The Game: First Down Read online

  The Game

  First Down

  Nora Nix

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All participants in these fictitious events are consenting, non-related adults over the age of eighteen.

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2013 Nora Nix

  All rights reserved.

  This eBook may be reproduced, copied, and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided that the work remains in its complete original form. Thank you for your support.

  Vince Cooper had been waiting all year for this.

  Everything was in place. He’d ordered six extra-large pizzas, bought four twelve-packs of dark beer – the kind he knew the guys preferred – set out three bags of corn chips, made two bowls of microwaveable cheese dip, and had reminded everyone on Friday about watching the game at his place for the first time.

  Usually, the boys went over to Mark Bellamy’s place, a downtown penthouse and now bachelor pad since he and Marianne separated last May. The guy had state-of-the-art everything, toys and gadgets galore, not to mention an 80-inch LED HDTV with 3D capabilities and stereo surround sound that Vince was sure would blow out the ceiling-to-floor windows someday. He even had a little maid, Sandra, who paraded around his house in a French maid’s uniform two sizes too tight and about eight inches too short.

  That, he guessed, more than anything, was what had led to Mark’s divorce.

  Vince turned his TV on and glanced at the cable box, noting that it was almost time. His TV was only a 40-inch, but he still got hi-def and all the channels to go with it. He may not have had surround sound, either, but the built-in speakers did okay for themselves. Besides, it wasn’t like he had a huge house full of distractions, and the living room was pretty small – they should all be able to hear all right. Compulsively, he checked the time again. Just fifteen minutes until the game started. Where was everybody?

  A knock at his door tore his attention away from the blue glow of the digital clock and he sprang toward it, then stopped. He didn’t want to look too eager. The guys wouldn’t go for that sort of thing. He should play it cool. This was their first time over, and he didn’t want to look like a nervous little pussy in front of them. He let out a deep breath to calm his nerves and opened the door slowly, preparing a confident grin.

  “Hey, guys. Good to see…”

  Vince stopped short.

  Instead of the gaggle of men he’d invited over to watch the big game, there was only one standing before him: Paul North, holding a six-pack in his hand, smiling broadly. Paul was the youngest of the group in his mid-twenties, and also the quietest. He hardly ever spoke up during the group’s many political debates, and he’d never once regaled them with stories of his romantic – or not – conquests. Truth be told, Vince didn’t know a whole hell of a lot about Paul in general, only that he’d been one of the six guys he’d invited – and the only one to show up.

  “Hey, Vince,” he greeted with his trademark slow drawl. Paul was from Alabama – Vince remembered that much. His accent, creeping along like molasses, never really seemed to fit in with the more crass, staccato barking of Vince and the rest of the Jersey construction crew. He held up the six-pack with a little smile. “Brought ya some beer. Can I come in?”

  “Oh, sure, Paul. Yeah, yeah. C’mon in.” Vince opened the door wider for Paul, feeling a little off-balance. “Sorry about that. Jus’ thought the other guys’d be witcha, is all.”

  “Ah, yeah,” Paul said as he stepped inside, removing his coat. “About that…”

  Vince shut the door behind them and ran a hand through his thick brown hair nervously. “What? What’s a matter?”

  “Well, y’see… Mark’s divorce jus’ came through today, and th’ boys didn’t wanna make ‘im feel bad about bein’ all alone…” Paul trailed off momentarily. He set the beer on Vince’s kitchen counter and averted his eyes. “So, uh, they all went on over to his place t’ watch th’ game. They wanted me t’ tell ya. They’re real sorry about it…”

  Vince stared in disbelief. They had all agreed to this months ago! And he’d invited Mark, too – Mark, who hadn’t been particularly broken up about Marianne’s leaving until just now. How convenient.

  His heart sank as he looked around his apartment. Well, hell, this wasn’t about Mark’s divorce. This was about the big screen and the surround sound and little Sandra’s huge tits spilling out of her frilly blouse every time she leaned over to pour them another drink. Compared to his place, Mark lived at the goddamn Taj Mahal. How much could he really blame the guys for bailing on him, especially when fate had given them the perfect excuse to do so?

  “Well, uh – ain’t that nice of ‘em?” Vince said slowly, forcing another smile. “That’s good. Mark won’t be alone and… and you and I will have to place to ourselves.” He looked over the boxes of pizza and cringed. What the hell was he going to do with all the leftovers?

  Paul took note of his line of sight and opened one of the boxes, pulling out a slice. Steam was still rising from it, and when he took a bite, he hummed with appreciation, closing his bright blue eyes and nodding slowly.

  “Mmhm. Now this is the stuff,” he said approvingly, stuffing his face with another huge bite. “This ain’t th’ usual takeout. Where’d ya get it?”

  “Little place around here, Mama Cannoli’s,” Vince answered absently, still fazed by the huge letdown. “They got the best pizza this side’a the Hudson. Ain’t cheap, neither. But hey – special occasion, right?”

  Paul picked a pepperoni off his slide and popped it into his mouth, licking the grease from his fingertips after, and said: “Fuck ‘em, Vince. I mean, really. Mark ain’t got nothin’ but some warehouse-club wings and a fancy TV. Today was about havin’ some nice company, wasn’t it?” He finished his slice and reached for another. From the look of Paul’s lean, muscular physique – not bulky like Vince or the others – he could probably pack away two of those boxes all by himself. “We’ll have a good time. Promise. And we’ll be better off without ‘em.”

  Vince blinked. He hadn’t ever heard Paul curse before. The image of the mild-mannered former farmhand washed away, replaced by someone Vince could no longer quite peg. Although he still hadn’t recovered from the rest of his friends’ abandonment, he grabbed himself a slice of pizza from the same box as Paul and took a monstrous bite, letting the hot cheese sizzle in his mouth.

  “Go ahead’n put yer beer in the fridge and grab yerself a cold one,” he instructed, turning up the volume on the TV just as the pregame show began. “I got nachos on the coffee table. Better get ‘em before they get cold.”

  An hour later, Vince’s mood had most definitely not improved. Not only was he stuck with the quiet, laid back Paul while all his other so-called friends were surely jumping on Mark’s leather sofas by now, but his team was losing.

  He cracked open yet another beer, having lost count of how many he had drank already, and partially engulfed the frosty rim with his cracked lips. The more he drank, the less he thought about the betrayal of the guys he had felt so close to only hours beforehand. Yet the more he drank, the more angry he became when he did think about it, too.

  Beside him on the couch, Paul noticed him discard another bottle cap and said: “Damn, Vince. Y’gonna drink that whole twelve-pack by yourself?”

  Vince shrugged sourly. “Don’t want it to go to waste,” he muttered. Paul smiled.

  “That’s all right. We can bring some to the site on Monday and surprise ‘em. Tell ‘em what a great time we had and show ‘em there’s no
hard feelin’s. Ain’t that right?”

  “And why would I wanna do that?” Vince snarled, glowering at Paul over the lip of his beer. “If those guys would’a been here, they could’a had all the beer they wanted. You said it yerself: fuck ‘em.”

  “Just thought we might try killin’ ‘em with kindness,” Paul said, holding up his hands disarmingly. “That’s all.”

  Vince snorted. “Who taught you that shit? Your ma?”

  “My Grammy,” Paul corrected, his smile softer now. “Momma didn’t have a whole lot t’ say on the matter. She died when I was young.”

  Vince felt his stomach drop to the floor and he winced, spilling his beer all over himself. He launched himself up off the couch, setting his foaming beer down on the coffee table and pulling at his shirt, inspecting the damage. It was soaked.

  “Goddammit!” He sighed, looking at Paul again. “I’m sorry, Paul. I didn’t know about your ma.” He peeled his shirt off of his thick frame, the spilled beer making his muscles glisten in his apartment’s dim light. He caught Paul staring and said: “I’m gonna go change.”

  “Hey, ‘s your house,” Paul said dismissively. “Do what ya want. And don’t worry about Momma. I never got t’know her. No harm, no foul, right?”

  Vince looked at his beer-stained shirt, then back to the game. Well, it wasn’t like Paul hadn’t seen him without a shirt before. And besides, it was just the two of them – who was he trying to look respectable for?

  Heaving another sigh, Vince flopped back down on the couch and returned to nursing his beer, changing the subject as deftly as he knew how.

  “I can’t wait for the cheerleaders to come on. Never had me a girl who could move like that – how about you?”

  Paul blushed. It made him look more like he was sixteen rather than twenty-eight. “Nah. Me either.”

  “Aw, c’mon,” Vince prodded, trying to get something – anything – out of the kid. “Those farm girls look like they know a thing or two about how t’get a man. Had some guy workin’ with me a couple’a years ago, told me about this girl he knew, daddy used t’run an orchard. Said her pussy tasted like apple cider. You know any girls like that?”

  “Nah,” Paul repeated, looking down at his beer. “There was only one girl I knew whose family had an orchard. If her pussy tasted like apple cider, it would’a had t’have been made with crab apples.”

  Vince laughed, nearly spewing beer from his nostrils. “Christ!” he roared. “That bad, huh?”

  “Oh yeah,” Paul chuckled. He ran one of his rough, calloused hands through his dirty blonde hair. “That girl was closer t’sow than she was t’human, I’d say. Any man tryin’ t’stick his dick in her was gonna hafta roll her up in flour and look for the wet spot.”

  “You have any hot girls in Alabama?” Vince asked, cringing as his team fumbled. Paul smirked – his team was winning.

  “Couple, I guess. Weren’t nothin’ worth writin’ home about.”

  “Well,” Vince said, “let’s see how ya like some’a these northern cheerleaders in a few minutes, huh?”

  “Sure,” he said, but as Vince leaned back, he noticed that Paul had looked a lot more interested in his shirtless body than he did at the prospect of the cheerleaders taking the field.

  As the halftime show began, Vince found himself in a rather serious dilemma, the severity of which was growing by the second. Those cheerleaders, as predicted, were hot, and Vince’s prick was swelling none-too-discreetly as he watched them.

  Drinking beer always did this to him, he reflected, shifting to ease the tension forming between his hardening dick and the unforgiving fabric of his jeans. He could keep a hard-on practically forever when he was drunk, much longer than he could sober. That was why his ex-girlfriend had liked to keep a six-pack in the house at all times – she knew it was in her best interest. He couldn’t deny that it had been in his best interest, too.

  But this was bad timing. Alone with Paul in his living room, Vince wondered what he must be thinking. His size wasn’t exactly subtle – even at half mast, his bulging cock was clearly outlined through his pants. Worse than that, his nipples were prickling to match the stiffness between his legs, and folding his arms to hide them meant leaving his crotch wide open for Paul to see. Would he say something? Would he think it was because of him?

  Vince made a face. C’mon, he thought. It’s not like the kid’s never had a hard-on of his own before. He won’t say nothin’, you won’t say nothin’, and it won’t be weird. Have another beer and stop lookin’ at the cheerleaders.

  But the more he tried to look away, the more he found his eyes wandering back to the screen. Those girls had some of the most magnificent tits he had ever seen, and the way they bounced when they jumped made his balls tighten. It had been so long since he had seen a pair of tits up close and personal. He vividly recalled the way Yvette, his ex, had let him pump his dick between hers, cooing and begging for his hot cum until she got it all over her pretty face. Those thoughts didn’t help, and Vince felt a sudden throb pulse through him, pushing the tip of his cock against the inside of his zipper. Goddamn if that beast didn’t want to be let out.

  He cast a furtive glance at Paul beside him. If he had noticed, he wasn’t saying anything. His eyes were fixated on the screen, watching those scrumptious sluts writhing around beneath their shimmying pom-poms. Vince lowered his gaze, curious to see if Paul was getting hard, too. He wasn’t.

  “What’s a matter?” Vince slurred, his inebriation getting the best of him. “You don’t like girls?”

  Paul looked at him, his eyes wide. “W-what?”

  “I knew it!” Vince declared, slamming his beer down on the coffee table like a gavel. “That’s why you don’t like talkin’ about girls back home – you never had any!”

  “That’s – that’s not true,” Paul stammered, his face reddening again. “I just… they’re not my type, is all.”

  “Not your type?!” Vince gestured to the screen. “Look at ‘em! They don’t make ‘em much hotter than that!” He grabbed his dick through his pants, making it twitch visibly. “Or is this your type?” he asked, a little chill running down his spine. What the hell was he doing?

  Paul opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out. His gaze caught on Vince’s pulsating cock, lingering. Then he met his eyes again. “It’s jus’… I usually have to touch it, is all. Y’know, t’get it goin’.”

  Vince looked back to the screen, to the girls dancing across it. He had the sneaking suspicion that Paul was lying to him, and after every other humiliation he had endured today, being lied to wasn’t one he was willing to add to the list. He picked up his beer from the coffee table and took a long swig, wiped the excess from his stubble, and then looked into Paul’s eyes.

  “Then touch it,” he said, his voice almost a growl. “Show me.”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “Oh, I’m serious.” Vince wet his dry lips with his tongue, watching Paul squirm uncomfortably under his scrutiny. “Take it out and show me how much you like these ladies, or I’m gonna tell all the boys at the site that Paul North is a fuckin’ faggot.”

  Paul let out a little sound, something between a squeak and a hiss, like tires screeching on hot asphalt during a hard brake. He looked away, staring at the ground for a moment and tapping his index finger against the neck of his beer bottle. He took a drink, swallowed hard, and then slowly nodded.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

  “Yeah?” Vince asked, having second thoughts, but they seemed so far removed, lost in the fog of… what was it now – five, six beers? “Well – good.” He took another draught of his liquid courage and let it filter into his throat through his teeth, gulping it down hard. “Go on, then. Show me you’re a real man.”

  Paul set is beer down on the coffee table and stood up. He was nearly Vince’s height, but not quite, and not as heavily built. At first, he thought Paul might be sizing him up. Instead, Paul unbuttoned his jeans
and began to unzip them. He wasn’t wearing any underwear.

  Vince studied him briefly. Paul was golden-haired and sapphire-eyed, tan, and had a swimmer’s body; lean, sleek muscle that any woman would find attractive. Why was he single? Had he been right? Was Paul really gay?

  As if in defiance of this, Paul pulled his dick carefully past the teeth of his zipper. It was only half-hard, but as he turned his head to watch the cheerleaders on screen, it began to swell in his hand. He lowered his grip to the base, giving it a series of short, slow strokes. A little bead of precum glistened at his tip. Goddamn, Vince thought. He must really be a gusher.

  A few moments later, Paul’s creamy white cock was fully erect, and his strokes were becoming longer and faster. Its head was turning red, precum now freely bubbling from it, little drops that dripped onto his fingers as he jerked himself in front of Vince. His face began to flush and his breath began to quicken, and Vince saw him open his stance a little, balls beginning to swing with the force of his stroking. He bit his lip. Vince grew worried that he might cum all over his carpet.

  “All right, all right,” he said. “That’s enough. I guess you were right. Ya really do like those girls.” He watched as Paul reluctantly let go of his cock. Immediately it throbbed for more, the tip hitting his pelvis and creating a glistening thread of precum that stretched across the space between his dick and his hips. Vince felt his own prick start to pulse, biting his lip as his underwear suddenly got wet. His cockhead was sticking to it.

  Paul looked down at Vince’s crotch. “Well,” he said, “looks like you enjoyed the show.”

  “Bullshit!” Vince spat, glancing down to follow Paul’s gaze. But he was right – the front of Vince’s jeans was sporting a little wet spot. He felt his own cheeks redden this time. “That – that was from the girls!”

  “Yeah?” Paul looked like he wasn’t buying it. “I didn’t see you lookin’ at ‘em. As soon as I took my dick out, your eyes stayed on me.”