Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2017 17:49:22 +0000 From: Danny writing <danny2017writing@outlook.com> Subject: Even If We Tried - Chapter 5 The regular warnings apply as always, and please do consider a little charity for nifty's awesome service. Feedback would be very appreciated, if you would like to send me an email. I'd love to hear everyone's opinion as all feedback is read. I would also wish to apologize for the lateness of this chapter. It's been a really busy week for me, and I just did not have the time to sit down and write. Please don't alter or reproduce my work without first contacting me. Readers: I'd like to know your personal opinion about the progression of each chapter. A simple email would be great to have an idea if people are still reading each chapter, it's all a writer gets in return, without it I'm kind of navigating in the dark. I want to thank the people who are emailing me it gives me a drive to keep writing. Email me at danny2017writing@outlook.com If anyone is interested there is a soundtrack for every chapter I have written of the story. The songs below are the songs I used for writing this chapter. Finding Nemo by Thomas Newman Rooftop Kiss by James Horner Read All About It, Pt. 3 by Emeli Sand‚ In The Last Chapter: Sam struck up the courage to find out Austin's address and cycle to his home. He also came out to his friend Nash, which hinted that Nash maybe Bi-sexual and last but not least he was deadest on finding the sender of that nasty text message that outed Austin. Even If We Tried - Part 5 The downpour outside Austin's house roared as the skies opened up above and the heavy shower soon turned into a cloudburst of small hail. I felt a small burning sensation in my shoes as they were drenched like the rest of me and partly damp, every time I took a step they squelched. Austin's house was grand, it was very modern and very sleek. The front hall had two leading rooms off to the side, one to the right and one to left. Through a door on the right lay the study which had a large wooden gothic desk. The back of the room behind the desk was filled to the brim with books, while on the left there was a family room that had two large cream sofas and small coffee tables beside each seat. Looking ahead I followed Austin down the main hall that had the coffee coated walls and black tiled floor. While I was following him, my thoughts crept in like they always had. Did I really just do what I thought I had done. I asked myself. I was here in Austin's home. I actually initiated the kiss, this time. Did he like it. Was it too fast, was it to wet, was it to hard or to soft. Most importantly did he want me to really kiss him. I still held the towel he had given me which was slightly damp in my hands. I didn't quite know what to do with it other than hold it because by the time, we reached the end of the hall, light flooded the imitate area. Standing now in the centre of his family home. I felt like I was rich for some reason, I don't quite know why, but I just did. His sitting room, dropped down three steps from the raised platform where we stood. Doing so the Cali boy shuffled down the stairs in a happy go lucky way and turned around to look at me as he licked his lips and waited for my response with a small smile. "Well" He said in a soft voice. "Well" I said. "Its bigger than the gym." 'That's all I could think of at a moment like this I thought to myself. The Gym.' The ceiling of this room could have easily been the height of the house. The kitchen could be seen on the left up a set of stairs and the dining room was right next to it, with an archway that could be used to enter both rooms. On the far side, there was a Tv mounted to a solid stone wall that over looked the L-shaped couch that was in the middle of the room. Upon looking up I came to notice that the stone wall appeared to be a small landing area above, and it was accessed by a stairwell at the side. The natural light came flooding in from the large windows that went as high as the ceiling directly in the middle of the room and gave a breath taking view of the lake. I could still see it was raining outside but it had become less violent at this point in time. Following Austin, he walked in front of the L-shaped couch and started climbing the stairs at the side, doing so I followed him but stopped at the bottom of the stairs. 'My first thought was that I did not want to dirty the beige carpet since I was both wet and probably had mucky shoes. "Austin" I called to him. Just like that he turned around as he was in the middle of the stairs holding onto the wooden banisters. "Sam," He said in a gentle but mischievous voice. "I'm all wet. I'll dirty the stairs and carpet if I go up." I said innocently enough. He smiled and sarcastically and said "Then take your clothes off." 'What my mind said. Did I hear that right? He can't be serious. I'm not ready, was the first thought that went through my head. I was relieved to say the least when he broke into a grin and started to smile. It was at that moment that I knew he was fucking with me. "Just come on" He said in a sort of a playful sigh. 'Thinking of the mess I'd make going up I decided to just take of my shoes, and left them at the bottom of the stairs. Once I had removed my shoes I joined Austin as we both climbed the staircase and navigated down a small corridor until he reached a door and pushed it open. "bienvenida" He said. 'Wait, what did he just say. I questioned the moment I noticed he had said something in a different language. I said back to him.' "Eh..., Me Speak English. No understand." That's when he smiled at the statement, god I could swear he was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. Even in a dark hallway with only a small proportion of daylight coming through the opening of the door. I had to wonder. How did people this beautiful get walked and trampled all over. I became a little nervous when I locked eyes on him. Neither of us blinked as I felt time slow down. "Welcome, it means welcome." Austin stuttered as he bashfully smiled. Waltzing in behind him, he proudly stood beside his double bed. His room was quite plain. He had the basics in the room which consisted of, the actual bed, his Tv, which was mounted on the wall in front of the bed. There also was a guitar in one corner of his room beside the bed, and on the far side there was two beanbags on top of a colourful rug. He started to smile at me for some unknown reason, maybe it was because I was actually standing in his room or maybe not. All I knew is that he was looking at me in a weird way, but It wasn't intentional. It was almost as if he was admiring me or respecting me decision, regardless of what people thought. "I should get you some clothes before you freeze to death." He bashfully said before he opened up his large built in wardrobes and rummaged for a few seconds. I could not see him since the door consumed him behind it. I heard the scraping of hangers as he rearranged him wardrobe. "You can take a seat if you want" He said with a muffled sounding tone to it. Doing so, I slowly walked the small distance to his bed. I could feel the softness of his carpeted floor beneath my feet that my damp socks clung to, and the warmth the house naturally provided. Sitting gently on the bed, I clenched my hands closed since the tops of all my fingers were a little numb with the cold. I could see him rummaging through his ridiculous amount of clothes, as I tried to get some feeling back into my fingers. I dropped the towel I was holding on the floor beside the bed and looked around his room some more. There was a photo of him and an older looking boy on his bedside stand, along with some photos with groups of people. I just assumed it was his family, one face did stick out to me though. It was a girl, the girl that was at the house party, that Austin was talking to. Who was she I found myself thinking. "Hey" Austin said from behind me in a very soft voice. Turning around to face him, he stood with a couple of pairs of sweaters, jeans and other various clothing options. "You can pick whatever you want from those. My mom want kill me if I gave them away." He casually said with a warm smile. 'Gave them away.' I thought, was he saying I could keep the clothes I choose. I felt like it wasn't my place to accept charity. But I was cold and wet and well in need of clothes, so I started to sift through what he had offered to give to me. While I looked through the clothes, Austin turned back to the wardrobe and started rummaging again. Moving the layers of clothes around, I decided with a cream hoodie and blue jeans. I hadn't bothered to check who the maker of the clothes was, because just then Austin turned around and handed me a pair of American Eagle underwear and socks. "Ralph Lauren." He said with a smirk. "You have good taste." "Who." I kind of said with a hint of embarrassment, that I had no idea who he was talking about. "The Maker of the hoodie." He said with nonchalant tone. "Oh really." I said with still no idea of who he was talking about. I decided to drop the question of how much he bought the hoodie for and when he said $98 dollars, I almost chocked. I felt insecure for a moment, he's giving me something expensive, like it's not a big deal I thought quietly to myself. "I don't think I can take this, it's very expensive." I said to him with a sorry tone. It was almost bordering on apologetic. "It's okay, I want you to have it." He said gently as he rubbed his inner arm softly. Giving him a nod, I started to pull off my wet t-shirt and zip hoodie. I dropped them on the floor and picked up the towel to continued drying myself. Austin just looked at me as I did him, and I dried the remaining dampness from my torso. Nothing was said only glances. That's when I picked up the t-shirt and the new dry hoodie he had given me. Once I had the top half of me dressed I started to unbuckle my belt. I became aware of Austin who was still in the room. I didn't want to stand in my underwear in front of him. I felt that I didn't have the voice though to ask him for privacy, but I didn't have to saying anything because he must have sensed it and decided to say what was really on my mind for me. "I'll give you some privacy." With a nod, he headed outside and I finished getting dressed and called him back in when I was finished. Sitting on the beanbags that were beside his bed we both talked for a little while. I learned that the photograph of the older boy and himself on the locker was his older brother who died to cancer in 2012. 'I had to admit, it wasn't something I would have expected to hear and I offered my apologies to him when he told me about it. I didn't really know what else to say. I guess anytime someone has bad news like that I just shut down emotionally. It wasn't if I was aloof or anything, I just truly had no idea how to comfort someone that way. After the conversation progressed I learned that the girl in the photos, I had seen at the party, was his sister. He had told her about me. I blushed at that statement, but when I asked him "what about?" he didn't specify. He left it a mystery. The hour or so passed very quickly and I was fully engaged with what he was talking about. I felt close to him, and we both talked a little bit about his past more so than mine. Austin became a little quite as the conversation dwindled and we ran out of thing to talk about, and just sat on the opposite beanbag as he remained quiet. He smiled over at me occasionally before he scooted over nearer to me. He leaned forward to me like we had done for the game of spin the bottle at Nash's party. "Sam..." He said as he looked away at the wall and his face became red. Just like that he turned back to me and pressed his lips against mine and started to kiss me. Just like that I had no time to react like the other times before, but this time I started to return his kissing. I started to get into the mood as we kept kissing. I felt him breech my lips and slip his tongue into my mouth, but I didn't stop him because I let him take control. It was wet and it was nice, I didn't know how to describe the kiss but it was a little sloppy. We kissed for at least a minute, maximum two. That's when I felt his hand feel around the small space between our torsos and was enjoying the feeling he was giving me, until he reached for my belt and started fiddle with it to get it to open. I felt uncomfortable and I wasn't ready to progress any further so I push him off me. "I can't." I said as I wiped my mouth. He looked a little hurt, but more than hurt he looked sorry for having done it. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry." He stuttered. Unsure of my emotions, I assured him that it was okay. I thought that I should have been getting home, before mom got home. Deciding that I should head off, because it would take a while to cycle home I decided that I should be on my way. "I've got to go Austin; my mom will be home soon. I offered with a smile and drew him into a hug to seal the deal. I wanted to make sure that what he had done was not that big of a deal and that I didn't holed anything against him. Walking back through his house I asked when he wanted his clothes back. He said again that I could have them, on the way I picked up my shoes and before long we stood back at the front door. "Well... I'll see you around" He said as I reached for the door handle." "Yeah, I'll see you around too" I offered back. Just like that when I opened the door, the girl from the party stood holding keys out as if she was about to unlock the door. Clenching a brown paper bag in one of her arms she looked a little shocked for a moment, that was until a tall red head woman joined the girl at the door, also holding onto two bags. "Oh hello, Who's this." The woman said with a crooked smile as she took her sunglasses off to see me better. In doing so she nearly dropped one the brown bags but caught it before it happened. I looked over at Austin for answers. He looked from his mom to me and then back at the two outside the door. Just like that Austin said calmly. "Mom this is Sam, He's my friend from school." Sighing a little on the inside, I seen the woman smile at me, before she said "Well it's a pleasure to me you, young man." Smiling back at her she barged in the door with the sister in pursuit. "Boys can you get the bags from the car" His mother shouted in a slightly raised voice as she disappeared off down the hallway. Doing so the both of us walked the small distance to the car port, where there was now a new car in the driveway. It was a white Land Rover Evoque. Wow was all I could say as I follow Austin to the car. He went around to the open boot and just like that he reached into the car and pulled out two bags. Doing the same I clenched onto two of the paper bags and followed behind Austin. When we got to the front door his mom came back outside to get the remaining bags as we went to the kitchen and placed them on the countertop for her to sort out. For the second-time Austin started to walk me towards the door as his mother was coming in from the car. "Thanks boys." She said "Please do come back Sam" She added with a smile. Finally, we had escaped the eyes of the public, and with that I walked towards my bike. He followed me, closely behind, not leaving much of a distance between the two of us. He was what you could almost relate to a lost puppy. But I oddly found it cute in a way. He was eager to be near me. Taking my BMX handlebar, I lifted it away from the manmade flower bed and walked towards the end of the driveway with Austin. Everything was quiet and not much was said, the only sounds that came close to a conversation was the gravel crunching under our feet and the clicking sound of the chain going forward on my bike. I was enjoying his company for that short couple of seconds, more so than I had ever enjoyed any bodies company in my life. As we walked, Austin cleared his throat and said "Thanks for yesterday." I stopped walking and looked at him as we came to the mailbox at the top of his driveway. Shrugging the compliment off, I felt a warm feeling inside my tummy and I felt happy that he said thank you. "Your welcome...," I offered "It was nothing though." He turned his torso towards me, while I still clung onto the handlebar of my bike. The moment seemed to have slowed yet again. I felt my heart jumping about in my chest and my breathing start to accelerate. Throwing my left leg over the bike I pressed down on the peddle and readied myself to start peddling. "It was nothing." I clarified again with a confident tone. He smiled slightly as the sun beamed into to his face and closed one of his eyes. Reaching out he took my right shoulder in his soft and small hand. Applying a little pressure, to show appreciation, he said "It meant something to me." I felt myself starting to blush, and my defence shield was on its way out as he made that cute, but really sweet compliment. I smiled back at him and said "I better go." He nodded his head with what I had said, as he moved position to get out of the beaming sun. I was about to start peddling, when I had a sudden realisation. Dropping my feet to the ground I turned back to Austin who was standing in the same spot with an appreciative smile. "Everything okay," he asked the moment I turned around to him. "Yeah..." I almost drooled out. I think I was defiantly in love, but I did not know how to pursue this new feeling. Drawing in an exaggerated breath and letting out a confident sigh. I asked with a hint of nervousness to my voice as I felt a surge of the feeling take over me. "Can I... Eh, have your phone number." I waited for his response, in what felt like eternity. I squinted slightly looking through the golden haze as the sun blinded me slightly from the position I was in. I felt relieve when I seen him dig into his pocket and pull out his phone and walk towards me a little. "What's your number." He anxiously asked. "509-239-6746" I said as I watched him type in the digits into his IPhone. A moment later I felt my phone ringing in my pocket. Fishing it out of the jeans he had given me. I waited for him to hang up before I saved the number as a new contact. "Added" I said with a hint of enthusiasm. Giving me a nod he took a step back down driveway and gave me a small wave, before he turned around and started walking back towards the house. I felt myself wishing, that he would turn around and look back. But he didn't as long as I wishing. I felt my phone buzz for the second time in the matter of minutes, that it caught me of guard. Looking down at my phone that was still in my hand, I seen the notification on the lock screen from Ethan. 'He asked if I was home, and if I was, did I want to play online with him.' Unlocking my phone I went to the message and was about to reply, but I felt that it would be better if I sent him back a message when I got home. Deciding that was the way to go I placed my phone back in my pocket and look back towards the driveway. To my surprise, Austin had just reached the end of the driveway, when I looked up. 'Did he really take that long to walk the dirt road, or did he delay? I felt my wish come through when he turned to look back to see if I was still there. I was happy that he looked back, when he did. What if I had left, I would have missed his second wave. I found myself beginning to smile as I watched him open his front door and close it behind him. Breathing in the petrichor aroma, I found myself smiling and gazing up at the sky. I peddled away from Austin's home, towards home. I felt like it was the shortest journey I had ever taken. Weaving in and out of the double lines along the lakeside roads. I quickly hit the main primary road back into Spokane Valley and arrived at my doorstep. Pushing my bike down the side entrance to my house, I placed it back in the shed as if nothing ever happened. Just like always my sister asked a million and one questions when I walked through the patio doors into the kitchen. I was relieved that mom was not home yet and I could still slip out of the clothes Austin had given me, as to not rouse suspicion. My sister was clued in on the details however when I arrived home. "Whose clothes are they." Was one of the question. I told her the truth that they were some friends clothes and that I had gotten wet, while I was cycling to their house." She seemed to have accepted that answer because she didn't bother prying any further. I felt myself questioning a particular question. What would Austin do with my clothes that I left at his house? I should have taken them with me, but with all the distractions, it had completely bypassed my train of thought. Climbing the stairs to my bedroom, I changed out of the clothes Austin had given me and hid them amongst the lairs of the clothing I had in my wardrobe. I was secretly hoping that my mom would not find them. I stood now in the underwear and socks that Austin as given me and it made me wonder did he ever wear the pair that I had on me. I found myself feeling a familiar feeling in my lower region and quickly just changed the garments and started my homework, which was finished by 7 pm. Having a late dinner at 7:30, with my mom and Lauren. We all did our own separate things after the washing up was taken care of. Lauran sat in the kitchen talking on skype, while my mom watched Tv in the living room, and I went back to my room. I found my phone and send Ethan a message back to let him know that I would play an online game with him. Within minutes he had sent me back a reply and we both agreed with Battlefield 1. Taking the disc out of the case, I shoved it into the mechanical port of the PS4, and the disc tray took the Blu-ray disc hungrily. I clicked on the small widget for the game on the PlayStation home screen and the game launched. Navigating my way to the multiplayer menu. I added Ethan to a party from the home screen so that I could talk to him through my headset and pressed begin on the multiplayer option for the game. After a couple of seconds of loading screens, me and Ethan were thrown into a world, and started to co-op with a couple of other friends. Laughing and swearing was heard, as the adrenaline rush kicked in for all of us. Although it was fun for the most part of it, I soon started to grow a little board as we competed in various multiplayer maps. I resorted to camping to gain a little amusement out of my new profound boredom. I would wait for one of my team member or just anyone in a blind spot and snipe them when I seen them coming. This ended up riling up a couple of my friends and they soon left one by one, just leaving me and Ethan in the game to clear the objectives. Another level came and went and I started to troll Ethan. Hiding in a blind spot I snipped him and watched as his avatar fell to the ground. I felt a moment of giddiness excite me. That was until Ethan said out of frustration "What was that for?" I had no comprehension of what I was doing, I was just board, so with that I just said "I'm bored." Ethan was cool with the statement and as always, he referred back to my answer with his happy go lucky vibe. "Then what do you want to do" He asked with a giddy vibe to it. Thinking for a moment I thought about the survival mode on the game. "I don't know." I said with a least enthusiastic tone. Drawing up my conclusion I said "How about survival." Ethan was easy to get on with and he happily obliged as he went about launching the new session. Once the new session had started. We both played survival with the Artificial Intelligent characters the game offered. Since It was just the both of us left in the party chat room Ethan broke the silence after about five minutes. "So, how come you went home early yesterday?" He asked out of curiosity. Being off guard and unsure how to answer. He said "Well." to insist, when I didn't bother to answer him. "I didn't feel good." I stated. I had hoped that would have covered the entire question. but when he asked "Oh how come?" I felt like I had walked myself into a conversation trap that I could not talk myself out of. Deciding for the first time to tell a moment of truth, I went with what was really on my mind. I knew it was a risky move. But I felt it was right to tell Ethan at least. Stating sadly, I said "I think I outed Austin, and I didn't mean to." There was a brief moment of silence as I heard the shooting from the game, just then Ethans avatar died. "Emm he's the talk of the school dude. He's toast." He said almost to merrily for my liking. Unsure of what he meant I asked for clarification, as I felt my throat becoming dry. "What do you mean." Just like that Ethan said again in a merry tone. "I guarantee people will smack him around a little." I defiantly felt more horrible now. "Dude you're not helping, It's my fault. I'm sure it won't come to that." I protested, I felt myself welling up. but I defiantly didn't want Ethan to know that I was on the verge of crying again. I could hear him starting to eat what, sounded like popcorn, from the blunt crunching sound that was accompanied with each bite, when he bit down on the popcorn. He coughed a little and then bragged, "Man, why do you care? It's not our problem." I felt like my opinion had been shot down for a moment. I didn't want to continue discussing this situation with Ethan anymore now. All I could offer to his opinion was "hmm... I guess." He became lively all of sudden and mocked down the headset. "Gross dude, I can almost feel your boner from here." I felt myself redden in the face and my cheeks become hot. "Shut up." I let out in a helpless cry of embarrassment. He then returned to his normal style of communicating with me and dropped everything that we had been talking about, which I was happy that he had done. "Do you want to go local and terrorize smaller level players." He asked. With an agreement reached the both of us continued on gaming, not bothering to mention any more about Austin. We played close till 11:30 pm, until my mom came in to check on me and see if I was heading to bed. Doing so I said goodnight to Ethan and got ready for bed. *** With it now being Friday, I felt a sense of relieve that my birthday was tomorrow, I'd finally be fourteen. Born on the 25th of March 2003, I felt it was about time to step up my maturity. I got ready for school like I had always done, day in day out. I headed to school, which passed much fast than what I had expected it to be. Austin still was not in school, so to break the ice at lunchtime I sent him a message. I wanted to invite him to my party. So, I did. I gave him my address and the time of the party, by the end of the school day he said that he would come along for a little bit, that was all the news I needed to make me feel like I was walking on air. Ethan and myself decided to try out for this year's lacrosse and baseball, like previous years. only this time the both of us wanted to be on the same Baseball team. Changing in the locker rooms into a pair of tracksuit bottoms so that we could do the sports, we headed out to show people what we had to offer. After playing a bit of lacrosse, I tiredly made my way with Ethan to the Baseball try-outs. It was all find and dandy and the both sports went off without a hitch. Before we left for the small walk into town, the coaches said that they were looking for new talent and that they would let us know next week sometime, of their final decision. Of course, they said that they would have to meet with our parents first to confirm that they wanted us to play for the session. Myself and Ethan walked the small distance into the town centre. The both of us agreed on getting ice-cream. Sure, enough a couple of minutes later we were queuing up for the ice-cream. The que moved quite fast to say the least, and sure enough we had our ice-creams. I had gotten a plain ice-cream with just red syrup on it and Ethan had a large ice-cream with sprinkles, a flake and red and blue syrup coating it. I found myself criticising him. God he's a pig. Yet he's also so lucky that he never gains any weight from the amount of crap he ate. Walking and talking about our day at school, the both of us seemed to be content and sound in our conversation. Walking back towards the school, which is usually were we parted ways, we ate or ice-cream and enjoyed the sun on our backs. Arriving at the school, I seen Austin coming from the front door, as the Land Rover I had seen at his house was parked at the curb. He smiled and waved at the both of us. Ethan had not seen him yet, but when I waved Ethan then seen him. Ethan gave me a funny look as Austin hopped into the car and put on his seatbelt. Shortly after the car started to pull away from the curb with the indicator on and drove off down the block. "What?" I asked with a sincerity to my voice. "Nothing." Ethan sternly said as he talked into himself. With that both of us said that we'd see each other tomorrow at the party and parted ways. On the walk, home I felt distracted by the interaction with Austin, Myself and Ethan. Ethan seemed to have been distant or critical when I waved on Austin. Was he really like the rest of the school, my best friend of at least ten years. Was he a bully I found myself questioning? I hoped not. Walking up the driveway of my house my phone vibrated in my sweater pocket. I pulled it out and clicked on the source for the notification. The message was from Blake, my friend at school. 'He said, we needed to chat. I believe I have the sender of the text message.' and with that I closed the front door to my house quietly and sat down at the table in the kitchen. Staring blankly at the text in front of me. The phone sat on the kitchen table. I thought about who the sender could have been. When I felt, I was ready to find out I plucked it up and clicked on the small icon at the top of the message and pressed the call button. I waited patiently as the dial tone called out and then Blake answered. "Tell me it's not someone I know." I asked him, as he drew in a breath and started to tell me who the sender really was. I listened closely as he explained everything he knew. The End of Part 5 If you've made it this far, thank you for reading. Please comments are welcome. I'd love to hear what people do think. I'd be grateful to hear an acknowledgment that people are reading my stories, thanks again. If you wish to read my first story it's called Spring-Tide Email Me at danny2017writing@outlook.com Stay tuned for the next instalment, I feel a connection to this story. So, this could be a good Novella in the long run if you bear with me. The Next Chapter, will be taking place on the events surrounding Sam's birthday.