Chapter 14

Over the next week, Julie wasn't as upset as I thought she'd be. However, to release her frustrations, she started to do two things. She started to pull harder on the Erg, and she became a regular visitor to my bed. This was not for love or romance; it was just a release of sexual tension. It turned out that we were good together in bed. Each time we had sex, we drove each other to perform at a higher level.

The next weekend, there was another Regatta on the schedule in Philadelphia. It wasn't, as big as Boston, but many people still attended. We left on Thursday after class, and drove the bus down to the City of Brotherly Love. When Julie claimed the seat next to me, I knew that my previous plans to study were no longer valid. As we watched the sunset, and the bus got darker, I took her hand, and just held it for a while. She wanted to pull away, but didn't want to upset me. She asked, "What is it?"

"I'm worried about you? Are you all right, or do you want to talk about what's going on in your family?"

"There isn't much to talk about. We all knew that it would happen at some point. I think that we didn't expect it to happen until after my sister Katherine left home, or graduated high school. I think that we're all just sad that it happened to us. Mom's family was the one with the money. Dad works for her family's business. The company makes components for the Defense Department. My grandfather retired ten years ago. At that point, Dad took over running the business. But the other side is that my mom and my grandparents still own a majority of the stock. Dad has gotten quite a few shares while running the company."

"So will your dad lose his job?"

"I don't think so. He's good at his job. He and mom will remain friends, but not husband and wife. Mom is going to move in the beach house over the summer, and either stay there, or find another place. Dad will keep the house in Lexington since it's close to his office."

"If you need anything, or I can help in any way, please let me know." I really felt for Julie.

"I had a long talk with my Mom, and she has a lot of things to work out. She doesn't blame you badly. But, she sees you as the trigger that started this latest set of events in motion. You were honest with her, and even though I thought you were joking, you were honest with me."

"So, should I stay away from you, your mother, or all the above?"

"I think she wants you to have me, her and my sister. She said that you had skills that are hard to find in even the best of lovers. You're welcome in our home any time. Just the thought that she'd want to have a relationship with you rather freaks me out. Although after waiting, as long as I did, I'm kicking myself because I didn't get with you sooner. I'm not jealous of any of the other girls who make it to your bed. So I decided to feel happy for my mom instead of being Jealous. Just don't try one of those mother and daughter things at the same time."

"A boy can only dream."

"Dream all you want. Thanks for being such a good friend this year. Adam tells me that you're on track to receive straight 'A's' for the year."

"That's the way it's looking. I was going to study on the bus, but with such a pretty girl beside me I got distracted."

"Did you really write an English paper while my mom was downstairs getting laid?"

"Dan had a disgustingly hairy ass. It just wasn't appealing to watch."

"I think that I'd do schoolwork, as well."

Suddenly, she lifted my hand, and kissed the back before letting it go. She then placed her head back against the headrest, and closed her eyes. At the hotel, she was rooming with Tiffany, and I was with Bob. Nikki and Wendy had become closer, as the season went on, and they were rooming together. We all felt tired, and knew that we'd have breakfast by seven, so we called it a night, and went to bed.

Bob was slow to react to the alarm, so I jumped in the shower first. He banged on the door, because he had to take a leak. I wrapped a towel around my body, and let him in, as I continued to dress in the room. We didn't have to pack up, because we'd be staying two nights, and then leaving after our race on Saturday. In the morning, we ate breakfast as a team, and they gave us a per diem amount for lunch and dinner. The plan was for the team to have a practice at nine, and then set up our staging area. After that, we were free until bed check at 11PM.

Nikki became the proverbial drill sergeant, and got the boat in the water. There were many boats out on the water for an early practice. We were unloading next to the team from Yale, and it turned out that one of the guys was an Emerson graduate. He came over to say hello, and wished us luck in the regatta. His name was Richard Fox. I asked him if they wanted to race us. He laughed, but said, "You can follow us around, and if you catch us, we can call it a race."

Nikki overheard the conversation, and as they rowed up river, she said to the crew, "When Yale makes their turn we're going to race them. It will be a side-by-side headrace. Yale isn't the dominant team this year, but we're a dominant high school team this year. Let's give it our best, and we'll have thirty hours to rest up for tomorrow."

This was a longer race of 4800 meters, or just shy of three miles. As both teams reached the turnaround point, I called over to Richard. "How many seconds are you going to spot us, and what are we betting?"

"Thirty seconds, and the looser carries the boat for the winning team."

Their Cox said, "They're high school teenagers, so let's make it fair, and offer them forty-five seconds."

Nikki said, "Thanks in advance for putting away our equipment." She turned back to our crew, and said, "We can do this. I'm putting us on a split pace of 1:40. I know that, as a team, we can do this."

The Yale boat came about, and said that they would start forty-five seconds after us, and the finish line would be the deciding line. There was a starter up there to help boats practicing their starts. He marked us, as we crossed, giving us an advantage, because Yale would have to time their start forty-five seconds later.

Nikki was a taskmaster, but she held us on pace. We had a few mishaps. There was the errant oar hitting the water, or needing to navigate around other boats. We could see the Yale team gaining, and Nikki kept the pace, but we didn't panic or fold. We acted as if they weren't there, and at the end pulled a hard thirty to break sixteen minutes at 15:57.45. The Yale team crossed right on our tails at 15:17.22. We were cheering, as were some people on the bank. I guess that the starter had radioed the race in, because the coaches of both teams were there. It was all good fun with a 45-second gift, and we were both pleased with our times. It was fun to watch the guys with the 'Y' on their shirts carry our boat up to the trailer.

Richard said that some of his team were going for cheese steaks, and invited us to come along. It was a good afternoon. The only problem was that half the guys wanted Geno's, and the other half-wanted Pats'. I had stopped by a little chocolate shop on the way over and spoke up to say, "I stopped in that great chocolate shop down the road and some lady named Gloria said that Pat's was for tourists that didn't know what a real cheese steak was". We all went to Geno's.

Our high school team felt happy to hang around the college rowers, and the college guys were nice enough. When one of the guys' tried to become a little friendly with Nikki, she grabbed my arm. He quickly faded away.

With the end of the year right around the corner, I decided to head back to the room to study. It would rest my body, and help keep my grades where they were. Nikki came to my room, and sat on my bed. While she read her textbook, I tried some math problems. I was going back through the book, and doing the chapter review questions since the final was all-inclusive from the beginning of the year.

When I finished the first five chapters, I took a break, so I could kiss the inner thighs of the girl on my bed. She started to protest. Then I just let her knees fall to the side, and I didn't remove her shorts, but just pulled the crotch of her shorts and underwear aside, and attacked her with my tongue. She hit my head with her book when she reached for me, but then threw it on the floor, and used her hands to force my face harder against her cunt. I tilted my head, and sucked on her clit to make her cum.

She offered to return the favor, but I was already off the bed, and on my way to the bathroom to wash my face. Bob and Tiffany came in while I was in the bathroom. They looked over and saw Nikki in the same position I left her with the book on the floor, and her pussy exposed to the world.

Tiffany said, "It looks like we missed all the fun."

I walked out to reply, "Don't let us stop you. Nikki and I'd enjoy watching you two have fun."

Tiffany looked at Bob with hope in her eyes. Bob said, "Would you mind hanging out in Nikki's room for a while?"

"Sure. Sorry Tiff, you can show me yours later. Let's go, Nikki. Do you want to fix your shorts, or should I just carry them for you, so that you can put on a better show?"

She fixed her shorts, and picked up her book. I put on some flip-flops, and followed her to her room where we watched TV. That night, parents started to show up, and everyone was off to places unknown, to catch up with family, and eat a good meal. Both Julie's mom and dad came in for the regatta. Her sister came along, as well. It was fun to see her all decked out in Emerson garb.

I saw them in the hotel lobby waiting for Julie. In the meantime, I waited for Wendy and Nikki to join me for dinner. I said hello to everyone, and asked Katherine if she was ready to come to Emerson next year. She looked excited about the adventure of leaving home. I told her to work hard, because we needed to replace her sister on the crew team. Just then, all three girls we were waiting on walked off the elevator. Julie looked like she was going to ask us to join them. But when I gave her the look, she realized that this was the first time the family would be together since the weekend at the beach house. I gave her a quick hug, and told her to act strong, and I'd be there when she got back.

Wendy had lived in Philly when her dad was with the Sixers'. She wanted to eat at Pete's Pizza. When we arrived at the place, we ordered the Jumbo Pete's special. Nikki was the only person to pick off the anchovies. I'd never had them before, but they weren't too bad.

I didn't hear from Julie on Friday night, but she was at the team breakfast on Saturday. She was doing OK, and she said that her family talked it out. They realized that they were all going to survive. For today, she just wanted to focus on rowing. Our hotel wasn't too far from the river, and they told us to arrive at our school tent by noon. To make it easier, we could rest in our rooms instead of lying on the ground for four hours.

I studied until 11, and then walked over to watch some racing. At noon, we had a head count, and then started to prepare our equipment. The boat put in and take out were about the same, but the row up to the starting line was longer, so Nikki had us launch, and then take a slower pace up to the start. This gave us more time to rest before our scheduled time. I guess that she had some planning meetings with the coaches, because she knew what to do.

Before it was time for us to go, she said. "We finished with just under sixteen minutes yesterday, and I expect the same today. I want to see us passing some boats. We lost to the team from Chattanooga in Boston. They aren't here today, but I wish they were, so we could return the favor. I don't want to lose to anyone ever again by less than a second. Leave it all on the water. You can rest on the bus ride home."

We started on the same pace, as the day before, so we were catching, and passing boats. As we got our bow closer to a boat, she'd call for a hard twenty. When we finished it, and found we that we were past the other boat, we went back to our normal pace. The passing of boats gave us the boost of adrenalin to keep us going. As she called a hard twenty to finish the race, and pass one last boat, all of us felt exhausted. She had to let us drift downstream a ways then hold for a bit while we caught our breath. We then crawled back to the take-out. We had to retrieve our stuff, and leave quickly. I was glad that we'd come in on Thursday. We picked a good spot for our trailer, so we didn't have to walk as far with the boat. Our official time was 15:46.07. We won our division by over thirty seconds. I wished the team from Chattanooga had been there, but several other teams that we hadn't faced in Boston were there.

Bob came up to me, and said, "Those 10 K's that you had us do all the time paid off. Those other boats were either at a slower pace through the entire course, or died half way through."

"I'm glad we won, and I'm glad it's over."

The girls had gone before us, and won their division. We stayed and watched Yale finish second to Harvard. By then we were packed, and soon were on the road headed back to New Hampshire. It was a seven-hour bus ride plus a stop for dinner. We had checked out of the hotel earlier, but we had kept two rooms for showers. Getting everyone clean turned out being an assembly line. After dinner, the weight of the race, and the family meeting, finally caught up with Julie. So she put her head on my chest, and was soon asleep.

We had a several more small meets, but for the most part, we were in finals mode. Papers, projects, and tests filled our thoughts. I was lucky that I was in review mode, as I'd previously finished all of my papers and projects. I reviewed for finals, but felt good.

After he finished the work on his Statistics and Computer Programming projects, Adam received an 'A' on both. So he decided to discuss it with some of the people from his summer job. After that discussion, they asked him if he could try to recreate the program on their network. Since I'd helped him before, he told me about his discussion. After our talk, I gave Adam some advice. I told him that he needed to remember that he created the program on his time. Following the successful conversion, if they planned to use his program, they should give him a licensing fee, or royalty.

When he mentioned my suggestion to Mike Wells, Tiffany's father, he said that his request was a fair one. He'd investigate the request and get back to him with an answer. One night we all were sitting around, not doing much. So we went around the circle and asked each person to talk about their summer plans. Julie was going to the beach house, and would be working, as a waitress at a local lobster house. Tess was starting summer school at NYU. Adam would be living with me in New York City, and interning with E.J. Patterson in their research department. Tiffany would be out in the Hampton's working at a bakery. Bob was staying at Emerson to help run their summer sports camp in crew. In addition, the team elected him, as next year's captain.

Nadia and I'd be working for her dad, cleaning commercial buildings at night in New York City. Nikki would be working with Bob at the sports camp. Mika would be going home to Japan for the summer. Wendy was going to Detroit, so she could be with her family. She was going to try to find a summer job, but so far, didn't have one lined up. I suggested she cut hair over the summer, or work at a spa. She blushed at that, and everyone got a chuckle.

I'd finished all of my exams except one. Suddenly, the Dean's Office called me and asked me to visit the office. When I got there, Bob was waiting outside his office, as well. They soon let us in, and offered us a seat.

Dean Vance, (Nikki's dad) said, "Nick and Bob, first, before we start I want to thank both of you, for reaching out, and being a good friend to Nikki this year. I can't remember when she's been, as happy as she's been this year."

"We both think that she's a great girl, and we're happy that we're her friend. Is there anything wrong?"

"No, nobody's in trouble. Nick, as a part of the building program here at Emerson, you qualify for an upper room. It also offers you the privileges that are a part of that room. I know that you've chosen Bob, as the senior who'll share a room with you this coming year. We have an issue where we have a set of twins coming in next year who also qualify. Their grandfather funded the gymnasium. The problem is that we only have Chase and Buckley, with possible rooms."

"Nick, I spoke to your mom. As two freshmen, an RA will have to check on the twins every night. To make that easier, we're moving them to Chase where we have a RA from the third floor who can keep an eye on them. We'll have the Erg moved, or a new one installed in the Buckley fourth floor. You and Bob will be staying in Buckley next year, and Bob, you can stay there over the summer."

"I see that you're both doing well with your grades, and have stayed out of trouble."

He looked at me, for a little longer than I liked, but I just kept my mouth shut. He continued, "Bob, I've spoken to your parents and explained the situation. They've agreed to the arrangement that I just explained. Both of you will still not have access to the girls wings. Miss Wilson the Home Ec. teacher and swim coach will have the first apartment next to the commons on the third floor. You'll have to answer to her. Even though you're men, she can inspect your rooms, as she sees fit. But policy says that she calls first if there isn't an emergency. This has already been decided and approved unless you have any concerns."

Bob and I both said, "No, Sir." I added, "Can I leave some things in the apartment, or will Bob have a roommate over the summer?"

"They'll be doing some remodeling, and installing the Erg, so Bob will stay in his room, for a couple of weeks. After that, he might want one of the other counselors to stay with him. We have a room in the basement where you can store some stuff, or you can arrange with Bob to take care of your stuff. That's all I have. I look forward to having you both back next year, and Bob over the summer. Congratulations on helping my daughter's boat do so well this year."

We said goodbye, and walked out. Bob was freaking out a little, but I told him that it was a good thing. We just needed to make sure that our gang was all on the third floor.

Later, I met Nikki and I suggested that next year, she should move to the dorm. This way, she could be closer to her classmates like the rest of the kids at school. When she asked, I told her that we were moving to the fourth floor of Buckley. Thinking about it, I said, "I could talk to Nadia. I know that she'll be looking for a new roommate. I know that Marsha is moving to a school on the west coast. It seems that her dad's company is transferring him to LA."

She didn't answer, but ran off. I hoped to talk to Nadia and her mom. I had my Home Ec. final the next day, and learned that it was an all written exam. My original plan was to make a pot roast for the final, but no such luck. After the exam, I stopped to say goodbye to Miss Wilson.

"Miss Wilson, I hear you're moving up to the Third floor in Buckley next year?"

"I am, but who told you?"

"Dean Vance and I plan to keep a close eye on you."

"Nick. Tell me the truth."

"Well it seems that the kids whose families are funding the new buildings on campus are all guys, so I have to live right above you. I hope you aren't one of those moaners that will keep me up all night."

"There isn't a room above me, and I live alone on campus. Are you moving to the room over the commons and the stairwell?"

"Yes. Dean Vance said that you'd bring me hot chocolate, and tuck me in every night."

"You can keep it tucked in. I'm spoken for at the moment."

"How is Steve? Did you ever make time for your third date?", I said while wagging my eyebrows.

"I can feel this test is starting to feel like an 'F'. Do you have any other questions?"

"No, bye, and have a good summer. Give Janice a kiss for me, and use lots of tongue. Bye." And I was out the door, and done with classes and tests for the year.

That evening I called Mom at eight in the evening that was nine in the morning her time. I told her that I'd done well, and looked to end up with straight 'A's' for the year. She said that she'd send my allowance to the apartment in New York.

"Mom, I still have money from when I first got here. You send me five thousand a quarter, and the school pays for most of my bills."

"Your trust states that you will receive five thousand a quarter for straight 'A's' and a bonus five thousand for all four quarters in a year. One 'D' or 'F', and you will receive nothing, and no more funding through the school. No ski trips, or over nights off campus."

"Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"I wanted you to do it, because it was the right thing, not for the money. You've proven that you're really taking school seriously. I also wanted you to know that I didn't forget about the motorcycle. Because they're dangerous, I didn't want you to have one. I trust you, but not the guy in the car who has a girl sitting next to him who distracts him, or by the radio. You didn't complain, so when you turn sixteen, we'll buy you a car."

"Thanks. I only had to call a cab once. When I needed to go somewhere, I had friends that would drive me."

"Have fun in New York. The doorman knows that you and Adam are moving in, so you shouldn't have any trouble. How are you getting there?"

"Tiffany's parents are planning to come up to school, so she'll return with them. During the summer, Adam will be working for her dad. So to make it easier, they're renting a small moving van. They will to take Adam's stuff to a storage unit in Boston, and Tiffany's stuff to her house. Mr. Wells will drive us all down to the city."

"What about your stuff?"

"There's a storage room in the Buckley's basement. Bob said that he might have all the camp kids move it up five flights of stairs once they finish remodeling the place."

"It sounds like you took care of yourself. I'm proud of you, and I love you. I miss you."

"I miss you Mom, and I love you too."

"I might try to come over to visit this summer if I can."

"It would be great to see you. Tell Dad that I love him, and I miss him too."

"I will. Be good."

"Bye Mom."

When we were ready to leave for NYC, it turned out that I only had two suitcases to carry. Neither one was huge. Although I didn't have to do it, I became the manual labor for moving Adam and Tiffany's stuff. While I sat there doing nothing, I felt bad watching the movers do all the work, and my help meant finishing faster. Bob had helped me move my stuff to the storage room in the basement the previous night. There were many goodbyes before we started our trip.

The apartment in the city was fully furnished. So the only things we needed were our clothes and personal stuff. Adam had his computer of course, and he brought a small radio. But he wisely left his stereo and albums in storage.

Mr. Wells and Tiffany came up with us to see where we'd be living. The building address and the size of the apartment impressed them.

Mr. Wells said, "This is a nice place you have. We're just up and over about six blocks from here. Tomorrow, you can settle in, and my driver will stop here at six forty-five on Monday morning. If it's raining wait in side, but if not, be at the curb. If you aren't here, then I'll assume you found another ride to the office."