the website Coach uploads all of it to. The dirty laundry can wait.
I pull up the last game I played before I injured myself during practice in my junior year. Coach already put up a playlist of clips with his performance analysis of it, but I ignore it, deciding to watch the full game this time.
The screen flickers to life, and there I am, number 14.
“Okay,” I murmur, leaning forward and taking another swig of my beer.
My first touch on the ball is decent, but my body angle is off when I receive the pass. I should’ve opened my hips more to get better traction.
Instead, I hesitate half a second, which gives their center back time to close the gap. I’ve already reviewed the notes Coach had about that, but I once again work through the movement in my mind to make sure that hesitation doesn't happen again.
I take another sip of beer, watching and rewinding and judging every tiny decision and movement I make on the field.
I did this countless times during my injury with every clip of my plays that I could get my hands on. It was the only real practice I could get to mentally prepare myself for diving right back into it.
"You're going to burn yourself out before you even get back on the field," Colten had told me after several days of obsessing over one of the clips. Still, he would sit down and watch it with me until I finally fell asleep.
Thinking about it, I guess I haven’t watched any clips seriously in months. Too caught up studying, I guess. And partying. And bothering Colten when he’s not outright ignoring me.
There’s another moment with a counterattack. I track my sprint speed as I push through the channel.
My first touch set up the shot, but my foot was slightly off balance when I struck the ball, causing it to sail just over the crossbar. I knew it was coming, but I still grimace.
Then I notice number 8, Colten. He’s moving through the midfield behind me.
I rewind and play it again. During the obsessive rewatching, I always focused on myself, on every little thing I did wrong or right, and how I would improve it all when I got back on the field.
But I didn’t focus on what Colten was doing.
Technically speaking, he’s executing a perfect supporting run, staying just outside the defensive block, and ready to receive a cutback pass. His positioning is textbook, and his timing is even better.
I lean forward slightly before rewinding and playing again, this time solely focused on him.
Colten intercepts a pass near the halfway line, using his body to shield the ball.
His footwork is quick with tight touches, scanning the field before making the pass. The ball leaves his foot in a long, precise diagonal line across the field, cutting right through the defense.
My stomach does a weird little swoop. It really was a good pass. I could learn a lot watching him.
I rewind the video and watch him again.
The power behind the kick and the way his whole body rotates through the motion—it makes my gut clench, my face overly warm. I swallow hard.
Then my brain, apparently no longer interested in soccer analysis, decides to remind me about the bathroom.
Specifically about Colten’s hands on my shirt, and how strong his hold was.
Which makes sense, since Colten works out his upper body just as much as his legs. Something about kinetic chains and muscular balance?
In any case, it explains why his grip on the back of my neck earlier as he pulled me closer had been so—
I pause the video and blink at the screen. “…Hm.”
Colten appears frozen mid-stride, legs strong and focus sharp, his hair neatly tied back as his jersey clings to his shoulders.
I lean back into the couch and take another sip of beer.
His shoulders seem smaller than they are now. Has he built more muscle?
My brain helpfully supplies the memory of those same arms wrapping around me during our wrestling match.
And then his hand gripping the back of my neck, eyes closed as he tilted his head up toward me.
My stomach flips, and I take a long drink of beer.
“…This is still soccer analysis,” I tell the empty apartment. The apartment does not argue.
I try to focus on the screen again, but my mind keeps wandering in useless circles that have nothing to do with anything, especially not soccer.
Instead, I think about all the laundry I still need to do, or about how Colten hasn’t been eating all of his carefully portioned meals, or about how Colten looked at me right before he passed out.
It’s frustrating, stupid, and a waste of time.
You know what? I’m wasting a perfectly golden opportunity to use the empty apartment.
It takes just a few clicks to pull up a soccer-themed porn video, and soon the apartment is echoing with pornstar Betty Boobs’ sultry voice during a soccer team gangbang. She’s moaning all about how she wants to play with the soccer team’s balls.
I close my eyes and lean back, trying to forget everything else beyond Betty Boobs’ exclaiming how big and bouncy the soccer team’s balls are, which honestly, soccer balls aren’t really bouncy, at least not on the field, not like a basketball—ah, now I’m having issues focusing on porn.
Huffing, I determinedly stick my hands down my pants and start working over my dick. Thankfully, Betty Boobs, who obviously hasn’t actually played soccer before, now has her mouth full of the soccer team’s dicks.
The sounds of grunting and fucking fill the apartment. Soon enough I’m right there with them, pre-cum sliding down my dick and making my hand’s movements smoother.
I groan as I bring my other hand up with the first, creating a hot, tight channel to fuck into. My hips buck into my hands, and that restlessness from earlier finally starts to ease.
Yes, this is what I wanted to do. I just need to let loose a bit, and then I’ll feel better.
I squeeze tight around the head of my dick as my hips thrust up, making my toes curl against the old rug Colten dragged in years ago.
It’s been too long since I’ve done more than quietly use my hand at night. Rooming with Colten means I have to respect the bro code and keep these moments quiet.
Now, I let go, groaning loudly, right along with the guys in the video. The muscles in my ass burn as I thrust into my hands as hard as possible.
The tightness in my stomach rises as I flop to my side on the couch. I focus on giving the head of my dick a hard squeeze with every desperate thrust, but it’s still not enough.
There’s the basket of dirty laundry sitting by the couch, and I dig into it, grabbing a couple of the sweaty, grass-stained shirts and stuffing one between the couch cushions so I can fuck into it without staining it with my pre-cum.
Now I’m face down against the couch, my hips pounding into the couch. I consider grabbing my fleshlight to make this even better, but forget the idea as soon as I accidentally bury my face into the other shirt and breathe in deeply.
Heat sparks throughout my body as the smell of sweat and bergamot fills my nose, my hips unable to stop fucking into the space between the cushions. I take in greedy gasps of air, my mouth drooling against the shirt under my face.
I shove my hand in between the cushions and wrap the shirt, now slick with pre-cum, around my dick.
Ahh. I can’t stop, my eyes squeezed tight as the pressure builds suddenly, my head dizzy with how turned on I am. My balls tighten up, my hands shaking with how hard I’m squeezing my dick—-
I groan long and low as I cum into the now ruined shirt, all while rubbing my face against the other shirt on the couch.
On the TV, Betty Boobs makes a comment about how they can dribble their dicks on her boobs, but my mind is too whited-out with pleasure to even care.
Slowly blinking my eyes open, I stretch out and use a cleaner part of the shirt in my hands to wipe off my dick. The restlessness is now completely gone, only the warm curl of satisfaction filling my heavy limbs.
I crumple up the used shirt and move to throw it away, but then my eyes catch on something odd with my hands.
I’m glowing again.
I open and close my fingers, taking in the honestly rad sight while enjoying the afterglow of my orgasm.
The glow is faint, already dimming, but I still watch it, wondering just what set it off. Of all the times to glow…
Then, comfortable and stretching out on the couch again, I rub my face into that shirt as Betty Boobs starts moaning. She’s getting fucked by three guys on screen, and I feel a small spark of horniness, my dick twitching with it.
And the glow immediately brightens.
I stare at my glowing hand, which slowly begins dimming again, before grabbing my dick and giving it a few strokes. I’m still sensitive, but it feels good, and with my eyes open I can see the glow get brighter.
Oh my god.
Grinning, I stroke myself harder, bracing against the slight pain of sensitivity as pleasure builds back up, the glow getting even brighter.
I laugh into the shirt under my head, considering using it as a second cum rag but ultimately deciding against it. Cleaning one shirt is enough work.
Besides, more important than any cum stains, I know what causes us to glow!
As long as I keep Betty Boobs’ factually incorrect but still sexy words in my mind, I can trigger the glow whenever I want.
I’m a genius!
Is this why Colten was avoiding me? Because he was embarrassed at how dirty this power is?
I guess we never talk about this sort of thing, but wow. Colten is unable to look me in the eyes for the last week just because of a bit of horny glowing? I never took him for a prude, but I suppose you learn something new every day.
Did Colten really think he could keep this secret from me forever?
I fall asleep there, smiling while sleeping on top of the soft shirt. I’m glad I figured it out. I’ll talk to him, make sure he realizes how silly he’s been, and then we’ll laugh about it.
And Colten will have no reason to avoid me anymore.