I was violently awoken by pounding and yelling at the wooden door of my one bedroom apartment. My eyes were nearly open when I heard the door burst open.
"I swear to God if you two are having sex again I am going to gouge my eyes out and feed them to you!" I didn't even register the voice pounding through the walls of the spacious off campus apartment. Thanks to our fathers, Finn and I had a nice view of the city and floor to ceiling windows in the living room and kitchen.
I was still half asleep when Finn groaned from underneath me and I rolled off of him, clutching the white comforter to my bare chest. The bedroom door was already open so there was nothing to stop the screaming banshee from bursting into our room like death himself.
"Seriously? You guys were supposed to be up an hour ago to get breakfast yet here you are, laying in bed." The monster continued to practically screech. It doesn't matter your state of mind, everything in the morning sounds infinitely louder and more painful.
Finn opened his eyes, looked at his friend and then dropped his head right back down onto the pillow. He let out a groan of annoyance. "Not everyone wants to get up at 3:30am to get breakfast, Jason. Practice isn't until 5 today so leave us alone." Finn practically spat Jason's name like it was venom.
We loved Jason, we really did, but at this point in time we hated him. He was a morning person; we were not.
"It's 4:30. We leave in ten minutes." He said plainly before closing the door and walking out of the bedroom.
"Remind me why we thought having a friend 5 years older than us was a good idea?" I muttered. "It's like he's my father."
"We didn't exactly choose him." Finn retorted while sitting up in bed. I dragged my naked boy from between the sheets and fished for some clothing in my drawers. Once I found my official practice uniform, it threw it on and brushed my hair into a ponytail.
Finn was much more sluggish with his movements, but he got it done in about the same amount of time. I brushed my teeth before exiting the large bathroom so Finn could brush his. When I paraded myself into the main part of our apartment, Jason was laying on our black leather couch while scrolling through his phone.
I wordlessly slipped on my cleats. They were the same as everyone else's on the team; white body with a blue tongue and laces, grey plastic spikes, and a red Nike swoosh. I actually had three or four pairs, but I was saving those until these ones got too beat up to wear. Not to mention my two pairs of white Under Armor cleats with Maryland's signature red 'M' on the tongue and the Retro cleats that were red at the heal and faded into white at the toe. The was on top of the Wounded Warrior cleats with one foot in stripes and one in stars. Truth be told, this apartment had around 16 pairs of cleats between the two of us.
I had more cleats than I had friends.
That's sad but true.
Jason stood from the couch when Finn stumbled out of our bedroom only to reach the fridge and down a cup of coffee from yesterday. It must have tasted stale because his eyes went wide for a second before he shook his head side to side in an attempt to forget the taste plaguing his mouth.
I picked up my gear bag from the dark stained wooden floor and my everyday stick. While the national team never had uniform sticks, the Olympic team was going all out. My stick was a d-pole that started red and faded into white at the top of the shaft. The crosse was blue and the netting was white. They even had our last names printed in blue near the top of the shaft.
Somehow they knew we're all idiots who would get our sticks mixed up.
What can I say, we get hit in the head a lot.
Finn scooped up his shit and I fished out a protein bar from my bag as the three of us walked out the door. "How did you even get into our apartment?" Finn asked while locking the door.
"Land lord let me up." Jason replied, his voice dripping with boredom.
"How did you-" Jason cut me off as we entered the elevator of the complex.
"I told him I was your brother and it was an emergency, that you just had surgery and needed me." He pressed the 'close' button and the elevator started to descend from floor ten.
My eyes flickered up and down Jason's body and then to his face. "How did you convince him you were my brother? We look nothing alike."
Jason's brown, almost black eyes flicked over my body. See where I was pale and pink toned, Jason had a slight tan and a yellow undertone. My hair was light brown, his was jet black. He was tall and I was average. He was Asian and I was white. Huge difference. Huge fucking difference. Jason snorted at me. "Yeah no shit, hot stuff. I'm the step brother. Besides, he's already seen me here a million times so it's not like I'm a stranger."
"We need a new landlord." Finn muttered under his breath as the steel doors slid open.
"This is the last time I ask either one of you to have breakfast with me." Jason muttered. "Why am I even friends with you? I basically signed myself up as designated third wheel."
Finn pulled his keys from his lacrosse shorts as we pushed through the glass front doors and entered the warm humid air filling Maryland and DC today. "Because you had no friends at trials because no one from the fucking Boston Cannons is making the Olympics." Finn mocked 'Boston Cannons' in an odd voice and Jason hit him upside the head. "Sorry. One person from the Cannons is making the Olympics." It wasn't a secret that they sucked.
Jason was just unfortunate enough to get drafted. Pro-lacrosse players make like $20,000 a year so most of them had side jobs. Jason was taking the opportunity of being trapped in a college town to go back and get his Masters of Computer Programing. On the side he had a job as a waiter at a fancy restaurant. Luckily, it seemed like Lacrosse was a growing sport and the salaries of pro-players and college coaches was starting to creep up into the hundred thousands. Hopefully by the time Finn and I get there, they will be making enough for us to be full time.
Jason was really our only friend in DC, just like we were his only friends. Most of the players on the Olympic team were pros or players from the National team. Finn and I were two of four college students. The other two went to North Carolina but are taking a year off for the Olympics.
Devin quit lacrosse after a torn ACL in practice playing for the Iroquois sometime in between trials and now. David took a coaching job in Canada because they were paying big money. That left Finn and I virtually alone. We had no incentive to become best friends with the other players. We would know them for another 10 months and be done. Besides, almost none of them wanted to talk to us because we were 'cocky' when really we were just younger.
Sure we all joked around, but none of our friendships would translate to out of practice activities. This wasn't high school and this wasn't a sorority. We didn't have to be friends, just friendly.
"Nah. He's friends with us for our cars." I remarked as I climbed into the front seat of Finn's brand new Suburban. For a graduation and a 'making the Olympics' gift we each got new cars to add to our collection. The Jeep and the Range Rover were back in CT but right now we had Finn's black 2018 Suburban and my grey 2018 Corvette Stingray. We used each others cars interchangeably depending on the destination.
Finn loved to drive my car more than he loved to breathe so whenever we didn't have gear, we took my car. I was partial to the Suburban but I was also in love with my car. I mean, all our shit would fit in my car but the Suburban was just easier.
"Well I'm sorry my parents can't buy me a $60,000 dollar car." Jason grumbled and hoped in the back seat.
Our fathers might not exactly be around much, but they did it to provide us with a comfortable life. On top of that, we were both trust fund babies...... but that's besides the point.
"Look, I'm sorry we forgot about breakfast Jason. I'll buy you lunch to make up for it." I said while nibbling on my protein bar. It was a little early but I needed something in my stomach. Finn was the opposite. He didn't eat anything before practice ever.
"Hell yeah you are. It's cute you think that's an option and not an obligation." Jason retorted.
"Practice ends at two and I have classes at 3 and 5 so can we just do dinner at 6:15, actually?" I said remembering that classes start today. Finn and I both had two classes a day, five days a week. Luckily, they had time slots for the classes I wanted when I didn't have practice.
For both of us, it was looking like we had about an hour or a half hour between all our daily events. Over the summer we both had jobs. I was waitressing with Jason and Finn got a job at a coffee shop. We both quit those jobs last week to fit in classes.
The only problem with our schedule was college practice.
The morning practice was 12-2 six days a week but Finn and I were exempt from the first hour because it was just conditioning and we were already conditioning at UOT, the United States Olympic Training center. The night practice was from 7-10 six days a week, also. Olympic practice was from 5-12 seven days a week. That's 80 hours of lacrosse a week.
Eighty fucking hours.
At least classes were only five days a week. That gave me afternoons on the weekends and Friday nights. But all in all, To say I'm a little stressed out is an understatement.
"You're going to tire yourselves out." Jason said, voicing my thoughts. "You know you're supposed to get 8 hours of sleep when training."
"Yeah well, how many hours is anyone on this Olympic team getting? No where near 8. They all have jobs where they work seven hours a day to keep their lights on. The only difference is we go to school and back to practice for 7 hours a day." Finn tried to reason.
"More like 8 hours." Jason said. He knew our schedule and he did not approve. "Just think about that. You have from 10:30 to 4:30 to sleep. Tell me that's enough. I dare you. When are you even supposed to study?"
"Well if we stick to your 10:30 to 4:30 then we'll get six hours. That's fine. And study? That's why you're here. Your driving form now one. It's an hour from here to UOT and back."
"I get to drive this car?" Jason asked, almost shocked.
"Yeah?" Finn asked, confused as to why it was a big deal. His green eyes met Jason's in the mirror.
"Sweet! Yeah, you two can tire yourselves out all you want, as long as I can drive this thing!"
"Great to know you care about our wellbeing, Jason."
Lord save me, this year is going to kill me.