The Barnstable Chronicles - Book 6: The Barnstable Cowboy - 1. Misery and Confusion

Every kid who starts the school year in a new school will tell you the same thing—it sucks. It totally and completely sucks giant bull dicks.

Okay, so I’m not totally a new kid. It’s the first day of my Freshman year at Abilene High School. For those of you who don’t know, Abilene is the asshole of the planet—one big, smelly, hairy asshole. And yes, this place is pretty much full of shit.

Okay, so I’m not in the best mood. Shoot me, okay? I had to catch the school bus at 7:30 in the fuckin’ morning, so I can spend more than an hour riding all over West Texas to pick up all the other ranch kids. At least high school starts an hour later than middle school.

Yeah, I’m a ranch kid. We have a large ranch out west of Abilene. I fuckin’ hate it, too. My old man hates me because I hate it. He keeps spewing off this shit about how he’s busting his ass to make the ranch a success so I can take it over when I finish high school. No. Fucking. Way!

I have no idea what I’m going to do, but I do know I’m going to bust my ass in high school so I can go to college in a real city—a real city far, far away from this shithole. Of course, I’m also gonna get my ass involved in as much shit as I can for the next four years—anything to keep my ass away from my sorry excuse of a home.

The bus dumped us off about twenty minutes before school was supposed to start. This place is a helluva lot bigger than the middle school. I grabbed the schedule I was sent and set out to find room 235. Where the fuck was that?

Luckily, they had teachers stationed all over the place to help us newbies find our way. I made my way to a nice-looking lady that had a nametag that said, “Hello! My Name is Mrs. Flores.”

She showed me where I needed to go, and I made my way to homeroom. I walked in. All the seats in the back were already taken. Fucking bus too long to get here. So I took a seat in the middle of the room. No way I was going to sit in the front!

I had just settled into my seat when he walked in—a Latino boy with longish black, wavy hair. He looked like he was pretty muscular and seemed to be on the short side—maybe 5’6” or 5’7”—and before he sat in the seat in front and over to the side of mine, he smiled at me. Why did that make me blush? Why did my dick start to get hard? Well, honestly—my dick was always getting hard—hell, I was fifteen. My dick is hard more than it wasn’t.

The warning bell rang at 8:55, and at 9:00, the final bell rang. The teacher walked in and shut the door. Here we go.

She introduced herself as Ms. Davies. She was kinda young for a teacher, so I guess that was cool. The first thing she did was call roll. She called my name, and I called out “here” like everyone else. The last name she called out was Jaime Vega.

“Here—but it’s Jaime—like I’m saying hello to myself—HI ME—not JAY ME.”

“Very well, Mr. Vega. I won’t make that mistake again.”

Ms. Davies went on about how we would love high school and how we were about to make a whole new world of friends. Blah. Blah.

The next thing she did was give us our locker assignments. She called our names, and we had to go up to the front and get a card. It had our locker number and the lock combination. Once she gave Jaime his card, she told us we could all go out into the hall and make sure our combinations worked.

She opened the door and led us out into the hallway. Our lockers were all on the wall in front of her room. That worked.

I went to my locker, and after a couple of tries, I finally got my locker open. I threw my backpack in and shut it. When I looked over to my left, Jaime was having trouble with his.

“You have to make two circles to the right, then go to the left to your first number.”

“Oh. Thanks dude!”

I watched Jaime try again, and he got his locker open. “Yes!”

“Cool.”

“It’s Hunter, right?”

“Yeah. And you’re Hello You, right?”

Jaime smiled at me again. Damn! This boy has pretty teeth!

“I’m gonna like you, Hunter. You’re a smart ass. We’re gonna get along perfect.”

“Wow. My old man calls me dumb ass all the time. And you think it’s smart?”

Jaime mumbled something like, “I think it’s cute.”

“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”

“Nothing. Hey—let me see your schedule, Hunter.”

Jaime pulled his schedule out of his pocket, and we compared. Turns out he and I have five of six classes together. Jaime’s taking Civics when I’m taking Spanish. I guess he already knows Spanish. I didn’t say anything, though—didn’t seem right.

We went back into the classroom. Ms. Davies said we could talk quietly until the bell rang for our first-period class. Then, Jaime came up to me and asked me if we could swap digits since we were each other’s first high school friends.

“And that means we’re gonna be best friends for the next four years. Might as well do this now, right?”

There’s that smile again! Well, fuck me. We swapped phones and put our info in. I guess I have a new friend—at least until he finds out I’m a ranch kid, and being friends with me is way more trouble than it’s worth.

We made it through our morning classes, and after each one, we went to our lockers and threw our newly-assigned books inside. After third period, we made our way to the cafeteria for lunch. We found a table off to the side and started eating.

Jaime took a bite and said, “Jesus help us all! How the Hell can high school cafeteria food be worse than middle school cafeteria food?”

I took a bite of my meatloaf and had to agree. “Are they trying to teach us or kill us?”

After lunch, we split up and I went to Spanish. The teacher was Ms. Flores, the lady who helped me find my way to homeroom. I walked in, and she said, “Buenos Dias, Seňor Landrey! Como está?”

“Hi?”

She smiled and told me to sit anywhere I wanted. Okay, I’m liking high school better than middle school. They would always make us sit in alphabetical order.

Fifth period was P.E. I walked into the gym, and Jaime was already sitting in the bleachers.

“Hunter!”

“Hello You!”

I smiled at my new friend as he rolled his eyes and shook his head. I sat next to him on the bleachers. The P.E. teacher was one of the coaches, so he spent most of the time talking about how he hoped we would consider participating in one of the school’s sports programs. I wish I could! It would mean more time away from the fucking ranch.

At the end of the period, the teacher/coach handed out our P.E. uniforms and told us we were required to wear them for class. He said we had five minutes to change into the uniforms once the class began. After that, he told us we would have ten minutes to change and shower at the end of class. What the fuck? Ten minutes??

Our last class of the day was study hall. That was cool. On the way, Jaime said he thought he might try out for the swim team.

“I wish I could.”

“Why couldn’t you?”

“’Cause I live on a ranch twenty minutes away from here.”

“That’s not a problem. I could drive you home after practice.”

“You’re a freshman. You can drive?”

“I’m sixteen—got my license over the summer.”

“I’m confused.”

“I started school a year late. I got sick when I was a kid—right before I was supposed to start school. I missed too much, and they said I had to hold off a year.”

“I couldn’t ask you to—”

“You didn’t ask, I offered. Friends help each other, right?”

“Your parents would let you do that?”

“Pretty sure. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll ask them when I get home and call you later when they tell me it’s cool.”

“I have to ask my parents if they’d let me. It’s iffy—my dad kinda hates me.”

I was glad we got to sixth period before Jaime started asking too many questions about my home life. That would have sucked—and wouldn’t have been much of a first impression.

Mr. Myers was the teacher in charge of our study hall. He asked if any of us had homework, and none of us did. He said that today would be the only day that would happen. He said the best thing about study hall being the last period of the day was that a lot of us could get most of our homework done before we had to leave school for the day. Made sense to me—but he didn’t know that I intended to take my homework with me. The more shit I had to do after school, the less time I would have to be around the old man.

He said that we could hang out and quietly talk for the period. Jaime and I had grabbed seats together in the back of the room. He nudged me and said I should follow him—and bring my backpack.

I did what he asked and followed him to the front of the room.

“Mr. Meyers, would it be okay if Hunter and I went to the library?”

“Why would you need to go to the library?”

“Well, since we don’t have anything to work on today, I would like to check it out. We both love to read, and it just seems like it would be the perfect time to find our way around.”

“Mr.—"

“Landrey.”

“Do you have anything to say?”

“No sir. I would love to see what the library has.”

He looked at us and finally said, “Okay. I’m going to trust that you’ll go to the library. Put your names on the passes. I will check with Mrs. Rodriguez and make sure you were there. I don’t want you boys pulling any shenanigans on your first day of high school. Okay?”

“Yessir,” we both answered.

“You can leave school from there.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Yes—thank you.”

We picked up our hall passes and headed to the library.

“Dude! Are you serious?”

“Hell no! I just wanted to get away and spend some time with my new best bud!”

“You’re crazy as shit, ya know!”

“Yup, and you’re a smart ass. A match made in Heaven!”

I was grinning my face off as we walked into the library. We walked up to the front desk and spoke with the librarian.

“Hi. Today’s our first day here. Are we supposed to give you these?”

“Yes, Jaime. When you come in during a class period, you need to bring your pass to me so I can stamp it.”

“You got it right!”

“Excuse me?”

“My name—you said it right.”

“Well, I said it correctly. Have people been mispronouncing your name today?”

“Everybody’s been butchering it!”

“Hang in there, young man. They’ll get it right soon enough—and then you’ll probably not want to hear it very often.”

Wow! A librarian who seemed kinda cool. This wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.

“Here’s mine.” I handed her my pass, and she stamped it.

“Here you go, Hunter. Can you boys find everything you need?”

“Yes, ma’am. If it’s okay, Jaime and I want to walk around for a bit and see what’s here.”

“That will be fine, boys. Just keep your talking to a whisper and other noise to a minimum. This is a library, after all.”

We walked up and down the different aisles in the library. Jaime seemed to be looking for something in particular. I just had no idea what it was.

“Here it is!”

Jaime pulled down a book called Olympic Champions 1992-2012. He led me over to a table in the back of the library and had me sit next to him. He started thumbing through the pages but seemed to get nowhere with his search.

“Are you looking for something specific?”

“Yeah. His name is Pablo Morales.”

“Don’t be a dumbass!” I grabbed the book and flipped to the index in the back. “Here you go. Page 87.”

“Oh—forgot about the index. It’s your fault, ya know.”

“My fault? What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”

“Never mind. It’s stupid.”

“No—tell me.”

“Well—because when you smile at me like that, I get all stupid. Nobody’s ever smiled at me like that before—well, nobody outside the family.”

“Stupid? Not you! No! I mean—the general public is stupid—for not smiling at you, I mean.”

Weird. This time Jaime was smiling at me, and it felt like everything froze in time.

“So—Jaime—what is it about this Pablo dude?”

“Pablo Morales is probably the greatest Latino swimmer to ever be on the U.S. Olympic team. He set the world record and won a gold medal for the 100-Meter Butterfly. But what makes that even cooler is that he held on to his record longer than any swimmer in history.”

“Holy shit! Look how strong he looks. He’s built like a brick shithouse!”

“Yeah. He’s kinda my idol. I wanna be like him someday.”

“So, you swim butterfly?”

“Yeah—butterfly and freestyle. How about you?”

“I swim in the river back at the ranch. I don’t know anything about strokes.”

Jaime leaned into me and whispered into my ear, “I bet you know a lot about strokes when you’re layin’ in your bed at night!”

Whoa! Did he just say that? Did he just say that in the fuckin’ library? I think I blushed about a hundred shades of red.

“Hunter. Dude. Relax! We’re teenage boys. We’re supposed to be pounding our sausage at least once a day. We all do it. Totally normal.”

“You are fuckin’ crazy, Hello You. Fuckin’ crazy, I say.”

“Hunter—you don’t know the half of it!”

School ended, and Jaime insisted that he take me home. He said if we were going to be best buds, he had to know where I lived. It made perfect sense to him, and I was already learning that when Jaime Vega decided to do something, there was no way he’d be talked out of it.

When we pulled into the ranch, we drove by a couple of livestock grazing fields. When he saw the sheep, he stopped his truck.

“Dude—you don’t fuck the sheep, do ya? I mean, when you get reeeeeeal horny?”

“What the fuck? Hell no! This ain’t Oklahoma, dude!”

“Ha! That was good! You’re funny as shit!”

We drove the rest of the way to the house. I asked him to come inside and meet my mom. Dad was still out in the fields, and I explained that if I was going to convince her that I wanted to try out for swimming, she’ll want to meet Jaime before letting him bring me home after practice.

We walked in the front door and shouted out, “Ma! I’m home!”

Mom came out of the kitchen saying, “Well, you’re home early. Did the bus—oh! Who’s this?”

“Ma, I already made a new friend. This is Jaime Vega. Jaime—Mom!”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Landry. Something sure smells good!”

“Oh, I’m making chicken and dumplings for dinner. Would you boys like a snack? I made some homemade chocolate chip cookies earlier this afternoon.”

“That would be awesome, Ma.” As we walked back to the kitchen, I told Jaime to get ready to die and go to Heaven. “Ma makes the best fuckin’ chocolate chip cookies on the planet.”

I poured a couple of cold glasses of milk while Mom put some warm cookies on a plate. She sat down across the table from us and picked at a cookie.

“Tell me about your family, Jaime.”

“Well—let’s see—My mom’s a teacher at Jefferson Elementary—third grade. My dad owns a landscape company.”

“That sounds lovely. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

Jaime stopped chewing his cookie and looked down at the table. He took a deep breath before talking.

“I have two older brothers. Frankie—he’s the oldest—he’s an Army vet. He signed up right after 9-11. He’s had a real hard time since he came back and lives at home until he’s ready to move on. I—uhm—had a second brother. Carlos idolized Frankie, and he joined the Army after he graduated high school. He—he didn’t make it back. So it’s been hard for all of us—especially Frankie.”

Whoa! Jaime started to tear up, but he didn’t cry—not out loud, anyway.

“Oh, you poor boy. I’m sure that had to have been difficult for your entire family.”

“Yeah, but we’re gettin’ through it. We just do our best to get through everything day by day.”

We just sat in silence for a while and nibbled on our cookies. Mom finally broke the silence by asking how our first day of high school went.

“It was pretty good, Ma. Jaime and I have five classes together. That’s how we hit it off and became friends so fast. Oh—we got our P.E. uniforms. The teacher said we needed to wash ‘em before we wore ‘em, or they’d smell like boy sweat for the rest of the year. Is that true?”

“He’s right. I would guess he’s had some smelly boys over the year. Just put them in the laundry, and I’ll run them through the wash tonight.”

“He also told us that he hoped we would try out for one of the sports teams. I know I’m gonna try out for the swim team. I think Hunter wants to, as well.”

“Well, I know you swim well. You’ve been swimming down in the river for years now. How would that work with the bus schedule?”

“Mrs. Landrey, that’s why I brought Hunter home today. I wanted to show him it would be no trouble at all to bring him home after practice or meets.”

“That’s quite an imposition, Jaime. We could never ask you to do something like that.”

“It’s not a problem. Friends do that kind of thing for their friends—especially when that friend is a good one—like Hunter here.”

Dammit! He smiled at me again—and I blushed again.

“Well, I think it would be a wonderful thing for you to get involved in some extra activities. You’re only in high school once. I’ll talk to your father tonight and let you know in the morning.”

“Thanks, Ma.”

“Well, I should get going. I need to be getting home soon. It was nice to meet ya, Mrs. Landrey.”

“It was nice to meet you, too. Thank you for driving Hunter home. That was very sweet of you.”

I walked Jaime out to his truck and said goodbye.

“I’ll see ya tomorrow, Hello You. Thanks for the ride.”

“I can pick you up in the morning, too.”

“Naw. That’s not a problem, but thanks for the lift. I’ll text ya when I find out what the old man says about swimming.”

“Cool. I’ll see you tomorrow, smart ass!”

“See you tomorrow, dumb ass!”

We both smiled—and blushed—before Jaime fired up his truck and drove back out to the highway.

Mom’s chicken and dumplings were as awesome as ever. She didn’t bring up the swimming during dinner. When we finished eating, I helped Mom with the dishes, and she sent me upstairs to do my homework.

“But, I don’t—”

She gave me the look that I understood from experience—don’t say another word and get out of here so I can talk to your father. So, I went upstairs and fired up my Playstation. I just lost myself in some Grand Theft Auto until I hear Mom coming up the stairs.

She knocked on the door and then came in. “I talked to your father, and he agreed to let you try out for the swimming team, but he insists that if you don’t make the team that you’ll be helping him with chores when you get home from school.”

“Wow! Really? Thanks, mom. Just so ya know—I’m gonna make the team. I’m gonna do everything it takes—and then some—to make sure I’m the best damned swimmer Abilene High School has ever seen.

As soon as Mom left my room, I grabbed my phone and sent a text to Jaime.

<HUNTLAND: i’m in. they’re gonna let me try out!

<JAIME69: awesome! i’ll see ya in the morning!

<HUNTLAND: i just hope they can teach me all those strokes.

<JAIME69: u don’t know how to stroke? dude!

<HUNTLAND: i’ll show you strokes, asswipe!

<JAIME69: promises. promises.

<HUNTLAND: ha! you do crack me up mr. hello you!

<JAIME69: dude. so glad i met you today. this is gonna be fuckin awesome.

<HUNTLAND: you’re fuckin awesome

<JAIME69: no u r

<HUNTLAND: u r

<JAIME69: no. WE are! Nite bud. Cya in the morning.

<HUNTLAND: niters

<JAIME69: don’t be practicing those strokes too much. your teenie weenie might just fall off! hehe

<HUNTLAND: aint nothin teenie about this weenie! just sayin

<JAIME69: nice

I didn’t hear anything else from Jaime. I guess he was done with the texting. But damn! Why was I hard? Must’ve been talking about strokes and dicks.

I locked my bedroom door and stripped off my clothes. I pulled one of my socks off my feet and stuck my 7½” cock inside. I started stroking, enjoy the Hell outta the feeling.

What happened next kinda scared me a little—right before I started to fill my sock with my spooge, I got this image in my brain—an image of Jaime. He was naked on his bed and strokin’ his own damned cock. BAM!

I just had the biggest nut in my life—and I was thinking about that cute Latino boy who just popped up into my life today. I think I’m fucked—big time fucked.