Extra Innings - 11. Chapter 11

The trip back to Walla Walla was spent in absolute silence, at least for the first part of the trip until we got onto the highway itself. I didn’t say a word to Dad on the way back to school, even though there was lots that he and I could be talking about. I knew that I should probably say something in order to avoid the questions about what was bothering me, but nothing really mattered since I completely screwed things up with Alex. I could accept that he was upset, I’d probably be mad too if things had gone the other way around, but he wasn’t even giving me a chance to explain myself.

This was probably for the best anyways. He’s too young, and he doesn’t get what’s going on in college and that I can’t be texting him all the time. People already wonder why I’m not dating anyone at the school yet, what are they going to say when I tell them that not only do I have a boyfriend, but he’s a 15 year old kid from my hometown that I don’t even get to see except during the semester break and any holidays where I decide to go back home? People wouldn’t understand, and that’s even if they get past the whole part about me being bisexual.

Once we were on the highway, I started to talk more to Dad, letting him know that I was alright, and that he didn’t have to worry about why I was being so quiet. I was glad that everything had been done for school over the early part of the long weekend, I didn’t want to do much when I got back. I might head to the gym to work out or something, but the plan was to relax, get myself ready for school and do what it takes to avoid thinking about Alex and how I managed to screw up our relationship.

Dad seemed to understand that I was tired and didn’t want to talk much, so the silence was filled with the radio playing classic rock into the truck. Every so often I caught myself dozing off, and woke with a start before staring back out the window and getting lost in my thoughts again.

It was getting dark when we arrived back at my dorm. Dad handed over the bags with my laundry and everything else that I’d brought home with me, and waved goodbye as I trudged my way through the main doors of my rez dorm. I wasn’t sure what the situation was going to be with Vincente, since I hadn’t seen or talked to him in a couple of days, and the whole thing about me being bi wasn’t something we totally finished talking about yet. Still, he’d had a few days, so hopefully when I saw him he was willing to be civil with me. I didn’t see Heather here yet either, but she was probably in her room or studying.

When I got to my dorm room door, I put all my stuff on the ground and fiddled with my keys, trying to get into the room. I wasn’t too surprised when I saw that Vincente wasn’t there, he was probably off with the tennis team or studying. It gave me a few minutes of peace and quiet to unpack and put all of my stuff away before I thought about what I was going to do with myself for the rest of the evening.

A rumbling in my stomach told me that my first move should be to go get some dinner, since I hadn’t eaten anything this afternoon before I had been driven home by Dad. I knew the cafeteria was still going to be open, and to be honest I did miss what they were serving up. It didn’t always look the best, but it was usually healthy and my meal plan meant I could eat well. Well enough that Coach didn’t have anything to complain about, that is.

That reminded me; once I got something to eat, I should look at when the next practice was going to be. It wasn’t going to be too far away I’d imagine, since we hadn’t had one before Thanksgiving break.

I locked up behind me and decided to take the stairs down to head to the dining hall. I put on my team jacket, as it was getting cold out and the sun had already set. The short walk gave me a chance to get re-acquainted with campus. The leaves had long since fallen from the trees that dotted campus, but they were still pretty to look at in a sense, and it wasn’t like they’d be barren forever.

When I got to the hall I checked the clock on the wall and saw that it was already after 7, but there was still a long line of people waiting to get served at the cafeteria, and the tables were also mostly full of people. However, when I scanned the tables, I saw that most of them were covered in textbooks, not dinner trays, so it looked like a lot of people were using the dining hall as a convenient place to meet for study sessions.

Today they were serving baked salmon with some roasted vegetables and mashed potatoes. It looked like it would be very filling, and I tried to find a place to sit down while making sure I didn’t spill any of the food or the root beer that I decided to have with it. I finally found a place near the entrance to the hall, which meant it was a bit chillier than the rest of the building because of the door opening and closing all the time. Still, I didn’t plan on being there long. I wanted to eat and then head back to my room and see what was going on with baseball, and maybe hit the gym after that.

There was something different about dinner tonight. Usually I didn’t mind it, but I found that it was very bland. Nothing had much flavour in it. Maybe I was too used to Dad’s cooking again. Dad always liked his spices, and the flavours were a lot stronger than the stuff the school made because they had to cater to everyone’s taste buds and not just my own. Too bad, since the salmon could have used some flavouring other than the fish taste and smell that you always get when cooking lots of fish.

I put my tray away and walked back to my dorm, reminding myself to check my emails and see if I had gotten anything from the team about the next practice date. I was glad that I had thought to bring my jacket, it was getting quite cold, and I shivered as I left the dining hall. I decided to jog back to rez.

I was happy when I stepped back inside that someone turned the heat on in the residence building. It wasn’t cold enough for snow yet, but it was chilly outside and the buildings tended to be a bit on the cooler side as well, at least compared to Colfax.

I shrugged off my jacket when I got back to the dorm and turned on my computer. While it was starting up, I grabbed some warmer clothes and changed out of the shorts I had worn on the drive over and put some sweatpants on. Those would be pretty good to wear if I decided to go to the gym as well.

I logged into my Whitman email address and checked to see if there was anything new. A new email from Coach, exactly like I’d expected. Thankfully, Coach was giving us an extra day to get back to campus and back into our usual routines, so we didn’t have practice scheduled until Tuesday. I could see why he was doing that; we didn’t have any games until the new year, and it gave everyone a chance to at least get closer to being back in game shape.

I decided that the gym was a good idea, and grabbed my duffel bag full of my towels and other stuff that I’d need for the weights. I hadn’t worked out properly since before the Thanksgiving weekend, so I knew I’d be a bit out of shape and needed to work back into the condition I was in before.

I jogged over to the Ferguson Center, figuring that the jog would count for at least part of my cardio, which would mean more time I could spend actually working on my strength training, since the fitness center would close in a couple of hours.

After swiping my student card at the front desk, I dropped my duffel off at the side of the room, I grabbed my water bottle and picked out a treadmill to get some more running in. I didn’t need to run for too long since baseball was an anaerobic sport, but it was always a good idea to stay in shape, and the running itself would help get my heart rate up to do the rest of my exercises done.

As I was running, I scanned the gym to see if any of the team were in. It would be nice to have someone to work out with instead of working alone, but I didn’t see anyone who was from the team here. Some might be coming later or have already gone, but it looked like I would be doing my fitness training alone tonight. That was fine, I had a lot to think about and this gave me a chance to think and lift at the same time.

After ten minutes on the treadmill, I put an end to the program and started cooling off from the run. I walked back to my bag and grabbed a small towel to wipe down the treadmill and took a drink from my water bottle before looking at what I was going to do first. I spied that the rowing machine was free, so I signed up for it and stretched out the muscles in both my legs and my arms. I did cardio in the run, but the rowing machine would give me a chance to work out a lot of the muscles in my body. Right when I moved to sit into the seat of the machine, I heard a voice call my name. I turned my head toward the entrance and saw Bryce there, waving at me.

Oh, it’s Bryce. Not really the guy I wanna be working out with or seeing right now. Maybe he won’t want to do anything or help tonight.

My hopes were dashed when he put his bag down and started walking over to me, smiling the whole time and looking genuinely excited to see me, even though it’d only been a couple of days since we’d talked to each other.

When he reached me, Bryce wrapped his arms around me and gave me a hug in clear view of everyone at the gym. I squirmed and tried to break away, but he wasn’t letting go. I was getting nervous and embarrassed, and I scanned the room to see if anyone was watching and potentially taking notice of us to bash us for it later. Thankfully, most people seemed to be far more interested in doing their own workouts, and the few people who did seem to be looking at us seemed more amused than disgusted.

Bryce finally let me go and looked at me, not even a little bit embarrassed about hugging another guy in the middle of the school fitness center. He shook my hand while I tried to shake myself back into focusing on what was going on, and pointed at the seat I was going to take on the rowing machine.

“Hey Devin! Great to see you again, how was your Thanksgiving? Did you get a lot of time to go work out or anything? Looks like you were just getting started, mind if I join you? I can go for a quick run while you get your rowing in, then we can go lift.” Bryce said in rapid-fire English.

“Oh, ummm, sure. That sounds good. Thanks Bryce. I’ll see you in a few minutes then, I guess?” I said, not at all sure how I should have responded to Bryce being so eager to be around me.

Bryce left to go ride one of the bikes on the other side of the gym, and I rested myself into the seat of the rowing machine and set it for a two kilometer distance. I knew that shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to get all of that done, and then I’d be able to get back to what I was doing for my weights.

Once I started rowing, I lost track of what I was doing until I found myself watching Bryce while he cycled. He was completely lost in thought and was cycling with his eyes closed, so I was able to look at him. He was quite attractive. His legs were thick and muscular, and I could see that he took the time to work out often, giving his muscles a toned look that was out of place on a catcher. I expected him to be stockier, but he looked solidly built instead.

I was surprised. When we were making out or having sex, I didn’t really think about what he looked like, and when we were playing baseball he had all the catcher’s gear on, so it wasn’t that easy to figure out his build under the jersey and pads. I suppose that it made sense, even if he was a catcher, I’d seen him running around on each play during our practices, so it wasn’t like he was an old, stereotypical catcher who was placed in the position because there was nowhere else that he’d fit.

When he finished, Bryce joined me back at the rowing machine. I was just finishing off and wiped down the machine with a paper towel and the disinfecting spray that was placed in different spots in the gym. Bryce pointed me towards the bench and said he’d spot for me.

“Bryce, can you grab the thirty pound weights for the bar? I’ll go get myself set up if you can grab the weights and put them on for me.” I said.

“No problem” he replied. “Give me a minute, gotta go find them.”

I laid myself down on the bench and waited for Bryce to return. I heard the sound of metal clanging together, and realized that Bryce was adding the weights I asked for to the bench. He stood over me, ready to help catch the bar if I wasn’t able to keep lifting properly.

I looked up to grab onto the bar, and I ended up looking right up Bryce’s shorts. I jerked my head forward so I was looking slightly ahead of me, so that I wouldn’t be looking at Bryce’s underwear through the legs of his shorts. When I was ready, I grasped the bar in my hands and lifted it off the rack, slowly lowering it to my chest, before raising it and extending my arms fully.

After a set of ten repetitions, I placed the bar back on the rack and sat up on the bench, ready to switch off with Bryce and let him have his set while I recovered. Bryce added an additional twenty pounds on each side of the bar for himself, and motioned for me to take my place standing above him to catch the bar if needed.

Bryce put his hands around the bar and I let my hands lightly rest underneath the bar, that way I was already in position to catch the bar if Bryce slipped with all that extra weight on the bar.

Looking down, Bryce was just as muscled as I would expect, his biceps bulging and straining against the increased weight. I tried to make sure I wasn’t actively lifting with him, but only making sure that I was still in contact with the bar as it went up and down with Bryce’s repetitions. When he was finished, Bryce took the extra weights off the bar and got off the bench.

We did a couple more sets before moving to a few of the other machines. It was over an hour later when we realized we were too sore and tired to go on. Once we were finished, we walked back to our bags, grabbed them and walked back to the gym locker rooms.

“I’m gonna go have a shower, you should have one too Devin, you gotta be a sweaty mess after a workout like that. Don’t tell me you’re going to wait until you get back to the residence, you know they alway shave crappy water at this time of night, and you’ll just piss off some of the other people on your floor. I promise I’ll behave this time.” he said with a wink.

Bryce did have a point, I stunk and the water was going to be ice cold by this time of night. Even if it wasn’t, everyone would be getting ready for bed, so I’d either have everyone complaining about keeping them up, or everyone walking in and out of the washrooms, and I didn’t want to shower in front of that many people.

I stripped out of my clothes and wrapped a towel around myself, then grabbed some shampoo and followed Bryce into the open shower area. When I got there I dropped my towel on a rack at the entrance to the shower pit and walked over to an open shower head.

As I turned the temperature knobs and tried to find a water temperature I was comfortable with, I looked over and saw Bryce looking me over intently. He said he was going to behave, but he definitely had something on his mind for what he wanted to do after our respective showers. It was fun, but I wanted something more than just a guy to have sex with. It made things feel like I was just being used for sex by Bryce, and that reminded me too much of Sean…

I think that’s what I liked about Alex. It wasn’t about the sex with him, he actually did enjoy being around me. But he’s not coming back and doesn’t want to talk to me. He made that clear over the weekend that he was through with me. I wish he’d let me apologize and explain what happened, but he didn’t even let me do that. Maybe one day, when he’s had time to get past his anger, then I could try to talk to him.

I lathered up using the soap dispensers around the shower area and rinsed myself under the shower head before applying some shampoo. I wanted to let the hot water drain down my back and across my muscles, which I knew were going to be sore tomorrow. I hoped having the hot water running now would make my muscles hurt less tomorrow, but that probably was wishful thinking on my part.

As I lathered up my hair and let the shampoo soak into my hair, I got to thinking more about Bryce. I didn’t know what he wanted from me. Right now it seemed like he was looking for something more than a teammate, but he didn’t hint to me that he wanted a relationship or anything serious. I wish he’d tell me or give me a better hint, so I could figure out what I was supposed to do. Maybe I shouldn’t see as much of him, let him know that I didn’t just want to be an easy lay for him.

I knew I’d have to talk to him eventually, but tonight was the first night back and I was too stuck on what happened with Alex to consider having that kind of draining conversation with Bryce. I wanted to go back to my room and get ready for bed.

Once I finished my shower, I grabbed my towel and dried off in the locker room. There weren’t many people left in the gym, and it wasn’t like anyone in the locker room didn’t have a dick as well. Bryce and I faced away from each other while we were getting changed, and when we were both ready we left the gym together.

“Hey Devin, how bout you come by the frat for a bit? Wanna catch up with you, didn’t talk to you much over the weekend.”

I wasn’t surprised by the offer, but I wasn’t sure it was something I wanted to deal with right now. On the other hand, it’d be a way to get things dealt with and see what Bryce was actually after.

“Sure, sounds good. Don’t wanna stay too long though, you know we’ve got class in the morning, and I still gotta see what’s going on with Vincente.” I replied.

We headed back towards the frats, both of us carrying our bags full of wet towels and workout gear. When we got to the house we immediately went upstairs to Bryce’s room. Bryce took a seat on his bed and I sat backwards in his desk chair, both of us facing each other.

“What was the weekend like back at home dude? You didn’t say too much, but it sounded like you weren’t thrilled to be going back. I guess if I was going from a bigger city to a really tiny town I’d be a bit frustrated too.” Bryce said, not aware of how his thoughts were impacting me.

“Yeah, things were a bit strange” I replied carefully. “What did you do with the weekend? Did you stay here on campus?”

“Pretty much dude. Home’s back in Seattle. Bit too far to be hopping back and forth for a weekend. I’ll go back during Christmas instead, got a lot more time to relax then.”

I nodded, understanding how hard it must be to not see your family for months at a time. I didn’t realize until I got home how much I missed being around Dad, and how much easier things were when he was taking care of my day to day life. I wondered when I would start feeling like I didn’t need or want to head back to visit, maybe I would always want to be going back to see Dad and home.

Bryce looked at me, he seemed to be thinking about what he was going to say.

“Dude, what’s up with you anyways? You’ve been quiet, even for you this is pretty non-talkative. Have I done something wrong?” He asked.

“Yes. I mean no. I guess. What are we doing here Bryce?” I replied.

“What on earth do you mean? We’re talking, we’re teammates, remember? Did something happen this weekend?”

I debated telling him, and decided that if he wanted to keep up this whole being more than friends thing, he could try to talk things out with me. Besides, he was one of the only people who knew I was bi, so I didn’t have a lot of options for who I could tell about this weekend.

“Alex dumped me, because of what we have been doing. I told him that you and I hooked up and he didn’t even give me a chance to explain things, he told me to stop bothering him and to leave.”

Bryce moved to comfort me, but I pushed him away. I didn’t want his comfort, I wanted this to be fixed so I could call Alex up and say everything was going back to the way things were before I left.

“I don’t want you comforting me Bryce. I cared about Alex. We were dating, I should have tried harder to make things work.”

Bryce stood up and paced around his room for a few moments before sitting back down. Sighing heavily, he looked back at me.

“When’s the last time you talked about him Devin? Or better yet, when’s the last time you had a long conversation with this guy, prior to going back this weekend?”

He stood back up, this time reaching his hand out towards me.

“Seriously. When did you last treat him like your boyfriend, instead of like some obligation that you had to keep up appearances with? You haven’t even told me anything about him, except that he exists and is from back home. How important was he if you kept him hidden and didn’t do anything to keep things going from a distance?”

By the time he finished, he was nearly yelling and I was glad that everyone seemed busy downstairs. I stood up to close the door and ensure a bit more privacy for our conversation.

Bryce had a point. I hadn’t done much to try and keep my relationship with Alex alive. I guess now that I was in college, I saw we didn’t have all that much in common. I should have broken it off, but how do you tell someone that you’re not into them anymore, when you were perfectly into them before you literally abandoned them for another part of the state?

“What’s your point, Bryce?”

“My point is this relationship has been over for a long time. You wouldn’t have done anything with me if you thought there was anything to save with this guy. You don’t strike me as the kind of person that’s easy or sleeps around like that, so on some level you must have already decided it was over. Why agonize over it?”

I hated how he was trying to rationalize my bad decisions and how it had ruined things with Alex. I’d never seen Alex so upset over the weekend, and the fact that he didn’t even try to let me talk and explain was the worst part. It told me he didn’t want to get past this and try to fix what I’d done.

“So what then? Are you just looking for sex Bryce? I hope that I didn’t lose a relationship because you wanted an easy lay. I deserve better than that.”

Bryce crossed the distance and pulled me in. The stubble of his beard tickled me as he parted my lips and gently pushed his tongue past, sliding it along my teeth and across my lips. I pushed him away.

“That’s not an answer, that’s you being in a mood and taking what you want.”

He smiled back at me. “It’s sort of an answer. We’ll talk later. After things settle down. You need this too.” Bryce grasped the growing length in my pants, accentuating his point.

I suspected he wasn’t going to talk to me until at least after we finished doing whatever he had in mind. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, but I did want to know if this was some sexual fling for Bryce, or if there were other intentions behind it. It bothered me that this might be something that meant nothing for Bryce, because it already meant a lot to me and did a lot to me.

Bryce pulled me in again, and this time I relented, opening my mouth and welcoming him inside me. His tongue pushed against my own and danced within my mouth. Bryce’s hands flashed across my body, pulling at my clothes and trying to free me from my denim restraints.

I stepped back, but only so long as it took me to pull my shirt and pants off, and to trace outlines along the front of Bryce’s shirt. Bryce ripped his own clothes off in a frenzy and pushed me onto his bed.

The bed creaked and a flash of pain arced from my butt. The bed creaked as I landed hard on it, and I winced at the rough landing. A moment later the bed creaked again as Bryce leaned over me, pressing kisses against my cheeks and nipping gently at my neck. I moaned and twisted my head to try and block his advances.

“You’re worrying too much. Relax, you know that this will be okay. I promise we’ll talk, but not right now.” Bryce said, before going back to planting more kisses along my shoulders.

Part of me wanted to resist more, but another part decided that this wasn’t so bad a way to get my mind off of the stress of my dead relationship with Alex. Maybe Bryce did want something more, but I wasn’t going to find out right now, and I had a growing problem to deal with.

I reached up and grazed his nipples with my hand, eliciting a moan from Bryce and a renewed frenzy of touching from him. Looking down the length of our bodies, Bryce was hard, his uncut cock leaking precum and smearing it onto my boxers. Bryce crawled down my body and tugged at my boxers, trying to pull them off of me. I lifted myself off the bed and with a growl, Bryce finished pulling my boxers off, exposing my hard cock.

Bryce pushed my legs up with one hand, exposing my ass, while he grabbed onto my cock and started slowly jerking me off with the other. My mind flashed back to the last time I’d been fucked by a guy this in control, and I was not okay. I wriggled away and slammed my legs down, pinching myself and having both of us cry out in pain.

Both of us were hurting, and Bryce had a questioning look on his face. I cut him off before he could ask.

“Don’t ask, I don’t want to deal with it right now.”

Bryce nodded. “I’ll be gentle, you’ll see.”

Bryce wasn’t Sean, I had to keep reminding myself of this. Bryce lifted my legs up again, much more gently this time, and he paid more attention to looking back at me to make sure I was okay.

I focused on trying to keep my breathing steady and focused my mind on what was happening right now, not on what happened last April. As Bryce pushed my legs back further, I clenched my teeth and strained to relax myself.

I gasped when I felt a new sensation on my ass, something I’d never experienced with Sean or Alex. It was a wet feeling, but not like lube being poured on me. I looked down and Bryce was between my legs. He was licking in and around my ass with care, and it looked like he was enjoying himself. I closed my eyes and lost myself to these new sensations, and I slowly started relaxing my muscles.

Bryce climbed off the bed and went to get something from his drawer. I knew what would happen next and tried to prepare myself. When Bryce got back on the bed and leaned on top of me, I knew he was planning on fucking me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I already fucked him so he should probably get the chance to fuck me. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as when Sean did it.

I reached up to pull Bryce down to me and kissed him back. I felt something penetrate my hole and I squeezed his shoulders, making sure I didn’t bite down on his lips in my mouth. I felt him pull away from my hole. More lube being applied, it was cold and ran down the crack of my ass. This time something bigger was rubbing, pressing against me.

Bryce pushed again, and the larger intrusion slid into me. I could feel whatever it was sliding through my insides. Bryce started scissoring, and I realized he was still fingering me, trying to loosen me up to get ready for being fucked. That was kind of him, and I relaxed more knowing this wouldn’t be like Sean fucking me without stretching me first.

Bryce pulled out again, and this time I heard the sounds of a condom wrapper being broken. I knew the next thing to enter me would be his cock, and I wasn’t sure I was ready. I could feel myself tensing up. Bryce must have sensed this because he stopped lubing his cock and kissed along my ribs and on the inside of my thighs. He looked up at me and smiled, then gently squeezed my shoulder with his sticky right hand.

I scrunched up my eyes at him and he winked back at me.

Jerk, he covered me in lube on purpose!

I felt him at my entrance, sliding and trying to find the right place to push. As he entered me, he bit down hard on my shoulder, right on the bundle of nerves at the top of my shoulder. The pain in my shoulder completely overwhelmed anything I was feeling about being fucked, and a few moments later he released me, only so I could realize he was fully ensconced within me.

I couldn’t help but be impressed. It didn’t hurt this time, and that was a big worry for me.

“Nice trick. Got any more surprises?”

Bryce smiled and leaned over me, rolling my ass upwards and changing the angle he was entering me with. When he pushed in, an electrical sensation hit me and I grunted with surprise. His smile turned wicked as he kept sliding his cock up and down the same point inside me, each movement staggering me and causing another jolt of sensation to crash through my body.

I was writhing around on the bed, thrashing, panting and generally being fucked and loving it. This was incomparable to what Sean put me through; I was surprised at how good it could feel to get fucked, and Bryce was sawing into me at a relaxed pace. Both of us were groaning from the physical contact, and I could feel the sweat coming off of us both.

Too soon, I could feel my orgasm building. I was hard and hadn’t been touching myself, I had grabbed onto the mattress to try and pin myself down. Bryce pushed in hard and I lost control. Come spurted out of my cock, spraying onto both our chests as my body rocked through my orgasm. Bryce didn’t stop, he fucked me through my movements and seemed to pick up the pace of his thrusts.

His speed increased and I groaned at the increased pummeling my insides were taking. Bryce pulled out, ripped off the condom and jerked himself roughly over my chest. Bryce maneuvered himself so that his cock was pointed towards my chest and face. He threw his head back and started to come, the fluids shooting out of his dick and all over my chest.

I felt a wetness on my face as a spurt shot far and hard enough to hit my left cheek. I quickly closed my eyes before any more could hit my face, and was shocked when Bryce grabbed my head and propped it up, shooting the last couple shots of his load on my face, and then smearing his come-covered cock onto my cheeks and forehead.

My eyes were still closed, so I couldn’t immediately identify what the new wet feeling was on my face. I opened my eyes and found Bryce licking his come off my face. When he saw my eyes were open he kissed me and pushed some of the fluid into my mouth.

I didn’t know what he was doing so I swallowed and choked a bit on Bryce’s tongue in my mouth. He pulled off of me entirely and went to grab a towel. He passed me the towel and I gratefully wiped myself down, knowing I was going to reek of sex until I could have a shower tomorrow morning.

Once we were both cleaned up, we dressed ourselves and stood awkwardly. I wanted to talk, but I sensed he wasn’t going to say anything serious tonight, and it was getting late. Bryce escorted me out of the house and waved goodbye without any displays of affection.

“I know you wanted to talk, Devin. We will, soon. But not tonight.”

I nodded, disappointed, and turned my back to him so I could start my walk back to the dorm.