Give Me A Chance (boyxboy)

Six

Practice starts promptly at half-past three.

At quarter-past three, I'm in the guy's changing room, quickly switching my clothes, throwing on my athletic shorts and bland, don't-stand-out t-shirt. I pause for a second and I admire my arms. Over the past year, my muscles have filled out well. I'm no longer the skinny kid who could see his ribs even after he ate Christmas dinner. I'm the kid who could put in some effort and exercise and easily be lean. But I've never had that drive and motivation. I think I'm okay with how my body looks. We'll see.

I've got time left, so I pull out my phone and shoot a quick text to Liza. She's complaining about something in one of her crime shows. I think I told her to suck it up. I'm not sure, because as I'm hitting send, Blaine sits down beside me and looks straight at me.

"Ready for the first official practice?" he asks.

I look around the room and see Connor, Phillip and Shane all nearby. Why isn't Blaine talking to them? Why would he choose to talk to me? Won't I make him look bad in front of his popular jock buddies?

"Um, yeah, I guess so," I say.

He smirks. "A little confident, are you?" he asks, chuckling.

"I guess so," I say again, unsure of the territory I'm treading on.

"That's alright," he tells me. "You can afford to be, you're really good." He unties his shoes and slips them off. He runs a hand through his hair and reaches in his bag for his change of clothes. I can't tell if people are watching what's going on. I don't know if I want to know.

"Thanks," I respond. "But I'm not that good." I zip up my bag, prepared to get up and leave, but Blaine seems content to keep on talking.

"You kidding?" he demands. He flicks his eyes over to me as he takes off his shirt. I avert my eyes, partly out of politeness, partly out of fear that if I do look, I won't be able to stop. I can almost feel the heat radiating off of him, he's sitting so close to me. A strange tingle rushes through my body and I quell it with a brief battering by my common sense. "That forehand you threw yesterday was insane. It even shut Phillip up."

Phillip throws something at Blaine.

Blaine flips him off.

Phillip glances toward me, and there's an expression I can't decipher on his face. But it doesn't look mean.

I let myself laugh a little bit. "Yeah, I guess it did," I say, fully expecting something thrown at me. But nothing comes.

Phillip saunters out of the room. On his way out, he mutters. "It was a nice throw, buddy."

For some reason, the validation from Phillip boosts my ego. It shouldn't, because he's such a dick, but it does and I'm not sure why.

"See?" Blaine says, his shirt changed. He stands up. "Phillip isn't always bad. He has his good stretches. They're few, and short-lived, but worth being around for." he adjusts his shirt around his waist and a strip of skin is revealed for a brief second. My eyes find it.

Woah.

Pull it together, Lyam.

I shake my head as he readjusts his shirt and looks at me, expecting me to keep the conversation going.

I'm a terrible conversationalist.

I fumble for words. "Well, that wasn't a bad interaction, so is this one of his good stretches?" I'm still sitting, and he's standing, facing away from me. He turns around toward me, and where before he was sitting close to me, he's standing even closer. And I'm at an unfortunate height level. All I can think about is how he put his dick closer to my face.