Chapter 7: Untied Shoes

When I got home, I took a shower and grabbed something to eat. I had another game to work, so I headed over to the soccer fields. I was working as a line judge for a girl's under-sixteen game. Working as a line judge was easy. Plus, since I was only working half the field, I could talk a little with some of the kids on the teams while they were on the sidelines. Since both teams, the Sting Rays and the Kickin' Chicks, were from our school, it was a friendly game, with the girls on both sides just as ready to joke with their opponents as try to steal the ball from them. Molly O'Toole was a midfielder on the Sting Rays team, and I saw Josh and his mom sitting in the bleachers watching the game.

After the game, Josh came up to me and said, "Sean, a bunch of us are going to the Dairy Queen. Want to come along and hang out?"

"Sure," I said. "Who all is going?"

"Oh, me and Shayna and Molly and Tessa and Jen and Sam and Toby and maybe some others. The girls want to shower and clean up from the game, so they are going to meet us there in about an hour."

"Sounds good. Maybe I'll swing over to Jake's house to see if he wants to come, too," I said.

"Okay, great. I'll see you there, then," he said. He ran to catch up to his mom and his sister.

Shayna Gallagher was Josh's girlfriend, a rough-and-tumble girl who played soccer with abandon, heedless of injury. She had only been playing for about a year, but she had already earned a bit of a reputation as a player to be careful around. She would knock you down and run right over you without a glance. On the other hand, she would take a knockdown from an opponent without a second thought, considering it all a part of the game. Most other girls around our age tended to take rough treatment on the soccer field almost personally, instead of adopting Shayna's laissez faire attitude. She had bright red hair that she kept cut short, and was attractive in a tomboyish kind of way.

Molly, like her older sister Heather, was a real Irish beauty, with long, curly red-gold hair. I've heard people call her hair color strawberry blonde, and I guess that's an accurate description. She was on the junior varsity cheerleading squad during our freshman year, and was looking forward to joining her sister on the varsity squad this year. She was tall and slender, and looked really good in her letter sweaters and pleated skirts.

Tessa Navarrone was Molly's best friend, and was her physical opposite. Tessa was short and dark, and looked slightly overweight (a mistake her opponents on the playing field often made, to their dismay), with coarse black hair. She was a bulldog on the soccer field though, playing at the keeper position. She had two special attributes as a goalkeeper: she could punt the ball into the opponent's half of the field, and she was steadfast in her defense of a breakaway or a penalty kick. She tallied more shutouts than anyone else I had ever heard about around our area. She would often use her loud voice to move her defensive teammates around, or to rally her team to greater efforts, taking a leadership role on the defensive side.

Jen Davies and her boyfriend, Sam Loggins, were both a year younger than the rest of us. Jen played forward for the Kickin' Chicks, and was their leading scorer. She was tall and gangly, excruciatingly thin, and could pump her long legs fast enough to leave everyone around her in her dust. I thought her ball handling skills were only average, but her speed made her a formidable player. She and Sam had been going together just since the spring, but all summer long you never saw one without the other being nearby. Sam was also very tall, well over six feet, and as a freshman was considered to be the future star of our high school basketball team.

Toby Mueller was the runt of the group, a practical joker and Energizer bunny. I always told him he was a perfect Ritalin kid, and he never disagreed. I thought he was as manic as he was so people wouldn't care quite as much about how small he was, and it mostly worked. He was smaller than Jaimie's sister Tara, even though he was fifteen like most of the rest of us. He even had to show his school ID when he went to a PG-13 movie. And in a bit of a perverse twist, I knew he really had a serious thing about Jen. Just the thought of six- foot Jen walking around with tiny Toby was enough to make me bust a gut. However, I kept his secret to myself, and didn't laugh even when he told me about his feelings for her.

I hopped on my bike and raced over to Jake's house. He was home, in the basement playing a game of Pong.

"Come on," I urged. "No time to waste. Let's go, now!"

I grabbed the controller out of his hand and threw it down, and practically pushed him up the stairs and out his back door.

"Grab your bike and follow me," I yelled as I took off across the field behind his house.

"Sean! Wait up!" I could hear him struggling to catch up to me as I dropped my bike at the edge of the woods.

"Come on," I yelled. "You're going to owe me big time for this!"

He finally rode up, out of breath, and I headed into the woods with Jake at my heels. I turned and put my finger to my lips, silently indicating to him to be quiet, as we approached the ladder on the tree behind the O'Toole house. We climbed up to our perches, and I pointed toward the bathroom window.

We didn't have to wait long. After a few minutes, a lovely and completely naked Molly stepped from the shower and into our view in the mirror. Her breasts were high and tight on her chest as she raised her arms to wrap a towel around her wet hair. We could just see a shadow of her reddish blonde pubic hair as she moved across our field of vision. We watched her take another towel off a shelf and wrap it around her, and she opened the door and stepped out of the bathroom.

Since the curtains to her room were still closed, Jake and I scrambled down and out of the woods to our bikes.

"Did you see that!" Jake exclaimed. "Un-fucking-believable! How did you know she would be there?"

I told him about the soccer game, and Josh's invitation, as we climbed back on our bikes and started back across the field.

"All right, I'm there! Let me just let my mom know where we're going, and I'll be right back out," he said as he dropped his bike and headed into his house.

We rode together over to the Dairy Queen. Toby, Sam, Jen, and Josh were already there, sitting around two picnic tables set up behind the building. Jen and Sam were holding cones and sitting together, and Toby and Josh were holding the other table for the group. Jake, Josh, and I went in and ordered, and by the time we got back out, the rest of the group had arrived. Jake looked at Molly, and immediately turned red and looked away. In my mind's eye, I could see her, as she was just a few minutes ago, damp and fresh as she stepped from her shower. I knew that Jake was thinking the same thing. Luckily, Molly and Tessa ran into the store, along with Toby and Shayna and Josh, to place their orders without noticing Jake's discomfort. By the time they came out with their ice cream, we were all back to our usual rowdy selves again.

Sam, Jen, Josh, Shayna, and Toby were sitting at one table, and the rest of us were draped around the other one as we indulged in the delights that only can be had on a late summer day in the sunshine. Molly and I were on one side of the table, and Tessa and Jake were across from us.

"Hey, Sean," said Tessa, "I hear you're giving soccer lessons."

"Yeah," I said. "Where did you hear that?"

"I heard it," said Molly. "I baby-sit for Mrs. Wilkinson sometimes, and she asked me if I knew you."

"Wow," interrupted Toby as he hopped up onto our tabletop from his seat. He squatted down so that he was nearly eye level with us. "And she hired you anyway?"

We all laughed, and Tessa pushed him off our table. "Back where you belong, Monkey Boy," she said.

"Where I belong," he said, crouching on the ground, looking up at Tessa and batting his eyes, "is in your lap, sampling your considerable charms."

"Here, sample this," she shot back at him, flipping him the finger.

"See?" he said, standing and turning to his companions at the other table. "Completely and utterly charming." He shrugged and sat back down. Everybody at both tables threw wadded up napkins at him.

"What do you know about the Wilkinsons?" I turned to Molly.

"Well, you know Davey and Kip, right?" I nodded. "They're good boys," she continued, "but boy, are they ever active. I think Mrs. Wilkinson just has me come over so she can relax by herself for awhile and not worry about her kids."

"She told me she was a single mom. What happened to Mr. Wilkinson?" I asked.

"I don't know for sure," she said. "All I know is that he died, but I don't know what happened. She really misses him, though. Sometimes while I'm giving the boys a bath, I can hear her crying in her bedroom. It's really sad."

"Boy, I didn't know any of that. I'll have to watch my mouth," I said.

"How often are you going over there?" asked Tessa.

"She wants me to come every day I can until school starts," I said. "So, unless it rains or something, I'll be there just about every afternoon for an hour or so."

"That's really great," Molly said. I felt her slide a little closer, until our legs were just barely touching. "Creating future soccer stars, I present to you, Sean Porter, Instructor of the Year!" She patted me on the back. Everybody applauded, with Toby and Jake adding whistles and cheers, while I bowed in mock humility as I sat there.

The sun was starting to go down and it was cooling off. We all split up, and Jake and I rode back to his house. As we rolled up to his driveway, Jaimie and Kayla came out of Jaimie's house. They stopped when they saw us, and put their heads together for a moment before coming down to us.

"Hey, Jake, you want to come over and watch TV?" asked Jaimie.

Jake looked over at me inquisitively. I gave him a small, quick nod.

"Sure," he said. He put his bike away and walked with Jaimie to her house.

"Do you want to come in for awhile and hang out?" asked Kayla, a small nervous smile on her face.

"Okay," I said. I propped my bike up against their garage. Kayla and I went into her house through the back door, and down the stairs into the basement. Kayla deliberately left the lights off while she turned on the television.

"Do you want something to drink?" she asked.

"Sure, anything is fine," I said.

She ran back upstairs, and was on her way back down in a few minutes with a tray with cold sodas and glasses of ice.

We sat together on the floor, leaning against the couch, and watched television for a few minutes while we drank our sodas. I was so nervous that I had no idea what we were watching, and I thought Kayla must have felt the same. I could hear her breathing heavily next to me. Almost by tacit agreement, we both put down our empty glasses at the same time and turned to look at each other. I stared into her deep eyes for a few moments, and then put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her to me.

We moved in slow motion as we leaned toward each other, our faces getting closer and closer, until I tilted my head and our lips touched softly. We pressed together harder as we kissed, until we could no longer hold the chaste kiss we began with. Our lips opened against each other, and our tongues met in the middle. She won the first battle, and her tongue invaded my mouth, tasting and exploring along my cheeks, my teeth, the roof of my mouth, and back toward my throat. She then sucked in, drawing my tongue into her mouth, and acquiesced as I explored her mouth, from lips to throat and cheek to gums.

She moaned softly, and I think I did, too. Without any warning, my clothes began to feel tight and confining. Kayla must have felt the same, because she was reaching for the hem of my t-shirt and pulling it up so she could run her hands on the bare skin of my chest and back. It seemed like a good idea, so I stopped kissing her long enough to grab the hem of her t-shirt and lift it off her, as well. We both threw the shirts back behind us and fell back into each other's arms, resuming our heated kisses. As I reached around her and brought my hand up to her small breast, I kissed and licked my way from her lips to her ear, then down her neck. I could detect her fast pulse as I nuzzled the hollow of her soft throat. My fingers reveled in the pliant softness of her breast as I hefted her mound in the palm of my hand before moving up to feel her rising nipple. I enjoyed the feeling of her nipple filling and rising in my palm before playing my fingertips across to her other breast and hefting it the same way. As I palmed her other nipple, once again feeling it expand as I held it, she pressed her chest into my hand, throwing her head back in pleasure. I dropped my lips to her breast, taking the nipple between my teeth before sucking on her tip, all the while playing with the other small boob. She was starting to gasp for air as the surge of pleasure moved through her nerve endings into her brain, and I could feel her legs start to squeeze together involuntarily as the sensations made their connection from her breasts to her pussy.