Wild Card - 5. Rally the Troops

Wild Card Chapter 5—Rally the Troops

If I’d been more awake, I’d probably be amazed at the engineering that went into making Cory’s cat—the amount of irritation Lola was able to produce was far greater than the sum of her tiny furry parts.

I woke at the asscrack of dawn, for the fourth time since I went to bed, to a small paw batting at my nose and her small, but insistent, meows. She’d perched herself on my chest, somehow resting all her slight weight on one front paw, directly over a bruise I hadn’t realized I had, in such a way as to cause maximum discomfort. I had a hard time imagining my little sister being able to be this much of a nuisance.

Lola had been making a worse racket the first time I woke up.

I had laid awake then, tracking the sound of her bell racing back and forth on the bedroom floor. Thanks to the nightlights Cory insisted she needed (“Yeah, cats can see in the dark, but they still need some light, mi lobo.”), I caught her doing that pre-attack butt-wiggle thing cats do before she pounced on one of my shoes and chewed the fuck out of it. Then, something else had gotten her attention, and she made to bound off after it, despite having a claw stuck in the shoelaces. Her ears turned back, giving her what looked like little devil horns in the meagre light, as she jumped back and proceeded to kick my shoe's ass.

And, God help me, I laughed.

I wasn’t laughing a couple hours later when I’d woken up, needing to take a leak, and found where Lola’d flung kitty litter all over the bathroom floor.

Which I was not going to clean up since I already had to clean up where I’d missed the bowl.

That stupid bell was supposed to be some kind of advanced warning system, but fat lot of good it did me when she’d snuck up on me and put her cold, wet nose on the back of my leg. She got pissed at me when I jumped in surprise and started bitching at the natural consequences of being startled mid-piss, but what did she expect? Cooing and cuddling?

Later, I woke up to the sound of her plucking at the comforter with her claws and crying her head off (on my side of the bed because she’d already discovered that I could be woken up). I asked her what she wanted, the futility of such an act not hitting me until she meowed louder. I knew damn well that she could climb up herself, but still found myself picking her up so she could cuddle with her boy all sweet and cute, like she hadn’t just been raising ten kinds of hell earlier.

Another meow, long and loud, but nevertheless diminutive, pulled my attention back to the present. I narrowed my eyes at Lola, who thumped my chest with her tail in annoyance. I turned my head, fully intending to wake Cory up so he could deal with his cat himself, but the bed was empty.

Goddammit.

“I don’t want to pet you,” I told Lola.

Lola meowed again before licking my nose, then rubbing her face in my stubble.

Just as I was about to call for my boyfriend to come get his cat off me, the door opened and he popped in, coffee and snack in hand.

“Gotta get up, vato.” Cory handed me a mug, looking more like himself than he had last night. “Coach wants us in the viewing room before ten.” Lola tottered over, trilling happily, as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yes, I see that,” he told her. “Good girl!”

“Good girl?” I asked.

“Hm?” Cory gave me a look so innocent that it verged on collapsing in on itself forming a black hole of ill-intent as he made little kissy noises into her neck.

I suddenly remembered a voice hissing “go get him” before Lola was set on my stomach and the bedroom door clicked shut.

And that was when I realized how truly fucked I was.

The hellion follows his orders.

~*~*~*~

Given how Efrain and I found Preston and Indie when we returned from Thanksgiving, I shouldn’t have been surprised at the erotic tableau playing out in the kitchen.

Indie sat on a barstool with my best friend between his knees, one hand massaging his perky skinny jean-clad ass. The other hand had disappeared up his shirt doing who knows what to his back, but judging by the reaction, it had to be good. Preston writhed in the amorous embrace with both hands shoved in Indie’s hair as each man did his best to maul the other guy’s face with his mouth.

They were still going at it by the time we’d changed into more comfortable clothes, and I’d picked up Lola (who disliked being left alone today as much as she had yesterday, and left a slobbery catnip mouse on Efrain’s pillow in retaliation), the only change being that Preston’s whimpers and Indie’s moans had increased in volume. I assumed that it had something to do with the hand that was no longer on Preston’s ass, but rammed down the front of his pants instead.

Efrain looked at me, and I wondered if I should interrupt them, or if we should leave and pretend we hadn’t seen anything. Lola seemed to be the only one bold enough to say something when it became apparent that stripping and throwing down was imminent. The lovers sprang apart at her fierce little meow. I tried not to laugh as Preston hastily buttoned up his jeans, and Indie rearranged his sizable cock. Both men were flush, their lips swollen and wet—they’d been at it for a while.

“Damn, considering how we found them last time,” Efrain laughed, “this is an improvement.”

I snickered. “Hell, maybe when we come back from Spring Break, they’ll be chastely holding hands.”

“Whatever,” Preston said testily.

Indie looked at my hands and grinned. “So, you really did gay adopt a cat from a drag queen,” he said. Preston chuckled and reached out to take her. Lola warmed to him instantly.

“Yeah,” Efrain said. “Thanks for telling JJ all about that.”

Indie smirked, and I was reminded of the other things Indie had shared with JJ (who shared with the rest of the Brain Trust). I hadn’t planned on telling others about being kicked out, mainly because I didn’t want to talk or think about it at all. However, I had arrived at the locker complex yesterday to find that all six of them had been kept abreast of the issue.

The constant pats on the back and understanding looks from the Brain Trust threatened to undermine every mind trick I’d pulled on myself just to get my shit together long enough to make it through practice without falling apart. I’d spent the whole damn practice trying not to tear up while my moods swung violently from one extreme to the next. My performance was absolute shit, which only made the problem worse.

And any hope I’d harbored that no one would notice fled when even the guys on the other side of the locker room noticed the difference in me. Mac, one of the guys on the D line, asked me if I was okay as we changed out. Of course, Paul had to blab about my dad throwing me out of my childhood home.

“Dude, that’s fucking shitty,” Mac had said.

I shrugged my shoulders, trying not to look at Efrain, but still catching his nervous look my way.

“What happened?” Beau, our place kicker, asked.

“His dad had a problem with someone he’s dating,” JJ said, and I silently thanked him for covering for me.

“She black?” Mac asked.

“Something like that,” Mitch answered, and nothing more was said. However, I then received even more understanding looks and pats on the back today—including one from Coach Vuis when he pulled me aside to ask how I was holding up and offered to listen if I needed to talk. There were even some awkward bro hugs thrown in that made everyone feel uncomfortable.

All I wanted to do was throw myself into football and forget, but found myself instead cursing the fact that people give a damn about me and feeling like an asshole for it.

So, yeah, not the best practice ever.

Teasing our friends for getting caught in the act again would have been a nice distraction, but Indie had to ruin that, too.

“JJ said you weren’t looking so hot at practice,” Indie said. Asshole. He slipped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in.

“What…what are you doing?”

“Sorry about your sucky holiday,” he said.

“Efrain,” I whined. “Indie’s being nice to me.”

“I can see that, gatito.” His mouth quirked up at the corners as I felt a peck kiss land on the top of my head.

“It’s weird.”

“Just go with it.” Indie laughed and ruffled my hair (with the same hand he’d had on my best friend’s dick only moments before, I might add) and accepted the kitten from Preston. “Cute little thing,” he said, lifting Lola up to eye level. “If a little cross-eyed.”

“It’s common in color points,” I said defensively.

“Color points?”

“Cats with Siamese-like markings.”

“Lola is an apricot lynx-point.” Efrain affected a snooty tone, heavily laced with sarcasm. I was so going to tell Jimmy he did that.

“Ah,” Indie nodded. He scratched behind her ears, and she wrapped her front paws around his hand and purred her encouragement.

Preston reached up to scratch her back, which set those little paws to kneading at Indie’s hand. “What a sweetie.”

“Wait,” Indie said, peering down at his hand. “Did you paint her claws?”

“No way,” Preston said, craning his head around to see. “You got her nails ‘did’?”

“Hey,” I protested. “You’ll be happy to know she hasn’t climbed your curtains since I put on the tips.”

“Oh yeah, or the bedspread,” Efrain added. “Now, she just sings the song of her people until I wake up to put her in bed with him.”

“She’s not that bad.”

“Only because your ass can sleep through anything.”

“Aw, it’s a lovers’ quarrel,” Preston giggled. We made our way to the living room, where I took back Lola. I snuggled up with her and Efrain on one couch, while Indie and Preston set to putting their unoccupied hands to back to groping on the other. Moments after Efrain had picked up the TV remote, we heard the distinct sounds of the full-on makeout session going down across the room.

“God, and he complained about us being bad,” Efrain murmured.

“I’ve at least refrained from giving him a handjob under the dining room table,” Indie shot back.

“And did it in the kitchen, instead,” Efrain said.

“I seem to have heard something about you fooling around on my washing machine.”

“One, at least we closed the basement door. Two, spin cycles are awesome,” my boyfriend argued. “And, three, we only tried it cause Squeak Toy told Cory all about you two doing it.”

“Have you always bickered like this?” I asked. “Or, is it something that started recently?”

“I suppose we should separate them before they come to blows.” Preston sighed, extricating himself from Indie’s arms long enough to pull him off the couch. Both men sported prominent hard-ons, and I felt my cheeks heat up as I remembered what each looked like underneath the layers of clothing.

Bad of me, I know, but, fuck you, those were some damn fine looking dicks.

“Sensible,” I said, also rising. “I should try to get as many blows in on Wolfie here before we have to straighten out for our trip tomorrow.” I looked down at Efrain, who gave me a feral grin.

“So, that’s the way of it,” he said.

“Yup.”

At Preston’s amused nod, I sauntered away from the couch, barely getting a few yards away before my boyfriend’s arms came up around my waist and he started tugging at my clothes before we’d even made it to the bedroom.

The giggles from the other side of the house indicated that we weren’t the only ones about to make scary noises.

~*~*~*~

The bedroom door clicked shut as I shoved Indie back against it. He panted into the nibbles I placed along his collarbone while I unbuttoned his worn and comfortable looking jeans. His head fell back when I lowered myself to the floor.

“God, I need this in my mouth,” I said, admiring the length of cock hidden behind a layer of cotton boxers. Indie moaned softly and ran his fingers through my hair in a subtle invitation. I mouthed his dick from base to pre-cum-leaking tip and back, eliciting soft groans from the tall man that only increased in volume when I slipped my tongue through the piss-slit of his boxers to steal a taste of him. A half-chuckle above me when I teased him again.

“You ­did miss me,” I said.

Indie’s fingers pressed me forward by way of reply, and I took pity on him, freeing his impressive member from the confines of pants and underwear. Another half-chuckle. I swear those things send shivers across my whole body.

“So what if I did?”

As I couldn’t think of a way to make him admit it, let alone a plausible excuse for why he should miss me, the only suitable response seemed to be taking him into my mouth. I started working the head with lips and tongue, taking increasingly frequent breaks to suck as much of his length as I can get into my mouth, until I had him panting and moaning. Indie gently rolled his hips, thrusting his cock between my lips, his eyes trained on me whenever I look up as he tenderly fucked my face.

When his legs started shaking, I thought he would finally allow me to bring him off in my mouth. Indie had swallowed for me a few times already, so I should get to taste him, too. But, it had yet to happen, and if it wasn’t for his reactions, I’d have thought I sucked at sucking every time I failed to make him cum. I should feel ashamed that my best friend’s world was falling apart, while I was up here doing my damnedest to choke down Indie’s jizz along with my feelings, and I do, but I couldn’t stop. Especially when he yanked his shirt off, only to get caught up in a strangled “Goddamn, Preston” in the middle of pitching it across the room.

Yet, just as his breathing got within stalking distance of hyperventilation, he pulled me up, smiling as I whined.

“Too soon,” Indie said. His fingers lift the hem of my shirt, raking over my sides as he peeled it off my body, and his spit-covered dick pressed into my stomach when he pulled me close. “Haven’t had enough, yet.”

“Enough of..?”

He left me to draw my own conclusions as he drew me to the bed. There I fell victim to his talented mouth and hands—brought to the point of quivering and pleading by the time he settled his weight between my thighs.

I’d always been pretty vocal in bed, but something about Indie’s dick sinking deeper into my ass brought out the worst in me. What began as moans morphed into desperate cries with each agonizingly slow thrust. Half of that was frustration. It had been a week and a half since I’d last seen him, and this was far from the hard and fast fuck I’d expected from such a reunion. I needed him to finish me off quickly, but found myself too on edge to do more than cry out “Oh, God! Indie! Please!” which, honestly, could mean any number of things, given my present state.

As such, his hips continued to rise and fall in controlled circles, driving my voice higher still, the whole effect exacerbated by his rich voice by my ear—chuckling, making soothing noises, calling me “baby.” Once, I could pull myself back from the back-arching-to-the-point-of-pain orgasm Indie was building in me, I’d be able to think rationally about this thing between us. We’d never said this was anymore than just sex, but my mind and body had a hard time focusing on that when he called me sweet names and moved as if making love to me.

Yet, as wrong as it seemed, it felt too damn good to make him stop, or make my mind see reason.

~*~*~*~

Weathering Cory’s ups and downs was bad enough at home, but keeping him on an even keel while maintaining distance around the teammates we weren’t out to was torture.

Especially at night.

Especially for our bunk mates.

Adrian complained that I wouldn’t stop asking him how Cory was, and Paul complained that I tossed and turned all night. I assumed they had colluded to switch our room assignments. It’s not like we had talked about it or anything. Adrian just asked for my key card, then handed me his. When anyone outside of our small group asked, the guys joked about how badly I snored and how Cory could sleep through the second coming.

Of course, within our group, I suffered through knowing looks. The hurry-up-and-wait nature of our pre-bowl activities certainly leant itself to their friendly ribbing.

“So,” Denholm leered, when we joined them in the green room. The sponsors couldn’t exactly wine and dine us, so the players got smoothied and protein barred and showered with gifts as we waited to shoot the pictures and videos the station would use during the game broadcast. There were nice, fat care packages waiting for the players, staff, VIPs, and even the cheerleaders in our hotel rooms, and along with even fatter boxes of loot waiting for us when we got home. “How’d you sleep?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Just fine.” Cory seemed more inclined to ignore the comments, flopping into the chair next to JJ instead.

“Oh, really?” Mitch said, over his casual perusal of the gift suite catalogue. “Coulda sworn I heard someone’s head board hitting the wall last night.”

“No, really,” I said, and I meant it. Cory and I hadn’t done more than cuddle and talk last night. That headboard had to belong to one of our teammates. Groupies weren’t hard to come by here, and I’m sure most of the guys bunked with someone they knew would do them a solid and scram for an hour. “Our behavior would’ve made a Mormon proud.”

JJ snorted in disbelief.

“You must not know about Mormons,” Adrian laughed. “Ask the Utah guys how Mormon girls keep their virginity.”

“Hey, Cory,” Paul said. “You still a virgin?”

“Shut the fuck up!” I deadarmed my former bunkmate. Okay, so maybe I was a little defensive. This morning’s shower may have been slightly less than innocent (not my fault that there’s just enough conditioner in those little hotel-sized bottles to lube us both up for a joint handjob and get a couple of my fingers up his ass besides), and of course the guys would remember that we’d missed the full-service breakfast. “You’re just pissy ‘cause you can’t get laid here.”

“I can get—”

“Sure you can,” Cory said. “But, I doubt you’ll get laid in Blacksburg once Luz finds out you fucked a groupie.”

“And who’s going to tell her?”

“You have to ask?” Cory arched his brow in question, and my grin stretched to almost painful lengths at Paul fish-out-of-water expression. Sure, my guy could overpower most other guys, but it was much hotter to watch him overpower with his words.

“Damn, man,” Denholm snorted. “You hooked up with her maybe two weeks ago, now both she and Cory have your nuts in a vise.”

Cory shot me a quick smile before he grabbed a catalogue (not that he really needed to look at it as we’d already planned out what we were getting). Paul tried hard to think of some comeback, but a couple teammates—Stubbs, Pollard and Myles—joined out group. High fives and fist bumps around the group, some friendly greetings, then, I guess, the true nature of their visit.

“Yo, Card,” Stubbs said. “How come you never told us you were famous?”

“’Cause I’m not,” Cory responded, evenly.

“Bullshit,” Pollard said. “Myles was tellin’ us about this ‘Wild Card’ thing.”

“Yeah,” Myles said. “I have a couple cousins that go to Texas A&M and kept ragging on me about my team stealing you away.”

“This is the first I’ve heard about it,” I said, imagining that I probably looked even more confused than the rest of our crew.

“Everyone in Texas knows about him and his brothers,” Myles continued. “Something about a dynasty and them all playing for either A&M or UT. Apparently, Card was supposed to play for one of them, but VT stole him. My cousins were pretty salty about it.”

“Oh, fuck! You’re that kid!” Adrian said. “I remember seeing something about you from when I was first looking at colleges.” He hooked a thumb at Cory. “They’ve been following him and his brothers for awhile.”

“All your brothers are into football, eh?” Mitch said.

Cory nodded his head, his body stiff, leading into another low. I itched to ram my fist into Myles’ fucking face for starting this shit, and then fuck up the rest of their faces for keeping the damn conversation going. If I knew my guy, the last thing he wanted to talk about was his family, but they didn’t let up.

“They still keeping up with it?” Pollard

“Yeah, Caiden’s in sports journalism and is covering a couple of the bowl games for one of the local stations,” he said, his voice a little strained. “Connor’s a physical therapist. His team is playing on New Year’s Day, so he’s with them. Cameron’s team didn’t get invited to a postseason game, but he’s probably busy trying make sure the guys aren’t fucking up their diets.” Cory scratched his neck absentmindedly and turned back to the catalogue in his hand.

“Dude, that’s—” Pollard started, only to be cut by JJ’s discreet cough and almost imperceptible head shake, discouraging further talk on the subject.

“Goddamnit, Cory,” Adrian said, gripping his shoulder in apology. “I fuckin’ forgot.”

“S’okay,” Cory muttered.

Stubbs, Pollard, and Myles gave our group a weird look—seemed they hadn’t been made aware of Cory’s home situation. It became even more apparent that nobody seemed comfortable enough to share the information. Tense silence fell over the group until Cory scrubbed his hand down his face.

“I’m bored as fuck,” he said. “JJ, Berta told me you stole some of her DVDs.”

JJ chuckled. “Yep, and got the ‘trax from Drew.” Adrian, Mitch, and the three outsiders stared at us dumbly as we looked to the huge flat screen TV on the other side of the green room.

“Oh, hell yes!” Paul said. Someone had helpfully tuned the TV to one of the bowl games from earlier in the week, but no one was paying it any attention.

Cory chuckled, relieved to finally have attention focused elsewhere. “’Rain, you in?”

“I’m so there.”

~*~*~*~

“They were having a field day with that Twilight shit you pulled,” Indie said. The guy seldom watched sports, and knew fuckall about football, but he had the biggest flat screen and the best beer, so a bunch of our friends had crashed his place to watch us beat the shit out of our opponents.

Of course, I had a sneaking suspicion that he would have watched the game anyway, if only to catch a few glimpses of a certain cheerleader twink, the same one cuddled up with him in the sizable and comfy recliner. That sight, coupled with Cory snuggled up to me watching Lola wrestle with my hand, had to be testing the limits of Gio’s tolerance of gay PDA, but he seemed to be shrugging it off just fine.

“Shoulda seen the commentator guy’s face when the reporter said you were watching chick flicks before the game,” he said. “Especially when it cut to the video.”

Cory and I smirked. At some point, the reporter joined us for the marathon. I hadn’t realized that they were still filming, but it was kinda cool. The sound of the cameraman laughing along with us was a nice touch.

Made for a better story than watching the guys from the other team stare at their cellphones.

“Still amazed that we got away with it,” I said, trying not to wince as Lola’s little kitten teeth dug into my fingers. With the sparkly blue tips on her front paws, and Cory keeping the back claws trimmed, getting scratched up wasn’t a problem, but that hell spawn’s tiny fangs mauled the fuck out of my digits.

If she weren’t so fucking adorable…

“Some of our ‘handlers’ had to come in and remind us to settle down,” Cory added.

I shrugged. “Eh, it was all in good fun.”

In reality, I was thankful for that marathon. Cory’s mood seemed to improve the longer we joked and laughed with our teammates. By the time the game rolled around, he’d finally pulled himself out of his “grin and bear it” mindset and was legitimately grinning. All the mistakes and fumbles he’d been turning out at practice stopped, and he played the game harder than anyone else. I had my boyfriend back at last.

“But, still,” Indie said. “The whole saga?”

“And almost the whole team,” Cory said.

“Really?” Gio asked.

“Yup,” Cory replied. “Besides, it shouldn’t be that surprising because I know many of them had seen it before.”

“I doubt that,” I said.

“Seriously,” he insisted. “Back when it first came out, a bunch of my friends forced their boyfriends to watch with them. My friend, Jonesie, even read the books because his girlfriend made him.”

“Fuck, what’s up with straight girls?” Indie asked.

“I know, right?” Cory said, this earned a chuckle from the rest of us.

“So, you made out like bandits this year,” Gio said, our discussion of Twilight-obsessed females obviously at an end.

“Indeed,” I said.

“The swag was pretty cool,” Preston agreed. A few packages had arrived for Cory and me, and even a couple for Preston (who had borrowed our address because he did not trust his neighbors).

“Y’all weren’t the only one’s looting,” Indie said.

Gio laughed. “Lola’s been stealing crap and hiding it under the loveseat.” We shot our roommates confused looks, and Lola chose that moment to start kicking my palm with her back paws.

“She stole my fucking headband off my head,” Indie complained.

“Wait, the thin elastic one? Didn’t you steal that from Laurel?” I asked.

“Well, yeah,” he said. “I’d just gotten it back from her, and that cat tried to run off with it.”

“Dude, she’s fucking all of two pounds,” I said.

“She growled at me.”

“It was cute as fuck,” Gio added. “But, the best part was her fighting him off as he tried to take it back.”

Cory picked Lola up out of my lap and cooed at her. “Were you being a bad girl for Mr. Indie?” She sniffed indifferently, and he made kissy noises into her neck. “Daddy’s little girl.”

“Daddy’s little hell beast,” Indie muttered, almost drowned out by the sound of the doorbell.

“Probably more loot,” I said and stood up to go get it.

The guys continued to laugh over Lola’s brat-cat antics as I left the room.

I’d barely stepped into the foyer when the doorbell rang again, which was a little odd since most delivery guys knock once then bolt, either dropping your stuff on the doorstep or leaving a note for you to come get it yourself. I mentally shrugged. Maybe it was a new guy who hadn’t yet mastered the ding-dong-dash system favored by delivery people across the country.

What I found couldn’t have been further from that guess.

Three blue-eyed, blond-haired men stood on my doorstep. The largest of the three gave me the once-over.

“So, this is the guy who got our little Cory in trouble.”