Direct Confusion - 18. Chapter 18

We have our first soccer match against the lesser of the two local schools at the end of the following week, which means Jameson manages to get his week of following my training schedule out of the way just in time. Even though I am sure we will win the game, it doesn’t hurt to make sure we start the season strong, confident and using every single bit of talent we’ve got. I say as much to coach when we meet over the training schedule.

“If we can win by a mile, then we damn well should. We’re on home turf too, it’s not like we’ll show them up in front of all their fans.”

“Alright. But if it’s all going well, then it would be sensible to put some of the second stringers out in the second half. A real match will help them get better.”

“Sure. But get Chase in the second half and have his protégé go up first. I don’t wanna lose in the last five minutes because the kid can’t fill the damn net.”

“Noted.”

“Anything else?” I stand and gather my bag. For all that my homeroom teacher is supposed to be my advisor, all of us on the teams go to our coaches for our mentoring.

“How is the report coming? I saw the other Parker kid trailing his way behind you during training last week.”

“It’s good. After the match I’m gonna follow his normal schedule for a week and see the difference. I mean, I’ll still run the drills for the guys, but I think it’ll be worth it as an experiment.”

Coach looks slightly less than excited by the prospect, but he nods, and I leave without any further incident.

Erin is waiting for me by my locker, a habit which I deeply enjoy.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” I jog the last twenty yards. “Missed you this morning.”

“Jame couldn’t pick out what to wear.” Erin rolls his eyes. “I swear sometimes it’s like we’re not even related.”

“Whereas you are wearing exactly what you’ve worn for the past week. Stopped making an effort have we?”

“I like this shirt.” Erin tugs at the hem of my old summer camp shirt, the one I leant him after the party, which he has been wearing on and off pretty much constantly since.

“You can keep it Erie. I don’t mind.” Truthfully, I really rather like the look of him in my clothes. “But you do need to wash the damn thing.”

“What did I do before I met you?” Erin wraps both arms around my waist.

“You were less sappy and romantic?” I volunteer, but neither of us is really thinking with our brains anymore. He closes the last few inches between us with a purr.

A shrill and piercing wolf whistle breaks us apart and I scan the contents of the corridor, looking for the culprit.

“Mornin’ boss.” Chase has his thumbs hooked the front pockets of his jeans, looking cocky. His appearance is instantly aggravating to me.

“Yes?” I arch an eyebrow as I stare him down, making use of my superior height.

“All set for the game on Friday? I suppose we’ll be taking it easy now that the team isn’t your main focus.”

“Sorry?” I tense at Chase’s words, my fingers wrapping a fist into Erin’s shirt.

“Well, it’ll be an easy win.” Chase shrugs. “It’s not like you’re as focused as you used to be.”

I am about to launch into him when Erin’s grip tightens around my shoulder.

“How about you just fuck off now Chase.” My goalkeeper looks shocked to be spoken to like that. “Go on, git!” Erin shakes slightly as Chase walks away, and then brings me back up against his chest with a soft thud. “Now where were we?”

“Getting yourselves late for class?” Derrick drags his palm over my smooth scalp as he walks past. “You boys gotta find a more private spot for making out.”

“Like you don’t mack on Cherrie in front of the whole school!” I call after him. “He’s right though, we’re gonna be late.”

I hug my boyfriend, and we head in separate directions for most of the rest of the day. As I sit in homeroom not listening to announcements which do not concern me, I reflect on how incredible my life has become in the last few weeks. If I was ever lucky before, then I must have reached a whole new level of my life being awesome and perfect.

Erin is the best boyfriend anyone could ask for, and the fact that I get on well with his parents and mine like him too is great. My friendship with Jameson goes from strength to strength, and I no longer find it even slightly weird that my good friend knows all there is to know about my love life. Well, almost everything. Erin and I called from my house for our test results, and we celebrated our twin clean bills of health by having excellent sex in my big double bed. We still use condoms though.

Erin and I hang out most days after school, sometimes joined by Jameson, or Derrick and Cherrie as well. Jameson brought Heather on their second date with us and Derrick to one of the better pizza places in town and the six of us sat in a red vinyl booth and talked, laughed, and stole each other’s food and sodas. I shared an ice cream float with Jameson, because Erin wanted his own chocolate fudge sundae. The only thing my boyfriend is really possessive over is chocolate sauce.

He came over for dinner again on Saturday night, and we were polite and civilised and managed not to flirt too much at the dining table. We cleared up, then vanished into my room and fucked with abandon for an hour or more, totally naked and sweaty in my big bed. Waking up to screw him in a lazy sensual way in the middle of night was extremely awesome.

I arrive back in my head during AP Biology and I turn automatically to face my friends.

“Earth to Luke…” Jim is grinning. “You’re walking around with your head in the clouds.”

“Sorry.” I glance up at the board; we’re revising the functions of different cellular structures. It’s easy stuff for a mid-week morning.

“Those aren’t clouds, Jim; our boy’s in love.”

“Shut up.” I distract myself by beginning a detailed diagram of a muscle cell at rest, then another in exercise-related deterioration. I glance up from my work to catch Jim looking sideways at me, he does not look deeply happy, but on my other side, Derrick leans back in his seat with a wide smile. He’s such a smug bastard.

“You getting the team ready for the game on Friday?”

“Yeah. You guys coming?”

Even Jim smiles. Our sports have always been the things that have kept us together.

“We wouldn’t miss it for the world bud. You gotta kick the Blue Devil’s ass!”

*

Friday is the best kind of match day, bright, with little wind, but far from warm. Being cold will help to keep everyone moving around on their toes, and I spend most of the day checking in with the newer members of the team, going over procedures, timings, and kit. At lunch I get them all around two tables in the cafeteria and although I really want to be snuggled up in the space between Erin’s arm and his shoulder, I run them verbally through a dozen drills and set piece moves that we should be able to just pull out when we want them. Possession is nine-tenths of any game, and as long as we keep the ball, we have a good chance of wrapping this thing up beautifully.

It’s not enough just to win, because while a lot of the team are Juniors and Sophomores, those of us looking to graduate need the bigger matches that early wins will gain us, looking for college scouts and scholarships.

By the end of the day, I’m mentally exhausted and ready to spend my study hall session asleep on my bag; but Jameson arrives with a smile and a wave and I feel instantly better. I can’t help it, the guy is just all around nice, sarcastic, cool, and funny to boot.

“I didn’t think you’d be here.” He rubs the back of my head as he walks past to his seat, a habit he and his brother now share. “At our last school on game days all the jocks used to ditch. It was sort of allowed, definitely expected.”

It is the thing that has always most annoyed me about my love of sports. Going to away games and other matches, it is incredibly easy to see why huge swathes of society dismiss all jocks as uneducated meatheads. For a large number of boys in letter jackets, it’s a depressing truism, and while I can accept that some people who are good with their hands and their body are bad at academia, it’s no excuse for acting like a bunch of rebel cavemen. No one on my squad goes out of their way to deliberately rile up other players or cause fights, and no one simply drops the casual rudeness into conversation I have seen and heard others do. While it’s nice to be a cut above the norm, I hate that the standard of expected behaviour for my social group is so low.

“Not me. I have a four-point-oh grade average to maintain until graduation.” Even saying it makes me feel tired. “Thank god Erie sleeps properly or we’d both be screwed.”

“And I though you both did that anyway.” Jameson grins, arching an eyebrow cockily. “At least, so I heard.”

“You and Erin discuss what we do in bed?”

“No!”

“You’re a rubbish liar Jame.” I roll my eyes at him, head pillowed on my arms. “I mean, I sort of expected it; you talk about everything else.”

“I was curious.” Jameson smiles and sits back in his chair, spreading his books out in front of him. He’s working on choreography again, and seems to be able to let his physical mind and pencil wander while we talk. “After all, it’s sorta different.” He shrugs, as though a straight man discussing gay sex is the most normal thing in the world.

“What did Erin say about me?” It’s about the most conceited thing I’ve ever asked, but right now I miss the company of my boyfriend, and I’m full of nerves and butterflies over the upcoming match. I’m sure I can be forgiven for wanting my ego propped up a little.

“Nice things.” I’m not letting Jameson fob me off that easily and steal his pencil from his fingers. He sighs in exasperation. “He said you gave the best head in the Northern US. Happy now?”

I grin in a lazy sort of manner, very pleased indeed.

“In other news involving things not housed in your pants.” Jameson prods me. “Erin managed to recruit a couple of the football guys into helping out at the game tonight. That way we can do more lifts. I think Derrick might have scared them into it.”

“Dude, that’s awesome.” We go for a little high five across the table surface. “You gonna cheer extra hard for me when we win?”

“Derrick was right; you really are a cocky bastard.”

I smile across the table at my friend.

“I don’t believe in no-win situations.”

*

“We’ll play this match just like we’ll play all the others.” I nod to my team as we wait in the locker rooms. Our new green and yellow uniforms gleam, and I straighten my Captain’s armband with a little tug. “We go into every match to win, to do as well as we can and play the best we can. I want everything nice and clean, a good game.” Some of the new recruits look like they might actually throw up. The noise of the crowd from outside is starting to get louder. The roar is like another heartbeat in my ears, and adrenaline runs from one end of my body to the other. “Now you go and leave every shred of talent you have out there on that field boys, and we’ll show these Blue Devils who they’re messing with!”

It’s the first match of the season, so the bleachers are packed. Parents and families, little brothers and sisters, friends and lovers of both teams line three sides of the stadium. We are a sporting town, and there are guys with their wives and little kids who came to this high school twenty years ago out there, watching me stand where they stood and face down the opposition. My opposing Captain is also the goalkeeper of his team, and his bright green sweatshirt is at odds with his teams royal blue uniforms. Chase and his second both wear purple with a yellow trim; we believe in colour coordination. He wins the toss, but we stay as we are. Looking him up and down, I doubt he would have the guts to ask me to switch. We shake hands, and I walk back to my team.

“All set boss?” Chase finishes running his protégé through a few last minute pointers.

“We’re ready.” I slap Potenski’s shoulder and he nods firmly at me. “Remember what I said in there. We take every point we can. I wanna win this one big, gentlemen.”

Chase knuckles my shoulder, gives the other goalie a thumb up and jogs over to the bench. I take a moment to raise my head above the level of my assembled players to see the cheerleaders on the side line, yellow and green pom-poms at the ready, doing little jumps, flips and warm-up set pieces for the crowd. Jameson and his new recruits are easy to spot amongst the skirts, and he waves over enthusiastically when he sees me, then points up to the stands. Erin, his parents, and my parents are sitting altogether in the second row, beaming. When I catch Erin’s eye, his smile is proud and bold. Never before have I had a reason to win other than my own stubbornness and my love of the game, but tonight I want to make my boyfriend proud.

“Ready lads? Break!”

The whistle goes, and the game begins.