Extra Innings - 2. Chapter 2

I was panting, out of breath and was in an absolute panic. This was not how I wanted my morning to start, especially on the first day of classes. Getting my books and everything else I needed for school was pretty easy once I got settled in, and moving in a couple days before classes started was definitely one of my better ideas. What was much less smart was to not figure out where all my courses were. Of course I did the campus tour when I was deciding which school to attend. Everyone does that don’t they? I just didn’t pay too much attention to which buildings were going to have which courses in them, I just sort of assumed that most of my classes were going to be on the field or at one of the other athletics facilities on campus. For the most part I was right, but I wasn’t off to my sports therapy class or to the coaching seminar, I was trying to find my English class… and for that I needed to find Maxey Hall.

I was getting close to the edge of campus and back out into the city itself, so I knew I hadn’t gone the right way. That was one of the good things about being an urban campus, you were pretty sure when you had actually left campus because of how different the buildings looked. I saw a couple of people who had backpacks on heading back towards the campus, so I figured they were students and hoped they might be able to point me in the right direction. I didn’t even want to think about how late I was going to be to class, I had already thought I’d be late when I left the room today. As expected, Vincente was long gone by the time I got up, which was a problem since I overslept.

“Excuse me, Excuse me!” I started yelling at the couple heading back to campus. “Do you know where I can find Maxey Hall? I have to get there…about five minutes ago. Shit! Can you please tell me the fastest way to the building?”

The couple looked at me and the guy started shaking his head like he was sick of having to watch out after freshmen. He patted me on the shoulder and pointed back the way I came.

“…Freshmen, jeez” he muttered under his breath. To me he said “Go back the way you came kid, straight down the main road, once you get near the other side of campus, make a left and you’ll see the big building with red brick siding. That’s the one you want. Get going, you’re already fucked but if you run you might not get your ass handed to you that badly.”

“Thanks, gotta go!”

I started sprinting back the way I came, with my backpack hitting me right between the shoulders every step that I took. I really should have paid a lot more attention when I was on the tour, but this is what I get I suppose. Thankfully, my class was on the main floor so I didn’t have to tackle the stairs quite this early in the morning. I snuck into my class and took the only available seat next to me. I didn’t notice who it was until I got my notebook and started listening to the professor, but out of the corner of my eye I could see it was Vincente! I didn’t realize he was going to be taking the intro English class with me as well, he was so much older I just assumed he wasn’t a freshman and that he was just bunking with me because of some kind of mistake, especially since he was already on the tennis team.

Halfway through class, the professor gave us a break so that we could get settled for the seminar portion of the class. I took the opportunity to say hello to my roommate.

“Well, well” Vincente said. “Nice of you to drop in, how’d you oversleep a course that starts so late in the morning?”

I flushed, not sure how to respond to that. It’s true that I was pretty late today, but it’s not like I was planning on being that late all the time. Besides, I bet he was late to his first class as well, and I wouldn’t have been late if I had earlier classes too. I’m sure he was just messing with me, but it was seriously too early for this sort of nonsense.

“Hey, I had no idea that you were in this section as well, that’s so cool, maybe we can help each other workshop our writing.” I chose to ignore what he had been saying, better to leave it alone than to respond and possibly get into an argument in the middle of class.

“It’s not my fault you’ve got earlier classes that I do, maybe you would have been this late if this was your first class as well.”

Vincente backed up and put his hands up, trying to show me he was messing around.

“Jeez dude, don’t get so uptight, you’re gonna hurt yourself tripping out over all this basic stuff. Relax a little, you might live a little longer, or at least a littler happier.”

Something about the way he said it got under my skin, maybe because he had no idea what my life was like, so there was no reason for him to be as dismissive as he was being towards me. Or maybe I was just a bit jealous of how his life seemed so well put together. Either way, I didn’t want to hear from him right now.

“Oh, and homie?” He called back to me. “Find someone else to work with. I already got an editing partner, and you gotta reach out and meet new people. Half the reason we’re all here is to meet folks and network isn’t it? Seriously, there’s plenty of people to meet that you might even learn to like being around. Go find a few of them.”

I started to look around the room to see if there was anyone else I recognized in the class. Most of the people closest to me were people I hadn’t met before, so I wasn’t sure how to go introduce myself to them, especially since most were already engaged in some kind of conversation. On the other side of the lecture hall I saw Bryce. We made eye contact and he waved me over. I brought my notebook with me and joined the small circle of guys he was talking with. The first thing I noticed about all of them was that they were all very athletic. Tall, muscular and they gave off a feeling of being very comfortable in their own skins, like they already knew they were going to be amazing at whatever they were asked to do.

“Hey Devin” Bryce called out. “Come sit here with us, I’ll introduce you to some of the guys, and some of the other potential guys on the team.”

I replied back quickly, wanting to meet these other guys “Hey Bryce, what are you doing in this class? I thought you were a second year student. Isn’t this class just for freshmen?”

Bryce gave a bit of a laugh. “Naw man, it’s all good. I didn’t take the course last year because if conflicted with a few other things I wanted to take. School doesn’t really care as long as you do it eventually, and I’m not an English student, so it doesn’t matter so much to me. I’ll introduce you to everyone.”

There were six guys, they were all sitting in a circle. Four of them looked a lot less stressed out, and like Bryce they probably weren’t freshmen. The other two guys looked a little bit out of their depth. Bryce sat between them so the upperclassmen were on his left.

“Grab a seat somewhere Devin. On my left are Miles, our starting catcher, Darnell our first baseman, and then the two twins here are Grady and Thomas. They’re both outfielders and are supposed to play left and right field, but no one ever notices when they switch fields in practice. Normally Grady plays left and Thomas plays right.”

Miles was a bit on the chubby side, but you could see pretty easily that was powerfully built. He had short blond hair and a bit of a round face, and he definitely looked older than me, maybe a couple years older than I was. Darnell was black, with an easygoing smile and long, lanky limbs. He had to have been six and a half feet tall. Like me, he looked pretty skinny, but I was willing to bet he was pretty strong and that his slender frame didn’t mean very much. Thomas and Grady were both a bit darker skinned, but still pretty noticeably Caucasian, maybe they were a mix of something and that would explain their names. Both of them had wavy brown hair that just covered the fringes around their eyes, which I thought was super adorable and made them look younger than me. I couldn’t tell any differences between them, and I knew that Bryce was right when he said that they would often switch in practices and no one would know the difference.

I was about to ask about the other two boys, but Bryce beat me to it.

“I just met these two guys last week, same as you. Ummm, the one on the right is Tanner, and the one on the left is Enrique. They’re trying out as well, as middle infielders.”

Unlike the other guys, Tanner was really short, shorter than I was even. If I had to guess I’d say he was just a bit over five feet tall, so he was really short for our age. Otherwise he seemed pretty average looking, black hair and darker features, but nothing really outstanding or lacking about him. Easy to overlook, except that he was Asian and I hadn’t met too many Asians before, so this was a bit of a surprise to me. Enrique was around six feet tall, and he was easily recognizable for his Hispanic roots. His skin was a darker brown that I was used to seeing, but it matched well with his longer black hair and solid build. Neither of them looked like typical middle infielders to me, but I suppose I’d find out how good they were on the field on Thursday.

I looked back down at the professor’s podium and he was standing there, waiting for everyone’s attention to begin the lecture again. There wasn’t much time left before the end of class, and the professor assigned us the task of writing a journal about the things we’re thinking about the most. This could be a bit of a challenge for me, since I spent a lot of time thinking about Alex, and still sometimes thinking about what happened with Sean… I didn’t really want to explain any of that to the baseball guys, or even to Vincente. On the other hand, I couldn’t really lie about that could I? I mean it’d be pretty obvious after awhile that I wasn’t being totally honest. Something to think about for later I guess, maybe when I start the first night of it later tonight.

Bryce and the rest of the baseball and potential baseball guys started to pack away their stuff, so I did the same since class was going to finish in a few minutes. I looked back to where I had started the class and I could see Vincente talking to one of the girls in the class. She looked really young and not at all interested by what he was saying, but she wasn’t in any rush to leave. Maybe they were just working together for the class and it wasn’t anything more than that.

I decided to head off on my own after class to go get some lunch before I had to head over to the tennis courts. My sports coaching class was going to start this afternoon, and apparently our first lessons were going to be tennis related. I didn’t know too much about the course, but it sort of sounded like we would get a grounding into different sports and both the physical and mental aspects of how to be a coach for those sports. That was interesting, but I was thinking of getting more into becoming a personal trainer if things didn’t work out for my sports career, so it wasn’t as relevant to me as some of the other courses I would be taking. Still, it would be interesting and at least I’d have a chance to do something physical instead of writing papers and doing research in the library.

First, I had to go find one of the dining halls and grab some lunch. I know I had gotten up pretty late, but I was already hungry and hadn’t eaten much at breakfast. If I was going to have any chance of making the baseball team I was going to have to start bulking up and showing that I had the potential to put a bit more muscle on myself, or at the very least show that I could get a fastball going as fast as the other guys on the team. I knew my stuff was pretty good for back in high school, but this wasn’t high school anymore and I didn’t have a guaranteed spot on the team yet, so I had to really make sure I was the best I could be if I wanted to make the team.

The dining hall was already packed by the time that I got there, which didn’t surprise me too much. I got in the line and pulled out my meal card; I knew I’d have to show my card and have it swiped through the system before I could get anything to eat, and I wasn’t going to waste any time today. I looked ahead to see what the lunch special was today, and it looked pretty good! There was a sandwich board saying the special of the day was a shepherd’s pie. That was nice and hearty, and was absolutely what I was looking for, something filling but not overly fatty or gross.

Once I got my food I sat down at one of the long cafeteria tables and quickly ate my food. I know I had an hour between my first and second class, but I wanted to make sure I had enough time to get there a bit early instead of being late, and this time I knew I was going to be going for a bit of a walk. My next class was at the tennis courts, which were almost outside of the campus itself, so I knew it’d be a few minutes walking just to get there. I scanned the room and didn’t see anyone I knew or met from my previous class here, so I guess they went to one of the other dining halls. Once I was finished I dropped off my food tray, picked up my stuff and headed to my room to swap out my stuff.

Once in the room I got rid of my school bag and replaced it with a duffel bag full of sports supplies and a notebook with a couple of pens. I wasn’t going to need any of my textbooks for this class, but having my sports gear would be essential to the class and simply made sense; if we were going to be actively playing sports, I should be dressed for the part and wearing clothes meant for sports. It also helped that all my shower stuff was in the duffel as well, so that I could have a shower before my final class of the day.

Having grabbed all the stuff I thought I’d need for this first class, I locked up and headed on my way. Thankfully my residence was at least somewhat on the way to my next class. It was about twenty to one by the time I got to the tennis courts, and I could see that a few different students had the same thought I did and got there early. I was surprised to see more than a few girls in the program, but I guess that goes to show that Whitman’s reputation was true; almost everyone was involved in sports here, and I should probably get used to the idea of all these female athletes being just as recognized as the male teams were going to be.

Most of the students were dressed in regular workout gear. Usually shorts and a t-shirt, since it was still pretty warm out. Everyone was wearing cross trainers and short socks, and quite a few had sweatbands on their wrists and foreheads. Then there were the ones who were clearly in their element, guys and girls wearing tennis whites and looking both thrilled that they would have a chance to potentially show off a bit on the first day of class and terrified that they would make a mistake this early in the year that might get them knocked off the team.

I recognized two of the guys from my English class; they were the ones that Bryce introduced as trying out for the baseball team, so it sorta made sense to see them here in this coaching class. I walked over to them and tried to insert myself into their conversation.

“Hey Tanner, hey Enrique. Nice to see you two again, how was your lunch break?” I asked, trying to play it cool even though I probably sounded like every other shy nerd around this place, and I suppose compared to most of these athletes I was sort of a nerdy guy.

“Oh, hey man, what was your name again? I’m no good with names” Tanner looked up at me when I came by, looking like he was straining to remember my name.

“Come on man, you just saw him an hour ago” Enrique teased. “You’re the worst, people should forget your name all the time just to punish you for your bad memory. That’s Devin, the other freshman Bryce knew.”

Tanner grimaced and lightly punched Enrique on the shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever man, should just forget about you instead of just your name, Enriqgay.”

I flinched a bit at that, surprised that Tanner would so casually infer that Enrique was gay and that it was a bad thing like that. I didn’t think anyone picked up on my reaction though, since the guys were too busy mock fighting with each other to pay too much attention. If these were the kinds of guys who were going to be on the team, where they’d just casually insert homophobia into the conversation, then maybe things weren’t going to be any different than they were last year. I was a bit disappointed in that, and drifted off towards another random patch of students who were getting ready for the class, until I heard someone calling my name. I turned around and saw Vincente behind me, waving his tennis racquet and fully decked out in all his tennis gear.

“This is great isn’t it?! First thing we get to do is some tennis in this course, I’m gonna fuckin rock it man! This is going to be fantastic!” Vincente was almost delirious with delight that we were going to be playing his sport and that he’d have a chance to show off, or at least he thought he would.

The instructor for the course showed up, and Vincente whispered to me that it was the coach of the tennis team. That made sense, so maybe this course was going to have the different coaches for each of the school teams teach us a bit about how to be a proper coach in that sport, along with some theoretical stuff that every coach would have to know that would be taught by our actual instructor. That made sense, since it was hard to believe that one instructor would know how to coach that many different sports and be good at all of them.

The coach took us all out into the court and started explaining and demonstrating to us the different stretches that were important for tennis players, and then had us do those stretches to show we could do them and recognize when they were being done incorrectly. As we were doing the stretches, the coach was explaining to us why each of the stretches was important and what could happen to a player who didn’t stretch out properly.

After going through all of our stretches, the coach had us pair up and practice basic skills to each other. This was an opportunity for the tennis players to show off a bit, as they were trying to coach those of us who hadn’t played much how to serve and volley, along with other important things like positioning and how to grip the racquet for maximum range of motion. Vincente was with a shorter girl who he seemed to be manhandling with his demonstrations, and my partner was someone who hadn’t played at all and had to rely on what the coach was saying, so neither of us did very well with our practical demonstrations.

When it came time to watch Vincente and his partner, Vincente did an amazing job serving and returning the ball, but his partner seemed even worse off than I was. It seemed pretty clear to me that Vincente was a good player, but he wasn’t much of a coach if he couldn’t transfer any of those skills onto the person he was trying to teach. This might not be such a good day for him after all.

Once each of the pairings had an opportunity to demonstrate their skills, the rest of us had a chance to explain what we felt wasn’t done properly and to try and figure out how to fix some of the mechanical mistakes they were doing. This was sort of a way for us to take on the role of a coach working with an athlete, so that we could see just what we would have to be doing and looking for once we were coaches on our own somewhere. Its harder than it looks to figure out what someone is doing wrong when they’re moving as quickly as they are when performing sports actions. Sometimes you can’t see anything at all but you just know something wasn’t done right.

The class was nearly over, so the coach ran us through a few cooldown exercises and handed out some worksheets on what he had been talking about. Most of it looked like we had to identify which exercises were to be used to stretch the given muscle group and explaining what would happen if we didn’t, and then a few questions that required written responses about how to actually play the sport. It didn’t look difficult, but the coach was saying that it was due to our instructor on Tuesday when we had the class next.

Everyone headed off to the showers in the fitness centre since that was the closest facility for most of us, and the people whose dorms were nearby didn’t want to use them because they weren’t always available. While showering, I took a moment to discreetly try and check out the other guys in the shower with me. There were a few that were pretty muscular, but that was probably what I should have expected considering most of the students at Whitman were athletes of some kind or another. Tanner and Enrique were both pretty cut and chiselled. I finished up quickly since there were other people waiting to use the shower facilities, and I had to rush off to my last class of the day.

Now that I knew where Maxey Hall was, I wasn’t too worried about getting there and took a leisurely stroll back to my room to grab my book bag again. It didn’t take nearly as long as it did this morning to find my class, and I sat down with plenty of time to spare. This was my English Literature course, and it seemed like most of the students were more interested in reading our textbooks than in talking to each other, so I pulled up a chair near the door and took everything I needed from my bag.

I’ll be honest; this wasn’t going to be my favourite class. I knew it was important for my degree and that I had to be getting a good grade in it so that I could hopefully get another scholarship this coming year, but I didn’t like this course. Literature isn’t one of my big interests, especially when it’s really old stuff and doesn’t have anything that really connects it with the modern world. I mean, I know the themes are always going to be the same, but the way stories are told is not the same at all. To say that I didn’t get much out of the introductory lecture was an understatement; all we did was go over the course syllabus and discuss the order we were going to read the novels in.

When class finally came to an end, I settled on a course of action for the rest of my evening before the tryouts begin. I knew that there wouldn’t be any substantial food in the dining halls right now since it was still pretty early in the day, but I wanted to get some food in me and even the snacks available were going to be better than nothing. After that, I was going to go to my room and relax a bit, maybe repack my baseball bag to make sure everything was in there. Then I was going to get going and see if I was ever going to be more than just a high school athlete.

As expected, there wasn’t much to choose from in the dining hall, but at least there were some fresh fruits and nuts that I could eat that were going to get me some energy before things started getting crazy. I grabbed a banana and some raisins in a bag before I headed back to my room. I was a bit surprised to see that Vincente wasn’t in the room right now, but I wasn’t going to complain if it gave me a bit of time to myself. I figured he was just a few minutes away anyway, so I started to eat my food and have a look to make sure my stuff was in my bag.

While I was walking to my side of the room, I saw there was a note from Vincente.

‘Hey Devin.

I’m not coming back til later, going to practice with the tennis team. Good luck in tryouts, we’ll talk later bout it kay?’

Well, that was unexpected, and since I had an opportunity to let off some steam, now seemed as good a time as any to get off. That would certainly relax me before I had my first college tryouts. I walked over to the door and locked it anyway. Vincente wouldn’t be coming back, but that didn’t mean that everyone else on the floor had left and I didn’t want to get caught with my hands around my dick by some stranger.

Once I was sure that I was alone and wouldn’t be disturbed, I stripped naked and laid down on my bed, lazily stroking myself with my right hand, while idly tracing outlines along my body with the fingers of my left hand. I missed the way Alex would touch me and hold me while we were messing around, and even though I was moving my hands the same way he would when we were together, I couldn’t make it feel the same way as when he was moving and lightly touching me.

I didn’t have too much time today, since I wanted to be cleaned off and dressed to head down to the field relatively early. I know I could have just dressed here in the room and not worried about putting on my uniform at the stadium, but part of me felt like that was going to jinx my chances.

Lifting my legs up so that my knees were touching my chest, I started to slide my hand towards my ass, while still playing with my cock and balls with my other free hand. I knew I looked really slutty and like a bottom like this, and that sort of made the whole thing hotter for me when I slid the first finger into my ass. I winced as it pushed past the muscle, reminding myself that I hadn’t been fucked very often and hadn’t even really been fingering myself all that much lately. My cock started to get soft while I was giving myself so much anal attention, but soon the pain of the penetration started to feel good, and I started getting hard again.

I decided to try my luck a bit and tried to push a second finger into my ass while jerking off. I pushed with both my fingers and my ass muscles, and to my surprise the second finger slid in without too much resistance. I moaned really loudly when the second finger fully entered me, as I felt the finger brush up against my prostate. I started to slide my fingers back and forth in my ass, and every time they brushed my prostate my cock would throb and I’d moan out. I knew that I wouldn’t last much longer, and I wanted to make this first night a memorable one.

I quickly threw the covers off my bed and started thrusting hard into the mattress, thinking of the times that I fucked Alex into my bed back at home before I left for here. Thinking about him got me going and I was thrusting faster and faster, making the bed squeak and rattle around from the force of my fucking. With a roar, I started to cum into the mattress and felt it squishing between myself and the bed, smearing all over both myself and the bed. Panting and breathing heavily, I laid there for a moment to get over the force of my cum. I could feel everything getting sticky, so I rolled over and went to the bathroom to grab a towel that I could use to clean up the mess on the bed and my chest.

Thankfully the mess on the mattress wasn’t too bad to deal with, and cleaning myself has never been too much of a problem. I put the dirty towel in my duffel bag, along with my jockstrap, jersey, pants and cleats. Everything else was going into my baseball bag and would be stuff I’d need on the field, while all this stuff in my duffel was stuff I would change into at the stadium with the rest of the guys.

I took one last look at the room, grabbed the baseball bag and my duffel bag and shuffled out the door. As I was locking it, I was thinking about how many guys there were going to be and what the tryouts were going to be like, but I was pretty relaxed. I knew that I’d just be giving it my best and I’d find out soon enough if that was good enough or not.