Safety Net (33 page)

“And manages to shake off Rockridge’s
Carl Easton to run twenty-two yards. When we talked to Crocker head coach
Donald Miller before the game, he told us to watch Menacker’s speed.”

“Crocker’s fastest player is
freshman running back LeShawn Wells, who also scored a touchdown tonight, on a
thirty-three-yard dash early in the fourth quarter.”

“West’s fourth touchdown pass was
to wide receiver Ken Wotoa, and in this play, fifth-year senior fullback Josh
Benton ran twelve yards, pushing Crocker’s lead over the Mountain Lions to
thirty-eight to seventeen. The Lions rallied with a thirty-four-yard touchdown
pass from freshman quarterback Whitney Purcell to wide receiver Jay Pedersen,
but in the end, it wasn’t enough. Final score thirty-eight to twenty-three, and
Crocker has won the Hammer Game after two years.”

“And held on to the top season
record for the PWAC after tonight’s earlier upset defeat of Oregon by USC.
Before we show highlights from that game, let’s go to the field at Mendel
Family Stadium, where Crocker fans have swarmed around the Golden Hammer. It’s
raining harder than ever, but nothing’s going to stop them from savoring this
home-field victory in a rivalry game that dates back to 1893.”

“And coming up, our college
football recap as the countdown to bowl season begins.”

-----

Saturday, Hammer Game Day, went by
in a blur. Lowell was swept up in the celebrations and ended up party-hopping
with Benton and Kryzinski. Dale hadn’t been able to play, but when Lowell
caught up with him after the game, Dale said he and Andy were going to get some
beers and celebrate “quietly.” Lowell took that as his cue to stay away from
the dorm for a few hours. Erick had disappeared in the on-field commotion while
Lowell had been trapped by a local TV reporter. Erick would want to be with
Candace tonight, anyway. So when Benton slapped his arm across Lowell’s
shoulders and said he knew where the good parties were, Lowell went along.

He drank a lot, but not enough to
get drunk, even though getting drunk looked fun -- almost everyone else was
doing it. By the third party they crashed -- a bunch of guys sharing a ground
floor apartment on the edge of campus -- Kryzinski was looking green and Benton
had disappeared. The last Lowell remembered seeing of him was at the second
party, when Benton was schmoozing a perky blond girl.

Lowell found a spot on the sofa for
Kryzinski to chill and forced a bottle of water into Kryzinski’s hands. He
wandered around the party, looking for any of their guys, anyone he knew. In
the kitchen he recognized a girl from his Statistical Analysis in Social
Studies class, and she recognized him, lifting her beer bottle at him and
patting him on the shoulder. “We won!” she squealed, grinning hazily at him. “We
got the Hammer back.”

“Yeah, I know. I was there,” Lowell
laughed. Bethany. Her name was Bethany.

“I know,” she said a little too
loudly. Her pat on his shoulder became a caress. “I saw you. We all saw you.” Her
beer bottle swept the party.

An hour later, Lowell was outside
in the apartment’s enclosed patio, in the dark, the rain pouring down, sitting
on an uncomfortable metal lawn chair while Bethany, kneeling on the wet cement,
gave him a blow job. It felt good, it felt really good, for all of five
seconds. Then he came down from the high and hated his libido and his lack of
control. He looked at Bethany and wanted to apologize to her, but she was
smiling at him as she stood up and unzipped her jeans. And because he didn’t
want to be a dick who got off and left the girl high and dry, he held her on
his lap and brought her off with his fingers.

“Let’s do this again,” she said,
and kissed him sloppily. “I’ll give you my number.”

Lowell straightened up, checking
himself for incriminating evidence. “Look, uh, this was great. But I probably
won’t call you. I’m, um, sort of involved with someone.”

“Oh.” Bethany frowned at him in
disappointment. “Oh. Okay.”

Before the awkwardness could get
any worse, Lowell escaped back into the apartment, gathered Kryzinski, who’d
dozed off on the sofa, cradling the water bottle, and went back to the dorms.
He slept on Kryzinski’s floor. No more than his due, he decided.

Sunday morning he missed Dale and
Andy -- the dorm was empty -- when he went to shower and change clothes. He
avoided everyone for the rest of the day, hiding in the engineering library’s
study room and catching up on his course reading, then going for a long run in
soft, misty rain. He would have liked to have hidden for the entire day, but it
was Candace’s last night and Erick wanted everyone to go out for dinner. Lowell
dawdled as long as he could, killing time in the bookstore until it was nearly
time to go. When he got to the dorm, Dale shoved him right back out, saying, “Fuck,
where have you been? Erick’s waiting.”

They went to the pizza place near
campus. Lowell remembered bringing Kelly here to meet his friends, way back in
freshman year. He wondered how Kevin Babcock was doing. He hadn’t been signed
in the NFL draft and was a free agent. No one had heard anything from him since
the spring.

Lowell and Andy took one side of
the booth, Dale and Candace the other, and Erick sat on the end. He raised his
cola in a toast to, “The Golden Hammer. Back where it belongs.”

He looked so confident, proud,
content. Gorgeous. Lowell was tempted to pull out his phone and take a picture
of him, try to capture this moment forever, but it wouldn’t be the same. It
would never be the same.

After a lively dinner -- Candace
told them a few more gems from Erick’s European adventure, and Erick retaliated
with some Candace stories that made her laugh at herself -- they walked back to
campus. Andy fell back to walk next to Lowell and said, “I warned Dale he
better not be switching teams on me. He says he loves her.”

“He
adores
her,” Lowell
said, mimicking Dale’s delivery, and Andy chuckled. “But I think you’re safe. I
honestly can’t imagine Dale with a woman, can you?”

“Well, no,” Andy said in an amused
voice. They walked for a while, and Andy asked, “What about you? Do you miss
being with a woman?”

In a cold-sweat flash, Lowell
thought of Bethany the night before: cupping her breasts, sliding his fingers
over her pubic hair, stroking her soft wetness until she shuddered in climax.

“I do like women,” he said evenly. “Miss
it? I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it that way.”

“Ah. Hm.”

Lowell glanced at Andy
suspiciously. He lowered his voice. “Are you asking this for a reason? Did
you... Did someone tell you something?”

Andy looked at him, puzzled. “Huh?
What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” Lowell shook his head
quickly. “I don’t mean anything. Just wondering why you’re asking me this.”

“Because I’m nosy,” Andy said
apologetically. “It’s none of my business. I’m sorry.”

“Um, no, it’s okay,” Lowell said,
but their conversation ended there, and Andy caught up to walk with Dale. They
went on ahead, and Lowell saw that Erick and Candace were waiting for him.
Candace linked her arm with Lowell’s and slowed her steps until they fell
behind Erick.

“I won’t get to see you tomorrow
morning,” she said.

“Yeah, Erick and I have practice,” said
Lowell, thinking the bigger deal was that Erick couldn’t see her off at the
airport. “Dale’s PT isn’t until later. Is he going along?”

She smiled. “Yes. He and Andy are
so sweet. I told them I could get an airport shuttle, but Andy says it’s no
problem.”

“Andy’s a cool guy. And Dale has a
big crush on you, so he’s probably indulging him.”

Candace chuckled, a low, warm
sound, and held onto his arm. They walked slowly. Erick was ahead of them by
half a block.

“Lowell,” Candace said quietly. “Take
care of him, all right? Please take care of him.”

He looked at her, and she smiled at
him. Her smile was subdued, and she searched Lowell’s face, so Lowell assured
her, “I will. We all will.” He patted her hand. “He’s our quarterback. We
always take care of him.”

Her smile turned sad and she said, “Oh,
honey...” And she sighed.

They nearly walked into Erick, who’d
stopped to wait for them. “What are you two talking about?” Erick asked.

Candace pinched Erick’s cheek. “You.
And I was saying goodbye to Lowell.”

Erick fell into step with them. “I’m
sorry we can’t take you to the airport tomorrow. If we didn’t have the Arizona
game this week, we probably could’ve switched our practices around, but it’s a
game week...”

Candace, still holding Lowell’s
arm, patted Erick’s back. “I know. You told me. And I told you it’s okay. This
means I get Dale and Andy to myself, and we can spend the whole ride up
gossiping about you.”

She was kidding, but Lowell’s blood
ran cold anyway. He glanced at Erick, who wasn’t having the same reaction at
all. Erick smirked and said, “More likely spend the ride wrapping Dale around
your little finger.”

“Ooo, I hadn’t thought of that,” Candace
grinned.

Back at the dorm, Lowell said goodbye,
and Candace hugged him tightly and kissed his cheek. He gently returned the hug
and left them alone. The next day was morning practice, then nothing, since it
was Thanksgiving week. After heavy showers in the morning -- practice was a
muddy, slippery mess -- the rain had stopped and the sun was shining by noon.
Lowell went for a long run around campus, stopped by the convenience store for
cookies, and went back to the dorm intending to find something good to watch on
his laptop.

He was poking around the CBS Sports
streaming video site, not liking how full of Aaron Neuhauser Jr. clips it was,
and munching on a cookie when there was a knock on the door. He opened it and
Erick came in, carefully closing the door behind him before grabbing Lowell by
the shoulders and kissing him hard.

“Whoa. What is that?” Erick drew
back, picking a crumb off his tongue.

Lowell held up half a chocolate
chip cookie.

“Well, finish eating already,” Erick
said, pulling his shirt off and going into Lowell’s room.

“Erick?” Lowell followed him,
setting the rest of the cookie aside on the plastic drawer set he used for a
bedside table.

Erick kissed him again, running his
hands under Lowell’s shirt. He dragged his fingernails down Lowell’s back, deepening
the kiss, and Lowell was unable to resist the spell, he wanted Erick so much.
He grabbed Erick and returned the kiss, and they got naked together and
squeezed onto the bed, touching and making out and bringing each other off.

Afterwards Lowell got up and
brought the laptop and cookies to bed with him. He leaned against Erick and
propped the laptop up, saying, “There’s a bunch of clips of your competition.
Hey, watch the crumbs.”

Erick licked cookie crumbs off
Lowell’s shoulder. “Let’s see them, then. Is this guy truly better than
LeShawn? And LeShawn’s only a freshman. Blows my mind.”

“Is he better than you, is the
question. But how do you judge a quarterback against a running back? I don’t
know. This Heisman thing...” Lowell muted the sound and opened a clip.

They watched, and Lowell was
underwhelmed by the first clip. Not better than LeShawn. Lowell opened another
clip, which was more impressive but still not better than LeShawn or Erick. The
third one was more of the same. Lowell shook his head. “I’m not seeing it.”

Erick kissed his temple. “You’re
biased. Are there any clips of Matt Trimble?” In the Heisman race, Erick and
Neuhauser were the neck-and-neck leads. Trimble, the QB at University of
Texas-El Paso, was a distant third.

After satisfying their curiosity
about Erick’s Heisman rivals, they watched part of a cop movie on Lowell’s
laptop until Lowell fell asleep. When he woke up, it was dark, the laptop was
sleeping on the floor, and Erick was holding him.

Erick ran his fingers through
Lowell’s hair. “You awake?” he said quietly.

“Yeah. Funny how sleepy I get on
days when I do nothing.”

Erick rubbed Lowell’s hip and
kissed his neck. “Are you hungry?”

Lowell reached back and patted
Erick’s thigh. “I’m still, what’s the word? Satiated on cookies.”

“Satiated,” Erick repeated. “Hm.”

“Hm what?”

“Hm, I want to get you satiated on
something else,” Erick murmured, sliding his palm from Lowell’s hip and over
his thigh to hold Lowell’s cock, stroking slowly. Lowell sighed from the
pleasure rippling through him, pressing back as Erick kissed his neck and
shoulder. He wanted to touch Erick all over but he let Erick have this. Erick
took his time, playing with Lowell’s cock, getting them both hard.

“I want you so much,” Erick said
against Lowell’s ear. Lowell bit his lip against a moan and fumbled in the
bedside drawer for lube and a condom. Erick sat up, shifting, and pulled Lowell’s
legs around him. Wanted to fuck him, and Lowell groaned, “Yeah. Oh, yeah.”

“Lowell,” Erick said, breathless.
Working him. “You’re driving me crazy. And I wanted... I wanted to...”

“Wanted to what?” Lowell bit out,
writhing and squeezing his thighs around Erick’s middle. “Erick, now, okay? Now.”

“I wanted to go slow,” Erick
groaned, thrusting inside him. Lowell reached back and gripped the bedframe,
lifting his hips to the angle where it was bliss. Nothing more, nothing less,
total bliss. And he didn’t care if he was driving Erick crazy, because Erick
was driving him out of his mind, wanting him like this, filling him like this,
fucking him harder until Lowell’s senses exploded. The bliss lasted as he
coasted on the high, and Erick kept going, faster, harder -- the burn was
delicious -- until he abruptly stopped as he came.

Afterwards, blanketing Erick,
Lowell said, “Go slow. Yeah, right.”

Erick chuckled beneath him. His
hands rested on Lowell’s ass. He rubbed in slow, lazy circles.