Going offside, p.1
Going Offside, page 1
© Copyright 2022 by Van Cole All rights reserved.
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Going Offside
Gay Enemies to Lovers Romance
By: Van Cole
Table of Contents
Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
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Come Stalk Me!
Foreword
A childhood friend turns into a college rival, and the worst thing is I want him, badly.
We were preparing for the big football game against our rivals when I saw him, my old childhood friend. Now he’s strutting his stuff as a male cheerleader, his tight muscles on display, playing havoc with my mind.
I’ve still been struggling to come out. The last thing I need is to have a crush on a rival cheerleader, especially when that person is from my past. I have to try and keep things a secret because there’s no way an enemy can become a lover, but why can’t I stop thinking about him? Is this just a case of opposites attracting?
I have to try and keep it together because if anyone finds out then my cover will be blown and I’m not ready to be out. My Dad would kill me. But damn if I don’t hate the way Liam makes it look so easy…
Going Offside
Chapter One
Finn
“Alright guys, you know what time it is. It’s the biggest game of the season. Sure, some of you might think this life is all about winning trophies, but those fade into memory. It’s all about taking everything you have onto that field and making sure that you leave nothing behind, especially when it comes to your rivals. The Cavaliers are on a winning streak. You’ve all seen the humiliation. You’ve grown up with it. Do you think you’re the team to break that? Because I sure do. I don’t need to tell you what it’s like when you drive around with your proud Eagle jackets on only to be hollered at by those jerks on the other side of the city. I’ve heard all the taunts. They should be echoing in your mind right now because I want you to think of them when you step out onto that field. I want you to see them laughing at you, because that’s exactly what they’re doing. Do you know what their coach is saying to them now? He’s telling them that the game is already won. He’s saying that he doesn’t even need to give a team talk because we’re going to crumble under the weight of pressure, just like all the other teams have before us. Well, I say no! I say that we are going to make a stand and this is the year when their streak is going to end. Winning a trophy this season isn’t going to mean shit if you don’t beat them because they’re just going to hold that win over you all your lives. Every time you go to a job interview, every time you go on a date, every time anyone sees you in the street, they’re always going to see a failure, and I do not want that for you, so what are you going to do?”
“Win!”
“What are you going to do?!”
“WIN!”
“Tell me what the hell you’re going to do!”
“WIIINNNNNN.”
The chorus echoed around me and through me, as though the sound had taken on a life of its own. It filled up the locker room and made the air thick with tension. We stamped our feet against the floor, creating an even greater noise. Coach Jackson’s face was twisted with anger. He had been brought in precisely to break this streak. Year after year we had laid down and let the Cavaliers take a huge dump right on our chests, and this was the year when it was all going to change.
I had been there the previous year as backup. I hadn’t even made it onto the field. I’d seen the effect it had on the team though. They had walked out there looking as though they were already beaten, and afterwards they were on the verge of tears. I never wanted that for me. I knew that coach was right. Maybe some people would think it was a myth, but there was a sharp correlation between those who lost as Eagles and those who failed in life. The Cavaliers, well, they went on to great success. Failure bred failure and at some point, it had to end. We were all hoping that we wouldn’t get tainted with the same brush.
“Now I want you to watch this. Study it like you’ve never studied it before. They’re fast, they’re good, and they’re going to hammer you. They’re not going to stop until you’re a beaten, bloodied pulp, so you have to stand tall and make sure they know that you’re not beaten. If you do that then maybe you stand a chance of winning. It starts in the heart first, but you have to be smart about it as well. Watch these plays. Learn how they think. You might think it’s cheap to want to be like them, but they’re winners. They’ve proven themselves. If there’s anything we can learn from them then we have to use it. I don’t want your eyes to leave this screen,” Coach Jackson said, as his assistant wheeled the TV in and set it up.
The picture flickered into life and a hush fell over the locker room. I swept a stray lock of dark hair away from my face. Nerves were already running through my veins. I glanced around, wondering if anyone else was feeling the same way I was. The last thing I needed was to let the pressure get to me, but with every year that passed so did the burden get placed on the shoulders of another team, and by now the weight of the entire school was upon us. I should have been brave, but I couldn’t quite make it there yet.
I watched as the Cavaliers tore through teams time and time again. They were quick, strong, and ruthless. In some ways it was as though they were the perfect football team, as though they had been forged in some lab somewhere. Suddenly the picture jerked and something caught my eye. In the lower corner the cheerleaders were there. Three of them were bouncy, perky blondes with petite frames and the kind of smiles that made most men melt. But they weren’t what I was looking at. I saw him, a tall, slender man wearing skin tight clothes that showed off every chiseled muscle. His buttocks were tight and the outline of his manhood was on display. Apparently, he didn’t know what shyness was. He jumped as high as the girls and the elegance of his body was something to be admired. He was graceful and he exuded the kind of sex appeal that sent my heart into overdrive. The pom poms obscured his face, but I was already transfixed. I had never seen anything like it before, and I could just tell that he was gay.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, and lowered my head, although I could not tear my gaze away from him. I was afraid that someone would notice what I was looking at. My skin felt warm. If they should ever find out… no, it didn’t even bear thinking about. Tension gripped my heart and suddenly I found it difficult to breathe. Had the temperature increased? Sweat prickled on my brow and my mouth was suddenly dry.
The cheerleader didn’t suffer from those effects though. He was out there, proud and defiant, unafraid of what the world thought of him. How I wished that I could be like that. I envied people like him, for I was still deeply in the closet. But more than that, I desired him. His body was perfect, his muscles were defined, but it was his confidence that left me reeling. Arousal stirred within me and I felt a twitch. I crossed my legs, tensing my muscles in other areas to stop the erection before it fully took hold. The last thing I wanted was for someone to see me getting hard. I felt like I was a teenager again.
The coach was still going on about the last play. I knew I should be listening, but I just couldn’t take my attention off the cheerleader. It was as though he was magic. At some point he jumped high in the air and split his legs. I marveled at the flexibility and all that it promised. The girls flipped and bounced around him, but they were nothing compared to him. He was the star of the show and he knew it, for sure. The pom poms fell and were caught, and then he turned to face the camera. At that point I gasped, and Coach Jackson had moved onto the next clip.
It wasn’t anything that I could have been prepared for, and the sight of him had struck my heart, for I knew him. His name was Liam and we had been childhood friends, next door neighbors in fact. We used to spend every day together until his parents moved away. He always promised he would write, but he never did. I always thought he had been a good friend to me, but he had proven that he was just the same as any other person. There was nothing special between us, nothing that could have lasted. He had always been able to make friends far more easily than me, I guess he found it easy to forget me. I had always resented him for that. Sometimes I thought that if I could have had one friend to confide in then I might have been a different person. I could have been as flamboyant and as confident as he was. As I watched him in that video, he looked the complete opposite to me. I was in a shell, forced to hide my true feelings and my real self. Liam could be whoever he wanted to be. He had left me, escaping the neighborhood, finding a more liberal home. Maybe it wasn’t fair to him that I should have been so envious, but I just couldn’t help thinking that he had all the luck. My blood burned and I was filled with mixed feelings, and anger replaced my arousal.
Now he was at the rival school and I was going to have to see him agai
I couldn’t believe that I had actually thought of him in that way. I tried to swallow the awkward feelings inside, but they just wouldn’t go away. I put my head in my hands and tried to pretend that this had never happened.
“What’s wrong Finn? Are you starting to freak out? Because if you are then you can get right out. I need men whose heads are in the game,” Coach Jackson said. Suddenly all eyes were on me.
“I’m not freaking out coach. I’m just picturing how I’m going to push their faces in the dirt,” I shot back, trying to sound as angry as I could.
Coach smirked. “That’s what I like to hear. I want every one of you to be like Finn, you hear me? This is a war. I want you to leave blood on that field.”
I gulped and held my bag over my lap, embarrassed at the way I had reacted. Now that I had seen Liam, I couldn’t get him out of my mind. The way he moved, the way he… oh God. I had to get home as quickly as possible.
*
I was sitting at the dinner table with the folks. They had insisted that I stay at home to save money on accommodation, instead of getting the full college experience. They said it was better this way, because it meant I could focus on my studies and not get distracted by anything that wasn’t important. Apparently, the word ‘fun’ didn’t exist in any of the dictionaries my Dad owned. I still hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Liam, although I had gotten my feelings under control after taking a shower when I got home. I felt a little dirty because of it though.
“Hey Dad, do you remember our old neighbors, they had that son Liam?” I asked.
Dad scowled immediately and gripped his cutlery tightly, as though they were weapons.
“What about them?” he asked, spitting the words as though they were venom. I was taken aback by the force of his voice. I hadn’t realized it had been such a sore point for him.
“I just thought that I saw Liam in one of the videos Coach showed us for the next game. I think he might be a cheerleader.”
“Figures,” Dad said, glowering. “I always knew there was something off about that kid. There was something off about them too. I don’t know what was going through their minds, all that liberal crap. It’s no wonder he turned out the way he did. I can’t imagine how embarrassed I would be if you were prancing up there as a cheerleader. The world has gone mad. What’s wrong with things just being the same? Girls are cheerleaders and guys play football. It’s as simple as that,” he said, shaking his head as though that was the only determination that anyone needed. A part of me wanted to challenge him, but I had made that mistake before. Dad was one of those people who weren’t interested in having a rational debate. He knew what he knew and he liked the world to be the way he wanted it to be. There was nothing to do about it but nod and accept that that was the way he felt. It didn’t help me any though. I had always dreamed of coming out to my parents. I’d watched a lot of people who spoke about their situations and most of them said that it wasn’t as bad as they had feared.
Most of them didn’t have my father though. Mom wasn’t so bad, although she never actively spoke out against Dad. She would just shrug and smile and then try to move on. I could imagine what would happen if I tried to come out. Dad would rant and rave and wonder where I had gone wrong. He’d try to look for a solution, as though being gay was something that could be fixed rather than just a part of me. I quickly grew envious of Liam. He lived a life where he could be out and proud and open with his sexuality. Soon enough we would meet again after so many years. I wonder if he would remember me. I wonder if he had any advice.
I was almost afraid of seeing him again though, because if Dad saw me then he would kill me. After dinner I went back to my room and snuggled under the covers. Despite myself I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Liam looked in that tight cheerleading outfit. I hated myself for thinking about him like this because deep down I was angry with him. He could have stayed in touch. He could have been my friend instead of just casting me aside. I found myself wishing that I could have been more like him. In another life we could have been friends, but now we were opposites and we were enemies, but even so I closed my eyes and lost myself to the sweet fantasy, pretending for just a moment that I didn’t have to be afraid of being gay, pretending that I could live another life.
Chapter Two
Liam
The college was alive with spirit. I found it infectious. It was like a drug that was injected straight into my veins. I couldn’t get enough of it. Sweat flecked my brow and trickled uncomfortably under my tight training gear, but it was almost over. The world spun as I did a backflip and felt the thump of my landing reverberate up my legs. I held myself in position and then allowed myself to relax. There was a smattering of applause from Linda, Tess, and Bailey. I high fived them as I grabbed a towel and ran it around my face and neck, wiping the sheen of sweat away.
“We’re going to dazzle them!” Linda said,
“Hell yeah, they’re not going to know what hit them,” I replied.
“They might think this is all about the football game, but it’s not. It’s more than that,” Tess said.
“I wish you could teach me how to flip like that,” Bailey said. The grunting sounds of people working out was a cacophony in the gym, while outside the football team was practicing. We always tried to keep our practices at the same time to create a kind of unity between the cheerleaders and the football players, although it didn’t always work. They were the stars of the show of course, and hated anyone trying to take attention away from them, something that we were particularly good at.
“I think we need a good victory routine this year. We really need to hammer it home to them that they’re second best. The football team might humiliate them with the score, but we need to make sure they never forget that they’re losers,” Linda said. She was vicious. You wouldn’t think it to look at her, what with her angelic look, her ruby lips and her blonde hair that was tied in pigtails. Her blue eyes sparkled with a frenzy though and she never took prisoners lightly. Tess was dark skinned, with eyes like chocolate and straight black hair that was the color of midnight. Bailey was chirpy and petite, with auburn hair that curled to the middle of her back. I was the odd one out, as I was most places I went. I didn’t mind though. I had gotten used to it over the years. Being the only male cheerleader in the whole damn region was something that some people would have been ashamed of, but not me.
I ran my hand through my dark hair and arched an eyebrow at Linda.
“Are you sure you really want to be that cruel?” I asked.
“Hell yes,” she said, and then laughed. The three of them cackled like witches.
“I just want to do something to catch Bobby’s attention. I need some real big flourish or something,” Bailey said. The other two girls rolled their eyes towards me. I sighed a little. They had grown impatient with Bailey’s crush, so it was up to me to take things into my own hands.
“Bailey, don’t you think you should focus your attention on someone who actually wants to spend time with you?” I asked.
Bailey frowned. “You just don’t understand. He does want to spend time with me, he just doesn’t know it himself yet. All I need to do is make him see. He just hasn’t made the effort yet. Once he sees me then he’ll understand that I’m the only girl for him. Besides, it’s not like he’s going out with anyone else. He’s waiting for someone special, and that someone is me. I just have to prove it to him,” she stuck up her nose as though she was a princess. The girl liked a challenge, I’ll give her that. This one might have been impossible though.
“I just think-”
“I don’t care what you think Liam. The fact is that you’re all supposed to be my friends and I would appreciate a little support in this matter. Is that too much to ask?”
I glanced at the other two and we sighed. “Fine Bailey, have it your way. I do genuinely hope that you get what you want. I just don’t want you to miss out on any other opportunities while you’re waiting for something that might never happen.”
