The Game: First Down

Nora Nix

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or
locales is entirely coincidental. All participants in these
fictitious events are consenting, non-related adults over the age
of eighteen.

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Nora Nix

All rights reserved.

This eBook may be reproduced, copied, and
distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided that the work
remains in its complete original form. Thank you for your
support.

Vince Cooper had been waiting all year for
this.

Everything was in place. He’d ordered six
extra-large pizzas, bought four twelve-packs of dark beer – the
kind he knew the guys preferred – set out three bags of corn chips,
made two bowls of microwaveable cheese dip, and had reminded
everyone on Friday about watching the game at his place for the
first time.

Usually, the boys went over to Mark Bellamy’s
place, a downtown penthouse and now bachelor pad since he and
Marianne separated last May. The guy had state-of-the-art
everything
, toys and gadgets galore, not to mention an
80-inch LED HDTV with 3D capabilities and stereo surround sound
that Vince was sure would blow out the ceiling-to-floor windows
someday. He even had a little maid, Sandra, who paraded around his
house in a French maid’s uniform two sizes too tight and about
eight inches too short.

That, he guessed, more than anything, was
what had led to Mark’s divorce.

Vince turned his TV on and glanced at the
cable box, noting that it was almost time. His TV was only a
40-inch, but he still got hi-def and all the channels to go with
it. He may not have had surround sound, either, but the built-in
speakers did okay for themselves. Besides, it wasn’t like he had a
huge house full of distractions, and the living room was pretty
small – they should all be able to hear all right. Compulsively, he
checked the time again. Just fifteen minutes until the game
started. Where was everybody?

A knock at his door tore his attention away
from the blue glow of the digital clock and he sprang toward it,
then stopped. He didn’t want to look too eager. The guys wouldn’t
go for that sort of thing. He should play it cool. This was their
first time over, and he didn’t want to look like a nervous little
pussy in front of them. He let out a deep breath to calm his nerves
and opened the door slowly, preparing a confident grin.

“Hey, guys. Good to see…”

Vince stopped short.

Instead of the gaggle of men he’d invited
over to watch the big game, there was only one standing before him:
Paul North, holding a six-pack in his hand, smiling broadly. Paul
was the youngest of the group in his mid-twenties, and also the
quietest. He hardly ever spoke up during the group’s many political
debates, and he’d never once regaled them with stories of his
romantic – or not – conquests. Truth be told, Vince didn’t know a
whole hell of a lot about Paul in general, only that he’d been one
of the six guys he’d invited – and the only one to show up.

“Hey, Vince,” he greeted with his trademark
slow drawl. Paul was from Alabama – Vince remembered that much. His
accent, creeping along like molasses, never really seemed to fit in
with the more crass, staccato barking of Vince and the rest of the
Jersey construction crew. He held up the six-pack with a little
smile. “Brought ya some beer. Can I come in?”

“Oh, sure, Paul. Yeah, yeah. C’mon in.” Vince
opened the door wider for Paul, feeling a little off-balance.
“Sorry about that. Jus’ thought the other guys’d be witcha, is
all.”

“Ah, yeah,” Paul said as he stepped inside,
removing his coat. “About that…”

Vince shut the door behind them and ran a
hand through his thick brown hair nervously. “What? What’s a
matter?”

“Well, y’see… Mark’s divorce jus’ came
through today, and th’ boys didn’t wanna make ‘im feel bad about
bein’ all alone…” Paul trailed off momentarily. He set the beer on
Vince’s kitchen counter and averted his eyes. “So, uh, they all
went on over to his place t’ watch th’ game. They wanted me t’ tell
ya. They’re real sorry about it…”

Vince stared in disbelief. They had all
agreed to this months ago! And he’d invited Mark, too – Mark, who
hadn’t been particularly broken up about Marianne’s leaving until
just now. How convenient.

His heart sank as he looked around his
apartment. Well, hell, this wasn’t about Mark’s divorce. This was
about the big screen and the surround sound and little Sandra’s
huge tits spilling out of her frilly blouse every time she leaned
over to pour them another drink. Compared to his place, Mark lived
at the goddamn Taj Mahal. How much could he
really
blame the
guys for bailing on him, especially when fate had given them the
perfect excuse to do so?

“Well, uh – ain’t that nice of ‘em?” Vince
said slowly, forcing another smile. “That’s good. Mark won’t be
alone and… and you and I will have to place to ourselves.” He
looked over the boxes of pizza and cringed. What the hell was he
going to do with all the leftovers?

Paul took note of his line of sight and
opened one of the boxes, pulling out a slice. Steam was still
rising from it, and when he took a bite, he hummed with
appreciation, closing his bright blue eyes and nodding slowly.

“Mmhm. Now
this
is the stuff,” he said
approvingly, stuffing his face with another huge bite. “This ain’t
th’ usual takeout. Where’d ya get it?”

“Little place around here, Mama Cannoli’s,”
Vince answered absently, still fazed by the huge letdown. “They got
the best pizza this side’a the Hudson. Ain’t cheap, neither. But
hey – special occasion, right?”

Paul picked a pepperoni off his slide and
popped it into his mouth, licking the grease from his fingertips
after, and said: “Fuck ‘em, Vince. I mean, really. Mark ain’t got
nothin’ but some warehouse-club wings and a fancy TV. Today was
about havin’ some nice company, wasn’t it?” He finished his slice
and reached for another. From the look of Paul’s lean, muscular
physique – not bulky like Vince or the others – he could probably
pack away two of those boxes all by himself. “We’ll have a good
time. Promise. And we’ll be better off without ‘em.”

Vince blinked. He hadn’t ever heard Paul
curse before. The image of the mild-mannered former farmhand washed
away, replaced by someone Vince could no longer quite peg. Although
he still hadn’t recovered from the rest of his friends’
abandonment, he grabbed himself a slice of pizza from the same box
as Paul and took a monstrous bite, letting the hot cheese sizzle in
his mouth.

“Go ahead’n put yer beer in the fridge and
grab yerself a cold one,” he instructed, turning up the volume on
the TV just as the pregame show began. “I got nachos on the coffee
table. Better get ‘em before they get cold.”

An hour later, Vince’s mood had most
definitely not improved. Not only was he stuck with the quiet, laid
back Paul while all his other so-called friends were surely jumping
on Mark’s leather sofas by now, but his team was losing.

He cracked open yet another beer, having lost
count of how many he had drank already, and partially engulfed the
frosty rim with his cracked lips. The more he drank, the less he
thought about the betrayal of the guys he had felt so close to only
hours beforehand. Yet the more he drank, the more angry he became
when he
did
think about it, too.

Beside him on the couch, Paul noticed him
discard another bottle cap and said: “Damn, Vince. Y’gonna drink
that whole twelve-pack by yourself?”

Vince shrugged sourly. “Don’t want it to go
to waste,” he muttered. Paul smiled.

“That’s all right. We can bring some to the
site on Monday and surprise ‘em. Tell ‘em what a great time we had
and show ‘em there’s no hard feelin’s. Ain’t that right?”

“And why would I wanna do
that
?” Vince
snarled, glowering at Paul over the lip of his beer. “If those guys
would’a been here, they could’a had all the beer they wanted. You
said it yerself: fuck ‘em.”

“Just thought we might try killin’ ‘em with
kindness,” Paul said, holding up his hands disarmingly. “That’s
all.”

Vince snorted. “Who taught you that shit?
Your ma?”

“My Grammy,” Paul corrected, his smile softer
now. “Momma didn’t have a whole lot t’ say on the matter. She died
when I was young.”

Vince felt his stomach drop to the floor and
he winced, spilling his beer all over himself. He launched himself
up off the couch, setting his foaming beer down on the coffee table
and pulling at his shirt, inspecting the damage. It was soaked.

“Goddammit!” He sighed, looking at Paul
again. “I’m sorry, Paul. I didn’t know about your ma.” He peeled
his shirt off of his thick frame, the spilled beer making his
muscles glisten in his apartment’s dim light. He caught Paul
staring and said: “I’m gonna go change.”

“Hey, ‘s your house,” Paul said dismissively.
“Do what ya want. And don’t worry about Momma. I never got t’know
her. No harm, no foul, right?”

Vince looked at his beer-stained shirt, then
back to the game. Well, it wasn’t like Paul hadn’t seen him without
a shirt before. And besides, it was just the two of them – who was
he trying to look respectable for?

Heaving another sigh, Vince flopped back down
on the couch and returned to nursing his beer, changing the subject
as deftly as he knew how.

“I can’t wait for the cheerleaders to come
on. Never had me a girl who could move like that – how about
you?”

Paul blushed. It made him look more like he
was sixteen rather than twenty-eight. “Nah. Me either.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Vince prodded, trying to get
something – anything – out of the kid. “Those farm girls look like
they know a thing or two about how t’get a man. Had some guy
workin’ with me a couple’a years ago, told me about this girl he
knew, daddy used t’run an orchard. Said her pussy tasted like apple
cider. You know any girls like that?”

“Nah,” Paul repeated, looking down at his
beer. “There was only one girl I knew whose family had an orchard.
If her pussy tasted like apple cider, it would’a had t’have been
made with crab apples.”

Vince laughed, nearly spewing beer from his
nostrils. “Christ!” he roared. “That bad, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” Paul chuckled. He ran one of his
rough, calloused hands through his dirty blonde hair. “That girl
was closer t’sow than she was t’human, I’d say. Any man tryin’
t’stick his dick in her was gonna hafta roll her up in flour and
look for the wet spot.”

“You have
any
hot girls in Alabama?”
Vince asked, cringing as his team fumbled. Paul smirked – his team
was winning.

“Couple, I guess. Weren’t nothin’ worth
writin’ home about.”

“Well,” Vince said, “let’s see how ya like
some’a these northern cheerleaders in a few minutes, huh?”

“Sure,” he said, but as Vince leaned back, he
noticed that Paul had looked a lot more interested in his shirtless
body than he did at the prospect of the cheerleaders taking the
field.

As the halftime show began, Vince found
himself in a rather serious dilemma, the severity of which was
growing by the second. Those cheerleaders, as predicted, were
hot
, and Vince’s prick was swelling none-too-discreetly as
he watched them.

Drinking beer always did this to him, he
reflected, shifting to ease the tension forming between his
hardening dick and the unforgiving fabric of his jeans. He could
keep a hard-on practically forever when he was drunk, much longer
than he could sober. That was why his ex-girlfriend had liked to
keep a six-pack in the house at all times – she knew it was in her
best interest. He couldn’t deny that it had been in his best
interest, too.

But this was bad timing. Alone with Paul in
his living room, Vince wondered what he must be thinking. His size
wasn’t exactly subtle – even at half mast, his bulging cock was
clearly outlined through his pants. Worse than that, his nipples
were prickling to match the stiffness between his legs, and folding
his arms to hide them meant leaving his crotch wide open for Paul
to see. Would he say something? Would he think it was because of
him?

Vince made a face.
C’mon
, he thought.
It’s not like the kid’s never had a hard-on of his own before.
He won’t say nothin’, you won’t say nothin’, and it won’t be weird.
Have another beer and stop lookin’ at the cheerleaders.

But the more he tried to look away, the more
he found his eyes wandering back to the screen. Those girls had
some of the most magnificent tits he had ever seen, and the way
they bounced when they jumped made his balls tighten. It had been
so long since he had seen a pair of tits up close and personal. He
vividly recalled the way Yvette, his ex, had let him pump his dick
between hers, cooing and begging for his hot cum until she got it
all over her pretty face. Those thoughts didn’t help, and Vince
felt a sudden throb pulse through him, pushing the tip of his cock
against the inside of his zipper. Goddamn if that beast didn’t want
to be let out.