Page 22 of Away Game

“Bro,” Oz came up beside me and clapped a hand on my shoulder, “you sure know how to make friends.”

I grinned at him from over the lip of my cup. “What do I need more friends for when I have you?” Oz’s only response was to shake his head in disappointment. “Give me a break. You know I can barely tolerate most people, and I have made friends.” I looked around the kitchen and out into the living area. “But I’m not going to make nice with these guys. There’s… I don’t know, something I don’t like about them.” When Oz only looked at me with raised brows, I clarified. “More than most.”

“Yeah, you’re right, and most people don’t bother me, so…” Oz let his thought drag off. “It sucks this is the party on our one night.”

Taking a sip of my beer, I tipped it toward Oz. “It’s free booze, so I say let’s make the best of it.”

“Blackhawks football team, we challenge you to a beer pong tournament,” someone shouted from the other room where they had a table set up.

A grin started to spread on the few players’ faces I saw. Oh yeah, we were going to kick their asses. “Let’s do this,” a couple of the guys shouted from various places.

Oz bumped my shoulder and shook his cup. “I’m going to fill up and then watch our guys kick some ass.”

Since I’d barely drank any of mine, I moved to stand by the table they’d set up. Two of our defensive linemen were bouncing on the balls of their feet in anticipation, making me chuckle underneath my breath.

When Oz caught up to me, he was flanked by Ford, Ridley, and another guy on the team.

The music seemed too quiet as the first ball was shot by the Alpha Mus. The crowd hissed when he missed his shot. It was then I knew we had it in the bag.

Two rounds later, as I sipped on my beer, I noticed the room had quietly dispersed. It had been wall to wall people, but now I wondered where the party had shifted to. There were still plenty watching the game of beer pong, but only a select few were dancing. How had I not noticed?

“Where’s everyone at?” I asked some frat guy standing next to me. He was cheering on his fraternity brothers, who were going against the winners from the first round of our team.

He shook his head and looked up the stairs. “They’re showing some fag what’s up.”

What’s up?

“What do you mean?” My voice was deadly as I moved closer into his space and asked the question.

“They’re trying to convert some queer that’s on the football team.”

“What?” My brows furrowed in confusion. I’d heard of families trying to pray the gay away, but having lived in California all my life where almost everyone was accepting of, well, everything, I couldn’t believe my ears. I had no idea what they were doing, but I wasn’t going to let anything happen to one of my teammates.

I stepped up to him and got in his face, our noses nearly touching as I gritted out. “Where are they?

I felt the room halt, and all eyes were on me. I didn’t give a shit. Was the tournament meant to be a distraction?

All the blood drained from his face. “I… I don’t know. Somewhere upstairs. I was ordered to stay down here and make sure no one from the football team went upstairs.”

This guy was an idiot. Did he not realize I was on the team? I don’t know what happened next. One second I was about to punch him in the face, and the next, I found myself rounding the landing on the second floor and beating a path down the hall. It was quiet, almost too quiet except for all the blood whooshing in my ears. When I heard a loud grunt come from somewhere down the hall, I slowed my steps as I tried to pinpoint exactly where the sound came from.

A pained moan echoed down the hall. Was that… no, it couldn’t be. Did they have West? Deep down, I knew it was him. As far as I knew, there wasn’t anyone else on the team who was openly gay, and West had been downstairs dancing, not hiding the fact he liked the man touching him.

The doorknob felt like a boulder, unwilling to move as I tried and failed to turn it. Pounding on the door, I shouted. “Open the fucking door, you motherfucking losers.” Taking a few steps back, I hurled myself at the wood and slammed my shoulder into it. It hurt like a bitch, but did nothing to get me inside the room. I tried it again to no avail.

I was about ready to go find a fire extinguisher to break the knob off when Ford yelled from down the hall.

“Dude, what the hell is going on? We could hear you downstairs.” Ridley nodded as he came up behind Ford.

“Help me break this door down,” I ordered, ready to lose my shit when I heard another pained moan that went along with an uproar of cheering and laughter.

Ridley must have heard it too because one second he was his usual easygoing self, ambling down the hallway, and the next, his face turned to stone as he started to run. “Get out of the way, Fin,” he barked out only a second before he slammed the right side of his body into the door. For a moment, I thought it was all in vain until I heard a splintering sound. With one more shove from his shoulder, Ridley was barreling into the room.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I stepped inside. The room was packed full of party-goers who all had their eyes trained on a circle of Alpha Mu fraternity guys who were taking shots at someone in the center. There was a lone girl who sat on the bed naked without a care in the world that she was in a room full of guys with zero clothes and the evilest smirk on her face.

The body of whoever they were hitting fell between two of the guys. I looked down and saw dark hair shorn short and light mocha skin, and immediately knew it was West. Something happened deep inside of me. I broke as I took in his head laying on the ground with one eye open and glassy, and his mouth hanging open. The other eye was swollen shut and was quickly turning black and blue.

Fueled by rage, I pushed through the crowd and knocked the guys away as they started to pry West off the floor. A tall but skinny guy rounded on me but was too slow. I hit him in the stomach with everything I had and watched as he went down like a bag of bricks, moaning as he did so.

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