151 Days (11 page)

Another reason I was going to get rid of him before I left.

As I waited, I realized that Brad’s “fame” as a baseball player in school had never even connected with me. To everyone else he was Brad Greymark, baseball god, but until this moment I hadn’t even cared if he never played the game again. I still didn’t care, but he wanted to very badly, so I wanted him to as well. So as I paced and waited, I worried what would happen if they didn’t let him play and exactly what I would do because of it.

I froze and wondered,
When did I become this guy?
Last I remembered, I was the guy who didn’t want anyone to know who he was, and now I was making plans in case I had to get my boyfriend on the baseball team. I smiled because it felt good, being the guy with a plan instead of just standing there taking it. I don’t know when I became this guy, but I knew I didn’t want to stop being him.

I heard the gym doors open, and the team began to pour out of the locker room.

Now I may have never connected Brad’s baseball reputation with him, but I did know the connection between jocks and being freaking hot. Football players always seemed so big and intimidating that I never was turned on by them, but baseball players were a whole other breed of beasts. They ran a lot, so they were all lean and cut, but the batting and pitching required some extensive upper body strength, which meant they had enormous arms. I don’t want to sound vain, but I was seriously loving all the extra bulk Brad was putting on. He had been hot before; now he was like something out of porn.

At least I assume, since I had never actually sat through a whole porn film.

So as the team filed out, hair slick from the shower, jeans faded and T-shirts hugging them, I had to pause and enjoy the sight for a few seconds. I mean, take Josh Walker for example; he was a good-looking guy all by himself. Dirty-blond hair, cropped short, strong cheekbones, full lips—just standing still, he would have been a stud. But then add all the running and batting and sit-ups and push-ups and he became something much greater than the sum of his parts.

And let me tell you, the parts weren’t half-bad.

He must have seen the slack-jawed look on my face because he grinned and nodded at me. “He’s talking to the coach—won’t be long now.”

It took me a couple of seconds to realize he was talking about Brad. “Oh, okay. Thanks,” I answered back, trying desperately not to sound like a complete spaz. God, I hated good-looking people so much.

About twenty minutes later, the locker room door came flying open, and Brad charged out directly at me. At first I wasn’t sure what he was doing until he got about halfway, and I saw the huge binder in his hands. My eyes got big as I looked at him. He tossed the book onto the trunk and grabbed me in a hug that literally took me off my feet. “He made me captain!” he roared, spinning us around. I laughed with him as he put me down and looked at me. “Me! He made me team captain.”

Now I don’t know about you, I had no idea what a team captain did, but the title sounded important. I mean, if you were captain of a starship, then you got to say “Engage” and all that cool stuff. If you were, like, Captain America, you got that badass shield and got to throw it at people’s heads. The only other captain that came to mind was Captain Caveman, but he didn’t seem that impressive, so I pushed the image of Brad dressed like a caveman away and smiled back at him. “That is awesome! I knew you’d make it.”

If you guys don’t tell him, I won’t.

“No one will know until tomorrow, but I want to celebrate tonight.” His hug moved closer to an embrace, and I could smell the soap and cologne on him. “I want to celebrate with you.”

“Any ideas?” I asked him, my hands snaking behind him and slipping between his jeans and waist.

“I can think of a few,” he said suggestively.

“Yeah, I can feel a few too,” I said, grinding back against him.

“When’s your mom get off work?” he asked, rubbing his cheek against my face.

“She closes.” My heart was beating like a jackhammer.

“Let’s go to your house,” he whispered in my ear.

All I could do was nod back.

W
E
BARELY
got the front door open with all the kissing.

I was walking backward toward my room as he kicked the door closed with one foot. He practically tore the shirt off over my head as we fell onto my bed. His mouth was everywhere as I tried to pull his shirt off. I kicked my shoes off as he tossed his shirt behind him. His chain hung down from his neck, our eighty-one cents and his silver rose tangled in front of my face. He saw me look at it and gave me a small smile. “Everything I love in one place.”

I felt my heart skip a beat at the intensity in his eyes.

“Do you have a condom?” I asked him after a few seconds of silence.

He blinked a few times in confusion at me. “Do I what?”

I leaned up and reached around his waist and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. “Do you have a condom in here?” I asked again, opening the wallet and searching through its contents.

“Are you serious?” he asked, his voice almost cracking in astonishment.

I pulled the one lone condom out of the side pocket and held it up. “Does this look like I’m joking?” I could almost feel his heart pounding over me as we stared at each other for what seemed like forever in silence. Finally I gave him one of his own know-it-all grins and ordered, “Get naked, Greymark. Now.”

I had never seen anyone shuck their clothes off that fast in my life.

W
E
LAY
there panting, looking up at my ceiling.

“I’m going to need another shower now,” he said, still out of breath.

Just the mention of being in the shower with him began to get me excited again, but I resisted the urge to roll over and attack him. “So…,” I began to ask when I could catch my breath. “So was that… normal?”

He looked over at me, and when we made eye contact, we both burst out laughing. “You’re asking in general or for me?”

“Both,” I said, rolling over and snuggling against his side.

“Well, for me it was thumbs-up, two thumbs-up. Like, several million thumbs-up.” I moved my leg between his as I curled up as close as I could to him. “In general? I think we might have broken a record or something. You sure your neighbors didn’t call the cops thinking we were killing each other?”

He chuckled as I nudged against him. “Shut up.” He nudged me back. “So then that part, where I was….” He nodded as he got my hint. “So that was good?”

He moved his leg against mine. “That was incredible. I mean, like fireworks.”

“And the part where you were….” And he nodded again. “That was okay?”

He looked over at me. “That was when you ruined me for all other men.”

For half a second I thought he was serious, and it must have shown on my face because he burst out laughing and pulled me close. I jokingly tried to pull away from him, but he kept me close. His face was close to mine, and he said in a half whisper, “That, Kyle Stilleno, was the moment you made me your sex slave. For life.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “No joke, that was incredible.”

I felt the blush go from my face all the way through my body as I hid my face against his chest.

His leg nudged my waist. “And you want more.”

It wasn’t a question.

I just nodded into his embrace.

“In the shower?” he asked.

My face popped up with a huge smile. “Really?”

He grinned and nodded back.

It was easily the best night of my life.

I
WAITED
for Jennifer to show up while Brad ran ahead and waited with the guys who herded around the bulletin board outside Coach Gunn’s office. That was where he’d post the list for the guys to see who made the team or not. She pulled up about ten minutes after we had. She still looked tired but a little better than she had a couple of days before.

She shook her head and said, “Lemme guess, he ran ahead like a kid on Christmas when he sees a ton of packages under the tree?”

I nodded as we began to walk toward the history building. “You know how he is about baseball.”

We got about five steps, and she stopped. I looked back at her, and her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh my God, you guys totally did it!”

I’d had nightmares like this before I met Brad, but they mostly involved me being naked in front of the class and a lot of laughing and pointing.

“W-what?” I stumbled, trying to figure out how to deflect her question while simultaneously trying to figure out how she’d figured it out. “I don’t know what you mean.” God, that sounded lame, even to me.

She ran up to me and whispered, “You have that ‘I got laid’ look all over your face. Spill.”

I put my hands on my face to see if there was something on it I had missed in the shower. “What do you…?” And then I sighed. “Is it that obvious?”

She put her arm around me and continued walking us toward the building. “No, Brad texted me last night, going on and on about how you rocked his world.” I looked over at her in shock, and she shrugged her shoulders. “What can I say? That boy is in love with you, and he wanted to brag.”

Part of me was upset that he’d told someone else what we had done, but there was a larger part that kept stumbling over her words. “He said that? I rocked his world?”

She got closer and whispered, “His exact words were, ‘If there was ever a chance I would go back to girls, it was destroyed by Kyle tonight.’”

There was a burning heat on my face, but I had one of those rigor mortis grins that everyone The Joker ever killed had. “He said that, huh?” I said, more to myself than asking the actual question.

“He said a lot more, but he swore me to secrecy.” I shot her a look of complete disbelief, and she just winked back at me. “Something about a curve—”

“
Okay!
” I shouted, causing everyone in the hall near us to look over. In a lower voice, I said, “Okay, let’s just talk about something else.”

Jennifer shook her head as we came on the pack of guys huddling around the bulletin board. “You, my friend, are too easy.”

I stuck my tongue out at her, which just made her laugh even harder.

As we got to the crowd, I pulled my phone out and began to record the scene. I wanted to capture the moment for Brad, who would undoubtedly play it over and over again for the rest of our lives.

We got there just in time to see Josh Walker scream “You made captain!” at Brad and then run toward him and pick him up in a hug. I laughed and filmed as he twirled Brad around like he was a rabbit to Josh’s Lenny. Brad said something to him, and he put him back down. He slapped Brad’s back and said, “Come on, a few months ago you didn’t even know if you were going to be on the team, and now you’re captain. That is epic!”

There was such pride in Josh’s voice that it took me back a second. This wasn’t ass kissing. This wasn’t him just being a dude. He was really, really happy Brad had been made captain and didn’t care who knew it. I looked over at Jennifer and raised an eyebrow as I nodded at Josh. She nodded back. The look on her face made it clear she was surprised too.

“It is pretty overwhelming,” Brad said in his best humble voice. I knew that voice well; it was the one he used when I commented on his six-pack after his workout. He would just shrug and say, “I just try to stay in shape.” He was so full of shit. Brad loved t
he fact he was in such good shape. It was why he spent so much time working on his body. I wouldn’t call it being vain so much as him thinking his body was all he had going for him. Since there was no way I could dislodge that thought from that walnut he keeps his brain in, I just let him get away with it and promised myself that I would talk to him later.

A few other guys congratulated Brad, and a few gave him death stares, which got my attention fast. Jennifer leaned over and whispered. “Sore losers who didn’t make the cut. That has nothing to do with your boy.”

I relaxed. I didn’t know my protectiveness was so obvious to others. I could see the smile on Brad’s face and could tell this was a perfect moment for him. He was truly happy. Which was, of course, the very moment fate decided to piss all over it.

“Of course they gave it to him,” Tony said from behind us. “His mommy would sue the school if he wasn’t made captain.”

I turned, aimed the camera at Tony, and saw he was there with two meatheads I didn’t recognize. Without looking way, I whispered to Jennifer. “What is with his whole Morris Day and the Time thing? He can’t go anywhere alone?”

“Cowards rarely do,” she said, putting a hand in her purse.

I knew what that meant—her Taser.

I was seconds away from saying something to Tony, but Josh beat me to it. “He got it because he is the best player we got, and you know it. Something you agreed with last year, if I remember.”

The more he talked, the better a person Josh became in my eyes.

Tony took that angry, about-to-fight step all straight guys do when they want to seem like they are about to swing but are really just going to talk shit. It was a bunch of shit; when someone wanted to hit you, they didn’t stop and give speeches. They just stepped up and hit you while you fell to your ass wondering what just happened.

“That was before I knew he liked a different kind of balls,” Tony shouted at Josh.

There was no way this was not going to end up with someone getting hit.

“Hold this,” I said to Jennifer, handing her my phone. “Keep filming,” I told her.

“Where are you going?” she called after me, but I was already pushing my way through the crowd, away from the fight.

All this reminded me of the first time I met Kelly, and he had attacked me in the quad. We had been surrounded by the same pack of savages, just aching to see some real bloodshed. It was like all of this was just some lame-ass reality show to them, and the two people who were about to fight were arguing about who was going to get voted off the island.

God, I hated shows like that.

It took some effort, but I was finally able to shove my way to Coach Gunn’s office. I knocked on it twice and then pushed the door open. He was sitting behind his desk, the sports section in his hand. He glanced up at me with a look that said, “You better have a good reason for busting into my office.”