Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2012 22:11:31 -0800
From: Douglas DD DD <thehakaanen@hotmail.com>
Subject: The Big Time  Chapter 52

Greetings. As I've written a couple of times, the last few chapters
would be a bit different. This chapter contains only the high school
story line as we take a look at the rush to complete the sexual
pairings as the Mayfield Falcons work to increase the bonds between
the members of the team.

Please donate to Nifty to keep our stories coming.

Douglas thehakaanen@hotmail.com


CHAPTER 52
PAIRED UP

<Senior Year, Sunday, July 9th, Eric's house>

"I have decided," I said to Noah. The words popped out of my mouth
without my even thinking about them.

"It's about time you decided," Noah said. "Now all you have to do is
tell me what it is you've decided."

"I've decided I'm cool with you pairing with Scott."

"I knew you would be."

"Am I that transparent?"

"I'm afraid so, my love."

"You two just can't fuck, is all."

"I saw that coming too. I hadn't planned on fucking with him...or with
you." He chuckled at his play on words. "No kissing either."

"I'm okay with you two kissing, probably because I know he won't do
it. He was hardly into kissing even me back in seventh grade. He had
girls on his mind and still does. So if he kisses you, do it—just to piss
Tama off in some vicarious way."

"Fair enough. And if you keep using those big words you'll be
competing with me soon." That earned Noah a friendly punch on the
arm.

We were sitting on the back deck of my house sipping cold lemonade
and eating potato chips. The barbeque was heating up as mom and
dad were preparing steaks for dinner. Noah and I were both tired
after playing a non-league double header against a good Auburn
team at Auburn. The twin bill had started at ten in the morning, and
after two games plus the two hour drive each way we were both really
hungry and thirsty.

We'd split the two games, winning the first one 7-4 with Chandler
starting and Korey catching, just as I'd suggested to Coach Miller. Not
that I had any influence. I imagine he was probably thinking of going
that route anyway, knowing how well they'd fit together in school ball,
but it was still good to see. Chandler looked much more at ease in
this game. He pitched with confidence instead of looking like an
overmatched sophomore. We lost the second game 8-2 in a game
where very little went right. Kevin made a rare pitching appearance in
that game with Carl doing the catching. Kevin didn't pitch badly, but
his rust showed and he had problems finding the plate. Still, it was
fun to see him out on the pitching mound instead of behind the plate.
I know he enjoyed himself for the three innings he pitched.

On Saturday we'd lost our makeup game to Meadow Park 5-3. Blaine
started and wasn't sharp at all. He seemed distracted with his head
elsewhere and he lasted only five innings.

The game started at nine in the morning, which was simply too early.
But, as Noah pointed out, it was just as early for Meadow Park, and it
was a road game for them, so it was actually even earlier in a
metaphysical sort of way. We had the early start because our game
was a makeup game.  The Mayfield team in the fifteen and under
league had a doubleheader scheduled on the high school field that
afternoon, so we had to play early.

After the game we had our long awaited pool party at Noah's house
for the State Champion Mustangs. Marty and the players on his team
didn't have a game that day, although Marty and Rich had to drag
and line the field for our game and for the doubleheader. In fact Marty
would have to leave the party to help take care of the field before the
second game of the twin bill.

The party was great fun. It was a warm sunny day. We had lots of
food. We all skinny dipped, with us gay boys playing a bit of grab ass.
Actually a couple of the straight boys got involved as well.

Noah's siblings all planned to be elsewhere that day so that the party
could be all about us. Of course the straight boys were hoping to see
Lisa naked and were a bit disappointed.

"If she was here it would be all looking and no touching," Jerome, her
boyfriend, said. "I'd see to that."

"Oh, but there is so much there to look at," Rodney said. Rodney was
truly disappointed by the fact that all through high school she was one
of the few of the "jock" girls he hadn't been able to get into bed with
him. His respect for Jerome had as much to do with that as anything.
He did get the chance at a four-way late in their junior year with
Jerome, Lisa, and a cheerleader and softball player named Brenda. It
ended up with the four of them on Rodney's parents' bed fucking side
by side. Since he'd gotten a good feel of Lisa's boobs in that day he
was at least somewhat mollified about not being able to fuck her.

Shane was away at a weekend music camp. He was an excellent
trumpet player and had a music scholarship to a college noted for its
music program. He worked hard at his craft.

Nicholas was spending the weekend with J.J., as they liked to call
each other. I dreaded to think what those two would be up to—
especially if they added a couple of their other friends to the mix.

What I should have predicted was that a couple of chosen pairs
would leave the pool for the cabana. I guess a lot of the pairs decided
with so many of us together and naked, so why not take advantage of
the situation.

The first two to go were Gavin and Kraig. Even though Gavin didn't
suit up for State, he'd been played a lot with the varsity during the
regular season and was invited to the party. When we saw the two of
them leave the pool and walk to the cabana, there was no doubt in
our minds what they were up to. It turned out they did nothing more
than sit on opposing chairs and jerk themselves off, but that took care
of their pairing. Gavin, of course, was one of the reluctant yes voters.
The difference between Gavin and Kraig may have been perfectly
illustrated when Gavin came out of the cabana clean while Kraig
didn't bother wiping off his cum.

The other pair to disappear into the cabana was Scott and Hunter.
They officially reported that they jerked each other off. I learned later
from Scott what they had talked about while they stroked each other.

"Girls," he told me. "We talked about how I was a little gay sixth and
seventh grader and found out that wasn't me at all, and how he was a
little straight sixth and seventh grader and that wasn't him either."

"Funny how that works out," I said.

"I told him he should have fucked Tama in that shower in sixth grade
back when he had the chance."

"And he said?"

"That he missed that chance but he wasn't a virgin." That statement
surprised me as much as it surprised him. "He wouldn't tell me when
or with who. But he said that after it happened he was ready for a
romp with Kraig."

"Interesting."

That was the sexual part of that pool party. We had a lot of fun in the
pool. Playing pool basketball in the nude can be tremendously
exciting. Noah's dad grilled up burgers and his mom laid out quite a
table of side dishes. Coaches Sanders, Ecklund, and Miller showed
up for the eating part. Only Blaine, Gavin, and Justin bothered to put
anything on after they arrived. The coaches knew we were having a
nude party and the rest of us didn't feel self-conscious about being
naked in front of them. It's not like they hadn't seen us naked before.
The adults remained clothed.

Noah and I stopped reminiscing about the pool party when dad told
us the steaks would be ready soon and we should help mom get the
rest of the food out onto the deck. We did our part and soon we were
eating like the hungry teens we were.

After eating we helped with the cleanup and sat back out on the deck.
It was getting cool enough that we each had donned a sweatshirt.
Noah steered the conversation to a topic we'd been discussing before
dinner.

"Did you make up your mind about Scott after seeing the two pairs go
to the cabana?" he asked me.

"You know me too well. You should have gone there with Scott next,
just because it was your house. It and would have been a great time
to at least talk to Blaine about it."

"He never brought anything up about it at the party?"

"Not a word. But then, he's one of the three who had to put their
swimsuits on when the coaches showed up."

"I thought that was interesting. Blaine didn't surprise me, but Gavin
and Justin did. They both have histories as far as sex goes."

"Maybe they thought it was their way of showing respect for the
coaches."

"Maybe." Noah flashed a grim smile. "And maybe they were right."

"A different team and different coaches, maybe. But getting dressed
for that reason isn't us and the coaches know it." I went back to the
subject of pairing. "You know, only three of us haven't paired up yet.
Ironically you and me are two of them and the other one is Blaine."

"I guess it's time for us to do something about that," Noah said.

<Monday, July 10, Mayfield High School baseball field>

On Monday we played a crack team from Bellevue. They had only
lost four games all summer. I was the starting pitcher. I did okay, but
they were good hitters and hit my mistakes hard. I went four innings
as we lost 6-3. Except for the second game of a doubleheader the
rest of our games would be league games.

After the game I approached Blaine, who was tossing his gear into
his parent's car. "Got a minute?" I asked.

"Sure. Dad's busy talking to Hunter's dad about how shitty our team
is. They could be awhile."

"We aren't shitty. We've gone 9-5 since our low point, and against
some pretty tough competition."

"Yeah, tell my dad that." He shut the trunk lid and faced me. "What's
up?" I'm sure he knew exactly what I wanted, but just wanted to be
cool about it.

"Looks like you and me are paired up."

"I was wondering when you were going to talk about it. I thought for
sure you'd say something at the pool when guys were going to do
their thing."

"Well, I had to deal about some other things first." It wasn't often I got
uneasy talking about sex with another boy, but this was one of those
rare times. "Anyway, I'm ready to talk now and was wondering when
you wanted to do something."

"What kind of something were you thinking about?"

"I dunno. I thought, seeing how you're not real enthusiastic about the
pairing, us just sitting somewhere jerking off should work fine."

"We got a game tomorrow against the assholes from Kentburg, so
how about the day after tomorrow, at your house after lunch."

I mentally ticked off my mowing schedule to determine if I had the
time and decided I did. "Sounds good to me. How about at one?"

"Sounds shitty to me, but I'll be there."

<Tuesday, July 11t>

Scott started against Kentburg, and pitched quite well. Kentburg was
a good team, even without the best pitcher in town, who was playing
a league higher. He's had our number since middle school, but he
keeps playing up a league in the summer so we never see him then.

The game ended up being a pitcher's duel, with both pitchers going
all seven innings. Kentburg ended up winning 2-1, scoring the
winning run in the fifth inning. It was a tough loss, but it was also a
game in which we knew we had played well. What really irked us was
that after it looked like we were getting things together, we suddenly
had lost four out of our last five games and also dropped to 5-7 in
league.

<Wednesday, July 12>

Noah and I mowed one of five lawns we took care of (not counting
our own lawns) in the morning. I told him I would be meeting Blaine at
my house after lunch. He expressed surprise Blaine actually agreed
to meet me for a pairing.

"I know how he voted, but he's always never seemed to care what
people thought, so I just figured he'd welch on the deal and not do it,"
Noah said as we munched on sandwiches in my kitchen.

"He says he'll be here around one."

"Then I better jet. I think things will go smoother without him seeing
me hanging around like some perv waiting for a porn flick to start."

I laughed and said, "Instead you're a perv waiting for the live action to
start."

"I won't deny that statement." He gave me a loving, lingering kiss and
bolted out of the back door, grabbing his bike and riding off for home.

Blaine showed up around fifteen minutes later. I admit that once
again I was surprised. I thought he still might back out of the deal—
but here he was, dressed in a tank top and shorts.

His fifteen year old body was really a nice one, somewhat stocky with
good muscle definition, not lean or skinny like a lot of fifteen year olds
are—hell, like I still am at sixteen. Blaine was fidgety, not making eye
contact with me as I led him into the house.

I made some small talk about baseball to try to help him feel at ease.
I wasn't really sure about how to communicate with him since he had
always been so standoffish. He made Connor look like a social
animal. Blaine ended up being the one to get us on the business at
hand.

"Look, let's just cut the bullshitting and take care of the deal so I can
get out of here," he said. I didn't have the impression that he was
being rude, just that he was uncomfortable with the situation.

"Sure. Let's go up to my room." We headed up the stairs and into my
bedroom. He looked around at my array of sports trophies,
memorabilia, and posters. Almost everything I had was baseball
oriented.

"Your room is so fucking in order. It doesn't surprise me that you're
some fucking neat freak." He sat on the chair by my window. "So
what do we do know?"

"Well, we gotta at least pull our pants down. Hard to jerk off
otherwise."

Blaine surprised me again by pulling off his tank top, revealing his
developing chest and abs. I could see the light makings of a treasure
trail going down from his bellybutton, but otherwise he was smooth
except for two tufts of underarm hair. I tried to see if I could make out
a bulge in his shorts.

"Have you ever jerked off with a guy before?" I asked, wondering if
maybe his nervousness came from never having messed around with
a guy.

"Never done anything," he said, confirming my suspicion. "Just girls."

I pulled off my t-shirt and asked him if he'd been naked with any girls.

"Oh yeah, sure. I ain't no virgin." For some reason I thought he wasn't
being completely truthful with me.

"Well, if we have our shirts off we might as well get naked," I said,
and I pulled my gym shorts and briefs off in one motion. I hadn't been
wearing any shoes.

"I see the gay boy's got a boner," Blaine said as he checked out my
erection. He took off his shoes and removed his shorts. He was now
wearing only his boxers and socks. He was obviously hesitant about
taking the last step.

I sat on my bed and idly stroked myself, waiting for him to remove his
boxers. I still couldn't make out any kind of bulge. At last he raised his
ass and pulled off his boxers. The reason I hadn't seen a bulge was
that his cock was still flaccid. It hung down almost five inches and
was uncut and nestled in a decent thatch of pubic hair.

"It looks like you're not real excited about his," I said, "which is totally
cool."

"I can't believe I voted for this. Everything got so fucked up." Blaine
was obviously distraught over being naked with me in my bedroom.

"Look, Blaine, you don't have to do this. This is not something you
HAVE to do, because then it just becomes a form of bullshit. You can
do it because you want to be part of it, or you can just say you
realized deep down that this just isn't your thing in any way, shape, or
form."

"Nobody on this team likes me much anyway. Hell, nobody in this
town likes me at all. Moving here really sucked from day one."

"I was a newbie here, too," I said. Then I got brutally honest, figuring
I had nothing to lose. "But I worked hard to fit in—you just decided to
stick to yourself even after we all tried to welcome you. You could
have gotten involved with our whole travel team group, but you didn't
want to. After awhile we decided to not bang our heads against the
wall and left you alone, which is what you seemed to want."

Blaine sat down and said nothing. He stared at one of the posters on
my wall, once again avoiding eye contact. His dick was flaccid and he
made no attempt to do anything about it. Mine had softened to a semi
while I had my little rant.

"All you guys played together in middle school. You were all a year
older than me and you had your little baseball club or whatever it is.
And now you're all seniors and I'm a junior and you guys are state
high school champions. I mean you guys have hardly any juniors in
your group. When I moved here before school started and asked for a
baseball tryout a lot of the juniors and sophomores...they...I hate to
sound like I'm bragging, but I was better than most of them and they
didn't like it. It's like they were jealous and shit."

"You could've talked to one of us."

"I didn't even fucking know you, okay? It's like you acted nice but
didn't really want me around."

Blaine sounded to me like he was somebody who didn't have a really
good self-image, but I don't know much about psychology.

"Now, here I am sitting naked with a senior in his bedroom because
this whole fucking team is, like, gay—which I found out way back
when I moved here, and is why I didn't want to talk to any of you
guys."

"Sounds like you have a bit of homophobia."

"Homowhatia?"

"It means you don't like gays, that you're scared of them."

"Yeah, fuck, I wanted to like you guys. But as soon as I heard what
you guys were all like, I was scared you all would want to rape me or
something."

Blaine had spent two years of high school being alone and afraid of
us. He got off to a bad start at his first baseball practice by wearing
his hat backwards which got the coaches yelling at him and it went
downhill from there. I wondered what having that kind of fear was like.
The sad part of it was, that fear was all based on ignorance. I made
up my mind right then that his little jerk off session was wrong. I had
to give Blaine credit for two things: despite his fear he turned out for
baseball with us and despite his fear and ignorance he went so far as
to get naked with me in my bedroom.

"You know something, Blaine. You getting naked with me in my
bedroom took a hell of a lot of guts. I respect you for it. Let's call the
whole thing a wash. I'll tell Chandler and Korey that you and I got
sexual, which is close to true. I think, all things considered, getting
naked together and you seeing me boned up should qualify as
sexual."

Blaine didn't move, as he sat on the chair and stared at my wall some
more. I decided to wait for him to make the first move to get dressed.
Two or three minutes of silence ticked by until Blaine stood up. I got
ready to stand up as well and get dressed with him, but he signaled
for me to remain sitting. Instead of getting dressed he came over to
my bed and sat down next to me. In a way, having him do that
weirded me out—I had no idea what he was thinking.

"We got a long way to go to win that second state championship," he
said quietly. I nodded. "Hell, we got a long way to go just to get to the
playoffs next spring. We really aren't good enough right now are we?"

 He was right, we weren't good enough, but I again said nothing. I
wanted to see where he was heading. So I nodded in agreement and
waited.

"I'm tired of being scared of you guys and not being a part of
everything. We can be good enough to win if we get it all together—
that means all of us. I still think your idea about this pairing shit is so
gay and so lame, but everybody seems to like it and they're all doing
it. I guess we all have to do something together, even if it's something
I think is stupid. It's kinda working. I mean who else in the state does
shit like this?"

I finally broke my silence. "I doubt anybody in the state is pairing up
for sex, but we've always been different. After we won State, though,
we seemed to have lost our willingness to be different. I thought this
would bring some if it back, like it did at the Noah's pool the other
day.

"Yeah. That got me thinking that everybody was so into who was
going with who and they seemed to think it was like so much fun. So
here I am, naked with a gay guy on his bed and it feels weird but I
want to finish this up."

I grinned, amazed at the change in Blaine. "Getting a boner would be
a good start." I could feel myself stirring after Blaine saying he wanted
to go ahead and jerk off with me.

"Maybe you could help."

"You mean you want me to...put my hand on your dick and get it
hard."

"You can put whatever you want on it," he said in a barely audible
whisper.

I wasn't really sure I had just heard what I thought I'd heard.
"Anything?"

"Yeah."

I decided to take him at his word. I shifted on the bed and got
between Blaine's legs. He opened them wider for me. I moved my
face into his musky crotch and put my tongue to his balls, watching
his dick finally start to stir into hardness. I licked under and up his
large hanging balls, the hairs tickling my tongue. I then ran my tongue
up his growing shaft, until I reached his reddish helmet poking
through his foreskin. I moved a little to get more comfortable, and
then did what I never thought would happen—I placed my lips around
his cock and let it slide slowly into my mouth.

The teen smells from his crotch turned me on—the entire situation
had my cock so hard it almost hurt.

"Oh, dude, I never knew this could feel so good. Shit, it is so good."
His words convinced me that his experience with girls was limited if
he'd never even had a blow job. I found out later that he had been
blown by a couple of girls, and what he meant was my blow job was
far superior to what he'd experienced before. At the same time he
confessed to being a virgin.

But that was a later conversation. Right now I was busy giving his five
and a half inch cock the BJ of its life. His increasing grunts, howls,
and moans told me he was getting a great deal of satisfaction from
my efforts. I deep throated him, which generated the howls. It didn't
take long for me to feel Blaine's cock thicken and twitch and for him
to raise his hips and try to fuck my mouth. I gave him my best suction,
my best twirling tongue, until all he could say was "Ungggg," as he
fired volley after volley of cum into my waiting mouth. I eagerly
swallowed what seemed like gallons thick teen cum. He leaned his
head back against the wall, exhausted.

"I'm not doing you," he said without a lot of conviction, but I didn't
care. I got what I wanted. I flopped over on my back, my legs splayed
across Blaine's legs. It only took a dozen of so strokes for me to
shoot my own cum over my hairless torso, hitting my neck with the
first shot. I let out a long low moan as a came.

"Looks like we don't have to lie to anybody," Blaine said as he looked
down at my cum covered body.

"Are you okay with it?"

"Yeah, I am. You're amazing."

"So, you weren't raped?"

"Can't rape the willing is what I heard."

I grabbed some tissues and started wiping myself off.

"When's the next meeting of our Go to State thingy?"

I liked how he said "our". "Last Monday of the month; be there."

"I will be—no question." Then he gave me his first real smile of the
afternoon. "I guess I gotta look up Kevin next."

<Thursday, July 13>

Word got out quickly that Blaine and I had completed our pairing.
Before our game at Monte on Thursday, he received a few
congratulatory pats and fist bumps—which became even more
enthusiastic when he admitted he'd let me suck his dick. Our tryst
was the only one to report since the swim party, but once it was found
out that Blaine had followed through, the floodgates opened. The
biggest plus, however, was that Blaine was looked on by some of the
team with a new respect. Instead of being a somewhat homophobic
prude who looked down his nose at us he was accepted as one of the
gang, which included some friendly bantering.

Monte was the weak sister in the league this year, even worse than
Clark Pass. Noah thought that Poodles would be a better name for
them than the Huskies. They were nice kids, however. They had only
nine players for the game and none of them were very good. The
game ended up being a five inning affair with us winning 15-1. Hunter
started for us with Korey and Kraig each throwing an inning.

Lars came up to me as we were all packing up to leave the field and
take the hour long ride back to Mayfield. "Do you mind if I spend the
night at Noah's?"

"Are you guys going to pair up?" I asked. Pairing up had become our
way of describing the completion of the weird idea I'd gotten about
doing the one-on-one sex.

"Yeah. We promise we won't fuck."

Noah walked over from his parent's SUV. "You promise we won't,"
Noah said. "I am making no such promise." He looked at me with a
twinkle in his eye.

"Oh, but I told Kevin..."

Noah giggled and told Lars he was just pulling his chain. "Here's a
deal, my love," Noah said to me. "Since Lars is also one of your
partners, how about you duplicate whatever it is Lars and I do
tonight?"

"I like impromptu theater better," I said.

"Hey, guys, I don't care," Lars said. "I just want to get off."

All three of us felt that was a great idea. I found out the next morning
that there was a lot of kissing, followed by a sixty-nine, and then more
kissing and dry humping.

<Friday, July 14>

"Lars is really sexy," Noah said. "Without your pairing idea, I never
would have found out how sexy he really is when you actually get into
bed with him. I've only seen him get off in circle jerks and the like."

"Is he sexier than me?" I asked.

"To me someone being sexier than you would be impossible."

We had the day off from baseball, which gave some of the horny
Falcons time to take care of their pairings. Chandler, one of the two
sophomores on the team, invited some of the upperclassmen who
had not finished their pairings for an afternoon swim. Scott, Noah,
Carl, Lars, Hunter, the twins, and Gavin all showed up. Chandler's
partner in sex and mayhem, Korey, was also there of course. I had
work to do, but I told Noah I would try to be there later. I didn't make
it, but Noah filled me in on what went down, so to speak.

Since Chandler lived out of town on acreage his pool area had more
privacy than Noah's and swimsuits were usually not required.
Chandler, who, along with Korey, was the keeper of the pairing
records, was not shy about letting everyone know that this would be a
great time to do a pairing.

Noah talked to Scott, telling him that they should get their pairing
completed. Because of their relationship to me, both of them were
somewhat uncomfortable about their pairing. Noah told Scott they
should just keep it as simple as possible. Because Chandler's pool
didn't have a cabana like Noah's did, Chandler's bedroom would be
the focal point for sex. Both of his parents were gone for the day,
although there was the possibility of his father, Coach Ecklund,
coming back earlier than planned. Since one of the pairing rules was
that the sex had to be private, we knew nothing was going to happen
on the deck—at least nothing official.

Noah told me later that he gave Scott one of his highest quality
blowjobs, which I am positive was better than anything Scott got from
Tama. Noah, who can get pretty cranked up sexually when he's
blowing somebody, ended up having a no touch cum as Scott shot
his load into Noah's mouth. Oh, how I would have loved to have
watched that.

The last pair of the day was Gavin and Chandler. Gavin was a
straight boy as well and wasn't real comfortable having sex with guys.
But he seemed to have these moments, ala Connor, when he got all
hot over sex with one of his peers. His encounters with Marty were
proof of that. As straight as he was, he did not have a virgin ass.

But it wasn't his ass that got violated; it was Chandler's, as the
sophomore let the senior have his way. Chandler told Noah later that
he and Gavin fucked doggy style, and that Gavin fucked him deep
and hard while slapping his ass and scratching his sides. Of course
everybody wanted to know how Chandler planned on hiding the
scratches from his dad. Chandler laughed and said he'd wear a shirt.

"The worst part," he told Noah, "was getting cum all over my
bedding...again." Since Danny had fucked Chandler during his first
pairing we gave him a hard time for days about being a natural
bottom and maybe giving it up to the entire team. He told us he was
not that kind of slut, which brought on a lot more kidding.

Kevin sucked off his brother Korey as well as Lars on the edge of the
pool, giving everybody some unofficial sex to watch. Noah admitted
that he and Hunter sat on the diving board jerking off while watching
the action. "I just hope the pool filter gets changed soon," he said,
which let me know where their jism landed.

The party broke up just as Coach Ecklund came home. Noah and I
wondered if he enjoyed the view provided by a bunch of naked
teenagers. I doubt it was anything special to Coach, but the Noah and
I do have such dirty minds. If he saw the scratches on Chandler's rib
cage, he didn't say anything.

That night we realized that almost all of the pairings had been
consummated. The only ones left were Blaine and Kevin, and Lars
and me.

"That actually amazes me," Noah said. "I never thought this idea
would go down, and I certainly never thought it would happen so
quickly."

"I don't know if it did any good," I lamented.

"Sure it did. Look at Blaine; he's actually talking to people now. And
all of us have been talking about who did what to whom. We're doing
things other than grousing about how bad our team is, or how Danny
isn't Marty at third and how nobody can play center field. Instead
we're talking about sex. What could be better than that?"

"Winning maybe?"

"You are way too serious about this winning stuff." I knew Noah was
tweaking me some. "Sex trumps all."

"I don't see anything in the by-laws of the Mayfield Mustangs Travel
Team that says anything about sex. It's all about building the best
baseball team we can." But then I enjoyed being his straight man—
and yes, I can also be a bit too serious sometimes.

"You just gotta read between the lines, love. Sometimes you just
gotta read between the lines."

"I truly do love you, Noah."

"Back at you—and more."

The sex that night was glorious. I bottomed for Noah if you truly want
to know.

<Saturday, July 15>

We had a home double header against Elma, who had beat us 11-1
at their place, back when we really sucked. We are at least mediocre
now, which was a big improvement. The first game was a league
game and the second wasn't.

We won the first game 6-2. I was the starting pitcher and I went all
seven innings. I gave up only three hits, although one of them left the
ball park with a man on for both of Elma's runs. Even with the home
run I thought I pitched my best game of the summer, as I struck out
nine and walked only one.

We lost the non-league game 6-5, even though Carl hit two home
runs. Chandler pitched to Korey again and threw a good game.
Hunter came in to protect a 5-3 lead in the sixth inning, but he was
not sharp and gave up three runs. Lars pitched a scoreless seventh,
but we couldn't score in the sixth or seventh and ended up with
another loss.

We were 14-18 on the season and 7-7 in league. Next week was the
last week of the regular season and because of our late start in the
spring along with a couple of schedule changes, we had to squeeze
in four league games by Thursday.  The league tournament started
on Friday. Six of the ten teams in our league would qualify for the
tournament. The way we saw it, if we split the last four games, we
would be in the tournament for sure.

"Fuck this splitting our games shit," Kevin said. "How about we run
the table." Whatever we ended up doing, we all knew that not making
the league tournament would be humiliating after most of were on the
State A High School Championship team in the spring.

After the game Lars came up to Noah and me in the parking lot, "Do
you guys have any plans for the night?" he asked.

"We just planned on hanging out after pizza," I said. Most of us
planned on heading to The Bear for pizza. We were all hot, dusty,
thirsty, and hungry.

"Noah, do you have a problem with me sleeping with Eric tonight?
That gets us all down to one pairing left."

"It's cool with me. But we are talking about Eric's bed, not mine,"
Noah said.

"I'm good with him staying overnight with me," I said. "But what are
you going to do, love?"

"I think I'll see if Nicholas has any plans tonight."

I knew Noah would find something or somebody for the night. As for
me, I was looking forward to a night in bed with the tall, lanky blond—
I was interested to find out if he was as good as Noah claimed. I
headed to The Bear's with a boner straining to get out of my pants.

Next: Marty Opens Up