The Scavenger Hunt

<i>Here's Chapter 2. I wasn't exactly sure where this whole series was going when I started writing it a... long time ago... and I was originally planning for the main female character in this chapter to just be another check on Travis' list. Instead, she's turned into one of my favorite characters I've ever written, and thus, she forced her way into a starring role. You'll see much more of her throughout the series.</i>

<i>Thanks to my editor and beta reader, samuraisan, for making this a little cleaner for all the grammar nerds, and also for finding things that don't make logical sense. Also thanks to my fellow author, Thatsbogus, for being a great sounding board and suggesting tiny tweaks that always seem to lead to great improvement.</i>

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The Scavenger Hunt: Chapter 2

Brianne and I fucked a couple more times that night, once right after we agreed to keep things a secret, and once in the middle of the night. I left before she woke up the next morning, and barely managed to get to my 9:15 class on time. While studiously ignoring the lecture in anatomy and physiology - I'd done a little research in that area the night before, so I felt secure in my knowledge - I sent an e-mail to the frat on my laptop.

<i>

Frat Folks—</i>

<i>Brianne Hill, Accounting 201, Objective 5 (dating T.J. Maddox, a friend of mine in the business program). Last night around 10 p.m., her dorm.</i>

<i>TT</i>

The original e-mail said they would verify all of them, but I had no idea how they intended to do that. They wouldn't just walk up and ask her - they didn't want me telling anyone, so I was pretty certain they wanted to keep it quiet, as well. I was sure they had their sources. Hell, maybe they had access to the cameras in the dorm hallways, or maybe they'd figure out who lived next door. That wasn't my problem.

T.J., on the other hand, was.

It wasn't until the following day that I ran into Brianne's (boy)friend. I was eating lunch with Jamar and two other teammates, Chet and Lex, at the student center, and it looked like T.J. was going to walk right past me. That would have been just fine with me, but at the last second, he broke off his stride and made a beeline toward my table.

"Temple," he said, putting a firm hand on my shoulder. From his tone, there was no doubt he knew.

"T.J.," I said, a lot more nonchalantly than I felt. I stuffed another French fry into my mouth like I had no idea he was pissed off.

"Look at me, damnit!"

I waited another few seconds, taking a swig of my water and making him wait. It was all an act, of course. Finally, I swung my attention up to him.

"What can I do for you?"

"Don't give me that BULLSHIT," he shouted. "Did you fuck my girl?"

Lex and Jamar chuckled, and others nearby let loose with several things in the "Oh, shit," family. Those were the only noises in the food court, though - the rest of the place went silent. Since we had everyone's attention, I figured it was time to stand up and face him. I stood 6-foot-2, but he had at least two inches on me. I looked him square in the eye.

"I don't know," I said. "Did I?"

That threw him off for a second, but not much more than that.

"She told me you did."

That didn't seem right to me, but he had no reason to lie about it. I didn't think Brianne would volunteer that information... but she probably wouldn't have denied it if he asked her directly about it.

Oh, well. Fuck it. I didn't think it would happen, but I'd known it was a possibility. Best to get it out of the way now.

"Well, then I guess I did, yeah," I replied, then braced myself.

It didn't take long. His right fist shot out and connected square with my jaw. It wasn't too bad a shot, actually - I even had to turn my head a little bit. I heard several chairs scrape the floor as my teammates stood up.

"Easy, guys," I said, putting my arm up. "I did fuck his girlfriend. Made her cum like five times. He deserved one free shot."

"You stupid mother fucker!" he yelled, then took another swing. The fist never made it to my face, though. A big, beefy hand reached up and swallowed it whole.

"He said you got one free one," Chet said. At 6-6 and 240 pounds, the only position he could play was first base, but he could hit a ball from here to Jupiter and back. He applied a little bit of that strength to his hand, and T.J.'s knees buckled slightly. "You have to pay for the rest."

Chet slid between T.J. and I, as did Jamar and Lex. T.J. stewed for a minute, his fist nestled tightly in Chet's palm. Just before Chet started squeezing again, T.J. pulled his hand back.

"This isn't over, Temple," he said, fuming.

"Yeah, T.J.," I said. "It is."

I sat back down at the table to finish my lunch. I guess he walked away, but I didn't look. Before long, everyone else in the food court realized the show was over and the din of the student center picked up again. Only then did my teammates sit back down.

"Did you really fuck his girl?" Lex, our all-conference starting pitcher and my best friend on the team, asked when everybody had sat back down.

"My understanding was that they're just fuckbuddies," I said. "But yeah."

"I think you mighta misunderstood," Jamar said. I just nodded.

"Damn, son," Chet said. "How'd he find out?"

I was wondering that myself.

*******

I got home that night just in time to stop the whole damn thing from screeching to a halt.

I went straight from lunch to the baseball complex, blowing off accounting in the process. I figured I could bring the matter up with Brianne next week, after it had time to settle. Instead, I spent a few hours watching video of the pitchers we'd be facing this weekend. After that, practice with the team lasted until 6 p.m., and then I stayed after and lifted with a few of the guys for another 45 minutes.

Jamar wasn't one of the after-practice lifters, and as such, he'd beaten me back to the house by a good hour. He was out of sight when I finally got inside, but one of his girlfriends was in the kitchen, scrounging around in the cabinet under the sink - right where I'd stashed my e-mail.

"Can I help you?" I asked, clearing my throat. The girl turned around, clearly startled. She was cast off the same mold Jamar always used - black, pretty, ass two sizes too big for an otherwise athletic body. I didn't recognize her, but keeping up with Jamar's women was tougher than learning Arabic while drunk.

"Looking for some Lysol or something," she said, pointing to the cabinet.

I clutched my chest in fake shock. "Jamar wants to clean something?"

She laughed. "Um, no. I do. His shower is filthy, and I want to use it."

"Not surprising. You can use mine if you want," I offered. "I won't peek, I promise. I'm Travis, the roommate."

"Jaleesa," she answered. "And thanks, but..." she trailed off and looked down at the ground. She was waiting for me to say something, and though I had a decent idea of where she was heading, I wasn't going to help her out. Finally, she reestablished eye contact with me. "We kinda want to take one together."

"God bless you. Say no more," I grinned, and bent to look in the cabinet. She hadn't moved anything, and hadn't uncovered my hiding spot. "I'm surprised Jamar even knows where the cleaning stuff is."

"He didn't," she answered. "He doesn't care if it's clean or not, but I ain't setting foot in that thing until I know nothing's growing in it. I just figured there might be something in here I could use."

I came up with a couple bottles of cleaner and an old rag. "Here ya go." She thanked me and started to walk away. "And tell Jamar to turn up the music before y'all get in. His shower backs up against my bedroom wall."

She laughed again and disappeared down the hallway. When I heard the door close and the music get louder, I grabbed the piece of paper from the back of the cabinet and walked quickly into my bedroom.

I grabbed a notebook from my desk and wrote down each of the eight objectives from the challenge, as well as each of my six classes. I drew a line through objective #5 as well as my accounting class. By the end of this semester, there would be a line through every item on the page.

Accounting had been the easy part, my still-sore jaw notwithstanding. The rest of my classes were all part of my physical education major, and a bunch of the people in those classes overlapped. There was a good chance this would get a little sticky before I finished it.

I spent a few more minutes considering who I could use to fill each objective. I wasn't going to get too analytical yet. Toward the end, when I only had a couple objectives and classes left to mark off, I might have to get more specific - looking for a specific objective from a certain class, etc. For now, though, I was just going to find someone in one of my classes who fit an objective and go for it.

I doubted I'd get much more accomplished this week, though - it was already Wednesday night, and we had four games in Asheville, North Carolina, over the weekend. Three were conference games against UNC-Asheville, one of the top teams in our conference. The other was against Tennessee, a Top 25 team. So, I wanted to focus on baseball.

As it turned out, I could do both.

********

"All right, guys, I have some bad news." Our head coach, Brick Bazewell, stood at the front of the dimly lit charter bus on Saturday night as we pulled out of the parking lot at UNC-Asheville. We could all see the grimace on his face, and let out a collective groan accordingly.

"You mean more bad news?" Lex asked, the anger dripping from his voice.

We'd swept UNC-Asheville in both Friday games, and we'd hung in with Tennessee on Saturday afternoon, taking the nationally-ranked Vols to extra innings before losing that one. The night game, though, had been an 8-1 blowout loss to the same Asheville team we'd torched in two games the day before. I'd been as much to blame as anyone, striking out twice and only getting on base once. I couldn't blame Lex for being angry - as our best pitcher, he'd started the game against Tennessee. So, not only had he lost a close game, he hadn't even pitched in our blowout loss.

Coach Bazewell ignored Lex's question. It was pretty much rhetorical, anyway.

"The softball team's bus broke down an hour down the road," he said. "The engine blew up. Nobody's hurt, but they need a ride home. So we're gonna stop and pick them up, load all their gear wherever we can, and get back on the road. It shouldn't take more than half an hour, but all you spoiled pussies who like your extra space, get ready to double up."

That caused an even louder groan. Most of us had our own seats on the spacious charter bus, but adding 20 more passengers would pretty much kill that. Danny, our catcher, would keep his seat stretched out across the back so he could ice his knees all the way home, but the rest of us were gonna have company. I caught a sly grin from Jamar, sitting across the aisle from me. He was probably the only one on the bus who was happy about it - Jaleesa was on the softball team, so he was probably going to have some fun on the trip home.

The senior captains made some of the freshmen and bench guys sit together, but they left all the starters alone, including me. That was just as well -- I didn't know many of the softball players, but I figured I would take my chances with them as opposed to being cooped up next to some other dude for the next five hours.

When we pulled up beside the softball bus an hour later, I could see the smoke still drifting up from the engine block. A mound of duffel bags and other athletic equipment stood sentry on the shoulder, daring some drunk motorist to come by and take their best shot. Fifty yards beyond that, the softball team stood in the middle of an empty field. They were huddled together in groups of three or four, probably trying to stay warm. Sure, it was spring, but nights tend to get cold in the Smoky Mountains, even in April.

In the interest of getting home sometime before daybreak, Jamar, myself and a couple other players got off the bus to help them load their gear. There wasn't a ton of room left in the undercarriage areas with all of the baseball team's equipment, so the rest was stuffed in whatever open space we could find on the bus. The aisles were padded on each side with bags, leaving just a thin aisle for walking.

I managed to get back to my seat just before the softball players boarded, lest two girls think my seat was empty and claim them both. The first players on took the empty seat pairs, and the rest took whatever was left.

"Hey, Travis," a voice said. I was looking down at my iPod, seriously hoping there were enough seats left that I wouldn't have to share. When I looked up, though, Taylor Greene was smiling at me expectantly from the aisle.

"Hey, Taylor," I said, nodding and quickly moving my things under the seat. She collapsed into the chair next to me and tossed me a grateful, tired smile as the line kept moving.

"Thanks," she said. "You were the first face I recognized."

"You couldn't bump somebody out of one the empty seats?" I asked. "The conference MVP?"

She smiled. "In a different sport, unfortunately." Taylor was an outside hitter on Atlantic's volleyball team, and was named the Big South Player of the Year during the fall. She'd walked onto the softball team just to stay in shape for her senior year of volleyball. She didn't play that much, but she was a natural athlete, and she knew how to win, which was good enough for the coaches. I'd honestly forgotten she was on the team.

"Well, I promise, I don't bite," I said.

"Aww," she answered, leaning close in to my face. "Why not?" she whispered.

She drew back and we shared a laugh while she got situated, making small talk about how the teams had done in Asheville. We were mad about our split, but at least we'd won two of the three conference games. The softball squad got swept, but according to Taylor, their mood was pretty cheerful. Coming from a team that didn't lose very often, she was more upset that they were ok with losing than the fact that they lost.

"Oh well," she said as the bus began moving. "At least I like softball. Next week, I start a soccer coaching class, for my minor. I hate soccer."

A bell went off in my head - I was in the same class. It was only a six-week class, so it didn't start till next week. As such, I didn't know who was going to be in it, so finding out Taylor was also taking it was really good news. She was an inch taller than me at 6-foot-3, and I'd always had a thing for taller women. We'd met at a party early in the year and had been friendly acquaintances ever since, but I'd never taken a shot at her because Lex had a thing for her. He was seeing someone else now, so Taylor was fair game.

Her legs were a bit thicker than the normal athlete due to years of jumping at the net, but they were still incredibly athletic. My eyes ran up and down them, from her pink socks up to her black workout shorts. Before I could get too lost in thought about her amazing legs, I found out she was thinking about the same thing.

"Do the people who make these buses think we're all midgets?" she asked, rubbing her lower thighs vigorously. Ok, so probably not the same exact thing - I was thinking about how they would look hanging over my shoulders, and she was thinking about how uncomfortable they were. But still.

"Stretch 'em out if you want," I said, patting my lap. "I'm probably gonna be asleep soon anyway."

"You will, huh?" she asked. "What a shame." I could see her grin only with the lights coming from our iPods. I took that as my cue and gently lifted her legs onto my lap. Her only reaction was to angle her body toward me. She watched me carefully as I pulled off her tennis shoes, smiling softly as I took the liberty of running my hands up and down her feet. When I stopped lightly rubbing and began a more vigorous massage of both legs, she sighed and relaxed.

Our eyes met after the first couple trips, but I stopped caring whether or not she was watching after a while. Eventually, I settled with one hand on her left knee and the other on her right calf, lightly kneading both.

When I checked on her again, she was sleeping peacefully. I didn't consciously stop rubbing her legs, but a few moments later, I was too.

*************

I woke up incredibly uncomfortable. Sure, the seat was a tight fit, and my legs were going to be sore tomorrow, but that wasn't it. My neck had been tilted to the right, pressed against the window for who knew how long, and there would be a monumental crick in it for at least a few hours. But that wasn't it either.

No, the source of my discomfort was due south of my neck, and directly between my thighs. My jeans didn't provide any kind of give, but they fit just right and sitting in them didn't generally cause me problems. That is, unless I had a hard-on, and right now, my cock was doing its best to cut denim.

Taylor had shifted in her sleep. She was turned fully toward me now, and while she'd dropped her left leg onto the floor, her right leg was still splayed across my lap. She was dragging it slowly up and down, starting at my waist, covering the length of my cock and continuing all the way to my knees before coming back.

I had to sit and ponder the situation for a few moments to ensure I wasn't simply dreaming. Once I was sure it was actually happening, I had to wonder if maybe she was still asleep. It seemed unlikely, but there was a chance she was the one dreaming, and her leg was moving in time to whatever she was doing in her mind.

I looked over at her, and sure enough, her eyes were closed. Part of me wanted to keep my mouth shut and enjoy it, but the other part of me won. I'm certainly not above gratuitous sex with a casual friend on a midnight bus trip, but I generally prefer that the girl be conscious for it.

I slipped a hand between her head and the seat and gently shook her right shoulder. "Taylor," I whispered.

"Shh," she answered just as quietly. "Just enjoy it. I am."

I'm sure the grin on my face would have fit neatly into the shit-eating category. I did just what she said, and savored the contact between her leg and my dick. She wasn't pressing so hard that it hurt, but there was enough pressure to keep me interested. In fact, if I sat quietly, there was an outside chance that she could make me cum just from this.

I had no intentions of sitting idly, though. My hand dropped off her shoulder and onto her chest, snaking inside her teal Carolina Atlantic jacket and under the tank top beneath it. Taylor was a bigger girl, and was suitably endowed for her frame. Without a good, close look I couldn't be sure, but I'd guess there were at least two Ds in her cup size, if not more. Either way, she'd decided to go braless for the ride home, and when I squeezed her left nipple between my middle and ring fingers, an audible gasp escaped from her lips.

"Naughty boy," she murmured.

"You complaining?" I asked.

"Uh uh," she said, licking her lips as she slid forward. Her right leg joined her left on the ground, her head rested on my shoulder, and her left hand went directly to my cock. She unzipped my jeans and worked her hand into my boxers, and I dropped my hand between her legs. Her thin shorts were doing nothing to conceal her wetness.

"I'm just a little wet," she whispered in my ear, licking my earlobe. Understatement of the year. I went up through the legs of her shorts, and was pleased to find no underwear stopping me from pushing a finger directly into her pussy.

"Who's the naughty one now, huh?" I muttered.

"Was just thinking ahead," she gasped quietly into my ear. "I was planning to finger myself on the way home. I had my blanket out and was ready to get started when the bus broke down."