Jock Auction (24 page)

I nodded, once, decisively. “If I’m going to have a boyfriend, then I’m going to

hold his hand,” I told him. “Problem with that?” He shook his head, surprise still in his eyes.

Part of me wanted to skip straight around the building, rescue my car, and ditch

the rest of the day to spend with him, but Coach spotted us as we walked up the steps.

It was between periods, and a few of the people milling around gave us surreptitious stares, probably as much from the school rumor mill and Jeff’s actions the previous day as it was for Craig and I holding hands.

I knew Craig must have seen them too: at first, I could feel his hand sort of flex in mine, loosening his grip a little as if giving me an out if I wanted to let go. It was only after I squeezed his fingers a few times, kept them clasped with mine, that he seemed to finally get the message.

“Kyle, good to see you up and about,” Coach said, voice loud in the hallway as we

walked toward him. He frowned. “Did the nurse say you were all right to be back so soon?”

I nodded; he was conspicuously keeping his eyes on my face, not looking at Craig

next to me or where our hands were joined.

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“She just said to go to the hospital if I felt sick or passed out or something, Coach,”

I explained. “But I feel okay.”

He nodded and then looked over at Craig for the first time.

“And this is…”

I sighed inwardly a little. He’d seemed so forthright yesterday, blasting Jeff for being homophobic. I’d hoped we wouldn’t have to go through all this.

“This is my boyfriend, Coach,” I explained, trying to keep my tone level. The older man stared at Craig for a beat and then looked back at me.

“Well, yes, Kyle, I figured that out already. I was hoping you’d fill me in on his name, since I don’t think I recognize him from any of the teams.”

I mentally kicked myself while Craig spoke up.

“It’s Craig, sir. And no, not on any team. Sports was never my thing, really.”

Coach nodded, grinned at us. “Just sports players, eh?” He laughed at my

horrified expression, Craig’s wide-eyed surprise. “Honestly, guys, stop taking things so seriously. Now, don’t you have to get to class somewhere?”

The hallway had just about emptied while we’d been talking; I glanced at the

clock, realized I probably was meant to be somewhere, yes.

“Sure thing, Coach,” I replied. “And…thanks. For yesterday, and…yeah.”

He looked at me, and then nodded. “Let me know when you’re up to joining us in

practice again. And Craig, I hope you’ll be adding your voice to the crowd at our next game, yes?” Craig nodded. “All right, then. Now get moving before you’re late.”

We split up at the end of the corridor, Craig for his math class and me for English.

I turned around to watch him walk away but found that he’d already done the same

thing; we grinned at each other goofily.

It was clear I was late when I opened the classroom door, so I slipped to the back of the room and into a free chair as discreetly as I could. I got a couple of looks, I thought, but nothing more than just for coming in after things had started, maybe.

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The screwed-up ball of paper bounced off the side of my head and jolted me up. I

looked around, feeling the flush of adrenaline as my body prepared itself for another fight. Instead, though, I saw Jake from the team grinning over at me from a couple of rows across. He jerked his head to tell me to move over into the free seat next to him.

“Dude, you’re back in already?” he whispered when I sat down. I looked at his

notes to see what the class was up to but realized Jake hadn’t been writing anything at all, just doodling and sketching all over the page. Most of it was geometric patterns, swathes of interlocking triangles and curves, but there were these little figures with big eyes interspersed throughout. He was actually pretty good.

“Yeah, needed to pick up my car and then got roped into coming to class,” I

admitted.

Jake nodded, commiserating. “Sucks. Man, Jeff is a fuckin’ nutcase, dude. I kinda

hope he gets thrown off the team for that bullshit.”

I nodded slowly, silently appreciative of the support. Part of me had still

wondered whether there’d be some players who might not be totally comfortable with how things had turned out, who might have felt at least a little similar to Jeff and wanted it to be me that was kicked out rather than him.

“Yeah, it’s been a fucked-up week,” I replied. Jake looked across at me, slyly.

“Guess it also explains why you could never keep a girl, right?”

I glanced over at him, sharply, but he was grinning still, one eyebrow up. I shook my head.

“Not like that, dude,” I said, voice low. “This whole thing took me as much by

surprise as everyone else.”

Jake was quiet, for a moment the scratch of his pen on paper and the drone of the

class going on around us the only noise.

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“Yeah, I can see how that would be pretty freaky,” he said, eventually. I checked

out his notepad again; there was a new figure taking shape in the corner, only a few lines and most of those for the oversized eyes, but I thought it looked a little like me.

“Freaky bad…?” I ventured. Maybe one day I’d be blasé about how people were

reacting, but I was still a little cautious.

He didn’t look up, and I watched as his pen added in my lips, my nose, my

cheekbones. “Freaky as in the grand old scheme of life, Kyle,” he said finally. He cross-hatched in my jersey number, then looked up at me. “I know how this stuff can shake you up.”

I felt my eyes widen, like one of his cartoon characters.

“You mean you’re…?” I gasped, trying to keep my voice down as best I could,

despite my curiosity.

Jake chuckled, shook his head. “Nah, not me. My twin brother, though. Took us

all by surprise when he told us.”

I nodded, at the same time curious at how disappointed I suddenly felt. It wasn’t

because I was attracted to Jake—well, he was cute, but I was being good and only

having eyes for one guy—but more that it might’ve been nice to have another ally on the team, beyond Louis, that is.

“Guess you feel pretty protective of him. Did he get into any trouble?” I asked.

Jake tried not to crack up laughing but still let out a splutter that got us shushed from the front of the room.

“Trouble? Jackson? Jeez, the guy’s on the fuckin’ wrestling team at his school,

man. I’d be more worried for any homophobic dick who gave him trouble, y’know?”

I smiled. Yeah, I could see how that might be useful.

“So, word is you’re dating an emo twink,” Jake continued. I frowned—what was a

“twink”?—then nodded.

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He shrugged. “Pity. Jackson broke up with his dude a couple months back. I

could’ve set you guys up.” He looked at me out the corner of his eyes again, a slightly dirty grin showing. “Well, I guess that would depend on how comfortable you were

getting pinned on the mat…”

I had sudden visions of a meatier, more muscled version of Jake in a wrestling

singlet hunched over me and pushing me down as his hardness pressed at my ass

through the stretchy fabric. My cock gave a lurch, trapped uncomfortably in my

borrowed briefs.

“So I guess you and Jackson share a lot, then?” I commented, trying to at least shift the topic on. Jake gave me a mock-outraged stare.

“You asking whether Jackson has a big dick too?” I rolled my eyes at him, and he

winked at me. “Yeah, we talk about a lot, anything, really. Took me a couple days to get used to the idea that he liked guys when I liked girls, but then I realized that it explained a lot but wasn’t really any sort of an issue either. He was still my twin.”

I nodded, wondering what it would be like to have someone I felt so close to, a

little jealous of the relationship Jake had with his twin. Growing up an only child had felt like a mercy at times, when I’d watched my friends have to accommodate their

annoying younger siblings or get stuck with hand-me-down clothes from older

brothers, but the intimacy Jake and Jackson obviously shared was leaving me feeling quite lonely.

“I’m not gonna lie; it was a bit weird listening to him talk about liking dudes and doing stuff with them, at first I mean,” Jake admitted, “but I realized I was expecting him to listen and deal with me talking about girls I was dating and that I just needed to grow the fuck up.”

The little cartoon of me was almost done now, a surprisingly accurate—albeit not

quite in proportion—replica of me in my uniform. As I watched, Jake added in some

shadowing, the tip of his pen only lightly brushing the paper.

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“You’re really good, dude.” He looked across at me, perhaps at first not sure if I was being sincere; then his face lit up in this really genuine smile when he saw that I was.

“Thanks, man, really appreciate you saying that,” he whispered, tearing off the

corner of the page and sliding the picture across the table to me. “I dunno. I just love this anime stuff.”

I made a show of looking at the sketch again, knowing Jake was watching me do

it.

“Only thing, dude, why did you make my eyes bigger and not the rest of me?” I

grinned at him, and he pushed me in the arm.

“Honestly? Gay guys. Only interested in the bulge,” he commiserated, feigning

disappointment. “You’re as bad as my brother, man.”

I shook my head to try to shake the idea of a bulging wrestler out of it, just about succeeding.

“So your guy…he measures up?” Jake asked, wriggling his eyebrows at me. I felt a

blush spread across my cheeks at the same time as my dick tried to stretch across my hip. I really wasn’t used to having these sorts of conversations with guys on the team.

“Um…sure,” I replied, not entirely clear on how much I was meant to say. If it had been joking around about cock size in the locker room, then it would probably be the usual boasting, but somehow I wasn’t sure that the same rules applied when it was

your boyfriend you were discussing.

“Only ‘sure’?” Jake teased. “You certain you don’t want me to call my brother for

you?” He cupped his crotch and shook it, lewdly.

“Definitely sure,” I insisted. “More than enough, um, I guess.”

He laughed again at that one. “Damn, don’t tell me, jockboy Kyle is a bottom?” He

shook his head in faux-disbelief. “Who would’ve fuckin’ thought it?”

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Twink. Bottom. I was learning quite a bit of what I assumed was gay slang today,

even if I wasn’t getting the full dictionary definition along with it. Still, I could make a guess as to what he was referring to.

“Well, not all the…” I started. Jake looked like he was going to roar with laughter, stopped himself in time, and settled for hugging his chest with almost-silent mirth.

“Oh my God, dude, too much information!” He wiped his eyes with the back of

his hand. “Still, if you’re gonna do it, go versatile I say. More fun more ways.”

I pictured Craig pulling me back onto his cock by the straps of my jock, my face

pressed into the carpet as I oozed like a faucet, and then fucking him against the glass of the shower in return. Yeah, both ways definitely had their appeal.

“Maybe don’t stand up any time soon,” Jake muttered, a teasing edge to his voice.

I looked down to where my now hard dick was pushing up in my jeans, clearly visible against the pale blue denim.

“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath, trying to rearrange myself. “I borrowed

some of—”

Jake held up his hand. “I don’t need to know, dude; don’t need to know. Man, it

must be serious if you guys are swapping undies. Lemme guess, he likes to dress you up, am I right?”

I shrugged, self-conscious again. Craig did like to see me in my team jersey, I

guess, but did that count?

Jake was nodding. “Yeah, Jackson dated a guy like that once. All obsessed with

dressing up a jock dude—he’d come home wearing these gay-as-fuck, supertight shirts and fuckin’ kinky-ass underwear like nothing you’ve ever seen. Said the guy got a thrill from picking out outfits and watching Jackson strip them off and then put them on.”

I could kinda see the appeal, both with Craig and with what I could imagine Jake’s brother might look like.

“So you and Jackson, are you identical twins?” I asked him.

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“Oh, no, no imagining the goods,” he exclaimed, shaking his head at me. “I can

see I’m gonna have to keep my eye on you next time we’re in the showers. That is, if you haven’t already got your eye on me, dude.”

“You wish,” I fired back, licking my lips knowingly. “I may be new to it, but I’m

told I’m a natural.”

Jake pushed his fingers in his ears, screwed up his face. “No no no, too much

detail, dude; I don’t need to hear it. God, you’re as bad as Jackson.”

He opened his eyes in time to see me waggling my eyebrows at him, and he

promptly scrunched them shut again.

It felt good to joke around like this with him. Not because I was expecting—or

even wanting—anything to come from it. I only had eyes for one man right now, after all. I’d been worried that the fact that I was dating a guy would’ve changed things irreversibly somehow. Instead, it seemed like it would just be another thing that they’d use to needle me. That is, something that wasn’t a big deal at all. I felt relieved at the thought.

Our banter was interrupted by new books being handed out, and for a while it

was eyes down and trying to concentrate as the room worked in silence. Occasionally we’d glance across and try to get the other in trouble by making them laugh. At one point, Jake drew another sketch of me, this time topless and with ridiculously