Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2004 22:32:41 -0400
From: Writer Boy <writerboy69@hotmail.com>
Subject: boys of summer part 14

Obligatory warnings and disclaimers:

1) If reading this is in any way illegal where you are or at your age, or
you don't want to read about male/male relationships, go away. You shouldn't
be here.

2) This story isn't based on anyone in particular, alive or dead, so any
resemblance to anybody is unintentional.

Questions and commentary can be sent to "writerboy69@hotmail.com". I enjoy
constructive criticism, praise, and rational discussion. I do not enjoy
flames, and will not tolerate them. Unless I often hear from you and would
recognize your address, please put the story title in the subject, or my
junk mail filter may screen you.

Thanks to everyone who has written so far. To answer a frequent question
from those who are unfamiliar with my other stories, they're called "Brian
and Tommy", "Thieves", "JC's Hitchhiker", "Tangle", and "Rebound", and they
can all be found in the Boybands section, which is a subset of the Celebrity
section of the Nifty archive, for those of you who have not been there.

***

I knew that I had to get my brain running again, to give it a kick and start
those little wheels in my head spinning, but Casey was like some kind of
thick (God, was he thick) molasses. As soon as I saw him, there was this
interval, however long, where the engine of my thoughts was buried in
sludge, and no matter how much I wanted to shake it off, I was powerless to
resist. Given that Sam was there, I guess I was lucky that my shorts weren't
as was also typical around Casey, stuffed with a big, throbbing hardon.

Sam!

I blinked, my eyes ticking from Casey in all his tight t-shirt barely
stretched as tightly as possible over those bulging, curved muscles, back to
Sam, who was still staring at me. Only a second or two had gone by,
thankfully, but still I was right on the verge of fucking up, fucking
everything up, blowing my own cover wide open right now when I most needed
it to be safe, and there didn't seem to be anything I could do. My reaction
to Casey was involuntary, some sort of almost Pavlovian response where
Casey, the sight of him, the smell of him, that woodsy, musky, indefinably
delicious smell that seemed to float around him like a cloud, making me want
to get closer, to be near him, to find the source of that smell and the feel
of it and the taste of it, being in any sort of proximity to me got me both
horny and stupid, for lack of better, more expressive wording. Whether I
wanted to be or not, I was in the grip of that response right now, right
when I didn't need to be, and I felt panic boiling up in me, rushing up my
throat and into my mouth in a hot burning flood.

For a second I thought I might vomit, and Sam put a hand on my arm.

"Nate, you ok?" he asked again.

"Did he hit his head?" Casey asked, concern lacing his words. My eyes ticked
over to him, from Sam's, falling back into the dark blue circles that, in
the shade of the woods, looked almost black again. His eyebrows were tensed,
his eyes narrowing with worry, and I realized that he had no idea what he
did to me. He knew that I liked to look at him, and he knew I got flustered
sometimes, but he didn't realize that he was the cause, which made sense. He
only saw me when I was flustered and a little flighty, so he must have
thought I was that way all the time. I felt better knowing that, but wasn't
sure why. At the same time, though, it only emphasized the divide in my life
right now. I was one person, thinking, acting, and doing certain things,
with Sam, and an entirely different person with Casey. With the two of them
together, especially after what Casey and I had done, I wasn't sure which
person I was supposed to be, and my head was spinning from the effort of
keeping the two apart. "Nate?"

"I'm fine," I said, but my voice was shaking. I didn't sound fine, and in my
head I heard my coach's voice, telling me to focus, telling me to get my
heart back in that lane, get my head out of the clouds, and get myself where
I needed to be. It was a speech that he gave us a lot at the pool,
especially if he thought one of us wasn't there, wasn't with the team,
wasn't doing what we were supposed to because we were distracted for
whatever reason. It didn't sound like a lot, not very inspirational and
almost a parody, the kind of thing the coach told the team in a cheesy after
school movie, but it was what I needed to hear. As soon as it ran through my
head, I snapped into focus. I could do this, because I had to, because I
needed to. "I just felt dizzy for a minute."

"Dizzy enough to fall over?" Sam asked. He was leading me down the back
yard, still holding my arm, and Casey followed behind, still holding the
baseball he had plucked out of the air with graceful, apparent ease. He'd
told me before that he used to play baseball, right before he changed the
subject by leading me naked to the shower. I guess he used to be pretty good
at baseball, or maybe he still was.

"Maybe you should sit down," Casey said from my other side. I looked back
and forth between the two of them, and realized I was stuck. Other than
confessing everything, telling Sam that I was pretty sure I was turning out
gay or telling Casey that the very sight of him turned me into a randy goat,
my only option seemed to be having a seat for a while.

"OK," I said, lowering myself carefully to the grass even though I was sure
that I was fine. I'd turned stupid for a second and then tripped over a
root, that was all. I shrugged at Sam. "I guess we're all done with catch,
though."

"No we're not," Sam said, smiling. He tugged my glove off of my hand and
held it out to Casey. "Casey'll play with me."

"Huh?" Casey asked, blinking. His hands twitched at his sides, but he made
no move to take the glove Sam was holding out, and, as I watched, his face
tensed. There wasn't another word for it. His eyes didn't quite narrow, he
didn't quite set his jaw, and his brow didn't quite furrow. Instead, it was
like all of those things almost happened, but didn't quite make it.
Everything tensed, but nothing moved. Sam didn't seem to catch it, shaking
the glove again.

"Come on, it won't kill you," Sam said, still grinning. Casey didn't look
like he believed it, but he took the glove, and Sam started walking down the
yard.

"Are you ok?" I whispered to Casey.

"Yeah," he hissed, as much as it was possible to hiss a word that didn't
have any S sounds in it. He walked away from me, toward the front of the
yard, and I found myself sitting in the middle of them as they threw the
ball back and forth over me. Sam tossed it tentatively the first couple of
times, getting a feel for Casey, but it didn't look like Casey had any
trouble, and he tossed it back hard enough that Sam stepped back a couple
more feet.

"You have a good arm," Sam said, still smiling.

"Thanks," Casey said, not elaborating. I was used to that, to saying
something to him and only getting a couple words back unless we were talking
about me, but Sam wasn't as complacent as I was.

"You're not even trying, are you?" Sam asked, grinning.

"Not really," Casey answered, a little bit of the tension dropping out of
his face.

It was hard to stay on your guard around Sam. It was even harder to stay mad
at him, something I could personally attest to, because Sam just radiated
goodwill. Wherever he went he made friends immediately, while I tended to
take my time. Casey, apparently, was more of my school than Sam's, but I
found myself watching this minor clash of wills, wondering if Casey would
slip. I wasn't worried that he would slip something about me and him. He'd
promised that my secret was safe with him, that I could trust him, and even
though I didn't really know him, other than in the Biblical sense, I
believed him. I was waiting to see if he would slip and reveal something
about himself, hopefully something I didn't already know.

"That was a hell of a catch you made before," Sam enthused. One of the many
good things you could say about Sam was that he wasn't a quitter. "Saved
Nate's teeth."

"Yeah, thanks," I said from my spot on the grass.

I kept having to remind myself to look at Sam, because it was so hard to
look away from Casey. His t-shirt rode up a little when he lifted his arms
to catch a ball, pulling away from his shorts, and if the catch was high
enough, it lifted enough to show some skin, to show his abs and a slice of
that V shape that led from his hips down toward his crotch, just like that
thin little trail of brown hair did. I remembered running by finger tip down
that trail, because it fascinated me, drawing my eyes from his stomach to
his waist, toward everything else hiding under his shorts, and, if the catch
was high enough, I could see a little glimpse of it. Even if the catch
wasn't high enough, watching all his muscles stretch upwards under that
tight little shirt was fascinating all on its own, his pecs shifting from
rounded to fan shaped, his abs flexing and unflexing, going from defined to
relaxed and back again, each time Sam threw the ball.

"You're welcome," Casey said, glancing toward me quickly, smiling.

I caught a flash of teeth, and realized that he knew I was looking, and that
he liked it, but his face was all seriousness again as he glanced back at
Sam, watching the ball come. When he wasn't throwing, he dropped into a
slight crouch, his feet apart, ready to slide either way if he needed to
move to make the catch. He hadn't just played a little baseball. I'd had
friends on the baseball team in high school, and I could tell that he'd been
a serious player. For all I knew, maybe he still was, but I hadn't gotten
the impression that he still played when he'd mentioned it. I also noticed
that when he fell into that crouch, his thighs flexed, and his calves
shifted, and I had to remind myself to look at Sam again before I got caught
staring.

Casey chuffed slightly, a little puffing sound like a horse, and I glanced
back at him just in time to catch another smile. Yeah, he knew I was
staring, and he knew what I wanted. If the smiles he was throwing toward me
were any kind of indication, he wanted something similar. Sam, on the other
hand, just wanted to keep tossing the ball, and didn't seem to notice any of
what was going on at our end of the yard.

"So where did you learn to catch like that?" Sam asked. Casey's face tensed
again, but he kept playing. Toss, stretch, catch, return. The rhythm
reminded me of other physical activities.

"High school," Casey answered finally. I guess it was either talk or stomp
out of the backyard, raising even more questions. I had to give points to
Sam, though. He now had one more answer than I did.

"You played?" Sam asked, and Casey nodded, not speaking at all this time.
The ball smacked into Sam's glove so hard it sounded like it had to hurt,
and Sam blinked for a second, squinting at Casey, before returning it.
"Where at?"

"Back home," Casey answered, not elaborating. I sat up, starting to get the
feeling that this might turn ugly. It wasn't so much a game of catch anymore
as it was a battle of wills. Sam kept pushing, good natured or maybe not,
and Casey was starting to get defensive, guarding his secrets for reasons I
didn't understand and he probably wouldn't tell me. I wasn't sure which of
them I should even be rooting for, but any second now someone was going to
have a mouthful of baseball. "You don't play, do you?"

"No," Sam answered, not catching the shift, but I did, because I'd seen
Casey do it before, with me. If someone started getting close, he threw up a
distraction. He'd gotten defensive over Sam's questions, and the best
defense was a good offense. "I mean, not other than in the backyard. Last
summer I played for the pizza place by the video store in the town softball
leagues, but I didn't join up this year."

"Why not?" Casey asked. His face was a little smoother now, and he wasn't
throwing the ball quite as hard.

"I wanted to work more this summer," Sam answered, still smiling. "Most of
the open shifts at the video store are afternoon and evening, though, so
that kind of killed it for softball. You should have signed up, though.
They'd have loved you."

"That's not really my thing anymore," Casey said quietly. Something was
going on here that I still didn't get. I used to be on the yearbook staff at
high school, and gave it up when I went to college, but when you asked me
about it I didn't get sullen, withdrawn, and defensive.

"What position did you play?" Sam asked. The game had shifted again, the
second Casey hadn't asked a question of his own. I'd thought Sam didn't
catch it before, but maybe he had, and had just been waiting for his chance
to turn the tables again. It was possible, but why would Sam do something
like that?

I glanced at him again, watching him reach up for the ball as it came
thundering toward him. Sam looked relaxed, still smiling, just making small
talk, but he was watching Casey the entire time. I should have seen it
immediately, but I'd only been glancing at Sam, looking at him when I
reminded myself to look away from Casey. Sam had his head cocked to the
side, the way he did when he was perplexed, the way he did when he was
studying something, and right now it was clear that he was studying Casey,
but why? Sure, I was curious about Casey's background, about where he'd come
from and how he'd ended up here, but I had a kind of vested interest in it.
I was his... close friend? Boyfriend? Guy he slept with? Whatever I was to
Casey, or he was to me, I had more of a right to know his background than
Sam did. Sam wasn't anything to Casey, except maybe a friendly acquaintance,
so why was he pushing like this when he was intelligent enough to see that
it was making Casey uncomfortable?

What was actually going on here?

"Catcher," Casey answered. "Nate says you run. What events?"

"Distance, mostly," Sam answered. "I do marathons and ten K's sometimes, but
they don't have too many of those at track meets."

"Are you fast?" Casey answered. Two questions in a row. Perhaps the game had
shifted back again. This was like an extremely complicated chess match, more
so because it also seemed that the catching was integral as well. Neither of
them had dropped a ball yet, neither missed a catch, and every couple of
throws they stepped back again, increasing the distance between the two of
them while I sat in the middle.

"Yeah," Sam answered, flushing with pride. Everybody likes to talk about
things they do well, and Sam was a hell of a runner. "I'm no sprinter or
anything, but I'm fast, and I have endurance. That's the real secret."

"Oh really?" Casey asked, one of his eyebrows raising a little. I almost
swallowed my tongue for a second.

Were they flirting with each other?

No, couldn't be. Sam was straight, and Casey was, well...

Casey was mine. Period. I hadn't thought of him that way before now, before
I felt like there might be a threat there, but Casey was my territory.
Whatever was going on between us was between us, him and me and no one else.
I was the one he kissed. I was the one he stripped for, and ran his hands
over, and ran his tongue over. Me. Not Sam.

Besides, Sam was straight, so there must be some other explanation. This
wasn't flirting, because that just wasn't possible, so it had to be
something else, and I was just reading it wrong. This was some stupid macho
battle of wills, some alpha male need for one of them to dominate the other,
for one of them to come out the winner. We were all athletes, which meant we
were all used to winning (or at least trying to), and that competitive
streak that ran through all of us made even the simplest game a contest, a
challenge where one of us had to come out ahead or die trying. That had to
be it. Casey and Sam were just playing some stupid power struggle game, and
they were both too caught up in it to realize it.

Unless Sam was doing it on purpose. But that left me with the original
question, then: Why? What the hell was his problem?

Answers to that question were not forthcoming, though, any more than answers
to any of the other questions seemed to be, because my parents chose that
exact moment to pull up in the front driveway. Casey snapped the ball into
his glove, I stood, and Sam looked at his watch, the spell completely
broken. My parents beeped the horn, catching a glimpse of us before they
pulled all the way up, and we all glanced at each other, all looking guilty.
I knew why I felt a little squeamish, because my parents were pulling up and
I was in the backyard thinking dirty thoughts about Casey and his t-shirt,
and this would be the first time I had seen them since I'd done any of that,
but for some reason my body wasn't dumping the gallon of adrenaline into my
bloodstream that this thought should have generated. I'd already figured
out, from talking to Sam, that you couldn't tell just by looking at me, so
maybe some of the worry was wearing off. Either that, or I was just too damn
busy trying to figure out the weird Twilight Zone spin the afternoon had
taken on.

"I didn't realize it was this late already," Sam said, starting toward the
house. "I gotta get my stuff together so I can grab dinner before work."

"I have to go, too," Casey said quietly, starting toward his house without
even bothering to make up an excuse.

I stood in the middle of the yard, watching Sam walk one way and Casey walk
the other, trying to figure out which I should follow. Fuck it. Sam would
always be here for me. I started after Casey.

"Casey, wait," I called, and he stopped, half in the shadow of the trees,
looking down at his feet. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, what he was
feeling, but his shoulders were set, firm, all tensed up. Was he mad at me?
Did he think I'd made Sam ask him all those things? "Casey?"

"Yeah?" he asked, looking back over his shoulder, one blue eye and one
ridged cheekbone peeking out around the soft brown fall of his hair. I
walked closer, standing right behind him, wanting to put a hand on his
shoulder but realizing that we were in the yard and anyone could see us.
Damn it.

"You still have my glove," I said lightly, forcing myself to smile, and he
turned all the way around, holding it out to me. His face was blank, not the
tense look he'd been giving Sam but not the winks he'd been giving me,
either. My voice was soft, too, apologetic and kind. I didn't want him mad
at me, but, more important, I didn't want to see him hurting, either. "I'm
sorry Sam asked you all those questions. I know you don't like to talk about
that stuff, about yourself, and I don't know what was wrong with him. Maybe
he didn't realize it was bothering you. I just, I don't know, are you ok?"

Casey sighed, his mouth a thin line as the air rushed out of his nose, his
hair falling forward on either side of his ears, curling up at the bottom,
and one stray lock tumbling down over his forehead and covering one of his
eyes.

"Yeah," he answered finally, putting his hands in his pockets. "I just need
to think about some stuff. Will you be at the pool tomorrow?"

I nodded, and he looked up and smiled, not a full smile, just a little
lifting of the corners of his mouth.

"I'll see you then," he said, and then he was walking away, into the other
yard. I watched his back for a second, watching the sun dapple his white
shirt, stretched across the round cannonballs of his shoulders and the
rippled muscle of his back, and then I turned and walked back to my house. I
couldn't help but feel like I'd been dismissed, and I wondered what was
wrong with him. Why were we so close one minute, him all up on me and
tearing my clothes off, but the minute I tried to find anything out about
him I smashed into a wall?

And what was wrong with Sam? Had he really not noticed Casey getting upset,
or was he being a jackass on purpose? He and I helped my parents carry in
their bags, and the many bags my mother had picked up on the way home outlet
shopping, asking about their trip and whether or not we would be parking a
boat in the driveway anytime soon (the answer was no), but we weren't alone
together until I followed him to the garage. My parents were in the living
room going through their bags, unpacking the shopping bags, when Sam ducked
in to say goodbye to them, his backpack slung over his shoulder, and then he
ducked out, heading for the garage. I heard him open the door as I walked
in, and he rolled his bike out onto the driveway, seeming like he wasn't
going to say anything at all besides goodbye.

"Sam?" I asked, standing behind him in the garage.

"Yeah?" he asked, looking at my shoes.

"Are you mad at me?" I asked. That, at least, got him to look me in the
face. When he did, he looked kind of tired, and a little tense, but he
didn't seem mad. It actually looked kind of like he did yesterday, when he
was all pissed off about Jen and that Jason guy, but hadn't we talked that
out already?

"No, why?" he asked, his voice neutral.

Sam was a shitty liar, for lack of a better word. He just wasn't any good at
it. I'd seen him try, over the years, any number of lies, from tiny little
things ("No, we didn't drink your beer. Really. We didn't drink any of it.")
to some rather large ones ("I'd never speed, officer. The speedometer must
be broken."), and none of them met with success. On a fundamental level,
lying bothered Sam. It made him uncomfortable, almost offending him, and
that kept him from being any good at it. It was one of the reasons why I was
so afraid to tell him about myself. He felt so strongly about it that I was
sure he would end our friendship, would take it as the deepest of insults,
because it was something he considered unconscionable. When Sam lied, there
was always a tell, a way that let you see it. He couldn't look you in the
eye, but would look at the bridge of your nose, or at your temple. Sometimes
he blushed, too, or shifted from foot to foot, almost dancing, and if you
missed either of those things, within about ten minutes he'd be biting his
thumbs, because he was stressed.

Knowing Sam that was, I was pretty surprised to see that he wasn't doing any
of those things. He was telling the truth, and wasn't mad at me.

"I don't know," I answered, shrugging. "Maybe because you haven't really
said a word to me since my parents pulled up?"

"I'm sorry," Sam said, shrugging, too. He had his hands jammed into his
pockets, so it was just a kind of shoulder rolling move. "Nate, it's not
you."

"Is it Casey?" I asked bluntly. Sam twitched, his head giving a little
shake.

"What?" he asked, stalling for time, his eyes sliding over to my temples,
just past my eyes. A lie. He was lying, right to my face, but why? "Why
would I be mad at Casey?"

"I'm not sure," I answered, my eyes narrowing. I didn't want to be pissed at
him, didn't want to start a fight, but he was lying to me. Granted, I was
lying to him, too, but the whole subject of Casey was such a raw spot for me
right now that having Sam in the middle of it was like poking a wound with a
stick. All of these feelings welled up in me, and I had to let them out
somewhere, but I didn't want to dump them on Sam. He was making not doing
that a little difficult, though. I decided to play dumb, and try to draw Sam
out. "You seemed kind of hostile out in the yard. Did you guys get into
something the other night?"

"At the party?" Sam asked. That was the third question in a row in place of
an answer to any of mine. I'd watched Sam and Casey play this game out in
the yard, and now it appeared that Sam and I were playing it, too.
Recognizing it, though, I couldn't seem to stop it.

"Yeah," I answered, waiting. If I didn't say anything, he'd have to say
something, or else we'd just be standing in the driveway staring at each
other, and he wouldn't be able to pretend that nothing was wrong.

"No, nothing," Sam answered, shrugging again, looking at my chin. He had to
know that I knew, that he wasn't being at all convincing. We'd been friends
for too long for this kind of stupid game. "Besides, I didn't think asking
about baseball, while we were playing with a baseball, was a particularly
hostile gesture. How the hell was I supposed to know that he'd start getting
all pissy?"

"I don't know, but did you have to keep pushing?" I asked, frowning, my
voice sharpening a little. Sam sighed, pulling his hands out of his pockets
and holding them up.

"Nate, it happened so fast," he said, looking in my eyes again. "I didn't
mean to piss him off. I was just curious, and then he started getting angry,
and I guess I got angry, too. Why are you so concerned?"

"Because," I began, and stuttered to a stop. Because I care about him?
Because I don't want him to get pissed at me? Because he's important to me
in a way that I'm not really completely sure of but don't want to fuck up?
"I don't know, because it bothered me. I don't like it when my friends get
in fights with each other."

Sam's head cocked to the side, his eyes narrowing a little.

"I didn't realize you and Casey were such good friends" he said lightly,
smiling, but I felt like something else was there, some underlying push.

I'd already decided last night that Sam didn't know about Casey and I. If he
had, there was no way he'd have been able to cover it this long. I'd been
stupid to worry about it to begin with, but I was so wrapped up in myself
lately that I hadn't even been able to imagine that whatever was bothering
Sam could be anything other than something to do with me. I was selfish, I
was lying to him, and now I was getting into a fight with my best friend. I
had to stop this. Sam was worth more to me than that, but at the same time I
had this growing loyalty to Casey, too.

"We're getting there," I said carefully. "We talked a lot the other night
when you were passed out. He's a nice guy, and I think you should give him a
chance."

"I didn't say he wasn't," Sam said, shrugging yet again. He was getting
really good at that. "Look, Nate, maybe today was just a bad day for
everybody. I'm still all messed up about this Jen thing, and he got all
defensive, God knows why, and you, I don't know what's up with you lately."

"Sam," I began, but had no idea where I was going with that, either.

"I know," he said quickly. "You can't really talk about it, and you will
when you're ready. That's fine, and I respect that. Everything just feels
really weird right now."

"I know," I said, nodding. "And I'm sorry."

"Are we mad at each other?" Sam asked, his face serious.

"God, I hope not," I answered, smiling, thoughts of Sam and Casey
momentarily forgotten.

"Me, too," Sam answered, grinning back. "Look, I gotta stop by home and then
go to work. Are you sure we're ok?"

"Yeah," I answered, nodding. "Have fun at the video store."

I watched him ride off, realizing that now, instead of just Casey, I had two
friends who didn't really answer my questions. Something about Casey was
bothering Sam, but what? And why?

I hadn't figured it out by the next day, either, and I just added it to the
list of things in my worry pile. Why did Sam and Casey have this friction
between them? Why hadn't it shown up until after Casey and I slept together?
Why had Casey stopped playing baseball? Why didn't he talk about his past?
What was his past? Was Jen cheating on Sam with Jason? Was Sam's trip out
there going to fix anything? Oh, yeah, and was I gay? Was Sam going to hate
me when he found out? Were my parents going to disown me? When was I going
to see Casey again?

That last one was gnawing at my brain especially diligently today. He'd
asked if I was going to the pool today, and then said he'd see me then, but
what did that mean? Was he meeting me here? Was I going to look up and see
him at the edge of the pool again, staring down at me, backlit with fire in
his hair and shadows under his face, me staring up at him past all his
muscles? Oh, God, maybe he'd actually be in the pool. Maybe I'd get to the
end of my lane and find him there, in the water, wearing some tiny little
suit. No, that wasn't his style. If Casey was in the pool, he'd be in a set
of baggy trunks, hanging low on the line of his hips, showing just a bit of
package, just enough to get your imagination going, but not enough to show
too much. He'd smile, and since it was just me, it would be a full teeth
smile, a wide one, and his hair would be slicked back from the water,
rivulets of it running down his neck, tempting my eyes to slide lower.

The thought of that was enough to keep me moving through my laps, clearing
everything else out of my mind. Even though I had all those other things to
worry about, the anticipation of seeing Casey, of being near him, of
touching him and letting him touch me and everything else, was enough to
keep my head clear. I found my rhythm, and fell into my zone, but in the
back of my mind I was counting the seconds, wondering like an impatient
child at Christmas where he was and why he wasn't here yet and when he would
be here and what we would do when he got here. Breathe in, think about his
eyes. Breathe out, think about his chest. Breathe in, run my fingers through
his hair. Breathe out, taste his mouth.

He never came, though. I never looked up and saw him at the edge, and I
never surfaced and found him in the water. Why hadn't he come?

I didn't time my workouts, or count my laps. I'd been doing this too long,
and knew just be instinct and by the way my body felt whether or not I
needed to keep going, or if I'd done enough. I pulled myself out of the
pool, looking around in every direction as I climbed the ladder, but I
didn't see him anywhere, and I felt my mood sinking despite the floating,
relaxed feeling that a good workout usually left me with. I didn't want to
let Casey have this kind of power over me, didn't want to let myself start
depending on seeing him and getting attached to him, because that was
serious. That was the kind of thing that meant this whole thing was more
than a phase, more than just something I was playing at and a feeling I was
trying to get out of my system. I still wanted to see him, though.

Casey had told me not to think so much about it, about what it might mean,
and maybe that's what I needed to do. Deciding that, though, just brought me
full circle back around to being disappointed that he wasn't here, and
feeling that sinking in the pit of my stomach again. What if he was gone? I
didn't know where he'd come from or why. What if he'd gone back? What if
he'd only come into my life for a few days, a week, and now he was gone
again? What if I hadn't recognized what I had when it was here, and now it
was gone? I tried not to think like this, not to consider it, to tell myself
that there was a logical explanation of why he wasn't there as I wandered
through the locker room, but I was only half successful. I grabbed my towel
from my locker, throwing it over my shoulders as I headed to the showers to
rinse off, not really noticing anyone around me. It didn't matter, really,
since none of them were Casey.

Rather than a community shower room, the pool actually had individual
stalls, with an outer curtain for privacy and an inner one to keep your
stuff dry. I pulled the outside curtain, threw my speedo on the bench, and
turned the shower on. When it was warm I slid in, closing my eyes, and
pulled the curtain behind me, trying to let all of my worries about Casey
slide away down the drain with all the chlorine from the pool. Usually just
being in the water was enough to make me feel better, but it just wasn't
working. Where the hell was he?

I heard the rings on the outer curtain jangle.

"Someone's in here," I snapped.

"I know," Casey said, pulling open the inner curtain, sliding naked into my
shower.

***

To be continued.