“Will do, boss,” Garrett sang. His voice that made girls and boys swoon with its rich timbre, filled me with nothing but fear and dread. I heard the locker room door slamming, most likely with the coach’s departure.

“What the hell have you done now, Garrett?” Irritation laced the smooth voice from across the room.

“Like I said, just a bit of fun.” The motherfucker actually giggled.

My jaw went slack as I turned in the direction of the strange childlike laughter coming from the supposed butch jock who’d stuffed me in the laundry. As I turned my head, the textured fabric waistband of a jock slid against my lip. A burst of sour saltiness burst across my tongue. Unable to stop myself any further, I retched loudly. The sound echoed around the room like thunder.

“What the fuck!.” I heard footsteps moving quickly towards me. Hands grabbed the bars above me. Piece by piece, jockstraps and jerseys were pulled from the bin and discarded somewhere else. I looked up as the ocean of dirty underwear parted to reveal the angry face of Austin Ridge.

Austin was the exception to the rule I was talking about earlier: tall, strong, and beautiful. No matter how much I tried to keep my eyes trained to the ground in the school corridors, they always seemed to lift of their own accord whenever Austin turned the corner.

I tried to avert my eyes even now, but he was like every wet dream coalesced into reality. Austin had really thick but short black hair, and those piercing green/hazel eyes seemed to glow in the sunlight. I knew, because I’d spent countless hours looking at them across the room during AP Bio, the one class we shared. I may or may not also have stalked his Myspace page. With all his six-foot-two deliciousness standing right there in front of me, my mouth filled with saliva like a Pavlovian dog. I saw a small smirk playing on his lips as he caught my obvious perusal of him.

I’d have liked to say that Austin was always the savior of the nerds like myself, but that wouldn’t be telling the complete truth. Yes, Austin had never bullied me, or anyone as far as I was aware, but he chose instead to look away or peace out whenever his buddies would turn their attention on one of the unfortunate gazelles who had wandered away from the pack. Like that hyenaepisode of Buffy, they would track and pounce on their prey when they least expected it. I knew the old proverb that said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’, but this good man was seriously cute, so I chose to give him a pass.

Again, sue me.

Austin reached down into the bin, wrapping his large hand around my left bicep and gently pulling me up until I was standing in front of him on top of a pile of laundry. “Are you okay, Dylan?”

Okay, I wasn’t going to lie and say that I didn’t do an internal happy dance at hearing my name fall from his lips so easily, but that was tampered down quickly with the realization that I probably smelled like all his friends’ balls combined.

“Yeah I’m fine,” I snapped a little more harshly than I’d meant, pulling my arm away from his grip. The fabric beneath my feet kept shifting, not letting me get enough purchase on the ground to swing my legs over the bars to escape my jockstrap prison. I made a mental note to check later whether jockstrap prison was the name of a gay porn, as that would be something I would definitely watch.

“Here.” His voice was gentle and almost sweet. “Let me help. Please?”

I cast my gaze up to see a small smile on his face, his arm outstretched like a literal olive branch, mine for the taking. I looked around the room at the smirking faces of the rest of the football team, staring at me with a mixture of amusement and contempt. Only Garett near the back of the room glared at me with all-out disgust as I rested my hand on Austin’s shoulder, letting him wrap his hand once more around my bicep and almost lift me over the bar until I was standing flush against him.

My breathing faltered as I took in the spicy scent of cologne that lingered underneath his own earthy masculine aroma. The smell was heady and alluring, and I thought I almost leaned into it, taking a deeper breath than necessary, as if I was trying to store some of the scent for later.

“Thank you,” I muttered under my breath, pushing away from Austin, departing his personal space before the other guys in the room took my creepy proximity to the captain of the football team as their cue to start up with their bullshit again.

“No problem.” Austin took a small step towards me, concern etched into his marred brow. His worry and attention on any other day would literally make my entire week, but I really just wanted to get away from that locker room, go home, and burn those clothes. “Are you really okay, Dylan?”

My name on his lips stirred something in my gut, a low keening pulse pushing south. Unbidden, my brain worked its very own on the spot fantasy of his full lips and husky deep voice crooning my name as he spooned me from behind. His breath hot on my neck as I felt him pushing into me from… I shook myself out of my rapidly developing fantasy. I realized that I’d been staring at him silently for a good solid six seconds, which was a long time for silence.

“Other than needing a shower, I’m fine.” I gave a half-hearted shrug and made a move to walk out of the room.

“Oh, look who has himself his very own knight in shining armor,” Garrett sneered as I approached him. “That makes you our damsel in distress, right? Suits you, queer.”

For some reason, my first instinct was to apologize. Almost as if my apparent pathetic-ness was something I needed to say sorry for. My mouth opened to mutter the words which would seal my fate as a complete loser. I didn’t get a chance to, however, as two large hands wrapped around my arms from behind and I was physically lifted from my feet and depositeda few feet to the left. Stunned, I turned and lifted my hands, ready to shield myself from any incoming punches, when I saw a pissed-off looking Austin standing next to me, staring daggers at Garrett.

Yes, it completely defeated the purpose of Austin’s righteous indignation at Garrett, but as I stared at the profile of Austin’s head, it wasn’t a big stretch of the imagination to picture him as some conquering hero like Ivanhoe, defending the honor of the… Holy shit I really was the maiden in this piece.

“Come on Garrett, lay off the poor kid.” Austin leaned forward, giving his friend a playful shove. “Any more teasing and I’m going to start thinking it’s like when you used to pull Kelsey Grossman’s pigtails in first grade.”

Poor kid? Wow, just what every maiden wanted to be known as.

“Fuck off, man.” Garrett looked around nervously, a tight laugh escaping his throat. “I’m just having a little fun with Cooper. It’s no harm.”

Kelsey Grossman was almost like a rite of passage for the boys of the football team. She’d made it her personal mission to make out with or round a good third base with each and every member of the squad. I don’t know why they bothered with a mascot at all. They could have just sent out Kelsey onto the field, waving her very own scorecard around.

“Seriously guys, it’s all cool.” I hated how meek and scared my voice sounded. In my head I’d been trying for cool and aloof, but instead I ended up sounding like some kind of terrified chipmunk.

“See, look.” Garrett waved an arm towards me. “No harm no foul.”

I chanced a look at Austin, my eyes catching his. A friendly smile played on his lips as he threw an arm across my shoulder and pulled me in to his side. My brain short-circuited. If anyonehad asked me to speak at that moment, I did not believe I would have been able to form any type of coherent sentence. His mouthwatering cologne once lit up all the arousal receptors in my brain, and apparently the hunger ones as well, as my mouth immediately filled with saliva.

“Listen, leave Dylan alone, okay?” Austin side-swipe kicked Garrett’s leg playfully. “He’s cool. We’re friends.”