Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 21:21:20 -0700
From: Sean R <seanr_13@yahoo.ca>
Subject: A Drink with a Stranger - 2

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-----
A Drink with a Stranger
By: Sean Roberts
-----

--
Chapter 2
--

Lane knocked on Taylor's door and found his brother
standing in front of the mirror, struggling with his tie.  Lane
put his arms gently around Taylor, loosening the mess and
talking Taylor through making the knot.

"Ready to go then?" Lane asked.

"Yeah, but, umm, Jeff texted me and I think I'm going to
take the bus with him," Taylor said.

"Oh," Lane said.  "Yeah, sure kiddo.  See you later then."

"You're coming to watch me tryout after school, right?"

"Yeah, sure," Lane said.  "Of course I'll come.  But
Taylor, I've told you before, freshmen never make the team.  Are
you sure you still want to try out?  Why not just wait until
next year?"

"I know," he said.  "But I've been practicing all summer!
I've got to at least try.  And who knows, maybe Finn will go a
bit easier on me."

"Not likely," Lane said under his breath.

"What?"

"Nothing.  Good luck, okay?"  Taylor beamed.

--

Price Humphrey had graduated the previous year, making Lane
the Editor-in-Chief of the paper.  Unfortunately, nobody else
had signed up to be a part of it, leaving Lane to do everything
on his own.  Lane had gotten along with Price.  They had an
office to themselves—a comfortable space with a few desks and a
couple of couches.  Price had introduced Lane to the comfort of
a fine scotch.  The office was the perfect place to hide bottles
and to eat lunch.

Price had left a bottle and some crystal as a parting gift
for Lane.  Lane took out his lunch and a book from his knapsack.
It was a lonely first day.  Lane's classmates had gotten used to
not talking to him—not that he ever made much of an effort to
talk to them—but he had also been grumbling to himself about
Taylor.  Taylor had been excited all summer to ride to school
with his big brother.  Lane took another bite of his sandwich
and told himself he was being stupid and tried to concentrate
again on his book.

He spent the rest of his lunch doing some writing.  Lane
wanted to be a novelist or a journalist.  Or something else.  He
was not really sure, and he was also not that picky as long as
he could do something that would allow him to write—preferably
not about sports.  He had published a number of short stories in
the Hunter since his freshman year.  He thought about a nip, but
decided not to start any bad habits on the first day.

Lane took his time strolling across campus towards the
soccer pitch after last period.  There were a number of smiling,
fresh faced first year boys trying out for the team.  Most of
the previous year's team, unusually, had been comprised of
juniors.  There had only been one senior who had now graduated,
which opened up the spot for which Taylor was trying out.  Lane
had barely said two words to anyone on the team over the last
few years, least of all Finn McClain.  Lane's stomach knotted up
when he saw Finn, the boy who was supposed to be his best friend
(in fact, more than his best friend) leading the tryouts.

--

Having a little brother had taught Lane responsibility at
an early age.  When he was fourteen, his parents had allowed him
to spend the final week before his first year at Deer Creek
Academy alone with Finn at their lake house.  They had cleared
it with Finn's parents, driven the boys up, brought along enough
food to feed an army, and gone over the schedule for when the
boys were supposed to call to check in.

"So, umm, thanks guys," Lane said to them awkwardly when
they were still not leaving.

"Are you sure we didn't forget anything in the car?" Sally
Conway had said.

"Let's go check," James Conway said.  Lane rolled his eyes
after they left.  Finn had leaned over and whispered something
in Lane's ear.  Lane smiled.  Their parents came back and went
over everything once more.

"Maybe we should just spend the afternoon up here," Sally
said.  "Just to make sure you boys are properly settled in."

"Sure mom," Lane said with a smile.  "Come on Finn."  The
two boys promptly left the kitchen and ran upstairs.  They
changed into their trunks and ran out into the lake.  Finn's
plan had worked.  It only took a few minutes before Lane's
parents walked out to them along the dock.  They climbed out of
the water and said their goodbyes.

It was not unreasonable for them to be nervous.  Two
fourteen year old boys left to their own devices could get into
a lot of trouble.  Lane and Finn had absolutely no intention of
getting into trouble.  They stayed in the lake until the setting
sun painted the sky pink.  They lay on the dock, staring at the
sky in silence.  Lane's heart was pounding, wanting something to
happen, but unsure how to make the first move.  He gasped when
Finn did it.  He felt Finn's hand on his stomach, caressing his
skin.  The boys were tired and hungry, but they were happy.
Lane turned to Finn and melted into a kiss.

The first time they had kissed was earlier that summer in
Lane's bedroom.  Since then, Lane had been working up the
courage to ask Finn what it meant.  They had been out, walking
towards the arcade, when Finn bit the bullet and asked Lane if
the kiss meant they were boyfriends.  Lane had smiled and nodded
his head.

Until their week at the cottage, they had never done more
than kissed.  Finn's shaky hand moved its way into Lane's
shorts.  The feeling of someone else touching it was
overwhelming.  Lane copied Finn, touching the other boy's cock,
feeling it stiffen in his hand.  They stroked each other inside
their shorts, hearing only the occasional ripple from the lake
or twig falling from a tree.  They could feel each others'
breathing as their fingers became wet, and the nervousness the
boys had been feeling disappeared, shooting out of them in waves
of pleasure.  They smiled at each other and lay there for a
while before going inside for dinner.

--

Lane watched the tryouts, not really paying attention until
Taylor was up.  He watched his brother closely, Taylor's eyes
focused on the ball.  The tryouts were a series of standard
maneuvers, but Finn suddenly darted towards Taylor and grabbed
the ball away from him.  He started kicking the ball towards one
of the posts.  Taylor shot off after him, nimbly stealing it
back.  He made it a short distance the other way when he
realized that Finn was close behind.  Knowing that Finn was the
captain of the team for a reason, Taylor took a chance and
kicked the ball across the pitch.  The goal post was far away,
but the ball reached its mark.  Had there been a goal tender,
the ball would have been stopped.  Still, it was a great kick.
Taylor retrieved the ball and finished the assigned drills.

Finn went up to Taylor with his hand in the air.  Taylor
gave him a high five.  Finn leaned down and said something
quietly to Taylor before patting his back and jogging back to
grab the next boy.  Taylor was beaming.

At the end of the tryouts, Finn and some of the other boys
had walked up to Taylor, surrounding him, while the others
headed off towards the locker rooms.  Lane watched, a feeling of
dread worming its way into his stomach.  From where he was
sitting, it did not look like they were having a friendly chat.
Taylor was surrounded by a semi-circle of players, their backs
to Lane, blocking Taylor completely from view.  The circle
closed in.  Lane was more fearful for what would happen to
Taylor than what had happened to him.

Lane ran onto the pitch, not sure what he was planning to
do.  He would never have done anything like this before, but he
was a senior now, not a scrawny fourteen year old.  Besides, he
was there to defend Taylor, and nothing was going to stand in
his way.  If they touched a single hair on Taylor's head ...

Images of revenge shot into Lane's head.  He was going to
knock the shit out of every single one of the bastards for
touching his brother.  He was even angrier that there were so
many of them ganging up on a fourteen year old.  Whatever
happened to a fair fight?  As he approached, he focused on one
of the bigger apes in the middle, and now had a plan.  He was
going to grab the bully, pull him away, and punch him as hard as
he could in the nose.

Finn turned around at the last second, making Lane stopped
in his tracks.  Finn suddenly looked uncomfortable; the
discomfort of boys who had barely spoken in three years.  Lane
could see that he was mistaken somehow—they had been surrounding
Taylor, but none of them were hitting him.  They were all
smiling.

"Lane," Finn said.  "Umm, hey.  We were just—"

"Lane?" Taylor said.  The semi-circle had opened and Taylor
was beaming.  "Lane!  Guess what?  They said I'm pretty much
guaranteed to get a spot!  Can you believe it?  I'll probably
the only freshman who's going to!"

"Wait, you're his brother?" Richard said to Taylor.
Richard was the largest boy on the team, the one Lane was
planning to hit.  Lane knew exactly who Richard was, his face
bringing back memories from what happened a few years before.
"Aren't you that loser who writes the paper?"  Lane looked at
Taylor, the smile leaving the boy's face.  Lane forced himself
to smile.

"You did awesome Taylor," Lane said.  "I'll wait for you,
okay?  Just text me when you're ready to go."

"Oh, will you wait for me too?" one of the other guys said.

"And me!" another one chimed in.  They started laughing.
Lane turned red.  It was not the teasing that bothered him; it
was the teasing in front of his brother.  Taylor's face had
fallen, and turned red as well.

"Hey, shut it you guys!" Finn shouted.  "Lane's going to be
the only reason you fuckers will make it to college.  Did you
know that scouts read the paper, to see how you idiots do out
here when they aren't watching?"  They reluctantly shut up; Lane
walked away.

"Lane ... Lane!"  Finn jogged over and caught up with Lane.
Lane did not stop walking.  "Sorry Lane.  Those guys are
assholes."

"Well they're your friends," Lane said.  Lane stopped
walking and turned to Finn.  "And I don't need you to stick up
for me.  I can take care of myself, got it?"

"Yeah, yeah I know you can Lane.  I wasn't...I was just
telling them—"

"Well don't, okay?"

"Okay," Finn said.  "I'm sorry.  What did you want me to—"

"Nothing.  I don't want you to do anything."

"Yeah.  I get that," Finn said.  "But look, with Taylor on
the team, we're probably going to have to see each other
sometimes, and I thought maybe—"

"Why's that Finn?  Why would we need to have to see each
other?"

"Well, I don't know, but we are now, aren't we?"  Lane
sighed.

"Yes, but only because...this was my fault.  It'll never
happen again," Lane said.  "So do me a favour and fuck off."

--

Lane did not have bottles of scotch hidden only in the
Hunter's office.  It made for a perfect sense of symmetry (and
of course, convenience), to have a bottle in his bedroom.  He
could afford to skip doing homework for one day, especially the
first day of school.  He poured himself a drink, turned on some
music, and tried to drink Finn out of his head.