Stamina

It was a good thing he decided to crash his bike here, right in front of Riley Logan's house, because David found it rather painful to walk with a scraped knee, and it was only about ten yards from where he was to Riley's front door. He'd only been there once two years ago, at Riley's going-away-for-college party, but he recognized the place, with its neat little hedges and the glossy red door. Shame that while Riley's parents kept the front yard so well maintained, the city had not done as good a job maintaining the street out front. That's how he'd crashed his bike—riding too fast over a pothole in the road that was bigger than it had first appeared.

David rang the bell, hoping Riley would be home with some bandages and iodine. After about a minute, he heard steps approaching, and not a moment too soon—blood was oozing out from his between the fingers he was holding over his knee.

"Hey. David Kim? What are you—oh, the hell happened?"

David was too distracted by the stinging pain to really notice that Riley, the former captain of the water polo team, was shirtless and leaning against the doorjamb. In the two years that'd passed since they'd last laid eyes on each other, Riley had probably put on a few more pounds of muscle. But David's skinned knee was the more pressing matter.

"Jeez, what happened? Looks like you ran a cheese grater over your knee."

David laughed and then immediately said ouch. "Can I use your bathroom? And maybe get some band-aids?"

"Yeah, sure. Let me just get those."

The pain in his knee subsiding, David realized that the side of his shirt was also torn, and that it was wet with blood. He lifted up the left side to find another long and tender scrape running up towards his armpit. He was going to have to take off his shirt to clean that one.

With a well-defined chest and washboard abs, four years on the football team had served David well. He had been used to being stared at a bit in the locker room. Nevertheless, David noticed Riley lingering in the hallway for just a bit longer than he really needed to.

"Like what you see?" David said with a smirk.

"Shut up, dude. I'm just coming in to check that you haven't died."

"I'm tougher than that."

"Well, OK. Don't take too long. I need to take a shower."

David finished cleaning up his scrapes so that Riley could use the bathroom, realizing only after Riley closed the door behind him that he had left his shirt inside. He went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and, unsure of what to do, wandered through Riley's living room, looking at his family photos and the odd water polo trophy beside them. He heard the sound of running water from the bathroom down the hall and a low rumbling sound that he thought might have been Riley singing in the shower. Unwilling to let the opportunity of catching the former water polo player doing something as ridiculous as that, David went up to the door to get a better listen.

Riley was making a low noise, but it certainly wasn't singing. Riley was moaning—softly, but clearly moaning. David gingerly put his ear against the door, and, when he concentrated, could make out the characteristic sounds of Riley's hand making wet stroking noises. There was another low, breathy sound.

David's heart was pounding, the blood rushing away from his knee and to...somewhere else. He'd never really thought about Riley this way before. But Riley was definitely pounding one out in there. It occurred to David, too, that Riley was willingly do this while he was in the house. Must just be really open guy, he thought.

To his surprise, he was fully hard. Sure, he'd heard a few guys fooling around in the locker room before, but their moans were usually mock ones to tease out a few laughs from his teammates. This time was different—Riley was actually enjoying, pleasuring himself in the shower.

David wondered what Riley looked like in there. How big was he? How did he grip it?

But before any more such thoughts could come, the shower turned off. David practically leapt away from the door, and just in time. Riley opened it and looked at David, wondering what he was doing.

"You, uh—you OK?"

Riley looked at David, and David looked back at Riley, who was standing there in just a towel. He, like David, had kept his athletic physique from high school, and every muscle, curve, and line was highlighted by sunlit drops of water. Wisps of steam bloomed in tendrils off his broad shoulders.

David cleared his throat, but that only seemed to make talking harder. He tried again, and managed to croak out, "Yeah."

Riley narrowed his eyes and took a step forward. David took a corresponding step back.

"You look a little flushed," Riley noted.

A strange and uncontrollable thought came to David's mind—that he should just be honest. "I—uh—heard you in the shower there."

Riley gave him a blank look before he understood. "Oh, you mean—yeah, sorry. I've had the house to myself this week and I've gotten used to just...expressing myself whenever."

David didn't know what to say to that; he felt like he could take this a million ways. But all that came out was "Yeah?"

Riley just laughed. "Yeah. Whatever, dude, don't make it weird. How's your knee? Oh, and your side, too, huh?"

Riley, still wet from the shower, went around to the side of David's torso to get a better look. He ran a finger just along the edge of the scrape, where the skin was still good. David jumped a little.

"Shit, sorry, did that hurt?"

"No, I'm fine," David said quickly. He refused to look at his own scrape, or directly at Riley's face, or down at Riley's towel. He only looked across the hallway and living room at Riley's trophy: MVP, 2014.

Riley finished his assessment. "Doesn't look like it needs stitches."

David nodded and grabbed his shirt off the bathroom floor and was back in the living room, back at Riley's front door, before anything else could happen. He had his hand on the doorknob when he felt Riley's warm hand on his shoulder.

"Listen, I'll be home all week with nothing to do," Riley told him. "You wanna meet up tomorrow and play some basketball? Just some one-on-one?"

"Sure, that sounds good." It was perfectly innocuous. Anything weird that had passed between them was gone.

David shut the door behind him, and Riley found himself alone again. The air was warm with July's gentle heat, and he had nothing to do the rest of the afternoon. He went back to his room and flopped down on the bed. He lay there for a moment, still, just listening to the cicadas' hum.

Then, slowly, almost as if he didn't know what he was doing, he began to remember what he had heard in the shower: the quiet patter of feet approaching and stopping at the door while he was jerking off. He had been mid-moan when he realized that someone was at the door listening to him. Riley had never considered himself an exhibitionist of any kind, but the thought that someone had been listening to him pleasuring himself—perhaps even enjoying it—got him worked up all over again. And, weirdly, it didn't hurt at all that that someone was David.

Riley shook his head and sat up. There was an unmistakable outline in his shorts. But David? Why the hell would he be turned on knowing it had been David there?

He lay back down and closed his eyes. He tried to think of other things, straighter fantasies. But it was that thought—David at the door, listening to him—that was feeding his itch. David, with his jet-black, tousled hair and calloused fingers, his crushing biceps and barrel chest, had been leaning against the bathroom door, ear against the wood, while he, Riley, had drawn his hand up and down his shaft. He had realized what he was doing, what was going on, and stopped. He had turned off the shower, thought he was still a bit sudsy. He had wondered if he had left the door unlocked. He wished he had.

Fuck it, Riley thought. Closing his eyes and letting himself sink into his sheets, he slipped his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and pulled them off.