Extra Innings - 6. Chapter 6

There are some days where you wake up and you just know that it’s going to be a busy, exciting day. Today was one of those days for me; I had a full set of classes again, and a second set of tryouts. The coach had posted who made the first set of cuts the other day. I was glad to finally have that taken care of. It had been a week since the first tryouts, and I was beginning to get worried that I had been cut simply because no one told me what was going on.

Bit of a weird week, since Bryce is in my English class and we’re all working together as baseball players and potential players, it’s been weird having to interact with him without being reminded of him kissing me at the frat party. Thankfully he’s had the good sense not to try and bring it up, though there are times where he definitely looks like he wants to. I suppose sooner or later I should probably talk it out with him if we’re going to keep seeing so much of each other, but I still haven’t told Alex about it yet.

I have been meaning to tell Alex that Bryce kissed me, I mean that’s what I think he’d want me to do. But I’ve been really busy, and whenever we chat he always seems like he’s got other things that are bothering him, so I’m not going to make him even more miserable by telling him about things that he can’t even do anything to fix because he’s far away and too young to be here with me in college. Better to wait until he’s got a bit less going on in his own life I think, and I’ll be going home soon enough for Columbus Day anyway.

I was sort of looking forward to heading back for a couple days off at home. I was starting to get settled in here in college, but this was the longest that I’d gone without seeing my dad and Alex, and I still missed them a lot. Even if it was just for a couple days, it’d be nice to catch up and see them, let them know that I’m doing alright and really being able to show it off. Of course, if I didn’t keep up with everything, I was probably going to end up doing homework on the vacation, and that was something I was really not looking forward to so I was putting in a lot of effort into my classes.

The daily routine with Vincente was starting to work a lot better too. Neither of us were in the room much, except to sleep and sometimes to study. To be honest, I didn’t really like working there so I often would go to the library with the massive glass windows to study there, or I’d find somewhere else that was quiet and somewhat private where I could study. So there weren’t any big personality conflicts yet. I sorta wish I got to know Vincente better though, since we don’t really know each other or hang out with each other outside of when we’re about to go to bed.

I got dressed into jeans and a longer sleeve shirt today, as well as a blue Whitman hoodie with gold lettering on it. It was a bit breezier and the weather network was saying it might rain in the afternoon, and I’d rather be too warm and have to take off layers than to be too cold and forced to suffer. When I got outside with my book bag I was grateful that I decided to wear the hoodie as it was already pretty windy and cold outside, though it thankfully hadn’t started raining yet. I was hoping the rain would hold off for another day, since coach said that tryouts would be going on rain or shine, and I wasn’t too thrilled about having to practice in the rain.

When I got to Maxey Hall for my English composition class, I saw the rest of the baseball guys waiting in the hall for the class to start. Tanner and Enrique weren’t hanging out with us as much, I think they were just nervous as freshmen, and they also seemed like they didn’t have the best tryouts, so maybe they didn’t feel comfortable being around the rest of us when we might not be teammates in the next little while.

The other five baseball guys were there though, Darnell was saying something to Miles that had him laughing away, and the other three older guys were just watching their antics. Bryce was facing the opposite direction as where I was walking, so he didn’t see me join the group until I got there and stood between Grady and Thomas. Both of the twins grabbed me and started messing up my hair using the hood of my hoodie, which I wasn’t expecting since we normally only saw each other here and at tryouts.

“Look who’s here, the man of the hour! We were just talking about you.” Grady drawled at me.

“Yes, it’s about time you got here, we thought you were going to miss class or something.” Thomas deadpanned, fully aware that there were at least ten minutes before class, and that there wasn’t a soul from the course anywhere near us at the moment.

I decided to play along since they seemed like they were starting to accept me.

“So glad that I could be of service, I’d hate to have missed another day of listening to this wonderful class.”

The rest of the guys laughed and we went back to talking about nothing. The guys were talking a bit about whether tryouts were going to be a disaster or not if it rained, but Bryce didn’t seem to be his usual self. He was talking a lot less, and wasn’t as interested in the conversation as he normally was when we were talking about baseball, or when I was in the area. Maybe it was just an off day for him and he’d be better later on tonight when we had our tryouts.

When the rest of the students started shuffling into class, Bryce waited behind while the rest of the guys went to take their seats. I was just getting back from a quick drink at the fountain when Bryce pulled me aside.

“Devin! Will you at least let me talk and explain what was going on last week? We’re going to be seeing each other an awful lot, and it’s going to suck for you at least if you spend all that time being angry and bitter, especially if you do make the team. How’s that going to help us mesh as teammates?”

I got defensive and retorted back at him.

“You ‘meshed’ pretty seriously the last time we had private time together.” Not bothering to hide the anger in my voice, I kept going.

“There wasn’t any reason for you to do that, except now it’s made things really miserable for me. Unfortunately, you are right that I don’t have any intention of spending my whole college career being angry, but I’m not in the mood to deal with you right now. Let’s just get through class and see how tryouts go, so stay out of my way.”

As I was heading into class, Bryce had one last comment for me.

“There’s another frat party tonight. You’re invited, some of the guys liked what they had seen in you, even if they thought that you could have handled your departure a bit better. They’re good guys, even if you don’t want to see me you should give the fraternities a chance; you don’t have to join Phi Delta Theta after all.”

I was surprised by that, but I didn’t say anything and just went to the class and sat at the desk right by the wall, making it so that Bryce would have to sit on the other end of our group of baseball guys if he wanted to be part of the group. Keeping him further away from me was going to be the aim of the day, at least for now.

Nothing too spectacular was happening in class either. This was one of the rare times that the professor was actually lecturing at us for the whole period instead of giving us time to work on some of our written assignments for him. I suppose he thought we had enough time to work on these things outside of class time, and considering the first one wasn’t even due until just before Columbus Day, I guess he was right, we did have a few weeks left to get everything finished up for this class. The baseball crew seemed pretty annoyed by the fact that he was just lecturing, and I could see that a couple of them weren’t actually taking notes on their laptops, but I was trying to focus on writing things down so that I could stay ahead in the class.

Everyone was pretty quiet during the lecture today. Every so often I’d look up from my books and stretch my hands to keep them from cramping up from writing so much, and I’d see Bryce looking at me, like he was trying to get my attention through the line of guys between us. I just kept on ignoring him, and when the professor dismissed us I was one of the first out the door to swap bags and head to my sports class.

Last week we had been doing tennis which had made Vincente happy, but it looked like we had finished up with that for now, and today we were going to be in the fitness centre. This wasn’t too out of the ordinary for me, and I suspect that the student athletes were quite pleased by this, since most of us would have been spending lots of time in the gym getting fit and prepared for our respective sports seasons.

I got changed at the fitness centre into my usual workout clothes, I had a white tank top on and grey basketball shorts. On top of that, I brought my workout gloves, they were padded and leather, so I had a pretty good grip on things when I was lifting weights. I saw most of the students were wearing official Whitman clothes, and I guess that was something that I should consider buying since I’m going to be working out here, and it would beat wearing the same gym clothes I’ve been wearing for the last couple years. Might make me look more at home in the school as well, I’d have to have a look later on and see where everyone got their gear.

The assignment for this week’s classes was actually very interesting. The instructor paired us off and asked us to create a sport-specific workout regimen for our partner. This required us to accurately describe the muscle groups that were required for the sport we played, as well as the personal goals we had for the workout routine, so things like gaining strength or stamina were things that we had to tell our partners. Using that information, we had to create a set of workouts that we could actually do here at school, and we would be expected to follow that routine as part of our course mark.

I got partnered with a really petite girl from the swim team. Her name was Teresa and she had medium length black hair that she kept tied in a ponytail during class. She told me that she was from Wisconsin, and that she came here because of a scholarship to join the swim team, so I knew she had to be a really good swimmer, and of course she would know exactly what she needed to do to get herself in top shape.

Today’s class was all about figuring out what the other person was looking for and working with the different machines and trying to figure out which exercises would have the greatest impact on the muscle groups that we were targeting for improvement. The gym was busy with regular students working out and our class, but there were lots of machines available and quite a few that I hadn’t seen before back in Colfax.

Teresa made it clear that she needed to improve her stamina, upper arms and body core for her event, the breast stroke.

“How come you don’t want any help with your legs?” I asked. “Aren’t you going to need strong legs to help with your stroke?”

Teresa replied nonchalantly

“You’d think so, but I figure the cardio work is going to be a good start since you’ve got me working a pretty decent run for that. The distance training is going to help a lot with the lower body. Quite a few of the exercises you chose for me will help the legs, thanks though.”

I nodded and carried on writing the instructions for what Teresa needed to do for her routines. It was important that it become something that we all get in the habit of doing, even when it would be problematic for us to do so, like on a game night. Once I finished up her copy and the copy for our instructor, we switched off and started working on a program for me to work on for the year. Even though I’d been playing sports forever, this was the first time that I was going to have a proper workout routine to work on for myself.

“Okay, so for me I’m going to need a bit of everything. Pitching needs a lot of arm flexibility and forearm strength. I also want a very strong core because pitching mechanics need a lot of body rotation as well. The last thing I really want to focus on with my lower body is to strengthen my lower legs to get a good push off the mound.” I explained, knowing that Teresa didn’t play any kind of baseball.

We went around the gym again and did another tour of the machines. I was surprised when Teresa started us off at the leg press instead of a cardio machine, but I followed along anyway. At each station we had to lift our heaviest possible weight in order to figure out how much weight would be most appropriate for us to use in our routine, at least to start. I figured it would be smarter to try and lift too little weight and add more as needed, as that would reduce the strain on my muscles and prevent me from hurting myself during this process of finding my one rep maximum.

I was surprised that my max for the leg press was 240 pounds. That wasn’t great, but it was better than I expected, except I really did push to my limit and my legs felt a bit rubbery after that. We tried a couple different machines for testing my leg and upper body strength, and I wasn’t nearly as good on those, so I would be starting with a lot less weight when I was working my arms and chest. That was probably for the best, since I was hoping more for toned muscles instead of having a giant bodybuilder body.

By the end of class I had a pretty good idea of what I was doing in the fitness center, and Teresa handed me my copy of what I was expected to do. I notice that unlike hers, mine only had me in the gym every other day, but that the workouts were a bit longer and more intense than hers were supposed to be. In the margin of the paper she noted that this is to give my muscles a bit more time to recover before being strained, and also took my baseball training into account because of how active we were being at this point in the season.

Once class was over I decided to have a quick shower at the fitness center. Today it made more sense to shower here, and I made sure to bring all my stuff with me. Once in the locker room I stripped out of my clothes and wrapped a towel around myself before getting to the shower room. The showers were pretty similar to other locker rooms, a large room with about a dozen different shower heads around the walls with nothing to hide behind. Thankfully, I got there quickly and didn’t have to wait for a shower, so I took off my towel and placed it on the rack with everyone else’s towels and started to wash myself down.

Like everyone else, I focused on getting myself ready for my next class, but since I had the opportunity, I did a quick scan of everyone in the showers with me. Lots of nicely sculpted bodies here, with a fair bit of toned muscles and soft cocks of all different shapes and sizes. When I looked over at Vincente, he looked up at me and we locked eyes for a moment. Oh shit, that’s not good. I looked away quickly and focused on getting myself rinsed off. I dried myself off quickly and changed into my street clothes before running to pick up my book bag before my next class.

I found my book bag on my bed and made sure that everything was inside it that I was going to need for my next class. As I was getting ready to leave the room, Vincente came back in. He looked at me a bit weird and stopped in the doorway.

“Dude, what was that all about, looking at everyone while they were showering? You some kinda perv or something, cuz that was really, really not okay. It’s not okay to be gay man, no matter what those crazies keep saying and trying to make us vote to accept them in a month.”

I was stunned. My roommate was hugely homophobic, this was a disaster. It reminded me of being back in high school with Parker and Sean all over again, and I wanted to do everything I could to avoid repeating that.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about man. You’re in the way, I’m gonna be late for class.” I muttered, not making eye contact with him. I waited until he moved out of the way and then walked to class, my mind racing about this new development about Vincente.

I couldn’t focus on my lecture now that I had to consider what would happen when I was back in my room, and whether it was even going to be safe to go back. Bryce was into guys and lived in a fraternity, so obviously he knew how to act to make sure that I wouldn’t get hurt living on campus. I didn’t really want to, but I decided that I needed to go talk to him tonight at the frat party. Once my lecture was over, I dropped off my stuff and changed into my baseball uniform at home, and just brought the extra change of clothes with me.

When we all assembled I saw there were quite a few less guys than there were last week. The only ones I noticed as missing that I knew were Tanner and Enrique, which I sort of saw coming, even if I originally predicted that I would be cut as well. I thought to myself better them than me, but felt bad that I was being happy over their being cut from the team and shook my head to get those kinds of thoughts out of my head.

Coach Finnegan walked onto the field with the assistant coaches and let us know what was going to happen.

“Alright boys, this is going to be a shorter tryout than last week, and this will be the last chance you all have to make an impression on us, so you better make it count. Field players will be doing batting practice and fielding, while the pitchers and catchers will be doing their last set of performances with us. This time, the coaches are going to switch so we can see the pitchers and catcher we didn’t see last week.”

The other pitchers and catcher I was with last week went back to the visitor’s bullpen and we went through a lot of the same routine as last week. The coach asked us our names and what kind of pitches we threw, and this time there was a lot more of a conversational component. As we were pitching, the coach would give us different scenarios and ask us what kind of pitch we would throw in that situation, and what the ideal result for the batter or that pitch would be. Of course, we were then expected to throw that pitch and try to get the result that we were hoping for. That made things a lot harder than they were at the last set of tryouts.

I was the first pitcher to take the mound this time, and the coach started off by providing the scenario to me.

“Men on the corners, one out. Even count at 1-1. What’s your pitch choice, where’s the location and what outcome are you looking for?”

I had a ready reply for this one, so I answered back confidently.

“I’d throw a fastball, low and away. I want a ground ball to the right side to roll up a double play and get out of the inning.”

The coach nodded and wrote something on his clipboard about my response, then gave me the go ahead to throw the pitch I’d just called for myself. I never had the fastest pitch on the teams I’ve played for, but I was a pretty good shot when it came down to the accuracy of my pitches. I was hoping that I would continue on with that kind of play style here, and if so then I could get on the team in spite of not being one of the fastest pitchers around.

I took a deep breath and settled into my routine. Because the scenario was that there were runners on, I took the pitch from the stretch instead of my full wind up. I didn’t mind that, since I went from the stretch more often than not when I was playing last year. The catcher wasn’t setting up where I wanted him to, which made it a bit harder for me to aim properly, but I gave it a good shot. The first pitch I threw was outside and wouldn’t have been a called strike; it was also belt high so it probably would have been over the fence anyways.

I waited for the coach’s signal to continue, then tried again. This time the pitch was lower, but down the middle of the plate. Not the worst spot, but not where I called. I was starting to get nervous about being able to place my pitches where I wanted them to be, especially since I wasn’t going to get on the team with any overpowering speed. I was told to give it a third attempt, and I got back into my stretch. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that this was supposed to be about playing, not about stressing myself out, and I cleared everything out of my head except for throwing the ball. Low and away, just above the knees and just catching enough of the corner to be a perfect called strike, if we were in a game. I smiled and relaxed, and waited for the next set of instructions.

“0-2 count, nobody on base, nobody out. Bottom of the order, pitch call and reason.”

It was rare for me to get into a situation like this, but I had two go-to pitches that I had saved up for situations like that.

“Split finger fastball on the inside corner or a fastball up and in. Either one is to force a swinging strikeout and should be in positions where the batter has no hope of getting at them. The splitter because it won’t be where he expects it, and the high fastball because it’s too hard for batters to lay off the pitch.”

“Alright, go ahead. Splitter first, then the high heat.”

I waved off the sign and signalled the pitch to the catcher and took it from my full wind up. I loved using my splitter, and even though it only dropped a few inches; that was almost always enough to cause an ugly miss on the part of the batter. My first split finger was right where I wanted it. Started up around the belt and just dropped at the last minute. I couldn’t have scripted it better for myself. The fastball was a little inside and wasn’t my best work, but it looked good and I felt confident with it.

The coach made a few more notes on his clipboard and told me to step off the mound. Coach pointed out that I was done for the day and I should watch the rest of the pitchers take their turns. The whole rest of the tryout took about an hour to finish, and we all headed back to the lockers pretty pleased with ourselves for making it this far and having a pretty good day today as well. Coach Finnegan told us that the final roster would be posted in the locker room in a week, and that we were free for the evening.

I didn’t expect to be back so early, so I decided to head back to my room and get a bit of studying done before I headed to the frat party. I knew they weren’t going to start until later, and it was still light outside so I had a fair bit of time to go before I was planning on heading over there. When I got there, Vincente was at his desk writing something. He looked up when I got there and he didn’t waste any time talking to me.

“Dude, are you a queer? Is that why you were looking at everyone in the showers after class today?”

I was really defensive about this, and even though I expected the question I did turn a bit red.

“No, I’m not man, why do you care so much that you keep bringing it up? Leave it alone Vincente, okay? I gotta study and don’t need the interruption.”

I grabbed my stuff and started outlining the next paper I was going to write for English. Vincente probably looked like he still wanted to harp at me about what he’d seen, but I wasn’t paying any attention to him and was focusing on my work that I had to do. I still needed a partner for that, but I was sure one of the baseball guys would be interested, and right now I was just trying to figure out what I was going to write. The topic for our homework was to write about what motivates us, and there were a lot of things I wanted to say but wasn’t sure would be good topics for me to bring up in public just yet.

Now that I knew the way back to the frats, I slowed down my pace a bit to enjoy the walk and take a look around campus, especially where the frat houses were located. I really liked how nature and living things were used to try and make the campus that much nicer to be at. All the trees and plants really made things a lot more comfortable for me, that’s for sure, and in a way it helped make me less homesick.

It’d been over a month since I had seen Dad or Alex, and I did miss them a lot. I think Alex would have liked how many little private spaces there were on campus; places he could tuck himself away and study or do whatever he wanted to do, without anyone being able to see him, just like the library at school was back when I was in high school.

Thinking about Alex got me thinking about what I was going to have to do tonight. I definitely need to confront Bryce about kissing me, but I really did want to know how he can be so open without getting hurt, and he wasn’t going to talk to me if I spent the evening yelling at him. I’ll figure something out and get what I want out of him, I’m just not sure how quite yet.

I stopped by a couple of the other houses first, just to get a feel for the kinds of guys who were in those frats. I knew that all the Greeks did stuff as a whole group, so even if I didn’t join these frats I would still be working with them on things throughout the year. That, and I didn’t really want to see Bryce quite this early in the evening.

The Beta Theta Pi house seemed pretty cool. They had a pool table that a few of the guys were using, and it sounded like some video games or loud music going on in the next room. It was pretty early in the evening, so it wasn’t too busy yet, which was nice and gave me a chance to get a little settled before things got crazy. I saw Tanner and walked over to say hello. Tanner was facing away from me and looked like he was just looking out the window at something.

“Hey tanner, how’s it going? Sorry that you didn’t make the cut this year, did Coach say what the problem was?”

When I called his name he turned around, and I saw that he already had a drink in his hand. He looked happier now than he did during class, and he replied to me pretty warmly.

“Oh, hey Devin. Yeah, tough luck for me this year, they just think I need a little longer to develop before I get to varsity level sports. They said they wanted a little more speed for a middle infielder, that’s all. I’ll try again next year, maybe.”

Tanner didn’t sound too convincing when he said that last part, but he rallied quickly and put a new smile on his face.

“Who cares about that right now? We’re at a party! Let me get you a drink and lets go find some ladies to talk to.”

I followed Tanner over to where some very attractive ladies were helping to pour drinks for everyone who was showing up. They both had name tags that said they were from Alpha Phi, and I had to assume that most of the other ladies that were playing hosts at the other frat houses were from one sorority or another on campus. Like I suspected, there was lots of cooperation between the different Greek houses, and it probably didn’t hurt me to get to know everyone. Jill and Megan seemed like pretty typical sorority girls though. Long blonde hair, super long eyelashes and curves in all the right places. Too perky. Way too perky, they couldn’t possibly be that hyper and happy all the time or they’d burst.

Both girls eyed me up and flirted with me the whole time I was there, but I didn’t have much to say to them. Mostly I was just too shy and the girls were high octane, so I blushed a lot and mumbled a few responses that got them giggling away at me. When they finally gave us our drinks they mentioned that they were hoping to see us later on. Tanner looked at me with some new respect, like I was the king of picking up chicks or something, but I wasn’t even interested and didn’t think I did anything other than be a shy nerd.

“That was awesome man! Those girls were all over you, you better remember them for when it’s time to head on home, I’m sure they’re going to be very interested in seeing the freshmen dorms again.” Tanner said with a wink.

I tried to play it off like it wasn’t anything too serious for me to worry about.

“Yeah, definitely. They were pretty hot.”

I walked around the house with Tanner, he seemed to know a few of the guys here and it turned out that he spent most of the first rush party here at this house, so it sounded like he was pretty sure this was the place he was hoping would send him a bid once all the rush parties were over for the year. I hadn’t really thought about where I’d want to go, or even if I did want to join a fraternity. Probably another thing for me to talk about with Bryce when I finally got a chance to talk to him. Putting that off much longer wasn’t going to do any good, especially since it was going to get busy again really soon.

Tanner got involved in a pretty detailed conversation with one of the brothers in the house about their shared major, so I took the opportunity to finish my drink and head over to the Phi Delta Theta house and to find Bryce. Now that I’d had a little bit to drink, I was feeling a little more relaxed. I wasn’t drunk, it took a bit more than one cup of beer to get me drunk, but getting myself a little relaxed was probably the best thing I could do before the talk I wanted to have with Bryce.

Finding Bryce wasn’t that hard tonight. For once, he wasn’t surrounded by a thousand different people who were all interested in talking to him. I actually found him over to the side of the main room, just sipping a drink and looking out the window. I couldn’t imagine that he had been there very long, since otherwise he’d start to be a downer at the party, but it was still weird to see him like this. I gathered up my courage to talk to him, and then walked over to where he was standing after I grabbed myself another drink from a different set of gorgeous women.

“Strange to see you not enjoying yourself. Thinking about something in particular, or is it just time for you to be philosophical?” I meant what I said to come off as lighthearted, but I wasn’t sure he took it that way since he didn’t immediately look at me when I started talking.

“What happened to wanting nothing to do with me Devin? You decide that you overreacted and are here to apologize?” He didn’t quite sneer at me, but I could tell he was bothered by how I reacted this morning and was holding a grudge.

“Yeah, pretty much. Can we go somewhere and talk?”

He walked away and glanced back at me, so I figured he meant for me to follow him wherever he was going. He ended up taking us downstairs to the basement of the house and then out into the underground parking lot all the fraternities shared with each other.

“Alright, so talk.” He was still sounding upset.

“Look, you kissed me without warning, so don’t go acting like you’re the one who has a right to be upset. You didn’t even ask if I wanted that or if I had someone I was with. I do. I haven’t even told them yet because they’re back home and I didn’t want to get into a fight with them.”

Bryce looked at me with a number of different feelings racing across his face, all of which he put aside and shook his head at me before he replied.

“Fine, that wasn’t cool of me. But do you really think it’s going to work with that person? They’re not here, you are. That person doesn’t even see you anymore, so how can you two still be together? Besides, it wasn’t like we did anything else.”

The words stung, it sounded like Bryce didn’t even care that he was putting my relationship with Alex in trouble. But then, he wasn’t wrong with what he was saying either. Alex was in Colfax. He didn’t visit me and I hadn’t visited home, and texting each other wasn’t really the same either.

“But that doesn’t matter. You’ve put me in a hell of a position Bryce. I feel like I’ve cheated on him and broken his trust because of what you did. That makes me look and feel bad, doesn’t that matter?”

“Aha! So it was a guy after all!” Bryce looked triumphant, and I realized that I said exactly the wrong thing. “So I was right, you are into guys, just like I thought when I first met you on the first day of school.”

“Besides Devin,” he continued. “Did you ever think that was maybe my way of showing I was interested? In all your rush to get upset, you didn’t think about why I’d actually kiss you, did you?”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I couldn’t really get that this guy who has everything going for him in the looks department would be interested in something with me, when I’m a skinny teenager still growing into my body and learning to be comfortable with my body.

“Look, that doesn’t matter Bryce. I’m with someone, and yes it’s a guy, and even though he’s not here, I’m still not going to ditch him just because you’re interested in me. How do I know you won’t ditch me too? I have something real with him, and frankly that’s not even what I came here to talk to you about. I might have a potential problem and you’re the only one around here I know who’s interested in dudes.”

Bryce looked concerned, but didn’t say anything, which I took as a signal to explain myself a bit more.

“Well, I think my roommate’s homophobic. He caught me watching a few of the guys shower after a class today, and he got really freaked out about it, started accusing me of being gay and saying that he doesn’t want to be around anyone like that. I denied it, but I’ve got to deal with him every day and I don’t want to be going back to a room with someone who potentially hates me and could hurt me.”

I saw Bryce nodding his head while I talked and thinking about what I was saying, which was nice of him and made me feel better about how the rest of the conversation was going to go. He knew I wasn’t interested, and now he was just trying to be a good friend and potential teammate and frat brother.

“Well, I think that you need to confront him about it, and potentially ask for a transfer if things do go badly. The best outcome is obviously if you are able to work it out and live together, but who knows based on what he’s said and you’ve said. What else is bothering you?”

“It’s related to that problem” I began. “Specifically, how are you able to be so out and open about what you are and who you like without getting a bad reputation for it? I know it’s not like it was during the 20^th century, but there’s still a lot of people who don’t like us gay people that much. Don’t you ever get afraid?”

At this Bryce really did start laughing at me.

“What’s the point of being afraid all the time? Yeah, people are going to talk. So what? They’re people, who cares what they think! If you spend all your life worrying about what other people think about you, then you’re going to live a pretty boring life. I’ve got plans for being something other than boring, so I don’t have time to waste worrying about things and people I can’t control.”

“I’ll be free later on tonight, I know you want to talk to me a bit more, but I’ve gotta go be part of the party. You figure out what you wanna do, and we’ll take it from there, but you do need to figure yourself out Devin.”

Bryce left me behind in the parking lot to go back up to the party, and I decided that I was going to go get some air and take a bit of a walk around the campus to clear my head a bit. That was a lot more food for thought then I thought I would get from Bryce at a frat party, and it made me really consider whether he was right that I was spending too much time thinking about how other people would react to me instead of just living my life. I know that I had a bit of baggage from Sean and Parker last year, but I need to start getting over that if I want to really enjoy myself.

It was after sunset and campus was pretty deserted at this time of day. There were different overhead lights providing their circles of light for people to walk through on their way home to whichever building they were sleeping in for the night, but otherwise there was just me and the sounds of the city, along with the wind.

I ended up walking to the edge of campus, watching the traffic lights and the people drive by on their way to wherever they were going. I didn’t really think about anything, just enjoying the opportunity to have some time for myself. I lost track of time, and by the time I checked my phone to see what time it was, it was after midnight. I should probably get back to the party if I was going to have a serious shot at joining any of the fraternities, and I was curious about why Bryce wanted to see me again. I hadn’t figured out what I wanted yet, and I didn’t think that it was something that could be decided in a few minutes or even a few hours thought, but I did want to keep talking with him.

By the time I got back, it was getting really cold out and I regretted not wearing something a bit warmer. Of course, I figured I’d be home by now instead of rejoining a party at the fraternities. I guess this is what they meant when they said that college changes people. When Bryce saw me, he grabbed me and led me back up to his room and shut the door again once I got myself comfortable.

I froze in place, not daring to breathe. This was exactly how things happened last time.

“You came back. Did you figure out what you want for yourself Devin?” Bryce slurred at me.

This time I could smell the alcohol on his breath, so I know Bryce had been enjoying the party, or at least the alcohol at the party. I didn’t want to push things, but he deserved an answer and I was going to give it to him.

“Not really. Not for everything. What I do know is that I don’t want to keep worrying about things. I want to be happier and live without being afraid of things happening.”

Bryce smiled at me and moved closer to me. He was standing next to me now, close enough that I could definitely smell alcohol.

“Good. Then just relax, you can figure everything else out in the morning okay?”

Bryce took my indecision about what he meant to take the initiative and pushed me up against the wall. I could feel his breath hot on my neck before he bit down and sucked the flesh at the base of my neck, pain and pleasure overloading my senses and shutting down any rational argument I was going to make about this being a bad idea. I groaned and found myself pawing at his crotch and ass as he kissed along my jawline.

Bryce started pulling my jeans and underwear down, not even bothering to loosen my belt or unzip my jeans to make it easier. I hissed at the pain of feeling my clothes scrape against my bare skin, but I moaned when he wrapped his hand around my soft dick and started to slowly jack it and pull it. I guess he didn’t think there was much time, because moments later Bryce got down on his knees and started to lick my cock before easing his mouth around my shaft.

I reached down to grab onto chunks of Bryce’s black hair while be blew me. This was blowing my mind that this super tall, buff jock was sucking me off and giving me an amazing blowjob at that. Bryce clearly had some practice sucking guys off, as I could feel his tongue sliding along the underside of my dick and swirling around my head whenever he pulled back. The feeling was electrifying and it was all I could do to stop myself from moaning and getting everyone’s attention.

Without warning, Bryce shot down the rest of the way down my cock and swallowed the whole shaft into his mouth and throat, while he reached up to pinch both my nipples. I gasped as all these different feelings and sensations hit me at once, and I started to cum hard from the sensory overload. I didn’t have a chance to warn Bryce, and he didn’t seem like he was bothered, he just kept swallowing my load until I was done shooting in his mouth.

Bryce stood back up, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and got himself cleaned up. With that, he opened the door and went back to the party, while I stood there in his bedroom with my pants around my ankles, even more confused and conflicted than I was before the night started.