You Complete Me - 2. Chapter 2 - Locker Rooms

Tuesday was a little easier. Samwell didn’t have any condescending emails for Jake that morning and Jake had dropped off Meg the night before, relatively satisfied from their activities. Somewhat grudgingly, Jake could admit to himself that getting up at seven A.M. was a bit easier when he wasn’t hungover, but it also meant class was less of a blur.

Jake had always hated school. It wasn’t the learning aspect of it, exactly, since he remembered enjoying documentaries and educational TV until his friends made fun of him for it. It wasn't until Jake discovered his natural aptitude for sports that he found some way to appease his father outside of the classroom. Even Samwell was a bit less exasperated with his poor academic performance because it was expected that an athletic scholarship would likely be Jake’s ticket into college. It was his older sister, Ellie, that was the golden child in their household. That is, until her alcoholism caught up to her and Samwell ping-ponged his attention right back to Jake and his grades.

Realizing that he hadn’t heard from his sister in about two weeks, Jake texted her as he walked to his last class of the day, P.E. Ellie had been through a lot last semester - she dropped out of college and came back into town only to be immediately shoved into a rehab by their father. Since she’d gotten out, it wasn’t uncommon for her to go weeks without contacting him, but it still put him on edge.

Jake changed quickly in the locker room, arriving just in time for roll call in the gymnasium. The class had been separated into two large groups, with juniors on one set of bleachers and seniors on the other. Glendale High had been a large community college back in the ’90s with an equally large gym, but it lost funding and was abandoned for a decade until the township decided to repurpose it. With all the extra space and not as much staff to accommodate it, the school remedied that by grouping juniors and seniors in one block and freshmen and sophomores into the other. Jake idly let his eyes wander over the new faces on the juniors’ side and blinked in recognition when he saw Luke’s cousin.

Nic was slumped in his seat, looking incredibly bored with the entire affair as Coach Reynolds went over first day rules and expectations. Jake caught his eye and offered a small wave, but Nic only acknowledged him with a slight nod, his expression blank. Luke hadn’t been kidding about him being standoffish

They were finally released outside to the rec fields to spend the next hour doing whatever they wanted, as long as they kept moving. Some people used the time to socialize, walking seemingly endless laps around the track with their friends. Others tossed balls around or formed small teams to play games. Jake, of course, joined a group of guys playing touch football.

Jake had continued playing football until his sophomore year and was damn good at it, until a friend encouraged him to try out for the rugby team as well. After one practice and getting the wind completely knocked out of him, Jake decided he was in love. He quit football the following year, telling his father that both sports were too physically demanding to do simultaneously. In truth, he just liked rugby more and playing football limited his ability to get better at it.

With Jake gone, that opened up the quarterback position for Bryan Neumann, the school meathead, and he never stopped being bitter about being second choice or the team started losing more games after Jake left. The giant reminded him that absence did not, in fact, make the heart grow fonder by shoulder-checked Jake hard enough to make him stumble. Jake glared at him, but the big guy only sneered at him.

“What’s wrong? You going to quit?”

Jake rolled his eyes, but he moved back into position without comment.

There were a few more plays until Coach Reynolds, who had been wandering around, approached with a fresh group of students that he had decided weren’t being active enough. Since a few of them didn’t know how to play, he reshuffled them. A few guys dropped out, but Jake stuck around because he didn’t feel like doing anything else, and one of the new players on the opposite side was Nic.

Jake still felt weirdly curious about the kid, despite his frosty nature. He liked the challenge; it made him all the more determined to make friends with him.

The game progressed rather uneventfully, until by some stroke of bad luck on his part, Nic ended up with the ball. He darted away from the first player that made a grab for him, sprinting towards Jake’s side of the field where it was most open.

Jake widened his stance and got prepared stop him. Nic hesitated briefly, causing Jake to make a lunge for him, but his fingers closed around air – Nic was way faster than he looked. Jake only half-heartedly gave chase once he recovered; Nic was already quickly outpacing him.

Jake was willing to give Nic the point, but Bryan, on the other hand, had other ideas. He sprinted across the field to intercept Nic, who no longer had any room to avoid him without going out of bounds. Bryan aggressively tagged him, practically shoving him. Nic didn’t have Jake’s bulk, so he went down on one knee just to keep from flying.

As Bryan rejoined his friends on his team, Jake heard him say, “You guys afraid to touch the fag or something?”

Jake bristled, but he just managed to bite his tongue. He and Bryan had exchanged words in the past, and he’d made a promise to himself to ignore him whenever possible this year. Instead, he caught up to Nic, who was walking back to his team to reset. He hadn’t been close enough to hear what Bryan had said, but his expression was nonetheless thunderous from being shoved.

“Maybe you should try out for track,” Jake said to him.

Nic narrowed his eyes at him, as if he were trying to figure out if he was being made fun of or not. Jake smiled at him to show he was harmless, and eventually Nic’s face softened into an almost-smile, unable to fully resist. So he isn’t immune.

“I only run when I’m being chased,” he drawled as he walked away. Jake saw a few of his team members clap him on the back once he had returned to them.

Coach Reynolds blew the whistle to announce the end of the period all too soon in Jake’s opinion. Students began picking up their equipment and walking it back to the storage sheds before migrating back inside to the locker room. Jake spotted Nic in the company of one of the boys that had been on his team - a kid with dark, floppy hair and a nose ring – and they looked friendly. Evidently, he wasn’t as standoffish as he thought.

“I hope you’re prepared to do some actual guidance at practice tomorrow,” Coach Reynolds said to Jake as he joined him on his trek across the field.

“Of course not,” Jake said honestly. “Why did I agree to being a captain this year again?”

“Because you’re a senior, we have a high turnover, and you’re one of the best non-collegiate players I’ve ever seen.”

Jake felt his face heating up a little and he avoided Reynolds’ earnest gaze. He didn’t dish compliments out often. “Aw shucks,” he grumbled sarcastically.

“I mean it, Jake. I know you’re not a teacher, so just show them how you learned and everything will fall into place. Actually, remind me to – ”

“I’ll have to stop you right there because I have never been the one to do the reminding.”

Reynolds chuckled. “Alright. Then as soon as I get home I’ll forward you all the contacts for the region. I want you and Amir to coordinate on this semester’s schedule by the end of the week and send it to me for approval.”

“You got it,” Jake said amiably, making a mental note to text Amir later.

“Oh, and Jake? I want you to play extra clean this year.”

“Of course.” He felt almost indignant. He couldn’t remember the last time he even got a penalty – and deserved it.

“No, I mean it. Don’t spread this around the entire team because I don’t want it out before it’s a for-sure thing – but I’ve been talking to a colleague that might be interested in watching a few games.”

Jake’s heart skipped a beat. “You mean for college-level rugby?”

“Don’t get too excited. But yes, they’re scouting for that.”

Coach Reynolds had casually mentioned to him and a few other good players about knowing a few college scouts for good rugby teams since early last year, but honestly, Jake had thought he was blowing hot air for a while. He could only blink at him.

“You know what this means,” Reynolds continued. “Getting him interested was only half the battle. Stay out of trouble and keep those grades up, understand?”

“Yes, Coach.” Despite his excitement, Jake suppressed a sigh. He was starting to sound like his father. Unlike Samwell, however, Jake had seen Reynolds pretty consistently for the past two years.

They went their separate ways at the door, with Jake entering the boys’ locker room at its most hectic. Another perk of a big gym was that the locker room never felt particularly crowded, but the fewer swinging dicks he had to be in the company of, the better. It was an open shower with only a handful of private stalls that were quickly claimed, the majority of people in a line on one side of the gym. It was partially blocked by a low wall that prevented whoever entered the locker room from getting an eyeful.

Bryan and a group of his goons were milling about outside the showers, waiting their turns and being a general nuisance with loud locker room talk. Jake didn’t pay them any mind as he quickly swapped his sweaty gym clothes for a towel to cover himself, but his ears perked when he heard Bryan say, “Hey - Nic, right?”

The boy in question was sitting on a bench a few feet away from them, still chatting with the nose-ring kid Jake had seen him with earlier. He didn’t verbally acknowledge Bryan, but he glanced his way with a raised eyebrow.

“Tell me - you take it up the ass or the other way around?”

Bryan’s friends burst into laughter, but they were the only ones doing so. Most of the other guys around that had heard were pointedly ignoring the exchange or just looked vaguely uncomfortable. Nose-Ring suddenly found the tile between his feet very interesting, and Nic kept his face gracefully blank. Jake gave it a solid second of thought before giving up on his senior year resolution.

“Why so curious, Neumann?”

He didn’t shout, but his voice carried over the dying chuckles nonetheless. Bryan shot him a nasty look. “What are you trying to say, Ferguson?”

Jake shrugged. “Nothing. Seems like it’s you that has something to tell us.”

It wasn’t a slam dunk by any means, but Bryan was easily triggered by anything Jake said to him. He took a menacing step towards Jake, who regarded him levelly.

Before it escalated any further, though, the gym door cracked open and Reynolds’ shout of “Twenty minutes, guys!” reverberated through the echoey room. Bryan gave Jake one last glare, turned on his heel, and strode into the shower without another word. His friends – some of whom were Jake's ex-friends from when he was on the football team – notably avoided his eyes and dispersed.

Jake glanced at Nic, who looked a little less bored for once. He stood up and walked past Jake on his way to one of the private stalls. He didn’t look exactly grateful. Oh well. Jake didn’t do it for gratitude.

***

Nic angled his phone so his lower body was fully in frame of his camera and lifted his knee so that was somewhat decent if anyone were to burst into his room. His brother, Joey, had only walked in on him in a compromising position once, but that was one too many times as far as Nic was concerned. He was lucky it hadn’t been his mother or stepfather instead. He grasped his fully erect cock tightly in his fist and snapped the picture with his other hand, then flicked the blanket back over his nudity before sending it.

Vince, the recipient of the sext, quickly responded with a panting emoji followed by a picture of his own package. Nic gave his phone a lopsided smirk as he lazily stroked himself under the sheets. Now he was interested. They had started flirting shortly after meeting in second period yesterday and, like most of Nic’s relationships, it had escalated quickly. They had been sexting off and on since, and he was reasonably sure that their relationship would cross into the physical realm in the near future.

After that weird encounter with Arnie earlier, Nic was determined to get laid soon. He had been entirely too close to taking Arnie up on his offer, and he didn’t have much faith in his own restraint if it came up again. They had “dated” last summer, when Nic and his mother visited before deciding to move here. At least, that’s what Arnie had called it. Nic wasn’t aware that he was in a relationship until they got into a fist fight over some texts Arnie saw on his phone. At least now they had something of an understanding: Nic did not date..

Luckily for Nic, Glendale High was a big school and full of potential players. There were a lot of reasons why he was going to prefer living here but having a lot of options was a big plus. Vince revealed himself as batting for Nic’s team pretty quickly, and Nic could surmise from his straightforward flirting that he was a “hit it and quit it” sort of guy. Perfect.

A sharp knock on his door nearly made him toss his phone, and the high tenor of his brother’s voice floated from the other side. “Dinner’s ready!”

Nic sighed. He wrestled with the possibility of going hungry to avoid another so-called family dinner, but his stomach clenched painfully at the thought. “Be there in a minute!” he finally answered.

Nic dressed and emerged from his bedroom a few minutes later, and was greeted by the strong, cheesy smell of his mother’s famous rib-sticking fettucine alfredo. Kathy really only knew how to make various pasta dishes well, so they tended to eat a lot of alfredo, spaghetti, or lasagna if Nic wasn’t responsible for dinner. Nic and Joey had inherited their mother’s small stature and difficulty gaining weight, but their stepfather, Amos, wasn’t so lucky. His waistband seemed to grow a bit more each year, Nic thought with a sneer.

“What are you smirking about?” Amos growled as Nic took his place at the table.

Nic quelled his amusement and his face returned to carefully blank. “Something that happened at school.” He spooned a generous helping of cheesy pasta onto his plate from the casserole dish at the center of the table.

Amos scowled, but he let it go. Nic knew it wouldn’t last long, though; if his stepfather wanted an argument, he was going to get one eventually. Amos had been in and out of their lives for the past seven years, only becoming a semi-constant since he moved with them to Glendale, much to Nic’s chagrin. Now that they were stuck with him, Nic tried to keep the peace, but the man was insufferable.

“No video games at the table,” Kathy reminded Joey, who was approaching his chair with his eyes glued to the Nintendo Switch in his hands. Nic smirked as his younger brother sulkily made an about face to return to the handheld back to charging port.

Kathy turned to her eldest son. “How was school today? I know you were nervous about P.E.”

“It was fine,” Nic said, with a shrug. Historically, locker room environments had not been kind to him.

“You sure? We aren’t going to hear about any ‘harassment,’ are we?” Amos asked, with exaggerated concern. Nic had been relentlessly bullied at his old school, which eventually led to them relocating. Amos hadn’t been happy about leaving his job and made it clear from the get-go that he thought Nic was just thin-skinned and overreacting.

“Nope.” Nic swallowed his anger and forced a smile. “One of Luke’s friends is in my P.E. class,” he supplied to his mother, in an attempt to change the topic. “He seems nice, I guess.”

Kathy raised an eyebrow interest. “Oh, is it Jake?”

“Yeah, I think. How did you know?”

“He’s the only boy your Aunt April mentions regularly, so I guess he’s one of Luke’s closest friends. Sweet kid, she says, but a bit of a player.” She gave him a strange look.

Nic answered it with a perplexed one. “Okay?”

Joey tuned into the conversation then, a long string of cheese dangling from his mouth. “He plays sports?”

“That too, but she means he...dates a lot of girls,” Nic replied, compulsively dabbing at Joey’s mouth with his napkin. His brother swatted his hand away, so Nic tossed his napkin at Joey in dismissal before turning back to his mother. “Aunt April seems kind of nosy.”

Kathy chuckled. “Just food for thought.”

Nic finally caught on to what she was getting at. “I’m not interested in him! Jeez.” He may have a weakness for attractive guys and Jake was easy on the eyes, but he still had a type.

“No need to get defensive, Nic. I’m glad your friend group is evolving,” Kathy added pointedly. She hadn’t been too fond of Arnie when he and Nic were involved. Arnie rubbed a lot of people the wrong way – that’s probably why they hit it off.

“Can we not talking about this over the dinner table?” Amos interjected.

For once, Nic was on the same page as him. Amos hated hearing about Nic’s personal life almost as much as Nic hated talking about it.

***

“I just don’t get the point,” Jake grumbled out loud as he moodily flicked a flashcard across the table. It joined a growing pile of flashcards of various elements of the periodic table, hastily scrawled in his distinctive chicken scratch.

His equally moody tutor gave a small sigh, betraying some cracks in her usually unwavering patience. “What’s the point in memorizing anything? Come on, Jake, this should be an easy A, so just suck it up.” Jazzy spared him a reproachful glare burying her nose back in her intimidating-looking textbook.

Jake put his hand over his heart, as if he had had been wounded. “Good lord, Jazzy, you kiss your mother with that mouth?” He reached across the table to lift the edge of her textbook just enough to read the title and whistled. “AP Chem this semester, huh? No wonder you don’t have time for my bullshit.”

Jazzy tersely flipped a page. “Yes, so count your blessings and memorize your periodic table. I’ll quiz you once I’m done with this chapter - at least you’re not studying phase diagrams.”

Jake rolled his eyes. “Knowing you, you probably don’t need to study phase diagrams this week either.”

“Doesn’t hurt to get ahead of the class a bit,” she said defensively. She had taken on a faintly pink hue, which brought Jake no small amount of mischievous glee.

Jake scoffed but obediently went back to reviewing flashcards. It was Thursday and Jake had his first Chemistry quiz tomorrow on the periodic table, so naturally he hadn’t started studying until today – something that gave his long-time tutor, Jazzy, a lot of barely-concealed exasperation. He couldn’t help it – memorizing was so intellectually boring to Jake. In some alternative future in which he would become a chemist, he didn’t understand why he would need to know the atomic number and mass of a given element off the top of his head.

There had been other, more worthwhile things Jake had done with his time. He had practice, painstakingly teaching rookies how to tackle, other homework to do that he actually enjoyed (like Calculus) and having sex with Meg. That had been fun. His pillow still smelled like her expensive shampoo.

Jake blinked, realizing he had been staring blankly at the little square of paper for several seconds. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. He really didn’t want to have to take his Adderall this early in the semester, but it was starting to look like a strong possibility. Hopefully he wouldn’t be sick by the time he had dinner with Meg and her father.

“Alright,” Jazzy said. “Finished. You ready for me to quiz you?”

Jake checked his watch. He had fifteen minutes before his next class. “I haven’t gotten to the lanthanides, but fuck it, we don’t have much time. Hit me.” He pushed his disorganized pile of handmade flashcards across the table towards her.

Jazzy pushed her thick glasses up on her nose and began calling out elements, separating the used cards by correct and incorrect answers. She had been a mostly enthusiastic, nonjudgmental tutor for Jake over the last year and was largely responsible for his improving grades. The ones his father had paid for over the years had been stuffy old white guys that had always seemed vaguely condescending towards him. Sometime in his sophomore year, the school started a program for gifted students to gain volunteer hours by tutoring their peers, and Jazzy was the only one in that program that Jake knew wouldn’t make him feel stupid because of his ADHD.

He had deduced this because Jazzy had a poorly disguised crush on him and she was painfully shy, which made her pretty nonthreatening. She used to blush furiously every time they made eye contact, but nowadays she only got flustered when Jake teased her, so it seemed the crush was waning. It wasn’t that she wasn’t cute - behind the glasses and conservative style, she had beautiful caramel skin and frizzy black curls that he wouldn’t mind running his hands through – but she was just a little too meek for his tastes. Jake gave her free chips whenever she came to the restaurant and made a point to invite her into his friend circle no matter how much Meg scoffed, and in return Jazzy didn’t tell anyone about his embarrassing learning difficulties.

They breezed through the flashcards in about ten minutes, and when they were done Jazzy handed Jake the incorrect pile, about a third of the size of the correct one and now neatly stacked. “Just review these a bunch and you should do fine.”

“No problem, Teach.” Jake tucked them into separate folders and they both started gathering their things to leave. “You’re a life-saver as always.” He hoisted his bag over one shoulder and started to turn away.

“Um, Jake?”

Jake looked back at Jazzy, who was avoiding his eyes, wringing her hands, and looked like she was gathering the courage to ask him something. He had a sinking feeling he knew what it was already and prepared to let her down gently. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Y-you’re friends with Luke Ensing, right?”

He hadn’t expected that. “Oh, yeah, we’re pretty close.”

Another pause. “Next time you see him, can you ask him if – uh – ” She faltered under his questioning gaze for a second before clearing her throat. “Can you ask him if-if he got the page numbers for the readings for Mrs. Halloran? I forgot to write them down.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. That didn’t sound like what she was originally going to ask him, and it was a bit odd for Jazzy to forget to write down an assignment. Perhaps she had been spending too much time with him. “Here, I’ll do you one better. Let me give you his number and you can ask him yourself, because we both know I’ll probably forget.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, I don’t want to bother him – ”

He smiled at his phone as he texted her Luke’s number. “Nah, it’s not like he’s busy, but he takes forever to answer if it’s not through text. There you go.”

Jazzy took out her own phone for confirmation as if she didn’t quite believe he’d actually do it. “Oh…wow, thanks a lot, Jake.”

Jake shrugged; he didn’t get why she was acting as if Christmas had come early. “No problem. Okay, I’m running late now, so I’ll catch you – ”

She had already started walking away, her hand raised in a somewhat absentminded goodbye and an unmistakable pep in her step. Jake shook his head. “Weird,” he muttered to himself as he hurried to his last class, P.E.

For P.E. that day, they were split into group kickball, with juniors against seniors, and track for anyone that didn’t want to do that. Jake spotted Nic with Nose-ring Kid (whose name he learned was Vince during role call at the beginning of class) and they were jogging leisurely together on the track, looking quite chummy. Bryan was playing kickball with the majority of the seniors so his interaction with Nic was minimal, to Jake’s relief. Luke probably wouldn’t be happy if he let his cousin get bullied on his first week. This meant the period passed quickly and uneventfully.

Once class ended, Coach Reynolds requested a volunteer to help him erect the soccer goalposts since the boys’ team came out to practice immediately after, and Jake took him up on it. Neumann sort of jeered at Jake when he volunteered, but Jake was back to ignoring the quarterback. Reynolds was the only teacher he would happily brownnose for and it was clearly paying off.

Jake ended up staying behind for a good half hour, distracted by socializing and not in any great hurry to leave since he only had some chemistry review waiting for him at home. He slowly walking back to the locker room when he faintly felt his phone vibrating in his loose basketball shorts.

He was equal parts relieved and annoyed to see his sister’s name on the caller ID. “Ellie! Where the fuck have you been?”

“What a greeting,” came the sardonic reply on the other end. “Where are you? I’m at the house.”

“Just stayed behind to do some things for Coach. Are you in a hurry?”

“No, I’ll just hang out for a bit. I got off early from work, so I thought I’d stop by.”

He winced. If he was remembering correctly, their dad’s liquor cabinet was unlocked, which meant he couldn’t leave her there alone for long. He’d barely heard from Ellie all summer, so he had gotten careless. “Alright. I should be home in a few.”

“I’ll be here.” As custom for her, she hung up without saying goodbye.

Jake sped up into a jog back to the gym with an armful of orange cones he had been gathering. He tossed them unceremoniously into the supply closet just outside the door and hurried into the boys’ locker room, already removing his shirt. Curiously, he could hear one of the shower heads running from within. School had ended nearly forty minutes ago and the afterschool teams were currently on the field, so no one should be in the locker room. Jake mentally shrugged as he balled up his sweaty t-shirt and was stepping out of his shorts when he noticed he could just hear something else under the rushing water.

Quiet panting, rhythmic slapping of flesh against flesh, the occasional masculine groan…all sounds that were very telling. Was it really what it sounded like? He had jokingly proposed fucking in the boys’ locker room to Meg, but he hadn’t actually heard of anyone pulling that off. If someone did, they were far braver than he was.

Curious, Jake craned his head around the partition he was changing behind, but the eyeful he got was not the one he expected. The knowing smirk on his face slowly died as his jaw went slack.

There was indeed a couple “engaged” at the opposite end of the locker room, in one of the private shower stalls, but the door was half-open. Jake quickly recognized the junior, Vince, from his P.E. class, his floppy hair swinging wildly as he enthusiastically thrust into the proffered behind of someone that was definitely not a girl, judging by the hardened dick that was also bouncing between his legs. The other guy’s hands were braced against the wall and his head was lowered between them, so Jake could only tell that he was fairly slender and had longish dark-blond hair that looked slightly damp.

Jake wasn’t sure how long he stood there, watching in silent horror as if some supernatural force prevented him from just walking away, but it felt like an eternity. In reality, it was probably only a few seconds before the one receiving turned his head. Even though his eyes were closed and his features were relaxed in an expression Jake never wanted to see on another man, he recognized Nic with a jolt.

Worse yet, the spell didn’t break even as Nic opened his eyes and saw Jake.

Jake felt his body grow cold with mortification. He should have darted back behind his partition. He should have run out of the locker room. He should make plans to change schools the very next morning. Instead, he froze. On the other end of that locker room, Nic could have alerted his partner. He could have shouted for Jake to go away. Instead, he held Jake’s gaze and his lips stretched into a positively wicked smile as he slowly closed the stall door the rest of the way.

With a silent gasp, Jake forcefully wrenched his eyes from the scene and back to the safety behind his partition, his chest heaving. He could still hear Nic and Vince going at it, Vince’s moans increasing in pitch as he apparently approached his climax. Jake wasn’t sure what he was more panicked by – walking in on gay sex, continuing to watch it like some sort of pervert, or being caught watching. He threw his shirt back on and bent to pull his shorts back up, but paused, his hands shaking.

Why the fuck was he hard?