Sliding (The Stone Series) (8 page)

We finally break apart, Tate notices his parents a few feet away and he
takes me by the hand to lead me to where they are standing. I’m nervous as we
approach them. They greet me by telling me how great I was. They tell me they
were scared I would fall when I was so high in the air during our half time
show. Tate’s mom tells me that Tate talks about me all the time, when I look at
him he blushes slightly and shrugs his shoulders. I feel his arm go around my
shoulder and he pulls me close to the side of his body.

“I can’t help it. You’re so cute” he whispers into my ear while his
parents look at each other questioning our closeness.

 
His parents say they hope I’ll
come over again really soon so they can get to know me better. I smile politely
and tell them I’d love to and promise to have dinner with them next weekend. His
dad tells Tate how proud he is of him and his mom starts to cry as she gives
him a hug. Tate beams under his father’s praise and his mother’s affection
makes him blush. All Tate has ever wanted was his father’s praise and attention
but most times what he gets instead are his critical comments. Tate has to go
hit the showers and I need to go with the girls so Tate and I say goodbye to
his parents and we head back to the field house hand in hand.

The bus ride back to the hotel is nuts, everyone is screaming and you
can’t hear a thing until “We Are the Champions” comes on the radio. Then the
whole bus begins to sing in unison. Tate and I sit together holding hands and
kissing between our yelling and singing. It’s a fast ride and when we arrive
back at the hotel Tate tells me he’ll see me in an hour in the ballroom for the
team party. He says we’ll talk about how we’re going to sneak away later.

Wendy and I get ready for the party, we shower and braid each other’s
hair and do our makeup. I put on my favorite pair of jeans and a red t-shirt.
All the girls are planning on wearing red shirts with blue jeans to represent
our team colors. When we enter the ballroom Tate is already there and he’s
wearing this new pair of jeans that I have never seen on him before, they are
ripped allowing some of his skin to be seen. He has on a white t-shirt and his
long silky hair is wet so he must have showered again when he got back to his
room. I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach again when I see him.

“Party All The Time” is playing and all the kids in the room are dancing.
I don’t want to bother Tate while he’s dancing which looks more like jumping, with
his friends. I wait for the song to change and for him to notice me. It’s that
electric connection at play again; whenever we’re in a room together we are
always able to find the other one. When “Friends and Lovers” come on Tate looks
around to see if I’m there and when our eyes lock his whole face lights up and
he heads my way. He takes me in his arms and we begin to dance. I tell him how
awesome he was in the game today and how proud I am of him. I kiss him all over
his face with little feather light kisses and he giggles like a little girl. He
leans down and sucks my neck for a second then tugs my ear with his teeth and I
get a different feeling in the pit of my stomach that is growing more and more
common when I am around Tate, it’s a kind of burning, an ache. He tells me I
look hot and slaps my ass in my tight jeans which only makes the ache growing
inside me more pronounced.

Later in the night, Danny and Wendy find us while we’re dancing to “Take
My Breath Away”. They tell us they want to go back to the rooms and that we should
head back with them. I nod; Danny slaps Tate, who looks like he’s about to be
sick on the back. We all sneak out of the side door to the ballroom and run
down the hallway to the stairwell. I ask Tate if he’s feeling alright and he
waves me off. We run up three flights of stairs to our floor, I hug Wendy and
she whispers in my ear, “Remember you don’t need to do anything you don’t want”
and Danny high fives Tate who is looking closer to vomiting than before. We
agree to meet in my room before anyone else is awake.

Tate unlocks my door then he scoops me up into his arms making me squeal,
“Tate, put me down, what are you doing?”

“I’m carrying you over the threshold, baby” Tate responds with a smile,
he’s looking a little less queasy now.

He puts me down after he kicks the door closed behind us.

“Tate, you were so amazing in the game today. Aren’t you like so psyched?
You won the game for us. There’s no way you won’t make varsity next year,
you’ll probably start over all those other guys that sucked today. If it wasn’t
for you we would have lost States!” I say meaning every word of it.

Tate smiles at me, pulls me into his arms and says, “I don’t care what
any of them think about me as long as you just meant what you said. All I care
about is that you think I’m awesome. You mean so much more to me than all those
guys and coaches put together.”

Tate kisses me softly on my lips and he lets out a quiet moan. I feel his
tongue try to enter my mouth and I meet his tongue half way. As he’s kissing me
he slowly pushes me back onto the bed and he gently climbs on next to me
without breaking our kiss. Once I am on the bed Tate pops a tape out of his
pocket and says, “I made this for you, let’s put it in.”

He gets up and puts the tape in the radio and the first song that comes
on is “Object of my Desire”.

He shrugs at me saying, “What, it’s how I feel about you. I desire you,
don’t laugh at me” while I break out in a fit of giggles. This causes Tate to
come back to the bed and ask, “Brooklynn Adams, are you laughing at “The Tate
Taylor” who just won the State championship game? Because if you are I think I
am going to have to tickle you mercilessly.”
 

I feel the bed sink as Tate lies on the bed next to me and starts
tickling me on my sides causing me to beg and plead with him to stop. He
doesn’t mean to do it but he makes my shirt slide up a little revealing the
bottom of my red lace bra. Tate stops tickling me, I look up to see what’s
happened and I notice where his gaze has fallen. Tate notices my bra and
freezes unable to take his eyes off of the red lace poking out under my shirt,
looking as he did earlier, like he might be sick. I know I should probably pull
my shirt down but I don’t, instead I grab Tate by the back of his neck and I
kiss him with an intensity I have never felt before. Tate responds by moaning into
my mouth and I feel him press his body into my right leg. I can tell he’s
waiting for me to either stop him nicely or slap his face. I have no plans on
doing either.

Later when we’re lying next to each other I tell him about the
conversation I had with the girls the previous night. Tate questions why I was
talking about him with the girls, concerned that I broke our promise to not
discuss what we do in private with our friends.

“Um, we weren’t talking about us really, when it started they were just
talking in general about sex but then they said they could help me if I had any
questions. They asked me about us and I just told them we hadn’t done it yet so
they gave me a sex ed. class way better than the one at school. You have Eric
telling and showing you all this stuff and I always feel five steps behind you.
I would have made a total fool of myself tonight if they hadn’t explained a few
points to me. Are you mad at me?”

“No, I’m not mad at you, I think you’re adorable and I’m glad you have
someone to talk to too but no telling them about us…it’s for your own good. If
you tell them about what just happened they’re all going to want me for
themselves and you don’t want that do you?” Tate teases me. “I’m going into the
bathroom, I’ll be right out. I have an extra pair of sweatpants in my bag if
you want them.”

I grab a pair of blue sweats and a t-shirt from his bag and wait for him
to come out of the bathroom. When he does I brush my hand over his arm as I
walk past him into the bathroom. I clean up and change into his sweatpants and
when I come back out into the room I find him in bed wearing sweats and no
shirt. He pulls back the covers inviting me into bed and I climb in next to
him. “Tonight She Comes” by the Cars is so appropriately playing on the radio
and when I look at him he starts laughing.

“I didn’t plan that you know and I love the way you look in my clothes, I
plan on never washing them again” Tate laughs again about the irony of the
music.

I kiss him on the lips; I put my head on his chest and fall asleep while
I listen to his heart beating in rhythm with mine.

It’s the start of sophomore year
and I still think high school sucks. I hate that the older guys are so much
bigger and stronger than I am. They have facial hair and look like men. I work
out all the time and I can’t get muscles like they have. All the girls are into
the older guys and act like us underclassmen are losers. But the older guys are
all over the younger girls. I can’t stand thinking about one of them trying to
get Brook to fuck them. It makes me so mad to think about it that I go into my
basement and beat the shit out of my punching bag. If she doesn’t lose her
virginity to me I swear to God I will kill her and the guy she gives it up to.

Bobby and I go to Eric again, we
need help and information about sex. We start by asking him to tell us about
third base. He leaves the room and comes back in a few minutes later carrying
three apples with the cores cut out of them to give us a lesson on getting to
third base.

I’m the starting running back on
the JV football team, even though I should be playing Varsity. I’m stuck on JV
because of my fucking size; if I was built more I’d be on Varsity. I am
seriously considering going on roids to get bigger, I’m just afraid of what
they’ll do to my balls.

The Varsity football team makes the
state championship and I am so fucking pissed that I won’t be playing. Then at
practice Steve, the Varsity running back gets a concussion and they call me up
to back up the next in line in the State game. I doubt I’ll even play; I’ll
probably just suit up and sit on the bench looking like a loser the whole game.
But it will seal my spot on Varsity for next year if I play and play well. The
more I think about it the more nervous I get. I start sweating and puking like
a pussy thinking for the first time that maybe I’ll blow my shot.

 
Danny tells me we’ll be rooming together and
he wants to sleep with Wendy the night after the game so he tells me that Brook
and I are going to hook up and share a room that night so he and Wendy can be
alone.

“You are fucking her anyway, right?
So it will work out for all of us” Danny says. I don’t answer either way and he
lets it go. I know I shouldn’t let him think that Brook and I have done
something we haven’t but I don’t want to look like a pussy.

I am nervous all day at school and
I can barely eat at lunch. After I do eat I go into the bathroom and puke out
my guts. After school when I go home to get ready I try to calm down and focus
on the game but nothing is working. I try breathing slowly, counting to five
hundred and doing sit ups and pushups.
 
When I get on the bus I sit with Brook and just seeing her makes me feel
better until the older guys start shit with me. I tell them to fuck off, it’s
always better if you stand up to them and get right back in their face.

I get nervous again but I can’t
show it, when one of them tells me, “You better hope you’re that tough on the
field tomorrow and that you don’t get your head knocked off out there.”
 
I try to look all tough and not let them know
how scared I am. I just hope they are planning on blocking for me because if
some senior guy that is two hundred and fifty pounds takes me down I might not
get up in one piece.

When Danny and I get to our room I
go straight into the bathroom and start puking again. He’s really cool about
it. He hears me throwing up and knocks on the door.

“Go away, I’m fine.”

“Dude, let me in.”

I unlock the door and slump down on
the floor. Danny sits next to me and I drop my head into my hands.

“Hey man, I know how you feel. I’ve
been there. I still get scared before games. I don’t want to blow a play or
look like a pussy if I don’t take a hit but the last thing I want is some big
ass dude kicking my ass on the field either.”

I don’t know what makes me do it,
maybe it’s my nerves or maybe I just need to unload it all, but I tell Danny
everything about my dad. I tell him how he played basketball at UNC and how he
puts so much pressure on me in everything I do. My dad is this control freak
perfectionist and if I don’t live up to his expectations he rides me
mercilessly. He comes to all of my games and if I don’t play well he calls me a
pussy and makes me feel like a loser. I tell Danny that I’m an only child and
all my parents have to focus on is me. The pressure is sometimes too much to
handle. Lately my dad and I have been doing nothing but fighting and the last
thing I want is for him to be at this game and see me not get any playtime, see
me suck or even worse choke under the pressure.

Danny tells me to cut myself some
slack. “You’re like the first freshman in the history of the school who was
even asked to play in the States game. It’ll be fine and when I’m on the field
with you, I got you man. No worries. Okay? Now tell me about that hot piece of
ass of yours” Danny says with a smile knowing that comment will both piss me
off and change the subject.