The crowd cheered as the last final hit was made. Myrin ran past each base, the ball flying toward the stands. The other team had no chance against us. "HOME RUN" boomed from the speakers and my heart raced as I panted.

We won! A mad grin appeared on my face as I rushed toward my teammates who were cheering and celebrating the well-deserved win.

"X!"

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see who was calling me. And there behind me stood my best friend, Crayden with a glass of water in his hand. But how was he here...

Cold water splashed my face and I gasped in shock. Wiping the water out of my eyes, I found myself sitting in my dorm bed half naked.

"What the-"

"Glad to see you're finally up."

I turned to find Crayden standing next to my bed, his arms crossed with a glass in his right hand. His muscles bulged as he smirked down at me, his blue eyes showing a mixture of emotions.

"Dude, what was that for?" I got out of my soaking bed, quickly stripping the wet sheets off. "I was having a great dream..."

"Glad to hear that pumpkin but it's 5:30am and if I recall correctly, you asked me to do this."

Crayden picked up a piece of paper on my nightstand and handed it to me. I took it and read it quickly.

I, Xavier Winter, hereby agree to having water thrown over me if I don't wake up by 5:30am.

I groaned suddenly, recalling the night before where I had begged Crayden to make sure I was up by 5:30am for practice at 6am today. I wasn't a morning person and F*ck I'm going to be late for practice.

"Sh*t! I need to get moving."

I dropped the sheets, trying to look for my practice kit and toiletries. I couldn't be late for the first day of practice. Especially not after becoming captain.

"Crayden, have you seen my..."

"Yeah, I have." Crayden handed me my stuff and quickly grabbed his own stuff. "Now stop destroying our dorm and let's hit the showers."

                                                                                                         ***

"I don't know what'd I do without you man," I said as we made our way through the semi-crowded halls to get to the dorm showers.

"I don't know either," Crayden replied dryly. "No, wait. You'd be in a regular high school right now because you would've been kicked out by now."

I shook my head about to reply when a voice suddenly shouted in the hallway, "Get out of here Freak!"

I saw Crayden stiffen, the voice all too familiar. F*cking Nelson was starting sh*t so damn early in the morning and in the new year too. Guess he couldn't take the fact that Crayden was a better MMA fighter than he was.

I turned to see where he was, so I could give him a piece of my mind, when a baseball flew past me and hit the assh*le. The dumb*ss winced as the ball knocked him on the head. I smiled a little recognizing the throw. The idiot was lucky Blane had used a soft baseball from practice, otherwise it would have been one ugly bruise.

"You shut up, you spineless piece of-" Blane yelled back making his way through the crowd.

The small guy looked ready to beat Nelson up. A crowd was beginning to gather, interested to see the first fight of the year. Crayden and I pushed our way through the crowd.

"F*cking assh*le!" Nelson shouted back. "Why are you helping that pervert out? Are you one-"

Just before Nelson could finish his sentence Blane walked up to him and punched him straight in the face. Nelson looked a little shocked but quickly recovered and looked at Blane with pure rage. Crayden sighed, putting his head in his hand. "Dumbass, that's not how you punch."

"What's going on here!" A voice behind us boomed.

I looked to see Kevin, captain of the swimming team, walking towards us, the crowd slowly dispersing. Great! I thought. All we needed was the student council president on us for causing rubbish in the morning.

I quickly ran to grab Blane before he did anything worse to Nelson because while I did want to beat the living h*ll out of the guy myself, it would just be more trouble than it was worth.

Another kid went for Nelson stopping him from punching Blane back, which caused the perfect distraction for me as I dragged Blane away.

"Dude, calm down," I said as we walked over to Crayden. "It's the first day and we don't need teachers hassling us."

Kevin reached us, looking at Blane and Nelson before he looked at the baseball on the floor.

"What's going on here?"

"Nothing," I replied back. "Blane was trying to throw me a fast ball but I couldn't catch it and unfortunately Nelson got hit. We were just leaving."

"You-" Nelson started but the kid next to him shook his head. Nelson, finally using his brain, shut his trap seeing that Kevin was waiting for an excuse to send him to the dean.

"Is that so?" Kevin narrowed his eyes at us.

"Yeah," Nelson muttered before stalking off in anger.

I picked up the ball and smiled at Kevin. "Well, I guess we'll be going then."

I put a hand on Blane's shoulder and dragged him off to where Crayden was standing. Kevin muttered something before heading the other direction.

We were lucky Kevin hated Nelson's guts otherwise we'd all be in sh*t.

"I f*cking hate that piece of sh*t!" Blane raged next to me. "How could he say that crap? Crayden is the nicest person-"

"Blane your hand."

Blane and I looked to see Crayden looking down at Blane's right hand. The one he had used to punch Nelson with. Blane handed it to him and Crayden rubbed the knuckles gently allowing a small wince to escape from Blane.

"You could have seriously injured yourself punching that dumb*ss." Crayden looked back up at Blane. "Next time let me beat the guy up." He paused momentarily as he continued to gently rub Blane's knuckles, "At least I know how to beat his ass."

Blane blushed a little and pulled his hand away.

"Yeah. Yeah. I guess I was just in the heat of the moment you know. Can't stand how he treats you because you're gay. You're an amazing person, gay or not. Anyway Xavier, you need to hurry up. The water was lukewarm when I used it. And the way the showers are starting to get crowded..."

We looked over to the nearby showers and I sighed. We'd probably be having cold showers today. Hopefully, after practice I could take a long hot shower.

"Anyway, I'm going to get going-"

"Wait!" Crayden exclaimed, interrupting Blane. He pulled out a small box from his toiletries bag and handed it to Blane. "You should put this on."

Blane took the box of ointment. "Thanks. I'll give it to Xavier after practice."

Blane headed off and left the two of us to get ready. Man I hoped practice would be better.

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