More Than the Ball

“
T
hink fast
!”

I looked up from the box I was packing to see a tiny soccer ball whizzing toward me. With a quick shift and duck, I managed to pop it with my forehead and then catch it on a knee before letting it roll down to my foot and drop to the floor.

“We’re supposed to be packing, not playing,” I reminded my roommate, Dev.

Dev shrugged from his bedroom doorway, easily accepting the pass when I nudged the ball to him. “Memories, Elliot. These boxes,” he gestured to the - still mostly empty - boxes scattered around the room with a sweep of his arm, “will contain all our memories from the past four years. You can’t just rush through that kind of experience.”

“Uh huh,” I said, though I couldn’t help grinning. “You tell that to my parents when they get here on Sunday and we aren’t ready to load the truck yet because all our ‘memories’ are still scattered around the apartment.”

Dev clutched his chest and fell backward into his room, landing on a pile of laundry. “You’ve wounded me, Elliot. Mortally. I will never recover.”

“I’ll say something nice at your funeral,” I promised, still grinning as I turned from his door to finish packing up a box of DVDs.

Dev Bandi and I met freshman year on the first day of training. He was quick as lightning when he streaked down the pitch, and he was hands down the goofiest motherfucker I’d ever met. Nobody pulled pranks more than Dev did, and nobody laughed louder at their own mistakes. He was fun and easy, and when he’d asked if I would think about rooming with him when we started sophomore year and moved out of the dorms, I didn’t hesitate.

There were ups and downs of course, but Dev had turned out to be the best roommate I could have asked for. It helped that we were both on the soccer team, so our crazy-ass schedules were lined up most of the time.

More than that, though, Dev was my best friend. Having him around was just comfortable. He was more like family than anything.

A pillow came flying out of his room and hit me in the head.

“What the hell, man?” I said, frowning as I picked the pillow up from the ground.

“Memories,” Dev answered, gesturing to the pillow.

I looked down at it and saw it was made from a Señor Frog t-shirt we’d won off a group of rival footballers at a bar in Cancun over spring break sophomore year.

“Oh, man,” I said. “I remember this. Nelson was falling over drunk, and that dude from Westland puked on a girl’s tits...”

“See?” Dev said, coming out of his room to sling an arm over my shoulders and look at the pillow with me. “Memories. You can’t rush this shit.”

“
You
can’t,” I argued. “But my parents can, and my mom will be pissed if I’m not ready to go the morning after graduation.”

“That gives us...” He trailed off, counting on his fingers for a moment. “Three days. Three days, man. We can pack up this place in eight hours, tops.”

“I think I’m really glad you’re not a math major.”

Dev wasn’t paying any attention, of course, he was just steering me with the arm around my neck and gradually tugging me over to the couch.

“I think you oughta be glad I remembered the weed stash before your parents got here and found it.”

“Oh! How much do we even have?” I asked, dropping onto the couch next to Dev, leaning over to see the box he pulled into his lap.

“Enough that we’re really gonna have to commit to use it all before Sunday.”

“Well, shit,” I said, “I had no idea we had that much. We’ve clearly been slacking.”

“Clearly.” Dev repeated.

Guess we better get started.” I smiled and watched as Dev grabbed the grinder and pipe, starting to build the perfect bowl.

B
y the time
we’d gone through enough of the stash that Dev said we could call it progress, we were leaning into each other on the couch, sipping lazily at our beers and picking pepperoni off of the pizza we’d ordered an hour or so ago. We were streaming
Across the Universe
on Dev’s laptop, propped against some books on the coffee table so we had a good angle on it. It was the trippiest movie to watch high. The colors popped and swirled through the film, elevated by the voices of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Dev couldn’t get enough of the cinematography.

“Did you see that?” He’d say so often. When he was stoned he got even more boisterous about filming. “God! What a brilliant cinematic choice!”

I always laughed at him. “You’re so fucking stoned.” I was still kind of in awe of his aesthetic creative nature.

When Dev and I had become friends, we’d had that weird, stiff-arm, heterosexual dude problem with touching. You know, that thing where it has to be a little violent or totally a joke or it’s weird. Somewhere in the last four years though, that had slid away. Now, Dev and I spent most of our evenings half draped over each other however was comfortable.

It wasn’t about sex; it was just about being comfortable. Dev and I were both straight, and it just slowly got added to our weird roommate-ness. When you live with someone for three years, barriers start to fall. Hell, half the time we fell asleep in each other’s beds. I didn’t let myself think of it as anything more than just a thing we did together.

When we got stoned, though, lines sometimes blurred a little. My head was settled in Dev’s lap by the time the movie had ended, and his hand was on my bare belly, fingers idly stroking over the rough line of curling hair that ran down from my navel.

“Man,” I said, my eyes slipping closed as I relaxed into the smooth repetition of Dev’s touch, “does smoking weed ever make you just...
super
horny?” I didn’t exactly know where the question had come from, but I suspected it had something to do with the way my cock twitched every time Dev’s fingertips teased under the waistband of my shorts.

Dev laughed, and it was warm and rich and the sound sort of slid all over my body like caramel. “Yeah, man,” he admitted, and his fingers came to a stop just far enough down my belly that if he stretched them a little--just straightened them, really--they’d be stroking into the nest of hair at the base of my cock. “Glad it’s not just me.” he said thoughtfully and quietly.

“Me too,” I agreed, letting out a pleased sigh when Dev’s fingers started moving again.

“Man, do you ever jerk off high?” I asked, thinking about how this high was a particularly comfortable and horny one for me. And that I hoped Dev never stopped whatever it was he was doing.

I snorted a laugh, opening my eyes to see Dev grinning down at me. “Fuck, yeah,” he said.

“Dude,” I added, shifting onto my side to reach for Dev’s laptop in its perch. “You have to see this vid. It’s my favorite for highsturbating.”

Dev made a noise like a snort as I pulled up the link on his computer. “Highsturbating,” he repeated.

“Yeah,” I argued. “What else would you call it?”

“Nope,” Dev said. “You’re totally right. It’s gotta be highsturbating.” And he laughed again, long and giggly; his laugh sort of tripped over itself. It was so playful.

“You’re so fucking stoned,” I said as I got the video setup then settled back into Dev’s lap while it played.

“How else am I gonna highsturbate?” he asked, his hand curling around my hip again, fingertips resting in the line of my hip, sending out tingles that zinged straight to my dick.

“Good point,” I muttered, thinking about the tingling warmth of Dev’s fingers stroking over my skin while I watched the scene playing out on the computer.

It was something I gravitated toward whenever I was high. I’d found a version that cut out all the attempts at plot and cut straight to the sex. Specifically, to the scene where the wealthy CEO had narrowed his interview pool down to two candidates: a busty, perky, brunette secretary, tits spilling out of her very tight top, and a tall, slender, dark-haired man with glasses, wearing a shirt that was clearly too big and pants that were definitely too tight, showing the bulge of his huge cock tucked against his thick thigh.

I could feel the heat of Dev’s cock as it started to stiffen against my cheek when the CEO told the two candidates that they had to demonstrate a very specific skill set before they could qualify for the special position. He proceeded to ask the two of them to strip and ordered the young man to go down on the girl.

Somewhere in my not-stoned brain, I knew I should pull back from Dev’s lap when I felt him getting hard, but I reasoned that would be more embarrassing than staying right where I was. Instead, I shifted a little to rub my cheek over the line of heat and shivered at the soft groan Dev made when I did.

His hand still stroked over my belly, getting a little bolder now, sliding further into my Avenger Hawkeye boxers.

On the screen, they had moved onto cocksucking. The girl was taking her time on the young guy’s dick, when Dev said. “Man, I hate when porn just lingers forever over something like this. I mean... how long can we watch her lips stretch like that?”

“Right?” I said, and without thinking, I shifted to fast forward a little bit. When the video played again, the guy candidate was on his knees in front of the CEO, leaning forward to lick the tip of his dripping cock.

“Shit,” Dev whispered, and I reached forward again to skip past it, but Dev’s cock jerked, and he said, “No, man. It’s cool. I mean, I don’t mind if you don’t.”

“Yeah?” I asked, swallowing hard. I didn’t want to tell him that this was my favorite part, that I usually skipped straight to it and replayed it over and over.

“Yeah,” Dev said, and his hand moved lower again, definitely brushing against my shaft this time. “I mean... it’s still pretty hot, right?”

“Yeah, it kind of is,” I agreed.

“Have you ever... you know?” Dev asked, nodding toward the screen. I shifted to face upward, feeling his cock rubbing against the back of my skull as I watched his face.

“Sucked cock?” I asked, and he swallowed, hand stilling. “No. I... thought about it before.” Every time I watched this video, actually. “Have you?”

“Thought about it?” Dev asked, and his hand relaxed again, but it pulled up, stroking along my waistband. “Yeah.”

We were quiet a moment, leaving only room for the sounds of grunts and moans from the computer. Then I asked, “Have you done it?”

Dev didn’t say anything right away, and then he nodded minutely. “Yeah,” he whispered. “A couple of times.”

His cock pulsed, and I felt mine jerk toward his hand, a wet spot spreading across the front of my boxers. “Wow,” I said, my voice husky and breathless. “That’s... that’s pretty hot.”

“Is it?” Dev asked, his hand starting to move lower again. As every stroke of his fingers slid over my body, I was fast approaching a point where I would say anything at all just to get his fingers around my dick.

“Yeah,” I breathed, closing my eyes to picture it: Dev on his knees in front of that CEO guy, dark eyes flitting up through his thick lashes to watch my face as he opened his lips. “Fuck yeah,” I echoed, breathing heavily, then my eyes opened, and I looked up at Dev. “Show me?” The question came out in a shy whisper.

“Fuck yeah,” he repeated, voice low and hot.

He squirmed out from under me, letting me drop onto the couch as I scrambled to shove down my sweats and boxers, kicking them out of the way. My cock stood up straight, hard and leaking pre-come.

When I laid back, Dev moved to kneel between my bare legs on the couch and said, “Take off your shirt.”

I nodded and peeled it off, watching as Dev mirrored my movements, his hands making quick work of his Rolling Stones t-shirt, revealing a perfectly carved torso, dark nipples, broad shoulders. Soccer had been good to Dev. To both of us really.

I had expected him to jump right to it, especially after his comment about the porn spending too long on it. Instead, he let his hands run up my legs slowly, his eyes focused on mine. My breath caught.

I’d been looking at Dev for years now, seen him naked hundreds of times in the locker room, in the steam of the showers, and yeah, I’d noticed that he was good-looking. We were both in great shape, and Dev’s lean body was almost all wiry muscle. His skin was smooth and dark, and his nipples seemed to tighten at the smallest sensations.

I reached a hand up to test that hypothesis, and my fingertip barely brushed his left nipple before he was sucking in a breath, and I was watching it pebble right in front of me. “Jesus,” I whispered, and he grinned, his teeth a flash of white in the dim light of our living room.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said, his voice low and husky, deeper than I’d heard it before.

“Definitely should,” I agreed, and then I moved my hand again, deliberately catching my thumb nail on his nipple. He yelped and laughed, and I could see his dick twitch in his own sweats, and I suddenly had to see it. I dropped my hand and yanked down his sweats. He wasn’t wearing underwear, and his cock sprang free, bobbing for a moment in front of me.

I couldn’t resist the temptation to touch it. It was hot and firm in my hand, and when my fingers curled around it, it pulsed, sending a shock of desire through me. I wanted to make it do that again.