Direct Confusion - 2. Chapter 2

Over the next week, school settles into a nice routine. The major dramas are over. The freshmen are starting to learn their way around the school. The swim team have their first practice on the Friday afternoon, and it feels good to be back in the water. It’s even better to be in the easy company of guys in speedos. I don’t fancy my teammates, not really. I can appreciate that my friends are hot, I’m sure most people can, but I’d never go after any of them. Even if I wasn’t ninety five percent sure they are all straight, it’d be like fancying your siblings. They are my brothers, and after we run through our medley relays until coach is happy with our times, it’s nice to lounge in the warm water and chat.

“Plans for the weekend lover boy?” Jim grins at me, “Derrick told me you’ve been holding out on us.”

I watch one of our newer team mates, Matt-something, walk towards the changing room in his snug fitting green swimsuit and enjoy the view. Jim catches me watching and frowns.

“McBride… You’re not cheating on your boy are you?”

“No.” I turn away and cross my forearms on the side of the pool, “Just enjoying the view.”

“What’s up with you?” Jim rests his hand on my shoulder, “You’ve been fucking miserable all week.”

“It was easier, in the summer, to ignore the fact I was his secret.” I know if Derrick has filled in our third man on one of the details, he’s included all the others. “Now we’re back at school and I see him every day it’s so painfully obvious that I don’t mean as much to him as he does to me.”

“You love this guy?”

“No. I dunno.” I splash the water, “I care about him. I’d like to be his friend.”

Jim grins, like he has all the answers.

“Dump him and find someone proud to be with you. We’re proud of you McBride, and we ain’t even gay.”

“Thanks Jim.”

I do another ten laps front crawl while I think things through. I like Jeremy, but I can recognise through the haze of hormones I don’t love him. It’s a mutually convenient relationship that has stopped being quite so mutual or quite so convenient. Not that I don’t care about him. If the uptight little sod ever spoke to me outside of the bedroom I’d count him as a good friend. But I don’t want to go back to being single. I quite enjoy spending time with my hand in the mornings, but only because most nights I’m up to the hilt in the overwhelming hotness of Jeremy’s body. I can’t face the idea of giving him up. I need to try and get him to be a bit more accepting of our hanging out during the day. Surely it can be done.

Training starts properly after a weekend of intermittent homework and sex. I go out with my family for Saturday night pizza and meet Jeremy afterwards for hot as hell blowjobs in the back of my dodge. He’s got a fucking obscene mouth. Afterwards I bring up the idea we could become friends at school, especially since we sit together for study hall every day, but he blows me off straight away, and afterwards I can’t even get him to kiss me again. Frustrating is not a whole enough word.

It’s great when training kicks in and I have somewhere to put my extra energy. Soccer and football try-outs are Monday, and in between running the freshmen really hard I take breaks to look over and see how Derrick is doing with his new recruits. There are so many games, what with swim meets as well, that we need a strong team. And if I’m gonna keep up my grade point average this year and have the team place anywhere reasonable, I have a lot of work ahead of me. We’re captains now, and while it’s not all on us, we are important, game changers coach says. Try-outs are hard, and we put the freshman through hell for their trouble, but by the end we have another seven good players who’ll be solid by the time the season starts. I sort out the training schedule with the guys and then we take our new team mates over to watch the end of the cheer leading try-outs along with Derrick and his team.

Even though I’m not into girls, I still have friends on the cheer squad, and I have a huge amount of respect for what they do. Anyone who says a cheerleader isn’t an athlete can run off with their tail between their legs after we give them a good hiding. They might look like dolls, but some of those girls can hit as hard as Jim and run twice as fast as me. Plus they aren’t scared to trust another with their life and limbs as they summersault through the air. I couldn’t do it.

Our cheerleaders have green uniforms with yellow piping and they have team numbers just like we do, which is cool. We watch them somersault and tumble for a bit, the head cheerleader Heather and the coach standing to one side discussing the new recruits in their gym gear and making notes on a clipboard. Heather waves to me, her brown ponytail bobbing, and smiles. She had a thing with Jim last year, but they got over it, and we became pretty good friends.

“Dude,” Derrick taps my shoulder, “Do you see what I see?”

I nod, because as Derrick spoke, I noticed the thing he noticed. One the field, doing jumps and lifts, is a guy in sweatpants and a dark green zip up hoodie. A really hot guy. Tall, strong, lithe like a cat, with a mess of blond hair and a big grin.

“Who is that?” I am leaning forwards in my seat, elbows to my knees, watching the really pretty guy as he flips into a handstand and inexplicably turns in a spin under his own leg.

“Jameson Parker.” One of the new footballers speaks from his seat somewhere behind me. I turn to look at him, and he looks remarkably similar to the guy on the field. I bit taller maybe, broader in the shoulder and his hair is shorter, a buzz cut similar to my own messy spikes.

“New guy…” Derrick frowns slightly, the face he makes when he tries to remember someone’s name.

“Erin,” Porter, one of the line-backers, fills in, “He’s one of your new running back’s bud.”

“Right, new guy Erin,” Derrick continues like he didn’t get a prompt, “How do you know who he is?”

“Erin Parker,” The guy with the buzz cut clarifies, “He’s my brother.”

I haven’t taken my eyes from Jameson. Practice is over, and he’s talking with Hannah, grinning and chatting in a nonchalant sort of way. You can tell from her smile and the beam on coach’s face he makes the cut. He turns to the bleachers, see his brother and waves.

Hot damn. Jeremy’s sexy smile when we’re alone aside, he is one pretty boy.

“McBride!” Jim has returned from his extended diving practice, “Scrape your jaw off the floor buddy. Coach wants us! You too Derrick.”

I grin at my guys. The new ones look nearly scared.

“Training starts on Wednesday fella’s, but I’ll see you all in the pool tomorrow for conditioning. Chase!”

“Yes boss?”

“Make sure everyone has their gear eh?”

“Yes boss!”

I grin as I walk with my two best friends towards the coach’s office for what will turn out to be a little pep talk about our responsibilities as seniors and captains. I love that Chase calls me ‘boss’, I have high hopes of the new team, and now there’s something good to look at during half time… things are looking up.

*

Jeremy is in the locker room. This in itself is not unheard of, because our school is very physical and everyone has to do sports at some point. Although we on the teams never spend our sessions with the girls who didn’t elect to try and run anywhere and stand at the back of the gym bitching in their legging and t-shirts, I do realise other people use the locker rooms apart from us jocks. But Jeremy is coming out of the showers as Jim, Derrick and I are heading in, and with a towel wrapped around his hips, he is every one of my hormonal fantasies come true.

I smile, he doesn’t, and I forget where I am, forget that I am with people who know, but who don’t know it’s him, and I reach out, wrap a hand around his hips and pull him in for a kiss. It’s shock more than force that slams me back against the lockers with his punch. I tongue my lip, bruised but not split and gape at him.

“Jere!”

“Get the fuck off me faggot!” Jeremy looks angry, angrier than I’ve ever seen him, angrier even than the time I suggested he come to dinner at my house and meet my parents.

My friend’s usual quick defence of me is delayed by their shock that I apparently walked up to some random strange dude and tried to kiss him.

“What the fuck?” Derrick is first to step in, “Who are you to talk to him like that?”

Jim helps me to my feet.

“Lay off Der,” I sigh, watching Jeremy warily, “It’s OK.” It’s anything but, “Go on, I’ll explain later.”

Jeremy scowls, watching my friends depart into the showers.

“You aren’t explaining shit to them.”

“Jeremy!” I am furious, but impotent. I am not going to hit my boyfriend, even if he is going to pretend I don’t exist. “They already know.”

“You outed me! How could you?” Jeremy’s hiss does not belie his anger.

“They don’t know it’s you. They just know it’s someone.” I try to placate him, hands on his shoulders, but Jeremy pushes me off like my touch is some awful sensation he doesn’t like.

“Well, now it’s not me either.” He starts to get dressed, very quickly. I stare at him, slack jawed.

“Jere? What do you mean?”

Shirtless in chinos, Jeremy frowns as he does up the buttons on his fly.

“It’s too hard. I can’t do this.”

“What?”

“I can’t be out like you, and I can’t keep having you going off on me like a mardi-gras parade. You’ll get me lynched.” Jeremy is making so little sense I wonder if I hit my head harder than I thought. “We can’t be together at school.”

“But we’re not together at school.” I try to reach for him, but he pulls away, “Jeremy what is going on?”

“I can’t be your boyfriend.”

“What?”

“Bye Luke.”

Stunned, I do nothing but stand there and watch him haul on his sweater and walk away. Forty eight hours ago he was going unspeakable thing to my cock which meant neither of us were able to form words, and now, he’s gone. He can’t be my boyfriend. I’ve been dumped. Fuck.

As I collapse on the bench someone comes in from the field. I look up to see pretty cheerleader guy Jameson and his brother Erin. Together it is easy to see they are related, but not identical twins.

“Dude?” Jameson smiles at me, but he looks concerned, “Are you alright?”

Jim and Derrick come back from the shower in time to hear me say.

“I got dumped.”

We walk to the parking lot together. I am still in my training gear. The Parker twins follow us at a short distance, talking quietly and heading for their car.

“Was that him then?” Derrick looks genuinely concerned.

“Yeah. It was.”

“Why did he? I mean,” Jim searches for what he needs to say, “Did he tell you why? Aren’t you too like, great together?”

I sigh; it’s a heavy sort of noise.

“Apparently it’s too hard to be with me.” I am suddenly angry, “As though he has anything to worry about. I can’t believe he hasn’t got the balls to come out. It’s fucking appalling.”

“Hey!” I turn to find myself face to face with Jameson Parker. He’s not quite as tall as his brother, and I can just about look down at him, “Not everyone feels the need or the desire to come out in high school you know.” He sounds like he’s mad at me, “Not everyone is totally one hundred percent sure that’s how they want to be defined.”

“Bro…” Erin has his hand on Jameson’s shoulder, pulling him back, “Let it go.”

I smirk.

“When he was lying back in my bed he was plenty sure he was gay,” I growl, “What’s it to you anyway?”

“Meathead.” Jameson snaps back. Erin pales and he gapes at his brother.

“You really wanna start this?” My fist has balled at my side. Pretty or not, I am not taking shit from the new kid.

“Boys, boys,” Derrick, ever sensible in times of trouble, steps between us. I can feel his hand against my chest, warm and firm. I can’t take Derrick in a fight and he knows it, “Let’s calm ourselves eh?”

“Fine,” Jameson steps back, folding his arms across his chest. He looks suddenly girlish in his petulance. I turn to my car, pissed that I seem to be falling for another beautiful boy living in the closet.