Free Sliding (The Stone Series) by Kitty Berry Page B

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