When we were Wallflowers

Chapter 7: Camp

No more waiting.

The days leading up to this training camp had felt long and arduous, mostly due to the bubbling excitement Brent felt. He loved football: loved playing it, loved watching it, and now he got to spend an entire weekend playing football with all his friends! What better way was there to spend a weekend.

His bags were pre-packed, every item he could possibly need accounted for. He'd even packed multiple pairs of underwear. It was an odd habit he had of packing extra pairs of underwear whenever he left home, it was almost as if he was anticipating to shit himself several times a day to account for having so many extra pairs; he wasn't planning to do that, obviously, but there was no harm in being prepared.

This weekend was even more special than usual as he was going to spend time with people he never usually spent time with, specifically, Finley. He couldn't deny that spending more time with Finley had become a driving force in why Brent wanted to get to the football training camp as quickly as possible. They were going to share a room together! It was so exciting!

"Brent! You ready to go?" His dad's voice echoed up the stairs.

"Yep! Coming!" He grabbed his bags and headed downstairs, his dad helped him stuff the bags into the trunk of the car.

"Let's get going then." Brent's dad -as everyone who'd ever seen the two together had said- was where Brent got his looks from. His dad was a giant that towered over everyone he'd ever met, although, he possessed the same gentle nature as his son and always conducted himself in a thoughtful and kind manner. His skin was darker than Brent's and Brent often thought that his dad walked around with a much more confident stride than he could ever dream of. His dad was everything Brent aspired to be, he wished to grow up and live similarly to his dad, to have a beautiful wife and children and be more than content with the life he lived. "Ezra going to this thing to?" He asked.

"He has to, he is the team captain after all." Brent dug through his bag to grab his phone and texted Finley the usual 'good morning' text that they had gotten into the habit of sending each other.

His dad hummed and drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. "I saw his dad the other day in a bar when I was with Mitch and the boys, you remember Mitch don't you?" Brent nodded. "Any who, out of politeness I thought I should go up and say hi so I could ignore him for the rest of the night. I walk up to him and I say 'hi, Steven', you know, 'fancy seeing you here' all that small talk shit and this guy is drunk as hell. I'm not even joking, he can barely see straight, his words are garbled, can't understand a word he's saying, he's got an equally drunk woman hanging off his arm; he just doesn't look right. So I ask him how much he's had to drink, can't understand anything he says; I ask if he wants me to take him home because he don't look right, he responds by spitting in my face and telling me to fuck off. Now I believe that alcohol effects the way someone acts and I'm willing to let things slide, but he was just so rude. Never have I been so disgusted by someone's behaviour, I hope Ezra isn't anything like that."

"Ezra's not like him, don't worry."

"That's a relief." The car went silent for a while until his father spoke again. "So," a cheeky smile crept onto his dad's face, "your mom told me that you went to a girl's house yesterday. Do I get to know anything about her?"

Brent fiddled with the fabric of his jumper. Mentioning going to Trisha's house yesterday, brought with it the reminder of how he'd acted when he'd been there. He instantly felt embarrassed and rather awkward about it, but who better to confide in than a man who'd done it all before. "Um, her name's Trisha."

His dad nodded. "Trisha's a nice name."

"We are friends at school, but last week she asked me out and we've been... seeing each other since then. When I went round to her house though, we-um, I, she..." how did he phrase this.