Going Long (boyxboy)

Chapter 15- Champagne Room

*A/N* I still haven't finished this chapter but I know y'all are ready for more so I'm posting the first half now! I will try to finish this one up by next week, but you know me...I've never met a deadline I could meet! Er..well, you know what I mean.

Chapter 15- Champagne Room

~Josh~

            Sunny, it turned out, was a complete Benedict Arnold. She actually wanted to go to the hotel, and got her parents to agree to let her "have a sleepover with her new gay friend." Her parents were simultaneously incredibly strict, and incredibly naïve. I pleaded with her to say she couldn't go, but she refused to budge.

Mom was absolutely no help.

            "Josh, he begged me. I felt too sorry for him to say no. He's been having a hard time. Just look at the way he played last week. You can see how stressed he is just watching him on the field."

            "Are. You. Kidding." I seethed. "HE'S had a hard time?" I wanted to punch a wall. "What about me?"

            Mom rolled her eyes. "Oh boo hoo. Your evil mom is letting you run wild with your friends in a hotel after a school dance. Call the NAACP, your rights are being grossly violated," she deadpanned.

            I only had one card left to play, and it felt like stabbing myself in the gut to get it out.

"You never let Kelly get a hotel room when she was in high school."

            Mom put down the towel she'd been folding and turned fully towards me. "Wooooooooow," she drawled out. "Did you get body snatched? Are you really Josh right now?"

            I collapsed on her bed next to the hamper of clean towels she was folding. "You see!? This is what I've been reduced to. Just change your mind Mom. Tell him I can't go."

            "What's the big deal? I don't even understand why you're so reluctant. So you spend a night with Sunny. Don't you like hanging out with her anyway?"

            Why was I so reluctant? Because he got us adjoining rooms. And he'd be in his with Laney "I'm so hot and wild I'll do anything you want" Wittier. O.k., maybe that was an unfair assessment of Laney, but really? Was there even a slight chance I wasn't going to have to listen to them have sex? No. There. Was. Not.

            "It's not Sunny that's the problem," I grumbled, scrubbing my face with my hands. "He's going to be in the next room with Laney."

            Mom reached down and squeezed my wrist, pulling it away from my face so I had to look her in the eye. "There's always going to be a Laney, Josh. Always. Are you going to hide and avoid every time something comes up where you may have to see him with a girl? That's not a way to live your life. My advice? Invest in some good earplugs, and go be with your friends."

            I know my mom loves me. I do. But why is it that every time we have a heart-to-heart it feels like every word she says tears mine out?

            "I've got to go," I said, pushing to my feet.

            I was halfway through Tuesday's Gone on a sick vintage Strat at Ben Jack's guitar store when it hit me that Mom was right. I'd silently suffered through Jake hooking up with girls for years. It wasn't until he moved in with me that it started to affect me this badly. I was getting too used to the false intimacy I felt with him in my bed every night. It wasn't real, and it wasn't reciprocated. If I was smart, I'd ask him to go live somewhere else so I could regain a little sanity. But...I couldn't do that. It wasn't real, but it was all I had, and I wasn't strong enough to let it go. But I could be strong enough to get the fuck over myself and have a fun night with my friends.

            I put the guitar down and texted Sunny.

I'll do the hotel thing, but you better be prepared to distract me all night.

            Her response was instantaneous.

YAY!!! You do realize that sounded hella sexual right?

            I snorted.

In your dreams ;)

            That got a barf emoji.

Quite literally not. But don't worry, I won't let you dwell.

            I hoped not. Otherwise I was in for a hell of a bad night.

~Jake~

            I don't know how I did it, but I made it through the rest of the week without giving anything away about my suspicions to Josh. At practice, I focused on every receiver but Josh, to the point that coach railed on me to get back to the regularly scheduled program. I was nervous, but in the end all my passes to him connected, and by Friday I was convinced last week's weirdness on the field had been a coincidence.

            I had all my plans in place for the hotel, and all that was left was to kick Central High's ass.

Josh pulled me aside as we headed out of the locker room toward the breakaway the cheerleaders held ready at the edge of the field.

"Look, I don't know why you've been so generous with your play calls at practice, but we can't fuck around out there. Notre Dame can pull our offers at any time. We don't sign until December Jake. Remember that." He gave me a hard stare, like he needed to hammer the point into my eyeballs to make it stick, then turned and jogged back to the front of the crowd.

As if I didn't know what was at stake. After last week's performance, I had to bring my A-game hard. Did he really think I didn't know that? It wasn't like I was trying to miss him out there. I'd been able to read his mind on the field for as long as I could remember. It wasn't my fault he fucking watched gay porn and confused the shit out of me to the point I was second guessing every move he made. The fucker.

I shoved my way through the linemen until I reached the front of the crowd and elbowed my way next to Josh. The cheerleaders had decorated the huge banner in front of us for the crowd to see, but they'd also written little notes to the players on the back. I was standing directly in front of a note from Catelynn that said "WWJD? Josh would go long, Jake would lob it, and the Bulldogs would score! GO JDs'!" I pointed at the stupid note and elbowed Josh this time.

"I'm up for it if you are," I said.

He read the message, then gave a snort and nodded once. "Just call the play. You know where I'll be."

He turned out to be right. We won the toss, and I chose to receive the kick. When I took over at the 25 yard line, I called the first play and hoped coach didn't murder me later in the locker room.

It was a stupid play to run right out of the gate, but as the ball left my hand and spiraled in a high arc, just a length ahead of Josh's reaching hand, I knew it would land. His left hand came under the ball, tapping it up into the air and out of its spiral. It flipped straight up, end over end, over his head, as his body kept moving forward. I held my breath.

He reached back with his right arm and snagged it out of the air as he barreled forward, towards the end zone. There was only one defender anywhere close to keeping up with him as he ran with the ball. The guy lunged, but Josh put on a burst of speed at the same moment and the guy hit the ground, hands outstretched but grabbing nothing. I heard the crowd going crazy as Josh slowed, practically walking it into the end zone.

"TOUCHDOWN BULLDOGS!" rang from the loudspeakers.

The rest of the game went like that, until we'd run the score so high Coach put the third stringers in just to give the other team a break from the relentless beat down.

*update on what's happening with this story in my author bio*