Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. It depicts a romance between two consenting adult males and may contain some descriptions of sexual act between two consenting adult males. If you are not of legal age to read this kind of story, please leave now. If you reside in area where reading stories that include sexual situations between two consenting adult males are illegal, please leave now. This story is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to any person(s) living or dead is simply a coincidence. The author retains all rights to this story. It cannot be reproduced in any form without expressed written permission from the author (me). Please contact the author for any requests at raspucin70@yahoo.com. Copyright 2006. RIP TIDE Chapter Two: Meet Hayden (From Hayden's point of view)
Annoying buzzing sound was drilling trough my sleep. I took me a while to realize what is going on. A new semester means a new schedule. Now I have to get up at 6 am so that I can manage to go to the gym before school. I was never a morning person, which makes switching to morning exercise even worse. Groaningly, I got up and got dressed.
One good thing about getting into gym at this hour is that there are only few gym rats in there. I started my routine, still trying to wake up my sleepy muscles. At least I am here, I thought. Another victory against laziness - and sly smile broke over my face. Sometimes you have to make yourself feeling better all by yourself, and this little pep talk was definitively working. Just recently I started to notice fruits of my hard work. I was always trying to keep myself in shape - not that I was particularly involved in sports or anything, but I really let myself go in last year.
Still running on treadmill, I started to recollect how stressful was last year for me. After two years of marriage, Melissa and I finally broke up. The whole marriage was a farce, based on delusions on both ends. Melissa was a mental child in grown women body, and she could never understand how complex person I am and the darkness that was always present in my head. Finally we ended it up, and it was a bitter one. We never clicked together and I was glad that it was over. I got accepted in grad school, moved out and closed that chapter of my life. It took me better part of last year to get myself back in semi-normal stage of mind, where hate is not something that you wake up with. Four months ago I rented a small house on the edge of our college town and finally settled in. I made myself go back to the gym, start eating more carefully, and above all, live less stressed-out life style. And I started to feel good about myself, once again.
But my dark side was still there.
Ever since I was a teenager, I had internal battle inside of me. It took me years to finally realize that I am bisexual by nature. When I was in high school I dated girls, but could never fully plunge myself into meaningful relationship. Nor I could really say that I was actually having feelings towards girls that I dated (and slept with). It was more part of obligation, trying to keep a straight image. A baddass Hayden. Take-no-crap-from-nobody Hayden. Sport-bike riding, drinking, donuts-in-the-parking-lot Hayden. Yeah, that was me. On the other side, I never had courage to actually go out and find a...boy...a boyfriend.
See, that is where I haven't quite cleared stuff in my own head. Finding an actual boyfriend would mean total and final surrender into life style that I really, really did not wanted to belong. You know. Pillow-bitter. Ass-licker. Faggot. No. Even I was almost sure that I was actually inclined towards same sex, but my rational side was in total denial. And of course, there is always infamous "what will world say".
My family tried to reason with me, but I was not listening. Counseling was a joke - I was playing mind games with shrink all the way. I had a bad temper - I would often get into fights. It seemed that even if I wouldn't look for trouble the trouble would find me with no influence from my side whatsoever. Binge drinking was not helping the situation either. Last year of college my drinking got out of hand a little too much. One night, I wrapped my car around an oak tree coming back home. Thankfully, I was alone in the car, but that finally send a message. Months of rehab later, my family moved. I managed to finish college somehow, but something happened to me. I withdrew into my self, staying mostly in my room. I guess it did help from the stand point of view that my brain switched-off "Self-destruction as meaning for life" mechanism. I think that sub-consciously my brain figured that something needed to change. One year later, I met Melissa and we got married with all the mentioned consequences.
All sweaty, I finished with treadmill and moved onto free weights. God, this is much harder this early in the morning. I made myself push my body harder. I knew that in a week or so, I would get used to morning workouts.
It was almost nine when I came back home. I have to hurry if I want to make to my Physics II class. One shower and breakfast later, I headed out. Physics with Mr. Raysbroock was not fun - man was real stickler for in-class discipline, so I made sure that my cell was on vibrate before I stuffed it in my pocked and entered the classroom. Halfway try class I got really nasty surprise - my cell phone started to ring its metal lungs out. To make situation worse, its ringing tone is portion of a song from a local heavy-metal band. Really recognizable in public. And really, really annoying when you don't want to hear cell phone ringing. Like in a movie theatre. Or in a restaurant. Or in a Physic class.
After almost half of minute of ringing, I managed to dig the damn thing out of my backpack and shut it off. Mr. Raysbroock stopped his lecture, and in sudden dead silence of the classroom his tapping of the blackboard pointer on the floor seemed louder than my cell phone second ago.
"Mr. Faulkner, what is the class policy on the cell phones?"
"...Um, to be turned off during the lecture..." this was really embarrassing, and he was not making it easy on me. Obviously he was going to make an example out of this particular incident.
"Would you be so kind to see me after class in my office, please?" Oww, shit. Him being falsely pleasant was even worse. I saw half of the class turning their head to see who is in trouble. People are such vultures - even in grad school they will childishly look to see who got in trouble. And I was. Again.
WAIT A DARN MINUTE!
If that was my cell phone that was ringing a second ago - then who's cell phone I got in my pocket ?!?
Burning with curiosity, I started to quietly move in my seat. I had to be inconspicuous. I do not need more trouble. Thirty seconds of squirming, I got other phone out of my pocket.
One black Razor in left hand. One black Razor in right hand. One with a scratch across front cover.
Suddenly the scene from yesterday was playing again in my head. That freshman knocking me over. My stuff on the floor. His stuff on the floor. Me picking up cell phone and taking it home. That means that...
Oh crap, crap, crap.
I have to straighten this mess up as soon as possible. How come trouble always manages to find the way to mess with me? I couldn't wait for class to end. I was brainstorming how to get this phone back; I am really concern about other people's property...especially when I...err, stole it. Luckily, there is "Missed Calls" feature; at least I can call him back. Or go try his phone book to find last placed calls. Or maybe just simply drop it by campus security? That actually sounds like good idea - the guy is probably going to seek it there too. In the midst of that planning, class ended. Shit, I completely forgot that now I have to see Mr. Raysbroock. Luckily, he was less of a pain that I thought he would be. He actually laughed when I explained to him about two cell phones. Still, he gave me "don't let this happen again" lecture. Oh well. I hurried out of his office.
Outside, I scrolled try phone menu to find "missed call". Three missed calls? Wow, this guy is popular. Last one was from this morning - while I was at the gym. To my disappointment, calling back the same number all I got was our campus directory. That means that he used phone from one of college's offices - probably security office itself. I guess I better head there than...now where is it security office here? In the middle of that, phone in my hand started to vibrate. Area code was different from ours - now I was curious.
"Hello?" I started cautiously. "Matt? Where are you? Is everything Ok? Why didn't you answered last night? I was worried sick! Your dad and I did not hear from you all day yesterday..."
Oh shit. This was his mother. Now she will have some total stranger answer her son's cell phone. How messed up is that - and can my life get more complicated than this? Should I just tell her that she got wrong number? No, that won't work since she will call immediately back - and than what? I sighed and tried to sound as calm as possible.
"Ma'm, this is one of the students at Matt's school...Matt had apparently lost his phone yesterday and I am on my way to security office to see if he was looking for it" I tried to be as discreet as possible without raising too much concern. "Is he Ok? We been trying to get in touch with him since last night...we are very worried - and he doesn't not know the number of the hotel where we are right now".
Jesus, what a mess. It turned out that his parents are on vacation themselves, and they traveled halfway with him, and now they somewhere in Tennessee, in some motel going insane trying to reach him. Awww...All of the sudden, I started to feel extremely sorry for this kid. According to his mom, he did not even have place to stay - he just arrived yesterday morning, just before classes started. I could only assumed that he might be in one of town hotels, but judging by what his mom said, he did not had much money on him. Uhhh...I left her my cell number, and I got number of their hotel. Now I was feeling obligated to track down this kid.
Matt. So that is his name. Cool.
I was still indecisive about what exactly to do. I guess I should still get to the campus security and hand them the phone with a note regarding his parents' hotel info. Somehow, that did not feel totally satisfactory. In that case, I would never know did he actually went to campus security and got it. It was bothering me, and I was not sure how to address this problem. Still brainstorming about that, I reached campus cafeteria. Maybe after cup of coffee I could think something better.
Cafeteria was the usual jungle of students truing to hang out, grab something to eat, go try their papers and talk - all at the same time. With coffee in my hand, I was treading try the crowd looking for a place to sit down. I spotted Scott at one of the tables, talking to some blonde girl. I didn't wanted to intrude, but he saw me and flagged me in.
"What's up man? I heard that you got flamed in Physic today!" "I see the news travel fast around here...how did you find out so quickly? I just happened, like ten minutes ago?!?" "Courtney here was just telling me...man, I can only picture the scene... I bet it was awesome!"
That was typical Scott. I knew him from day one - we shared room for about two months until I got sick of dorms and moved out. He was happy to get rid of me - his girlfriend moved in the same night. He was really ok guy, just a little loud for my taste. We still hang out together from time to time. "Courtney, I guess you know Hayden by now" Scott continued "Yeah, she and everybody else in Raysbroock's class...I'm gonna be know as Mr. LoudCellPhone from now one" I frowned. " Like you can do something about that," he retorted, almost choking on his fries. "Would you like to sit her with us, Hayden?" Courtney smiled. She really looked ok, on the second look. It was just that I was not in the mood for a dating game yet. And besides that I was not quite sure which dating game I SHOULD be in the mood for. Yeah, I simply loved my messed up, split-in-two brain that couldn't decide for me which chair I should sit on. We talk for a bit, and actually Courtney proved to be quite ok. At least it is always beneficial to meet more people from the same class. I was in the middle of telling them about my "pleasant" conversation with Raysbroock, when I saw him.
I stopped in the middle of my sentence. At that moment it became imperative to observe his movement try the crowd, his body twisting left and right as he was making his way in between tables and crowd, holding what looked like wrapped sandwich and bottle of juice. In just that brief moment, I managed to soak all the details on him. Faded jeans, t-shirt with some logo on the sleeve, backpack on the left shoulder. Black short hair and just portions of his face as he was treading trough the crowd towards the exit.
"Hayden?" "Huh? Um, yeah, sorry." I concealed my story break with sip from my coffee cup. I finished my episode at Raysbroock office, and excused my self from the table with some made-up story about that I forgot to do something and I had to leave. I hate lying, but sometimes it is just easier. Besides, it was not quite a lie - I had to catch this guy before he disappears.
It took me nearly two minutes to get out of cafeteria. Outside, I did quick scan in three directions that he might went. There were only three paths that lead to cafeteria from rest of the campus. And he was nowhere in site. How did he managed to run away so quickly? Even if he was truly running, I could still see him; pathways are alt least eight of a mile long - nobody can be that fast. Confused I just stood there, with people moving in and out of the doorway. I took a second look around and then I noticed him. He was just little sideways, sitting underneath the big tree, unwrapping his sandwich. I took a big breath and I moved along towards him.
End of chapter two
Another hanger, don't you just hate that? Stay tuned; third installment will be her in day or so. Again, any comment is appreciated. Write to raspucin70@yahoo.com