Chapter 22

The next few weeks were rough for me. At work I was at least able to put my mind off the loss of my dad and work, but it wasn’t with the same energy as had been before. Sure, I was still friendly when approached, but I didn’t go as out of my way to talk to people or to seek out the group when they would go out to Denny’s or somewhere else after the park closed. Tonya and Tenille both noticed and gave me a little space, but thankfully not too much. If anything, I actually saw more of Tonya over that time. She wouldn’t press, but she was around and approachable. Plus, the nice thing of having a female friend as close as we were it was an easy way to get a hug whenever I may need one.

As the months started to move towards the end of August we were forced to start the back to school count down. That also meant that for me I was starting to ramp up my running to four days a week now. I felt like I was able to be closing up the summer with at least having a good endurance base built up, which has been my target for the summer. That thought was backed up with one of our first team optional workouts. Coach had me strap on a heart rate monitor when we went out on a long distance run to see how the pace would be. Even he had to admit with about a mile left that my conditioning was very good for preseason, most of the team hadn’t been able to keep up and my heart rate had stayed low. I do have to admit though it felt weird; the heart rate monitor was a strap that went around your chest and beneath your shirt. We were able to have a few more practices like that with as much of the team as could make it. I felt encouraged for the team, I wasn’t the only one who had been working out over the summer. As it was, I was still about sixth or seventh for the team, with a couple new sophomores coming in who looked to be pushing for varsity spots. On our last preseason meeting we held the voting for captains and I ended up being one of four picked for the boys’ side as captains, so now I definitely felt that I had to make sure I was still putting in the effort and work needed to set an example and perform well.

This year in classes I was taking French again so that I would have my two years of a language required for a lot of colleges. Wouldn’t you know it, there was a girl named Julie in the class I was liking and getting to know better. It helped in her case that we had a mutual friend in common – one of her girlfriends lived in my neighborhood. Julie was smart and funny, pretty in a subtle way in my opinion. She wasn’t the type that needed a lot of make up to look good and what make up she did wear was muted and tastefully done. With the Halloween dance coming up, I’d decided that if I hadn’t been asked out by the time there was two weeks before the dance that I was going to ask her and nevermind the tradition that it was supposed to be a girl’s choice dance.

As it happened though I didn’t have to worry about that. On a Friday I was asked by Julie and I’s mutual friend why I hadn’t answered her about the dance yet. I, of course, could only state I couldn’t answer someone who hadn’t asked me yet. Turns out, she had placed a styrofoam headstone in the garden in front of my house and with the garden almost dead for the year no one had noticed it was there. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t find it until the Friday we were leaving for the deer hunt. The hunt went well, even though I didn’t get a deer and once I’d gotten home and showered I was off at the grocery store getting a plastic pumpkin and some candy in order to answer her for the dance. My school had a tradition of trying to do creative ways of answering and asking for the dance dates, so I couldn’t in good form just call her up and say yes (plus, I didn’t have her phone number yet). When I got home I was greeted by the older of my two sister’s giggling and handing me a pumpkin full of candy with a note that I was being asked to the dance again. I lucked out though, it was merely Julie asking again after she’d found out I hadn’t actually gotten the first one but not having gotten the message that I was out of town for the hunt that weekend. With that bullet dodged I took her answer to her house and let her know that I would love to be going with her, even getting a hug for my troubles in the process while we both laughed about no one seeing her fake headstone attempt the first time.

When I told Tonya and Tenille about it the next day in orchestra they both first rolled their eyes and then laughed at how it had happened. Tenille seemed genuinely glad I’d been asked out by the girl I told them I wanted to go with while Tonya was her usual moody Monday morning person, grumbling about whatever she could really. They each already had dates this year and were planning on going as a group together, Tenille was even going with one of the guys from the cross country team that I was friends with. I didn’t know Tonya’s date, he was a junior as well in her English class with her. I was told I had to promise to save a dance for each of them, but given the smart advice to tell my date about it first so I wouldn’t cause any problems with the idea.

The dance for us was fun. The group we had was three couples, with one of the guys being a guy from my neighborhood that I’d played church basketball with and done the scout thing, so we knew each other fairly well. The costumes we each had were as jailbirds, white outfits with the black stripes and handcuffs to go with. Each couple was going to be handcuffed together, but Julie and I had to wait since she was driving her parent’s minivan. Our first stop was to go to one of the haunted houses they had. It was fun and a great built in reason to be getting close, though I think I ended up with finger nail marks on my biceps as well as my ears ringing from several girls’ screaming.

After the haunted house we went to have a quick homemade spaghetti dinner and then off to the dance. I was definitely liking the feel of having Julie close in my arms, even more so because I was getting a good vibe from her as well. I tried to keep up with her during the fast songs and failed fairly miserably, but had the chance to at least not step on her toes during the slow songs. At the end of the evening I was the last one to be dropped off since it was my date driving. The odd thing about a girl’s choice dance for me was doing the doorstep scene in reverse. I didn’t worry about it too much though, but just pulled her close and then getting a nice kiss as well. I think she was surprised at first but was quickly up to speed with kissing.

Julie and I continued to date each weekend for the next few weeks. Our third date I’d taken her to dinner and a movie. On the way home we ended up going to a park up in the foothills that was nice and quiet this time of night. Once parked she slid across the seat and I moved mine back to create some room as we began making out. Her body felt more lean then what it looked with her clothes, an obvious result of her tendency to wear somewhat baggy clothes. My hands moved down to grip her ass through her jeans, pulling her lower body against me through our clothes while our tongues danced together in our kiss. Instead of struggling I was rewarded with a moan from her throat and felt her legs widen so that I could feel her pubic bone against my cock through our clothes.