Extra Innings - 14. Chapter 14

When I woke up the next morning, I was exceptionally sore. My ribs hurt from having Bryce’s arm wrapped around me all night, and my back hurt from having him curled up against me. Bryce’s alarm went off at seven, and I was still tired as I didn’t have to get up for another hour normally. Bryce attempted to disentangle himself from me by pulling his arm out from under me and trying to pry my legs apart so he could squeeze his own legs out from between them. Considering the positions we both woke up in, it’s amazing to me that we fell asleep at all.

As Bryce shuffled around his dorm, grabbing clothes from his dresser and picking up a towel off the ground to go get himself ready for his classes, I considered going back to sleep before I remembered this wasn’t my dorm, or even my frat. I probably should not have even been there. Once Bryce left the room, I quietly put my clothes back on, straightened them out as best I could and grabbed my baseball bag. I crept out of his room and closed the door behind me, before doing my best to try and get out of the fraternity house without being seen by any of the other brothers.

Thankfully, most of the other boys were either still asleep or were trying to get themselves ready for classes as well, so I didn’t have to worry too much about getting seen. Still, it was cold outside when I got out of the building, so I picked up the pace and walked a bit faster towards my dorm, eager to get changed out of my baseball stuff and into something more appropriate for my classes.

I fumbled for my keys in my pocket to get myself into the dorms, and was shocked to see that Heather was at the front desk today.

“Oh, hello Heather! I thought you were only the RA for our floor!”

Heather looked up and smiled at me, but also tilted her head and looked concerned.

“Devin! How come you’re just coming in, I thought you were asleep in your room with Vincente all night. You know you’re supposed to let the dorm know when you’re sleeping elsewhere, right? Wanna tell me where you were, since I don’t see on the list that you were supposed to be elsewhere?”

I felt the heat rising in my face again. Everything seems to be able to embarrass me lately. Maybe I was too shy about things after all, and Bryce was right that I’d be better with someone who could guide me through things, especially coming out in a bigger place like Walla Walla. Of course, that’d probably have to force me to figure out what exactly it was that I was. Was I straight? I hadn’t found any girls attractive since I got to Whitman, but I used to date girls. So I should probably figure that out first before I start coming out to people.

“Oh, ummm, last night? I was at the fraternities. Some of the baseball guys were there, and I guess it was easier for me to spend the night there than to come home when it was cold out. I was only going to shower and get my school stuff for today anyways, before I left again.”

She nodded at me, a knowing look on her face, like she knew there was something more that had happened than just a baseball party gone too long.

“Okay Devin. But don’t make a habit of it. You’re lucky it was me on the desk today, otherwise you’d have been grilled for it. Go get yourself ready for class.”

I nodded and waved back to her, then trudged over and up the stairs to get to my room. I put my bag down in order to grab my keys again, and was surprised when the door opened before I could put my hand to the knob. Right. Vincente. He must not have gone to class. I was hoping that I’d have gotten to the room after he’d left, but no such luck for me.

“Well look at that! I do still have a roommate! What on earth happened to you, you didn’t show up last night at all. I was gonna start getting worried soon. Where were you man?” He asked, all while looking like he was going to start laughing at me for being up before him.

It seemed like everyone was going to be asking me questions about last night. This could be pretty annoying actually, I’d have to come up with a good answer I could use for everyone instead of having to keep getting embarrassed about why I was out last night and didn’t show up at the dorm I’m supposed to sleep at.

“I stayed out with the baseball team, a couple of us ended up at the frats and it didn’t make sense for me to come home that late. Is everyone going to be asking me about what happened? I haven’t even gotten dressed yet and you’re the second person to ask me what happened.”

At this, he really did start laughing.

“Dude! Who asked you already? It’s almost like people wanna get involved in your personal business or something like that.”

“Heather, our RA. She’s working the front desk this morning. Or she was when I got there a few minutes ago. Said we’re not supposed to sleep elsewhere unless we let someone know, did you know that?”

“Nah man,” he said. “But it doesn’t surprise me too much, it’s a good way to figure out who’s sleeping with who and try to put a stop to it. Can’t believe you got busted for being out all night though, that’s not like you!”

“Vincente, don’t you have a class to get to? At the very least, can you get out of the way so I can grab my stuff and take a shower? I haven’t been home since yesterday morning and I was playing ball.”

“Ohhh, I get it. You were with your squeeze. No wonder you’re all sweaty and smelly. Yeah, you should get cleaned up before you got even more comments coming your way.”

Vincente grabbed his shower stuff and walked out into the hallway, leaving the door open so I could drag my stuff back in. Leaving my baseball bag in the corner, I threw all of the clothes that were in the bag into a laundry hamper and picked out some clothes to wear for the day. I grabbed them and my shower stuff and walked over to the bathroom to go shower up. Because it was earlier in the day, I wasn’t too surprised to see there was a lineup. What was surprising was how open everyone was in the bathroom. Most of the guys were already naked and waiting in line for a shower head to open up. I thought that, considering most of them were going to be straight, they’d be more modest. I guess they all thought that because they all had the same parts, they could get away with putting things on display.

I considered going out and laying in my room while waiting for the showers to free up, but I figured that the wait wouldn’t be that long, and if I left then other people would show up and I’d be even further behind anyways. I needed to shower really badly anyways, I must have smelled and sweated a lot at practice, so I wanted to get my shower over with.

After a few minutes, the crowd started to clear and there was finally a stall that I could go take my shower in. I put my clothes on the ground by the shower area and lathered up with soap and shampoo. I was so used to having the shower area to myself, it was a bit weird to have all these guys coming and going in various states of undress. I could get used to that, but I thought it might make me a bit obvious if I changed my showering habits just to look at some mostly naked guys. Besides, Bryce probably wouldn’t approve. I wasn’t even sure if I approved.

Once I finished my shower, I headed on my way to class. I sat with Bryce and the baseball crew during English this morning, but no one was speaking. We were all trying to get ready for the end of term exams that were coming up. It was hard to believe that finals were just two weeks away, and then we’d be off on Christmas break. That meant that papers were becoming due for my classes and I had to start reviewing notes for everything that might be on the final. I felt prepared, but I had no idea what a college exam would be like, and Coach had made it clear that both he and the school had academic requirements for its student-athletes. I didn’t want to risk losing my spot on the team because I didn’t do enough to prepare for my courses.

My teammates seemed to feel the same way; when I got to class all of them had their heads in their notebooks and were highlighting different notes before the class began. More interesting than that was the fact that they were all in class early. Everyone had to be worried about classes coming to an end, and even Coach had been stressing that we focus on class and get to work. With everything else going on in my life, it was creating a lot of stress and I was glad we were going to have a few weeks to get away from everything.

When class was over Bryce motioned me over to talk with Miles.

“Devin, don’t forget there’s a frat event tonight. You gotta be there, all the pledges do. You’ll be there, right?”

Miles added “Yeah man, you gotta be there, Bryce and I had to last year and it’s definitely something you have to be part of, we can’t let you stay in the fraternity otherwise. Six-thirty man, don’t be late.”

Both of them left before I could say a word, so I packed up my stuff and headed to my dorm to pick up my stuff for my next class. Since I had a bit of time, I grabbed a quick lunch before I headed to the athletic building. Our class was still in the building, but we weren’t going to be any of the facilities today.

For once, the sports coaching class I was taking wasn’t doing any athletics work today. Everyone was focusing on reading up on all of the different things we had learned for the sports we learned about in the course. It was hard to remember different techniques for serves in tennis, and how they differed from golf swings and baseball swings in their overall mechanics to ensure athletes weren’t hurting themselves. That didn’t even take into consideration the other sports we got involved in. I wanted to be a baseball coach, I wasn’t going to teach or coach any of these other sports.

Another quiet class with our instructor providing us with some review and overview notes on each of the different sports we practiced coaching techniques with, and then some review of the fitness programs we had created and why they were created. Once the material of the day had been dealt with, we were given time to work on our own or with others to try and put that information into practice, since a lot of our classwork had been practical in nature.

It scared me to think that this was one of the easiest courses in the program, and that a lot of the other courses would focus on things like the ethics behind coaching and a lot of the stuff that goes on that the players don’t know about. That was going to be interesting, but a lot more reading and lecture stuff than this course was. I was going to miss courses like this where we got to actually do something athletic. I’m sure there were other courses like that in the program, but I hadn’t checked to see when they would be available yet. Even Vincente looked like he was struggling to get through the theory parts of the class. Maybe we could study in our room later.

When classes were over for the day, I trudged back to the room and waited for Vincente to get back. I thought about having a nap before the fraternity event, but I didn’t want to oversleep and I figured that when Vincente got back in, he’d wake me up with his crashing around the room, so there wasn’t much reason to sleep for what could be only a few minutes. Instead, I got to work on some of the revision I had to do for my classes, saving the coaching stuff for when Vincente was there and hoping he’d want to do some studying with me.

Working through Amelia’s notes on my composition took a long time to deal with. There were a lot of things that didn’t seem fair, like they were more style and less about the substance and mechanics of what I wrote. That made it hard to get through everything and figure out what actually needed to change, and what was just her going through things trying to make me write like her. I really wish that I had gotten one of the baseball guys to look at it instead. Tanner or Enrique probably would have made more sense than this pile of red ink I had to stare at. With everything being on my laptop, the changes weren’t too hard to make, it was the number of them that made everything difficult with this paper.

I checked the time on my computer and realized that it was nearly six and Vincente hadn’t shown up at all. He must have been studying somewhere else or something, but I had to get myself ready to go. I slipped into my shoes and walked over to the frats, wanting to get there a few minutes early to see what was going on and why it was so necessary for me to be there today.

When I got there, Robert answered the door, dressed in full formal wear. I hadn’t been told that there was a dress code to the evening, and Robert looked at me in mild disapproval.

“Nothing ever changes.” He said. “Well, come on in then, obviously no one told you that today had a dress code.”

I didn’t really understand. Bryce and Miles hadn’t said anything to me about having to wear a certain style of clothing, even though it was pretty obvious that Robert did.

“Go into the back room with the other pledges, someone there will figure out what to do with you.” He said.

I walked past Robert and into the back room. As I peered around the house, the brothers all seemed to be wearing tuxedos or other formal wear. I caught Bryce’s eye and he just shrugged at me, like he wasn’t sure why I’d be upset about not being told to dress up. Not that I could have, I didn’t have anything like a tux or suit; we never had the money for things like that, but for grad I rented one.

When I got there, I saw the rest of the pledges that I had seen a month ago. Everyone seemed to be equally confused, though I noticed most of them were down to their underwear.

Miles stopped me once I got into the back room. He seemed torn between smirking at me and looking apologetic for not warning me about whatever was about to happen.

“No formal wear? Too bad, everyone goes formal today or they’re not wearing clothes. Take em off dude. Same as all the other pledges who didn’t think to ask what the dress code is.”

He pointed at a pile of clothes that was left in the middle of the floor, indicating I should drop everything there. Once I stripped out of everything but my boxers, I walked over to Thomas and Grady, who were even more identical than I thought once you got past their clothing.

“Any idea what’s going on? This is embarrassing man!” Grady said, with Thomas and a few of the other guys echoing their agreement with the new state of affairs. I couldn’t blame them, this was embarrassing, but it wasn’t hard on the eyes for me at least.

“Next time, ask for details instead of trusting a brother to tell you everything.” Miles replied. “Stay here until you’re called, it shouldn’t be too much longer, if you’re lucky.”

Miles exited, and the rest of us were left to figure out what was going on. Every couple of minutes, another pledge would be called and the door would open. Miles would claim the person and they would both leave, with the door being closed again until the next name was called. Eventually, all the names were called except mine, and there was a long pause. I started to wonder if they would ever call me, or if I was going to be abandoned here while everyone else did whatever was going on. I paced in circles around the pile of clothes, reminding myself that eventually someone was going to come in here, if only to pick up the clothes. That didn’t help much, my pulse was quickening in my neck and I could feel wetness down my back and shoulders.

This wasn’t Sean. But it felt like it. It wasn’t being forced into anything, but I felt helpless and like someone else was totally in control. My breath caught in my throat and I collapsed to the floor. I heard a voice calling out to me, and a door opening before I faded to black.

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I woke up to the sight of Bryce standing over me, along with half a dozen guys from the frat and a paramedic. When I tried to sit up, the paramedic pushed me back down and ordered me to stay still.

“You’ve had a bit of a fall, when you’re ready, we’re going to take you down for an examination to make sure you don’t have a concussion. Does this happen often?”

“No,” I replied. “Never before, and I hope never again. Gimme a few minutes?”

Bryce spoke up next. “Come on guys, everybody out. Give us some air here, he’s trying to breathe something other than frat sweat.”

Once everyone cleared out, Bryce started in on me.

“You sure know how to make an entrance Devin. Guys are going to be talking about this at the frat for years. What the hell happened to you anyways? We went to bring you up and you were out cold. Couldn’t have been that long, everyone said you were alright when there were people in there. You trip on something?”

I wanted to tell him, but right now I didn’t know how much to share. I didn’t know Bryce that well, and I didn’t want to get into Sean right now. Not when there were other things to get figured out first.

“No idea what happened, must have zoned out for a second and lost my balance. How long have I been out? And what exactly was going on anyways?”

Bryce smiled and squeezed my arm sympathetically.

“You’ve been out for about half an hour. Moved you here because it made the most sense. More sense than leaving you out there in the back room anyways.”

I slowly sat myself up to look at Bryce properly.

“But what were we all doing?”

“Today was initiation day. The idea was to pair each of the pledges with an older brother who would teach you what you needed to know about the fraternity, and sort of mentor you. You took awhile because there were a few different people that wanted to work with you over the next year. Reason you’re here is because I’m going to be your boyfriend and your new older brother.”

I nodded, not knowing what else I was supposed to do in response to that new information.

“Okay. Let’s go. The paramedic is going to drag you down if you dawdle anymore. I’ll go with you, I can catch you up and make sure you get back without getting even more messed up.”

Bryce walked me down and out to the ambulance, with the rest of the fraternity watching with interest. We were all sure that there wasn’t anything wrong, but it was better to be sure. At least the ride wouldn’t be long, and hopefully we’d have all the answers soon. Well… all the answers doctors could tell, anyways.

The trip to the hospital, and the subsequent tests to make sure I wasn’t seriously hurt, didn’t take too long. Thankfully it was just a bump on the head and there wasn’t anything to worry about. Bryce and I were told that I should lie down and try not to exert myself for the next couple of days, so Bryce offered to let me stay with him so that he could watch over me as his new little brother and boyfriend. I didn’t see anything wrong with that, so after stopping off at my dorm to pick up my school stuff and a few things I might need at the house, we walked back to the fraternity.

The first thing I heard when I got back in was a loud round of applause as all of the different members of the fraternity and the new pledges celebrated my return to the house. The main living area of the house was filled with everyone from the fraternity. Some clothed, some still in their undies. Everyone stood up and was happy to see us, and I could see that Miles, Thomas and Grady in particular looked happy to see me back and healthy.

Robert strode to the forefront of the gathering and shook me by the hand.

“The award for most theatrical entrance to the fraternity goes to… Devin Williams, for his passing out while waiting for the older brothers to stop fighting over who would be his mentor! Congratulations, you certainly have made a mark on this year’s event.”

Robert raised my arm up like I was a boxing champion, but then sobered.

“What did the doctors say anyways? People don’t just fall down and collapse. Especially when they were fine minutes earlier.”

“The doctors don’t think anything serious is going on.” I replied. “No concussion anyways. They said to take it easy for a few days, so I’m invading Bryce’s bed for a few days while I try to cram for exams. What’d I miss? Or I suppose, what was supposed to happen before I took my tumble.”

Bryce put his hand on my back and pushed me forward gently, towards the crowd. I didn’t know what was going on but he also started to push down on my shoulders once I was in front of him. This was getting to be a lot like some of the other times with Sean, and I resisted a bit, especially with the audience. I knew we weren’t going to have sex right here, but it was still awkward.

I knelt down and turned to face Bryce, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Relax Devin, everyone had to do it, calm down, it’s all good.” I heard Robert and Miles say.

Robert stood next to Bryce and put a solemn expression on his face.

“Devin, do you swear to be loyal to Phi Delta Theta, to your brothers and to yourself?”

Bryce nodded down at me, and I replied. “I do.”

“Devin, do you swear to learn and support what your Big Brother does, and to listen to him unquestioningly?”

“I do.”

“Then rise up, as a pledged member of the Washington Beta branch of Phi Delta Theta and greet your fellow brothers. Brother Bryce will teach you and train you in what it means to be a Phi Delt.”

I stood up amid cheering from the rest of the brothers. It was different than being part of the baseball teams, but it felt good to be part of something bigger than myself again, and this time there weren’t as many barriers to me fully integrating myself. It’s not like anyone was ever going to mistake Bryce for heterosexual, so we could even be open about being together… if I could ever get that idea through my head. The idea of being openly bisexual was both appealing to me and scared me to death. I didn’t want to think about what could happen, if the wrong people were to find out.

The rest of the night was a party to celebrate all of the pledges being chosen to have a older mentor brother. Bryce made sure to bring me up to sleep early, and the next few days were a blur of studying and exam preparation.