“It’s our home season opener, man. My folks are flying in from Seattle for thegame.”
“My mom couldn’t get off work,” Ilied.
“What about yourpop?”
Fuck, does everyone around here think that everyone comes from two parent households? Maybe that’s the demographic for thisschool.
“It’s just mymom.”
“Ah, sorry man. I didn’t mean topry.”
“Nah, it’scool.”
Skyler finished his set and then we switched places. He was much more muscular than I was, but he had a few years on me too. I had hoped I’d be able to press the same as he could. While I pushed the bar up, Skyler told me that he came from a big family and had three older sisters and an older brother. He was the youngest of five. His father was an engineer for Boeing, and his mother was a science professor at the University of Washington. Two of his oldest sisters both graduated college with degrees in engineering, and both had entered the Air Force as officers. Skyler liked to talk about his family, but it wasn’t with arrogance. He genuinely cared about his family, Ithink.
I came from a broken family. My dad, a railroad worker; my mom, worked at a bread distribution center. My brother moved from job to job, but found time to upload amateur homemade porn. Much of it had me init.
Skyler was down to earth, and I enjoyed talking and working out with him. When we headed out to the practice field, I asked him to keep an ear out for a room torent.
“Yeah? Are you looking?” he asked me as we jogged the perimeter of thefield.
“Yeah. I don’t need any amenities. Just a room with a bed. I can even get an airmattress.”
I laughed to myself. I’d sleep on the fucking floor somewhere as long as it was away fromhome.
“You living at homenow?”
“Yeah.” I stayed quiet from the stretch between third and first as wejogged.
“Your mom telling you to get aplace?”
“No, she’d keep me forever if she could.” He laughed; he had no idea how fucked up it was. “I just need to stretch mywings.”
“Yeah, gets hard to bed some pussy when you’re worried aboutparents.”
Damn, he really had noclue.
“David and I share a place. We have room for one more,” Skyleroffered.
I looked at him to see if he was putting meon.
“What,seriously?”
“Yeah, man. My parents didn’t want me getting distracted by college life in the dorms, so they rented me a place a few blocks from here. It has three bedrooms. We’re just using the extra one for storage right now. I’ll talk to David tonight and see if he’s good withit.”
“Shit, yeah, that’d begreat.”
All through practice, all I could think about was the good possibility that I’d be getting away from home. David seemed like a good guy and was one of the relief pitchers. Skyler was a junior and David was a senior. I would be lucky if they would extend an offer to afreshman.
“Alright, men, tomorrow is our season opener. Get a good night’s rest, eat well and be here tomorrow with enough time to stretch and warm up,” our coachinstructed.
We all filed into the locker room, and guys started stripping off their practice clothes and most headed to the showers, while a few guys went to ice their arms. I sat down at the chair in front of my changing station and thumbed through a magazine to kill some time. Luckily for me, there weren’t any locker room horror stories of new teammates or the youngest teammate being hazed. It was something I feared, but the coaches and school had a zero tolerance for it, so no one fucked withanyone.
As more guys began dressing, I tossed my magazine down and grabbed my towel and headed in. I slyly glanced around, and there was just one guy left in the showers. I quickly pulled my clothes off and headed to the opposite side from where he was showering. I bit down on the inside of my mouth as I washed over the fingernail marks on my back from Chad’s girlfriend and Mom’s on my stomach. I rinsed, dried off and wrapped the towel around my waist before going back into the lockerroom.
There was a note on my chair when I got back to my changingstation.
Ryan,
