Hookup List (12 page)

“
Remember, don't say a word. Oh, and put this on,” Liam said.

I looked at the black piece of fabric he was holding in his hand. "What are you talking about?" I asked him. "You want me to put that over my eyes or something?"

"Yes, I told you, it's a surprise," Liam said. "You need to trust me. And leave your shirt off. It’ll be better that way.”

"Yeah but why do you
want me blindfolded?" I asked. “How ugly is this chick?”

"Ha ha, very funny," Liam said. "Shut up and do what you're told. It'll be well worth it."

I sighed. "Alright," I said. "But I don't see why I have to be led through a boys’ locker room with a blindfold on. This better be amazing."

"It will be! Now get a move on," Liam said. "And don't worry. There's no one else in the locker room, I made sure of it." He pointed to a “Closed for Renovation” sign on the door. "You'll have the whole place to yourselves," he said.

I reluctantly put the blindfold on and let Liam lead me into the locker room by the arm. It seemed like we were winding our way around the lockers and then suddenly he stopped me. "We’re here," he whispered softly in my ear. "Just kneel down."

Kneel down? Why the hell would he want me to kneel down? I was getting pretty nervous. Who knew, though? Maybe Liam had worked out something wonderfully kinky. That’d okay but the chick better be damn hot.

I knelt down. Instead of feeling the hard rock floor against my knees, however, I felt cold metal. What was this? Was he putting me into a locker or something? I had a sudden flash of fear that this was some sort of prank where he was going to lock me in a locker but an instant later I felt warm flesh against my cheek. So I wasn't going to be alone in the locker. Now we were talking. I felt Liam push hard against my back and legs. I let him, pleased to get closer to the girl. Although I can only feel her with my cheek, I could already tell that she was hot. She had tight, hard abs. Ridiculously hard. I let my cheek nuzzle a little bit against them to get a better feel. Holy crap, this girl was ripped. I searched my mind try to recall if the school had any bodybuilding chicks in it. She better not be one, I wasn't into that sort of thing. I didn’t want my girls to be too manly. I told myself to relax. I could still feel beads of sweat of the girl’s abs. She must have just finished working out, which meant that it was someone from either the running or soccer teams and there were no ridiculously ripped girls on either.

Liam shoved the locker door shut. My body was squeezed in uncomfortably and my face was squashed up against the girl’s abs. I could feel the waistband of her shorts against my lips. Her scent... well, it was a bit unusual. It almost seemed like...

And then I heard the most terrifying thing I had ever heard in my life. It was a deep male voice and it was coming from directly above my head. “Sadie?” it asked. “Is that you?”

“What the hell?!”
I bellowed. I tried to jerk away but my body was so confined that I couldn’t move a muscle. “What’s going on?!?!”

“
Jeeze!” the guy yelled. I heard a crash of something hard slamming into metal. His head? “Who is that?!”

“Who are you?” I exclaimed. “Liam? Liam! Get me out of here! I’m going to kill you!”

“Who is that?” the guy demanded again.

Oh no. If this was a
guy, that meant... I suddenly felt the need to vomit. My face was not pressed up against some athletic chick’s abs. It was against some dude’s sweaty, disgusting abs. I was feeling ill. At that moment I was almost happy my blindfold was still on. The less I saw the better.

“If you don’t tell me who you are I’m going to
headbutt you in the nuts," I threatened

"Calm down, buddy," the guy said. "There's no way you're
headbutting anybody. Your head is wedged in there pretty tight. You can just keep sniffing my junk until you are ready to tell me your name.”

My anger spiked but I realized that the moron was right. I had the worse end of this deal and at the moment there was nothing I could do about it. I took a deep breath and then said, “My name’s Nate. Nate Caldwell,” I said grudgingly.

There was a moment of silence and then the guy said, "My name's Sam Queen."

Sam Queen. That was a name that kept popping up. First El Diablo had said that he was gorgeous and that she had tied him up in her basement just like she had me. Then Liam had said he thought that Sam “seems too pretty to be straight.” Oh no, and then I had said, “Well if Sam Queen is half as good looking as me... you can arrange to have him come and stuff his junk in my face all you like.” Liam had taken my words and used them to construct the most horrible prank possible. All that stuff about a surprise was really just his way of getting me to go along so he could lock me in the locker.

Why had he done it? Was it some sort of twisted favor to Sadie? Or, hang on, was he actually gay? I thought about that for a moment. It was a definite possibility but I didn't think so. If Liam was gay he would have wanted me for himself. He wouldn't have shoved me in a locker with this guy. No, he was either working with Sadie or with Dylan or he just got his kicks from being an A-hole to people. Regardless of what his motivation was, one thing was for certain. As soon as I got out of the locker I was going to kill him.

"What's going on?" Sam asked. "Did you send me that letter? Are you gay or something?"

"Me? No,” I exclaimed. "Wait, what letter?"

"I got a letter that was supposedly signed by Sadie telling me that she wanted to reenact some pictures that we took last year. The letter said she wanted to surprise me so I was supposed to wear a blindfold. That's all I know. Now what are you doing here?”

"Some jerk told me that he had lined up a hot chick for me," I said. No, that wasn't quite right. I thought back. Liam and technically never said that his surprise was a chick. That clever bas...

"So this is some sort of prank then," Sam said, interrupting my thoughts. "We've both been set up."

"I’ve been set up," I said. "I still don't understand what would make you get into a locker in the boys locker room and blindfold yourself. I mean that's pretty messed up."

"It's a long story," Sam said. "It's hard to explain. Maybe I wasn't thinking quite rationally. That seems to happen a lot to me when Sadie’s involved. I just figured, well, your brother is away at school, and you know how long-distance relationships go, they can be over in a flash. Last year Sadie and I had been locked in a locker together and I thought there was a moment when she and I, uh, almost hit it off, I guess you could say. I figured maybe this was her way of saying that she wanted to go back in time and do things differently. You know, make a different decision. At least, that resonated with me. There are a lot of things I’ve done over the past year that I’d want to do differently.”

Ugh. What a mess. “Can you tell if that dick locked the locker?” I asked. “Is there any way you can get it open?”

“Um, I’m not sure,” Sam said. “I’ve still got my blindfold on. My helmet is holding it down so I can’t get it off. My hands are wedged at my sides. I can try to make some room to free them.”

“Your helmet?” I parroted. “Why are you wearing a helmet?”

“It’s a long story,” Sam said. “Can you try to scrunch down? I’m going to try to shift my pelvis to the left so I can free my right arm.”

“Fine. Just make it quick,” I said. I tried to collapse my body down. My face slid down his wet abs and I felt the criss-cross metal door grate painfully against the back of my head.

“Just a bit more,” Sam said. Then he jerked his hips to the side. Unfortunately, my head was still pressed up against his midsection. My blindfold caught on the waistband of his spandex shorts and pushed up onto my forehead. That was how I found Sam’s crotch pressed firmly up against the side of my face with my eyes, nose, and lips pressed firmly up against his sweaty, spandex-clad package.

 “Son of a...” I started to curse but sound just came out as a muffled grunt.

“Almost got it,” Sam grunted. “Sorry buddy. Don’t worry, I’m won’t tell anyone about this. Ugh.
Just a bit further. Seriously, it’s not that big a deal. I know it’s embarrassing but they’re just body parts. Maybe in some cultures instead of shaking hands they rub their stuff up against each other. There’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.”  

And then I heard it – something even worse than the sound of Sam’s voice. “OMG!” an alarmingly female voice cried out.

No. Oh no.

“What’s going on here?” the voice exclaimed.

“It’s not what it looked like,” I said quickly.

There was a sharp intake of breath and then I heard the girl say, “Nate? Is that you?”

“Morgan,” I said. “That goodness you’re here. You need to get us out. Is the lock open?” Except all that came out was a series of muffled words. I doubted she understood any of it.

“Nate, are you... gay?” Morgan said.

I wanted to swear. Was she stupid? A gay guy wouldn’t have made passionate love to two girls – one of whom was her – at the same time. It was hard to make that point, however, when another’s guy’s package was pressed so firmly against my lips that I couldn’t speak properly.

“Just let us out,” Sam pleaded. “I can explain everything.”

“Uh huh, yeah, I’ll bet you can,” Morgan said sarcastically. She was quiet for a moment and then she said, “Look, I get that you guys are gay...”

“We’re not,” Sam protested.

“Oh sure, right,” Morgan scoffed. “Anyways, I get that you’re gay. Obviously, though, that doesn’t prevent a bit of girl lovin’, as Nate rather ably proved yesterday. So, I’ll make you a deal. The threesome thing has gotten me a bit curious. If you guys were to both, say, hop in the shower with me, I might be willing to forgive and forget.”

My mind was about to explode. She wanted to have a three-way with me and Sam? Oh hell no. Not in a million years. A threesome with two girls was totally different. The words “another dude” and “sex” and “Nate” were never going to appear in the same sentence.
Never. They all had to be at least, like, four sentences apart for me to be cool with them.

That’s when I did something I probably shouldn’t have. I twisted my head to the side with all my might, temporarily pushing Sam’s crotch out of the way with the back of my head,
and then unleashed a stream of profanity that directed Morgan to open the locker and explained what she could do with herself if she did not.

It didn’t go over well.

“Oh, is that so?” Morgan seethed. “Fine then. Well, you can just go to hell then, Nate. I hope your face smells like a guy’s balls forever. You better get pretty comfortable with them, because you’re going to be spending a lot of time with them.” And then I heard the click of a combination lock emphatically closing.

The muscles in my neck gave out and my face got sandwiched between the metal locker door and Sam’s junk again.

“Now that’s just perfect,” Morgan said sweetly. “It’s a great image.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see her pull out a phone. “I’m going to take a photo of this, boys. If you ever get out of that locker come find me. We can talk a little more about what you can do to persuade me from sending it to every student in the school.”

"No, wait!" Sam cried. I already knew it was too late, however. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Morgan walk around the row of lockers and disappear.

Sam was quiet as he listened to figure out if Morgan was still around. He must have realized that she wasn’t because a moment later he said, "Hang on. I'm
gonna try to free my hands again.”

Sam squirmed around and finally managed to get one of his hands up above his waist. Then he squirmed some more, rubbing the front of his sweat-drenched spandex shorts all over my face and grating the back of my head against the locker door, until he finally managed to free the other hand as well. There was some more movement as he took off his blindfold. Then he said, “There, I can see now.”

"Great," I said sarcastically when I finally had enough space to move my lips. "Now you can see that we’re locked in here. Liam had just hung the open lock through the holes, but now it’s fully locked and I’m guessing you don’t know the combination.”

"No idea," Sam admitted.

"Wonderful," I said. "Just wonderful.”

"I don't suppose there's any way you can stand up?" Sam said. "I can't imagine you're enjoying it too much down there."

There was no way I could stand up. A smaller person might've managed it but I was far too big. The locker was not designed to hold one full-grown male, let alone two. "Uh, no," I said.

Neither of us seemed to know what to say after that. I tried to ignore the fact that my knees were beginning to ache and that my nostrils were filled with the smell of a sweaty dude. "Why are you sweating anyway?" I asked an annoyance. "I mean, if you are really expecting a chick, why would you go work out before hopping into a locker with her?"

"I was kind of hoping... well, I just wanted to make everything exactly the same as it was the first time I was locked in the locker with Sadie," Sam said.

"You were sweating?" I said. "How exactly did all that come about?"

"I told you, it's a long story," Sam said. "Let's just say I wasn't a very good guy back then and I wanted to get back at Sadie for something that she had done to me. It wasn't right and I know that now.”

"Apparently not enough to avoid doing it all over again,” I said. "I mean really, what's so great about Sadie anyway?”

Sam sighed. “I don't know, man,” he said. "She's just different. She knows everything about me, inside and out. I don’t have to hide anything. Have you felt what it's like to be with someone like that? To feel like you don't have to hide anything from them? That they know everything about you? It’s an amazing feeling. Plus, there’s just something about her...”

"Yeah, it's called being hot," I said. "She is that, but you're not going to think about it under any circumstances. This situation is uncomfortable enough without you getting excited about hot girls."

"This is pretty messed up, isn't it?" Sam asked. "I thought I was done with all this blackmail garbage after Missy left. Now it seems like I'm right back into the middle of it. "

"Hey," I said, "what was the deal with you and El Diablo anyway? She mentioned you when she was, well, never mind. She just mentioned you."

Sam shuddered. "That was another horrible episode," he said. "The girl is evil. She seems so little and cute and then the next thing you know..."

"You're handcuffed to a bench and she's licking whipped cream off your chest," I said knowingly.

"Yes!" Sam exclaimed. "She got you too?"

"Oh yeah," I said.
"It kind of felt like I was a frickin’ desert or something."

"I'm sorry you went through that man but hey at least I'm not alone," Sam said in a relieved voice. "I've been carrying that nightmarish memory around for a while."

"Yeah. And those other girls, her friends,” I said. "Why are they all so crazy?"

"It's just that group," Sam said. "They’ve always been nuts. I guess you could say they’re nuts for nuts.”

I laughed. It was a strained, somewhat hysterical laugh, but at least it was a laugh. Sam and I started talking about El Diablo and Sadie and Missy and all the other crazy girls at Lakeville. How could one school be filled with so many crazies? And Morgan, well, Morgan fit in nicely with the rest of that bunch. What kind of girl would leave two dudes stuck like this in a locker together? It was insane. At least Sam got it. The more we talked, the more we realized how much we had in common. It was cathartic, except for the part where his stuff was smashed up and against my face.

"Yeah, an all-guys school sounds pretty good right about now," Sam said. "I would've gotten into so much less trouble over the past year if there were no crazy girls at Lakeville."

I would have nodded in agreement if I could have moved my head. Those cursed, beautiful girls.

“Wow,” Sam said. “I thought Sadie was the only person who knew all of my deepest, darkest secrets but I guess you do as well now. It kind of feels good to have a friend who you can be completely open with.”

Friend. Is that what we were now? The thought made me feel surprisingly happy. It felt like it had been forever since I had hung out with my friends at Southcrest. I was pleased that Sam felt like he could trust me with his secrets. I knew I couldn’t reciprocate, however. The truth about my dad, the hookup list, all my insecurities – I just couldn’t reveal those. Sure, Faith and David might know some of those, but they were different. I knew they would keep quiet and not judge me. I couldn’t afford to tell anyone else.

“Hey,” Sam said as though a thought had suddenly occurred to him. “Seeing as how you know pretty much everything about me now, could you give me your honest feedback about why Sadie might not be into me? Like, we were in the locker together just like this and she was right where you are. Is there any reason you can see from your point of view why she would shoot me down?”

From my point of view? What was he talking about? Unless… no, he couldn’t be asking what I thought he was asking.

“It’s no big deal, we’re both dudes,” Sam said continued. “You’ve had your face buried in my crotch for a while now; you have to be thinking something. Just give me a sense of how I, uh, measure up compared to other guys.”

I tried desperately to think of anything else. I did not my mind to be contaminated with thoughts of Sam’s unmentionable body parts. Though he actually was pretty impressive – crap! “Oh, really well, like an eight or a nine on a ten point scale,” I said quickly.

“Good. Wait, one is small and ten is massive, right?”

“We’re not talking about this anymore.”

The night custodian didn't find us for three hours. That was three hours of kneeling on the hard metal locker with Sam's junk in my face. By the end of it I was way, way more familiar with Sam and I ever wanted to be.

The custodian just looked at Sam and shook her head as she cut the lock. "It's a bit hard to explain," Sam said to her. The custodian, however, didn't even seem surprised. She just kept on shaking her head and muttering in Spanish under her breath.

When the door finally opened I fell backwards and scrambled up to my feet. I only made it part of the way up before my knees gave out and I landed butt first on the locker room bench.

The custodian continued to mutter as she left the locker room, seeming to be eager to be as far away as possible. I couldn’t help but notice that the woman’s eyes seem to linger on our bodies, however.

I groaned and stretched out my legs. They hurt so
bad.

"You okay man?" Sam said "I've never seen anyone stay in such an uncomfortable position for that long. Do you need some help?”

I shook my head. The last thing I wanted was more intimate time with Sam. I tried to stand up again, however, and my knees screamed in sudden pain. "Okay, I guess I'm going to need a bit of help," I said.

Sam bent down and put one arm around me. He pressed his shirtless body against mine and then stood up.

"Not a word about any of this," I said, realizing that I sounded rather pathetic.

Sam nodded. "Not in a million years," he said.

And then Sam walked down the rows of lockers, supporting me as I did my best to hobble along with him. I realized that I must look ridiculous.

That knowledge only fueled my desire for revenge.