Page 41 of Hits Different

I close my eyes, sliding my hand below my waist just enough to get things moving. No dice. Weird. I guess mental inspiration alone isn’t doing it for me this morning. I grab my phone, and fire up my socials.

Don’t judge, but I have two accounts. One’s my main, which I only use to keep track of the boring-ass life events of some guys from my hometown. I skip those. Scrolling through engagement announcements with my dick in one hand feels wrong on so many levels.

I quickly check Summit’s account, noting the slight uptick in their follower count since I started posting some BTS training footage of Brandon’s training. I was kind of surprised Sheryl let me loose on their social media, but she seemed mesmerised by what she called ‘The Facebook’.

In-fact, she even—hang on. Nope. Thinking about Sheryl right now isn’t so good either.

I switch quickly to my second account.

It’s not as messed up as it sounds, I promise. I made it to keep track of my MMA progress. I follow a bunch of fighters, some local promotions and more than one fitness model. A couple even follow me back. And on occasion, they even slide into my DMs. What can I say, the internet’s a beautiful thing.

I’ve posted training footage, including some videos from my old wrestling matches. The quality sucks, but it’s a start. I used to fantasise that when I made it as a pro fighter, this grainy-ass footage would be played at the start of my promo videos.

Just to show the world how hard I’d grinded to make it.

I flick through some stories, stopping at a video of a stunning redhead posting some content from a fitness photoshoot. Gorgeous body, full sleeve tattoo. A little bit nasty. Just my type.

Except, today it’s not quite connecting. My dick’s responding just fine, but it feels like something is missing.

Suddenly my phone chimes, and a notification headline flashes up.

Brandon Carter started following you.

I glow with pleasure, which is nuts because it’s not like I needed a social media follow to formalise our rekindled bro-ship. But still. This is how it should have been all along.

I open his profile. I consider not following him back. Not because I don’t want to, but because I know it’d drive him mad and it’s always tempting to mess with him. His follower count is in the thousands, and he’s dropped hundreds of posts.

Curiosity gets the best of me, and I hit the follow button. Fuck! I realise my mistake as soon as I’ve made it. I’ve followed him back from my secret account.

Damn it. I quickly unfollow him, then follow him back from my regular account. Hopefully it’s quick enough so that he didn’t see. But it’s too late, another notification.

Brandon Carter followed you back!

Damn. Well, fine. It’s not like anything NSFW is on there. I brush my self-irritation aside and swipe his profile.

Jeez. My boy might be photogenic but by god he knows it. There are tons of soccer action shots, all taken professionally. He’s even got some local brand endorsements, which apparently required him to take his shirt off. I’ll definitely be hazing him about those.

All in the life of a soon-to-be professional soccer player, I guess.

The only off-duty pictures show him at various charity functions, most of which look like his dad had a hand in them. I scroll back a little further. I’m not sure what I’m looking for exactly.

Definitely no sign of any romantic interests.

I keep scrolling until I see one that stops me dead. It’s us. Suited and booted, on the night of the Carter Summer Ball. It’s got a classic Brandon douche-like caption.Heading to Di Ball with Di Rossi.

Something’s not quite right. In his earlier photos, there’s group shots of friends—kids from school, loads of his mom and dad, but everything from the last three years is either soccer or work.

No parties, no birthdays, no socials or holidays. Nobody. It’s like all of a sudden, any kind of friendship stopped. I get a weird, twisted feeling in my stomach, like somehow I might have been the cause of that. And that he must have been really fucking lonely. Maybe he still is.

But you can fix that.

Recently it’s either training, studying, or the obligatory post work-out selfie. And another. And another. And another. At least we can trace his aversion to shirts back to freshman year, which was right around the time he started bulking up.

These comments are wild. The first is his teammates (go off, Carter), or thirsty girls desperate to get into his DMs (lit emojis). Hate to break it to ya, but you’re getting left on read, girls.

A pang of jealousy prickles me. His teammates look like a fun bunch. I mean, whatever. It’s not like it’s my business. I don’t even like soccer. Chances are if we’d stayed friends, we’d be all over each other’s grid too.

There’s no reason for this to bother me.

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