Wolf Like Me v5 - 2. Bearbait on the Dancefloor

Part One--Bareback SteersNQueers

So, here’s the thing: I was bored out of my fucking mind. I had come up here early to practice, but not early enough to start classes. I had nothing to do but go to preseason conditioning, binge watch Netflix, and crash from a combination of fatigue and ennui.

I’d gotten so bored, I had to find newer and more pretentious words for expressing this boredom.

I’d gotten so bored, I was too bored to beat off. And that’s like the answer to fucking everything.

Since the summer term was divided into two six-week sessions, Romero and the others in the dorm were already swamped with midterms when I arrived and were now wading into the morass of mini-mester finals. I’d already signed up for a class for the second half so I would have something to occupy my extra time.

Preseason would be a welcome respite, but I didn’t get to practice with the rest of the team. Instead, they had me and the incoming players in Freshmen Camp memorizing a massive ass playbook because the coaches didn’t trust us to not fuck up regular practices. I was used to having to only know nine or so plays, nine being all that high school football coaches could remember themselves (or be creative enough to come up with in the first place). I compared notes with the other guys; no one else had to learn this many at once, and the ones we did learn were so simple we could still draw them out more than seven months after our senior season had ended.

Luckily, I could participate in conditioning with the rest of the team. I fucking hated double burpees, but I hated them a lot less than memorizing playbooks. Like the coaches, the trainers counted on the freshmen to suck balls since most guys don’t keep active between their high school football seasons. But I always kept busy with varsity soccer in my off seasons, and did a lot of running and weight training besides. I had maintained my muscle mass and my forty-yard dash stayed somewhere around 4.7 seconds. Not perfect, and the words “small for a linebacker” kept getting added to sentences in which I was mentioned, but they decided I was fit enough to run with the big guys after a couple weeks of breaking me of every bad habit I had learned playing high school ball.

Because of this, I got to know a few of my new teammates, but since I was the lone pseudo-freshman training with them, and they didn’t see me at practice, I still wasn’t part of any of the social cliques yet. I had been chatting with the guys assigned to the lockers on either side of mine, this white guy from the Midwest named JJ Teague, and a massive black redshirt sophomore from Atlanta named Mitch Lithgow. They seemed friendly enough, but I hadn’t seen them socially outside of football.

So, with no classes to attend, no parties to get invited to, and nothing else to occupy my time, I had been going slightly insane. The one bright spot happened to be Monday evenings, when I would go to GSA meetings and hang out with Preston. We decided our drunken roll in the sheets was a one-time thing and kept it at that, but we’d met for coffee or food a couple of times since then.

Today, the GSA was meeting up for dinner. I was so thirsty for this that I enthusiastically offered to drive to the restaurant where Kiley had called in the reservation. Ironically enough, my gas-guzzling truck was more fuel efficient than their small, but much older, two-door coupes. When I offered, Preston called shotgun and two other members--called bi-Delia and lez-Delia in order to eliminate the need for the question, “Which Delia?”--hitched a ride with us.

“So, SteersNQueers, explain the truck,” Preston teased. “SteersNQueers” was his current nickname for me and was only slightly better than last week’s “Brokeback”, especially since it most often came out as “Bareback”. Sadly, everyone in the group had picked it up. Then he got ahold of my Stetson and pranced around my dorm room quoting Brokeback Mountain, so my roomies had to start calling me that, too.

Admittedly, it was still better than Romero calling me “Tex”.

“Not much to say about it, Virgin.” Ya know, ’cause he’s from Virginia. And a manslut. “My parents bought Caiden and Connor cars when they turned sixteen. But when Cameron turned sixteen, Mom bought a new car and handed her old Chevy Suburban down to him. So, Dad used my turning sixteen as an excuse to buy a new F250.” I was ambivalent about trucks, but it pissed Cam off to no end because he fucking loved Dad’s Tacoma.

“God, your parents’ naming conventions are pretty fucked up,” lez-Delia said.

“We all have the same middle name. Of course, it’s Momma’s maiden name, so it’s not that weird.”

“No, the weird part is that you all look alike,” Preston said. He turned and addressed the Delias. “All fucking four of them looking like a gay man’s wet dream in might-as-well-be-painted-on Wrangler’s, rodeo shirts, bigass belt buckles, and cowboy boots, posing in a field of blue flowers--”

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!” bi-Delia said, giggling.

“Hey,” I protested. “Don’t be shittin’ on my Texas bluebonnets.”

“Same damn hair, same damn eyes, same damn face. If they didn’t come in different sizes, you’d never know who was who.”

“We’re not that bad.”

“But, goddamn are they hot. Except Cory.” Preston cooed at me. “Widdle Cory is a widdle cutie.” I damn near swerved into the next lane when lez-Delia’s hands crept around the headrest and poked my dimples.

“However, we’re getting off topic.” He pointed to the beaver wearing a red t-shirt and cap hanging from my keychain. “That. Explain that.”

“Oh, the Buc-ee.”

“‘All day I dream about beavers’,” he read, waving a hand at the air freshener dangling from the rearview. “‘I heart Beavers.’ ‘Puro Pinché Beavers.’ Whatever the fuck that means. Are you compensating for something or just trying to remind yourself that you still like tits?”

“Whatever.”

“Should see his dorm. Has beaver posters and everything," he told the others and rolled his eyes. “There’s even t-shirts.”

Okay, so I may have gone a little overboard on the merch on my way out of Texas.

Preston turned back to me. “Bitch, you are the most cock-thirsty straight guy I know.”

“For starters, I’m not cock-thirsty.”

“You swallowed mine readily enough.”

The Delias laughed. For some reason, everyone thought Preston and I were merely talking shit and not referencing something that had actually happened.

“And, secondly, I’m bi.”

“You’re just being indecisive.”

“Uhm, bi-erasure?” bi-Delia said. She may or may not have been trying to ride my dick. I may or may not have been interested in said riding.

“So, back to the beaver,” lez-Delia interrupted.

“You would focus on the beaver.”

“Suck my dick, Virgin.”

“You don’t even have a dick.”

“I’ll grow one for the occasion.”

And so on and so forth until we reached the restaurant. Preston jumped down and the Delias tumbled out of the back seat. I saw Kiley heading in, so I led the way over.

Just as I was about to open the door, it swung open and the person behind it walked into me. I found myself face-to-face with Efrain Garza, one of the red-shirt freshmen on offense. I knew of him and had run into him in the locker rooms a few times since our sections were across the aisle from each other. But I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him outside of the occasional “sorry” or “excuse me.”

Lez-Delia and Preston, who were still bickering, walked into me from behind, just as someone leaving the restaurant bumped into Garza. We made full body contact, and I was instantly aware of how great he smelled. Men shouldn’t be allowed to smell that good, especially my straight teammates.

“Oh, hey, Card,” he said, smirking. Of course, it seemed like he was always smirking about something, as if everything was just one big inside joke that only he was in on.

“Hey, Garza.” I waved awkwardly as I slid past him into the restaurant. I hoped I didn’t appear as flushed as I feared I was. I’d managed to go my whole life without getting into a fight with a straight guy who thought I had the hots for him, and it would be rather insulting to break that streak by getting my ass kicked by an angry teammate before I even got to actually practice, let alone play, with the team. But, he just tipped his chin and said he’d see me at conditioning tomorrow.

I nodded and waved again before I followed everyone inside, thanking any deity I could remember from my dual credit World Religions class that I hadn’t chubbed up during that whole ordeal.

Preston and the Delias, by the time I caught up to them, had lost the original argument and had started exchanging insults, completely oblivious to my predicament.

“Cumslut.”

“Twatwaffle.”

“For fuck’s sake, get a room.”

“You get a room, fauxbian.”

“Nancy.”

“Lug.”

~*~*~*~

“So, defense is here on the line of scrimmage.” I pointed to a row of taco sauce packets with O’s marked on them in permanent marker. “And, here’s your offense.” I pointed to the ketchup packets marked with X’s.

At lunch, Martinez had looked like he was going cross-eyed trying to memorize these plays, so I set up our little condiment scrimmage. Pretty soon, the rest of the freshmen crowded in around the table and it snowballed from there. They added symbols to the packets to represent specific positions and we started running through the plays.

“Wait, which play is this?” Blanco asked. Montalvo flipped through the playbook and called them out. I didn’t remember the exact names yet, but I remembered the configurations. I was pretty sure the Virginia Tech coaching team would shit themselves if they knew just how similar they were to some of the University of Texas plays Connor shared with me and my brothers--back before Caiden had signed with Texas A&M, and both the Longhorns and the Aggies saw the wisdom in making my brothers sign agreements that explicitly forbid them from sharing privileged team information with any of their brothers (including me), unless, like in Connor and Cameron’s place, they happened to be teammates.

I had the guys split up to move around the packets to the next position in the play, then we started debating the merits and pitfalls of their next moves. At some point, we started marking hypothetical moves on the table in dry erase marker because we kept forgetting the original positions.

We were so wrapped up in this, all the guys talking loudly and all at once, that nobody noticed when Coach Vuis walks in.

“What the fuck is this?” He gestured down at the carefully arranged packets and dry erase arrows and squiggles.

“Scrimmaging, sir,” I said.

“It was all Card’s idea, coach,” Martinez said.

Vuis dragged his palm down his face in exasperation.

Montalvo thought for a moment. “Wait, maybe you can settle this.” And he started laying out some issue we’d been arguing about regarding some hole I had found in one of the plays.

“Fucking hell, Card.”

“What?”

“Just, fucking hell.”

And next thing you knew, I was pulled from Freshmen Camp and thrown in with the rest of the team.

~*~*~*~

“Oi! Garza!”

I heard the yell coming from a group of Freshmen Camp guys, looking like the out-of-their-depth high school boys they were, sitting in one of the lounges outside the locker room. I acknowledged them with a chin nod and then thanked God that that satisfied them, and I wouldn’t have to pretend that I could remember their names.

Seem to have no fucking problem with remembering who Card is.

I remembered him from the brief introductions when the in-coming freshmen arrived to join preseason conditioning. From my own experience, it would be awhile before they started working with us regularly, if at all, so I wasn’t really paying attention. Card, however, was hard to ignore.

His looks were that kind of prototypical All-American football hero handsome. Roughly my height, broad in the chest and shoulders, with a trim waist and an ass you could sink your teeth into. If he were a bit lighter and faster, he’d be the quarterback and...

God, why the fuck am I checking out straight guys again?

But, yeah, Card stood out.

He ended up joining us for conditioning, ahead of the rest of the little freshies, and ran circles around the more seasoned players. We were fucking sweating buckets, and he was bragging about how it was in the triple digits in whatever tiny tourist-trap town with a name that wasn’t pronounced like it was spelled the recruiters had fished him and his biteable ass out of. Then he started going on about how much he fucking loved double burpees, and I think we all wanted to slug him.

As I entered the locker room, I thought back to last week, when I literally ran into him while I was out getting dinner with some Aerospace people. At first, I’d just noticed Card, then we got shoved into each other again, and I’d finally noticed the group he just happened to be with.

I didn’t know the guy personally, but I recognized him as one of the guy cheerleaders and from the commons where he tabled for the GSA. (I know most of the guys on the squad aren’t gay, and I shouldn’t stereotype, but come on, what straight man dresses that impeccably in the middle of hot-as-fuck July?) And I saw Card out with Mr. Out-And-Proud and thought, Well, that’s interesting.

Which I immediately thought I’d said out loud when he got this odd look on his face. I’d decided to act like nothing had happened and told him I’d see him at conditioning, and we went our separate ways.

Today, he was in the locker room, gearing up for practice with the rest of the team.

“Hey, Baker.” I gestured over at Card, who was chatting with Teague and Lithgow. “Isn’t he supposed to be with the freshmeat in camp?”

“The fuck you talking about ‘freshmeat’ when you’re still a freshman?” said one of the guys behind me and another guy in our section slapped the back of my head.

“Naw, get this,” Baker said. “I heard Vuis saying that he’d memorized the playbook a couple weeks ago and was pointing out holes in the plays.” Fuck, I’d poured over that fucking thing for two months before half of it even stuck. “He’d been running the rest of Freshmen Camp through something he called 'condiment scrimmage' when the other coaches left the room.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“That’s what I’m saying. They redshirted me my first season. I didn’t get to practice with the team until the season started.”

I nodded; I was a redshirt myself, like every other guy who played college ball, and I thought I was liking this kid less and less.

No matter how fuckable his ass looked in full gear.

“I wonder if they’ll put him in the line-up this season,” he said, which I ignored and finished changing out.

Once on the field, the coaches ran us through the typical warm-ups and drills. Satisfied with our progress, they decided to divide the senior players from newer guys like me and run us through some plays separately.

We set up on the line of scrimmage. This play had Card on the outside, but I seriously doubted they had him out to handle me. Not only was he not used to playing against real athletes, he was still too small and slow to be much use against a wide receiver with experience.

The ball snapped. I ducked through, dodging the bigger outer linebackers and darting close to Card. I flew out the other side and the quarterback passed to me. I caught on the run and bolted.

Pretty soon, I saw Card coming at me from the side. He had followed me out and was gaining. I ramped up to a full sprint. The other receiver had a huge pocket around him as I was supposed to pass to him in this play, but I already had the ball and Card couldn’t match me at full speed.

I was within ten yards of the next goal line. I added one last burst of speed, just to rub it in. Then, I felt his arms around my waist. He crashed into me and we both fell over. The air left my lungs in a whoosh and the ball slipped from my fingers.

How the fuck did that happen?

He looked down at me and spat out his mouth guard.

“You alright?”

He jumped up and grabbed the ball, then offered me a hand.

Coach Vuis bellowed at us from the sidelines. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who ran outside of the play.

“‘No battle plan survives contact with the enemy,’ sir.”

Card was so smug I'd swear he was quoting someone.

“Goddammit, Card.”

“If I remember this play correctly, Garza’s supposed to pass over to another player,” said the little shit as he tossed the ball from hand to hand. “But he didn’t, so I harried. Figured I’d at least run him out of bounds. He’s surprisingly easy to tackle. Best not leave him without protection in the next play.”

If he’d had a mic, he’d have dropped it.

Vuis started bitching about showboating freshmen and then yelled at us to set up the next play when he didn’t think we were moving fast enough.

Once they were out of earshot, Card looked back over his shoulder at me, face split into a rather charming grin, and winked at me.

“You’re fun to chase,” he quipped and jogged back over to the formation.

I was torn between wanting to kick his ass and wanting to fuck it.

Not that the rest of the practice helped to resolve that conflict. But I could at least take comfort in the fact that few of the guys on the team that I regularly hung out with saw Card repeatedly handing me my ass (although, I knew they’d eventually hear about it), and someone finally managed to block him in a couple plays.

As we were walking back to the locker room to shower and change, we passed the cheerleaders on their way to the studio for practice. One, the guy I saw Card with the other night, moved to the edge of the group and exchanged a fist bump with him. I moved over to get in step with Card.

“They frown on us dating the cheerleaders.”

“Oh, you mean Preston?” he said and shrugged. “We’re just friends.”

No denials, no insistence that he was totally straight. Just “we’re friends.”

Interesting.

~*~*~*~

Part Two--Twink on the Dancefloor

Now, let’s bitch about my dating life.

The good ol’ ass poundings I had envisioned for myself had failed to materialize in the weeks I’d been at VT.

I could pull all kinds of girls, but could never bring in guys.

Or at least the ones I wanted.

Twinks loved me, but most expected me to bend them over and not the other way around. Of the few tops that approached me, they either weren’t my type or there was something sketchy about them.

And for some reason, I seemed to be a rough trade magnet.

Some GSA peeps had the brilliant idea that one of the clubs that wasn’t frequented by a lot of the college kids would be the perfect setting for my first experience at a gay bar. While my friends were having a blast, I was getting my ass and dick felt up the whole damn time. And Preston thought it was absolutely hilarious that some hairy brickshithouse of a guy told me I needed to “ditch the fairy” (meaning Preston) and get broken in “by a real man”. Preston called me “Otter Pup” for weeks after that, which I looked up and I highly doubted he even knew what that meant.

I had about sworn off gay bars for good when I was accosted by a hot as hell DILF and liked it. I was just walking my happy ass back from the bathrooms when I was suddenly pinned against the wall by six-feet-two-inches of tanned and sculpted muscles growling into my ear about how everything about me screamed, “Make me submit!” and that if he was into younger guys he’d already have me collared and on my hands and knees, begging to be spanked.

I was already panting and feeling light-headed because as much as he’d said he wasn’t into men my age, he had still been kissing and licking my neck between growls and grinding his dick into mine. But then he kissed me, and I eagerly kissed him back--collars and spankings be damned.

I had to lock my knees so I didn’t slide down the wall when he broke off without warning and admonished me to be careful about the signals I was apparently sending, before sauntering off like nothing had happened.

I had most certainly not told Preston about that encounter because who knew what he’d call me then?

I still hadn’t resolved my somewhat justified fear of gay bars when, about three weeks after I’d started practicing with the team, Preston begged me to go out to one of his favorite clubs.

“Come on, Cory,” he whined. “It doesn’t matter if you aren’t that good at dancing. You scare off all the tops, and I need someone to keep them away so I can enjoy dancing without a bunch of guys trying to pick me up for once.”

I’m gonna call that narcissistic fuck “Twink Toes” until I think of something more clever.

So, yeah, Twink Toes was rubbing it in that he was getting all this male attention, when I couldn’t seem to lure anyone in that I didn’t immediately want to throw back.

“It’s the first Latin Night in ages that I can actually enjoy--”

“Wait, Latin Night?”

The high school I went to had a pretty big Hispanic population, so Cumbia and Tejano were just as popular as American Top 40. I had talked the Mexican kids into teaching me the moves, which was what I was doing with Alonso Rios in the tool shed in the first place (before we ended up doing what we were doing when Cam walked in--fun times). Among all that music on my phone, I still had a fuckton of Spanish dance music.

“Alright, I’ll go.”

At the club, I made a good show of reticence as Preston dragged me out on the floor. Then the music came up and I moved, swinging my hips into a solo bachata. I wasn’t the most amazing dancer in the world, but I was good enough that people gave me space and Preston gaped at me like I’d sprouted horns. I might have also pissed off a go-go boy or two.

I grabbed Preston’s hand and spun him around, then pulled him up close and rolled my hips against him.

“Chingow! No sabes bachata?” He looked confused. Obviously, he didn’t know Spanish either. “Te enseñare. Mira.”

I pointed down at my hips and legs; he at least understood that. I showed him the basic steps, which he emulated. I put my hand at the small of his back and we moved together. When he mastered the basics, I added in a new step, and another, and another, until we’re spinning on the floor, moving in that sensual way of people who have been intimate, as if every movement is loaded with sexual intent and promise.

At least, this was how my dick was interpreting things.

But, from what I could feel every time our bodies touched, his was too. If we had been drinking, and/or a little more hard-up, what we were doing could easily have put us back in bed.

We had a pretty decent audience by the third song, other dancers who observed us as we danced. Plenty of cat calls and “yaaass girl, slay!” came at us. More ignored and pissed off boys in designer underwear. Our fellow patrons were disappointed when we moved off to get water instead of throwing down and fucking right there on the dance floor.

“Fuck, where’d you learn to move like that?”

“Mis amigos.”

“Would you fucking stop that?”

“Lo siento.” Preston growled at me and I laughed. In my head, I transcribed it as ja ja ja ja. “Some friends in middle school.”

“You learned that in middle school,” he said doubtfully.

“Not the bachata,” I told him. “I learned cumbia and salsa first.”

Preston’s face lit up. “Oh! Teach me to salsa next!”

I would totally love to bachata again, but it was just as well. I feared I’d end up embarrassing myself if we rubbed against each other anymore than we had already. The salsa, while still one of those really suggestive dances, was more involved and required some space between us. We danced until we were sweaty and thirsty, stopped for water, then rinsed and repeated. Preston and I were too exhausted to walk by last call.

This performance earned me another spot in Preston’s social rotation, and I got to add Latin Night to my list of things to look forward to each week.

~*~*~*~

It was taking longer than I’d expected, but the team seemed to be warming up to me. They finally realized that I was being fucking sarcastic when I enthused about loving double burpees.

“I mean, it’s all about yoga burpees,” I told Teague, who rolled his eyes at me. Luckily, Lithgow was still hip to my game.

“I know man, nothing beats a good yoga burpee,” he said.

“For real, dude, it’s like a religious experience or something,” I said. “I thought body blasters were the shit, but--”

“Fuck, man. Body blasters. That’s like some nirvana shit,” he said. “But, you know you haven’t lived until you’ve tried parkour burpees.”

This was about the fourth or fifth time we’d had this conversation since I started conditioning with the team and we still hadn’t exhausted the Wikipedia entry of cracked-out variants.

“Fuck, we did those in middle school.”

“We did them in pee-wee league.” By this point, Teague had given up on holding an actual conversation with either of us, but Garza walked up before I could think of something more absurd.

“We still on for tonight?” he said to Lithgow. He nodded in my and Teague’s direction. He had looked fucking pissed when I first tackled him, but he seemed to have gotten over it quickly. Good thing as too many scrimmages since then capitalized on me throwing Garza on the ground.

Not that I really minded throwing Garza on the ground.

“Yeah.”

“By the way.” Garza pointed at me. “You’re coming.”

With that said, he walked off.

“I’m coming where?” I asked Lithgow doubtfully.

“Ah, some nightclub. Since he’s the only one of the crew underage, I think he wants a partner in sobriety.”

“We also need another designated driver since Whitlock’s now old enough to drink,” Teague tactlessly added.

Their crew was sometimes called the “brain trust”. Jocks were supposed to be dumb as fucking bricks, but their little six-some liked to defy that. Lithgow was the salutatorian in high school, Garza graduated from the IB program, and Teague finished his undergrad in Physics in less than three years and was already working on his Master’s (he only acted like an idiot because his brain was consumed with what he called the “three F’s--football, physics, and females”). The other guys on the crew--Paul Baker, Denholm Whitlock, and Adrian Rice--were just as gifted (although I suspected Baker was more of the savant variety). They weren’t the only smart guys on the team, but they were some of the only ones not afraid to own up to their intelligence, something I rarely saw with my old teammates.

It was actually kinda hot, and I felt honored that I got included in their group.

When I got back to my dorm, I knocked out a brief nap before getting ready. After a quick freshening-up, I threw on a pair of dark blue jeans and a hunter green t-shirt. I added a grey linen button-up shirt and rolled the sleeves up to my elbows. This got topped off with black oxfords, leather belt, wrist watch, and a quick finger tousle of my hair.

“Unless you’re going line dancing,” Romero said from the doorway in a disinterested voice, “the cowboy hat stays.”

“It’s a Stetson, bruh,” I said. “And, I wasn’t seriously thinking of putting it on.”

“Of course you weren’t,” Gio called out behind him.

“Have fun, Tex,” Al added.

I flipped them all off as I backed out the door.

I rolled up to Teague’s place at the appointed time. I was taking him, along with Whitlock and Rice in my truck. Garza had picked up Lithgow and Baker and would meet us. Teague asked me to explain the beavers. So, I told them all about the magic of Buc-ees.

“Dude,” said Whitlock. “Remember when we played in Austin? They had signs for this place all over.”

“What’s so awesome about ‘beaver nuggets’ and a big fucking gas station with clean bathrooms?” Teague asked.

“You don’t understand,” said Rice, who had lived in Houston since Katrina knocked out his hometown in Louisiana. “Buc-ees is like an institution or some shit.”

We were still arguing about beavers when we met up with the others. Teague grabbed my hand, which was still holding my keys, and said, “Look, he’s got a Garza keychain,” while pointing to Buc-ee.

“Don’t get it,” Baker said.

“You don’t get shit, man.”

“I don’t get it either,” Whitlock said.

“The red shirt, man, the red shirt!”

Garza leveled Teague with a flat look.

I was so used to seeing everyone in a uniform that it was a little jarring to see them dressed up. Admittedly, they were all wearing some variation on the basic jeans and button-up/polo, but Garza looked anything but basic.

Black slim-fit jeans, black short-sleeve button-up over a blue v-neck that hugged his pecs, and black Doc Martens. He wore this all effortlessly on his tall, athletic frame. His near-black hair was pulled back into a top-knot, highlighting his ruggedly attractive face--high cheekbones, Roman nose, full mouth, hazel eyes, strong chin with a couple days’ worth of stubble. Modest diamond studs glinted in both ears.

In the most simple terms, the man was fucking gorgeous, and I seriously needed to stop looking.

Yet, when he turned around to lead the way, it was all I could do not to fall over myself while checking out the way his jeans hugged his ass. He didn’t ever “walk”, his steps were somewhere between prowl and saunter. He was currently prowling, and I considered myself lucky that I had decided against tucking in my shirt because I was already getting close to half-mast watching him move.

And, fuck me if he didn’t smell like heaven with a hint of something edgy and dark that reminded me of the muscle daddy who had threatened to collar me and made me dizzy with need.

I shook my head to clear it and fell in with the pack. Our conversations flitted between subjects, barely staying on one topic for very long, changing as much as we changed conversation partners, as we walked the rest of the way to the nightclub. The guys confidently passed the line of people waiting to get inside, and the bouncer took one look at our entourage before letting us in ahead of the line and without charging cover. Good-looking football players brought in hot chicks, and hot chicks meant more college guys buying them drinks.

It didn’t hit me until later that I’d just experienced my first perk as a player.

A second bouncer checked our IDs and Efrain and I got a small black “x” across the back of our hand to signal that we were under twenty-one. We could have gone to a club that served minors (especially VIPs like we apparently were) under the table, but that would have defeated the purpose of bringing us along as designated drivers.

The nightclub was already in full swing when we walked in. The DJ was spinning some reggaeton at the moment, but was well-known for mixing subtle Latin rhythms into everything he played. I liked this guy already. People chatted at the bar and in the lounges around the sides of the room. Steps led down to the dance floor where women danced together in clumps. Men prowled the edges looking to pick one of them off or else fist pumped in time to the pounding rhythms. I scanned the crowd and recognized a chick named Marina, who I’d met while out dancing with Preston, dancing off to one side with a couple of her girlfriends.

“Excuse me, guys,” I said and broke away to say hi.

~*~*~*~

Most of my teammates cleaned up nicely. I could say this objectively, without any hint of sexual intent. I wasn’t interested in straight guys, but they weren’t half bad for breeders.

Card, on the other hand…

For some baby-faced eighteen-year-old kid, who I’d only seen in Chuck Taylors and cargo shorts when he wasn’t in uniform, he knew how to put himself together. I was so busy checking him out without looking like I was checking him out when Teague made some dipshit comment about red shirts and some stupid beaver keychain that I couldn’t think of a decent thing to shut him down with.

But then we walked into the club and the fucker barely stayed with us for longer than a minute before he walked off to talk to random Latina. They hugged and she started enthusiastically introducing him to her friends. He made some gestures that looked like him trying to bring the girls back to our group, but she grabbed his hand and pulled him further onto the dance floor.

I got the guys’ attention and pointed over to where Card and the girl were taking their places. “This should be good.”

Baker’s face split in a sadistic grin. “We need to find a good place to watch.”

I hadn’t been there to witness it, but I’d seen enough videos and pictures of the night Baker got shitfaced and danced like an asshole. He still hadn’t lived that down, and it seemed his only respite was to inflict the same pain on any other guy dumb enough to dance while out with teammates. We found a high-top table near the bar, and he, Whitlock, and Teague all whipped out their phones to record Card’s imminent flailing.

On the floor, Card pressed the girl against him.

“Smooth,” Lithgow said.

“I’m-a call this ‘Card’s Texas Two-step’,” Whitlock said. They traded quips back and forth, you know, guys being guys.

“Shit,” Rice said. “You know you’d be out there making an ass out of yourselves if the chick was that hot.”

“You’re just saying that because he’s from your state,” said Teague.

“But, he has a point,” Lithgow added. “God, I’d flop around like Baker on a rager for an ass like that.”

She was beautiful, even I could admit that despite not being into women. Warm-toned skin, dark glossy hair, generous curves, and a classically beautiful face. However, this did not stop us from cracking jokes.

“Twenty bucks says he steps on her,” I said.

The jokes stopped when Card and his partner started moving.

Their steps were small at first, relying more on the motion of their hips. Other dancers noticed what they were doing and a pocket gradually opened around them. Their steps expanded to work the opening space, and they were given even more room. In less than a minute, he had enough space to dance her through complex dips, turns, and spins. Head, arms, shoulders, hips, legs, feet thrown into his movements. Those immediately around him stopped and gaped.

He was fucking good.

I looked over at the guys, their faces looking as confused as I felt. No one knew what to make of what they were seeing.

“How’d a white kid learn to move his hips like that?”

I wasn’t sure who said it, but I nodded in agreement. For the moment, Card had his back to us and his hips rolled almost as much as hers did. Those rolling hips would haunt me at night for weeks to come, but I was still too stunned at the moment to appreciate this.

“You still recording this?” asked Rice. By this time, another song had started. Card and his friend kept dancing. I thought they had switched styles because I recognized some of the steps as merengue. Just how many styles did he know?

They danced for a bit before her two friends joined them.

I didn’t know how, but he worked it to where he was dancing with all three girls--bringing one in close then spinning her back out, grabbing her friend and moving through some steps, taking the third by the hand and twirling them both around, spinning out the second, dancing close to the third, and on and on. He switched back and forth between them so no girl went long without being involved. The girls were all breathless and laughing. He seemed a little sweaty, but completely in command.

The guys cat-called at him and he sent back a smug grin.

“Fuck, man,” Lithgow clapped me on the shoulder. “Are you sure you’re totally Puerto Rican? He’s more Latino that you are.”

“Puerto Rican and Cuban,” I said. “Also, fuck you.”

For some reason, Lithgow’s comment and Card’s face pissed me off. I’d had to deal with the comparisons ever since the first time Card took me down--that he’s as fast as I am, or as good as I am at reading the field, or able to think as fast as I can, or any number of things. Every scrimmage had him hounding me, and it drove me insane with how he knocked my ass over every damn time. Then he turned around with that smug fucking look and I wanted to deck him. I didn’t care how good he looked in grey linen and hunter green.

Without thinking, I hopped off my barstool and wound my way over. When I got to the edge of their group, he spun one of the girls and she went a little wide. She fell against me, so I cocked my eyebrow and offered her my hand. She took it and we danced. I didn’t know multiple styles like Card; I preferred to master one, rather than be merely competent in two or three. For his part, Card seemed undaunted in facing off against a much better dancer. He grinned that fucking good boy smile of his and said, “Sup, Garza!”

I smiled back, you know, because no hard feelings or anything, I was just there to dance.

~*~*~*~

By last call, Card, the girls, and I had paused only long enough to get water and catch our breath. The five of us went to look for the other guys and only found Teague and Rice waiting. The rest had long since left with whatever hookup they had found for the night or to drink somewhere else. We all decided to head home, and started heading for our vehicles.

Card had a girl under each arm and the third hanging off his back. The four of them were chatting animatedly in Spanish. My mom is half-Cuban, half-Castilian and my dad is Puerto Rican, like immigrated-from-Puerto-Rico Puerto Rican. I grew up in a Spanish-speaking household, but I could barely follow what they were saying. Fuck me if I’d actually be able to respond in Spanish.

Teague, Rice, and I walked behind them in disbelief. Teague still had his phone out, snapping pictures because no one would believe us if we told them. He’d apparently been live-Tweeting the whole thing and people still doubted it.

“What the hell are they talking about?” Teague said to me quietly.

“How they can’t believe he’s only eighteen and something about finding a third guy, I think.”

“Damn, if they weren’t hanging on him like that, I’d say you have a decent chance of pulling one,” Rice added. “By the way, since when have you been able to dance?”

I didn’t answer. Card was now talking about his friend Preston, who was a cheerleader and also knew how to salsa and bachata. He showed them a picture on his phone and they made appreciative noises.

“I taught him everything he knows.”

Berta, the one on his left said “Espera!” and leaned in to whisper something. The other two girls leaned in, too. He nodded his head and Berta and Luz, the one behind him, squealed. The one on his right--Marina, I think--giggled, then shot me a look like she knew something I didn’t.

“What about you?” said Luz.

“Column A, Column B.”

“Ala,” Berta sighed. “The good ones are either gay or taken.”

“You’re only half right,” he said and the girls giggled. So, he was taken. Which confirmed that he was definitely not gay, even if he did hang out with the GSA and considered the openly gay cheerleader “just a friend”.

I felt let down. Then I felt more pissed off because I felt let down.

When we got back to the corner where we had first met up, he turned back to us.

“Hey, Garza, do you mind taking Teague and Rice back? I’m not comfortable leaving the girls alone to wait for a cab.” He didn’t even wait for a reply, just said, “Thanks, man.”

The girls took turns hugging me and kissing me on the cheek. They even hugged Teague and Rice and promised to friend us all on Facebook (which they did the next day). Then, Card and his entourage walked off, giggling and talking over each other in Spanish.

“Card’s Texas Two-step” never dropped. Instead, a series of videos and pics blew up the collective VT football social media machine, and no one would shut the fuck up about “The Night Card Stomped Garza in a Dance-off Then Went Home with Three Senoritas.”

Fuck. Card.

And fuck his biteable ass.

~*~*~*~