Forty-eight

I DIDN’T THINK I’d done my best work on either Dennis’s or Strait’s final, but I was confident that I had saved my grade-point average and my scholarship. My scholarship was also contingent on competing. The most we had was inter-club competitions in Seattle. Next week, though, was National Intercollegiate Championships. I didn’t feel ready, but at least we were taking a team this year. And we’d see Allison.

Melody didn’t have a break at the same time we did at SCU. She and Kate wouldn’t be able to join us in Tempe. That meant we were in trouble regarding Ice Queen Sportswear. Intercollegiates were to be the introductory venue for Ice Queen Knights. Wendy’s quarter break was at the same time as mine and she spent hours with Melody going over the stock and booth management. Wendy could handle orders and take money—she was a pro at that with all her restaurant experience. It would be too exhausting to only have one person, though. I was really surprised when Amanda volunteered to work for us that week. Not that it was a volunteer position. We were going to pay her and pay her expenses, but the fact that she would be there was great. Rio complained that she’d promised to go home over break and wished she’d known we needed help before she committed. With both Amanda and Wendy to manage the booth and Bree, Lissa, Allison, and me to fill in, we figured we would manage. All of us had Melody on speed dial.

The boys were with us for the weekend before we left for Tempe and that was a treat. I hadn’t been able to spend much time with them the past few weeks and I devoted Saturday to boy-play. They wanted to drum on Sunday and I called in all the drummers I could think of to help us burn off our post-finals stress. The whole racquetball team showed up. It was a like a team-building exercise. They all enjoyed beating the drums and several had drums of their own to bring. A few boyfriends and girlfriends joined. It might have been more people than we had at New Year’s. Of course, Kate led all the women in dancing.

We were all getting nervous about the big tournament. Last year, we didn’t have a team—it was just me and I was an unknown player ranked as Elite. This year, with eight of us competing, we would be eligible for team trophies. That was cool, even if we didn’t win anything.

Coach Jacobson arranged to take us to the airport in a team bus. Sam was coming down with us and was in charge of all the official stuff like paying for the hotel and approving our registration fees. He’d been kind enough to tack on the reservations for Wendy and Amanda even though Lissa and I had to pay for their tickets, hotel rooms and expenses. There were pretty specific rules we all had to follow regarding how much food could be charged to our rooms, no booze, and no pay movies. But since the NIC was the only event we were traveling for this season, we had a pretty generous allowance. No one complained.

We had a team dinner and all went to bed. Play started first thing Tuesday morning.

I won’t go through everything in Intercollegiate play. There are six men’s divisions based on level and test scores. Division 1 is the elite players. That’s what I played in. Walt, our other men’s singles competitor was playing in Division 4. Franklin and Brent were Division 2 Men’s Doubles out of three divisions. They looked really strong. Rachel and Bree were both competing in Women’s Division 6 Singles. They had the least experience and were the smallest players on our team. The big threat on the women’s team were Tonya and Whitney playing Women’s Division 2 Doubles. Whitney had decided to play singles as well and was registered in Women’s Division 3 Singles. She was going to be a busy girl.

I was surprised to find that I was ranked eighth by way of my points in last year’s championships, National Singles, and Opens. I’d acquired a few points in local tournaments that were USAR sanctioned. Believe me there were guys who played sanctioned competitions all year and had a lot more points. But being ranked in the top twenty-four meant I drew a bye in the first round. Tuesday afternoon I faced my first opponent from Texas. We played hard and had a good match. I won by three and four in two games. I was feeling pretty good. Unless I dropped a level, I only had one match a day to worry about.

If you lose in the round of 64 or the round of 32 in the Gold Bracket, you automatically drop to the Red Bracket. If you lose in the round of 16 in Gold, you drop to the Blue Bracket. If you lose in the either of the first two rounds of the Red Bracket, you drop to the White Bracket. The top eight places in each bracket get points and are considered to have placed in that bracket. The only prize that meant anything to me, though, was going up against Brian Summers for the national title. But Summers didn’t come to the tournament. He’s from out East and apparently considered it too far to come for a tournament. The first time I could possibly meet him would be at National Singles.

There were a few guys I’d met in the tournament last year, but for the most part I couldn’t watch anyone else in my division play before I met them on the court. I did have time to help my team and split some responsibilities with Lissa so that when we had players playing at the same time, like Bree and Rachel, we could each coach one of them.

And ref. In Intercollegiate sports, upper division players are all expected to take a turn each day refereeing a match in a lower division. Twelve matches are going on at all times. You can’t expect to get thirty-six officials—three for each court—to work non-stop from eight o’clock in the morning until ten o’clock at night.

Brent and Franklin won their first match. Bree won her first match, but Rachel dropped to the Red Bracket after her first match. I hoped she would win at least one match. Walt lost his first match, but said he’d do better in the Red Bracket. He was too nervous to focus.

The real surprise was in Tonya and Whitney. They tore up their first opponents in Doubles. It took them three games, but they took the duo from West Point in a strong battle. Whitney came right back half an hour later to totally destroy her first Singles opponent by four and by thirteen. The girl came off the court and crushed Lissa to her with a kiss that turned a lot of heads.

By dinnertime, we were all exhausted and running on adrenalin and caffeine. Lissa got us settled down and Sam took the team to dinner. I checked on Wendy and Amanda. They were collapsed in chairs behind our table with a glazed look on their faces. I guess our team uniforms had been a hit. They’d sold a couple dozen outfits, including the new Knights outfits for guys. But more importantly, they’d been on the phone with Melody for an hour writing up two custom team orders. That was a big deal.

We closed up the booth and grabbed a bite to eat. We were doubled up in the rooms. In fact, the guys were bunked in a single room with an extra bed in it. I was lucky to share a room with Lissa. Wendy traded rooms with Rachel so she and Bree could room together. Rachel was okay with that since she knew Amanda and they got along great. I had a feeling that wasn’t the last trade that would be made. Lissa and I had a king-sized bed that we were sharing with Allison, who had cleaned up her first opponent. Both Wendy and Bree had looked longingly at our bed. I saw them whispering to Amanda and Whitney, too. Oh boy.

There was something special about snuggling into bed between Lissa and Allie. We hadn’t seen Allie since Christmas. We didn’t make love. We didn’t even try to tease each other much. We were too exhausted from the excitement of the day. They sandwiched me between them and both lay partially on top of me while we drifted off to sleep.

I woke up with a hard-on in a familiar place and Lissa was moving back against me. I let my hips thrust forward a little and could feel her moist center at the tip of my prick.

I wasn’t expecting the covers to be thrown off and someone to smack my butt.

“You get that out of there, young man!” Allison shouted, pulling at me until I rolled away from Lissa. “You have a competition and you aren’t allowed little treats like that until after you win it. I’m on edge and by god you will be, too.”