On the rugby field Wayne Joslin might be tough and rough, but in the romance department he’s a pussy cat. He can’t keep his attention away from his close friend Darsey Haas, the center for the Templeton Thundercats. Darsey’s a dreamboat, and the guy of Joslin’s dreams. Someone he wants to spend the rest of his life with. The two must be together.
After five months of friendship, Joslin and Darsey steer out of the friend zone. There’s one problem, though. A huge problem. Darsey has a boyfriend, Cliff McGregory.
Cliff despises everything about Joslin and will do just about anything to keep him away from Darsey. Joslin’s in love with Darsey, though, head over heels, and believes they’re meant to be together. So he hatches a plan to distract Cliff with a certain rugby player named Tomas Iron. Will the plan work?
Let’s talk about Darsey ... Darsey Haas. If you don’t want to hear about him then I suggest you leave the room and walk away. Get out of here. Don’t look back. Keep moving. If you decide to stay and hear how handsome he is -- short black hair, glow-in-the-dark-like blue eyes, narrow lips, ski slope nose, massive shoulders-chest-pecs-thighs, and a plump center where he has a lever for a cock -- then you’re in luck. Stick around. Stay for the free show. Enjoy it while you can. Suck it all in like I do every day, 24/7. Darsey stands at six-two, weighs one-eighty, and has no fat on his bulky and beautiful and (sometimes) bronze, beefy, and banging frame. He’s a top, grade-A athlete and a rugby god on the field. The inside center is about as smart as a whip -- the oldest cliché in the modern English language, but quite accurate -- and a graduate of Temple with a degree in chemistry.
If only our chemicals can mix. And mix. And mix. And mix. And we can be together. If only he can make me the happiest left wing (me! me! me!) of our amateur team, called the Templeton Thundercats, by having me over to his flat for a few drinks (dry martinis), become sloppy with him (a minimum of three martinis, extra strong), chat it up with him (light conversation, nothing heavy like politics or religion), undress him (first his jersey, shorts, sock tape, socks, boots, underwear), kiss him (on his bare and plated chest, next to his tight navel, against an inner and muscular thigh), and do things with his chiseled body that happen between two naked men who find each other remotely attractive and ...
He’s a fulltime professor at Union College in Colling Township on the outskirts of Erie. He teaches chemistry: the division of science that deals with the identification of the substances of which matter is composed; the investigation of their properties and the ways in which they interact, combine, and change; and the use of these processes to form new substances. Blah. Blah. Blah. Whatever. I’ll stop boring you. Let’s get back to the man I want to marry and spend the rest of my life with.
On the weekends Darsey and I play rugby with a bunch of other handsome men who happen to be our best friends, among other men: Ricky Darshaw, Liam Baxter, Joe Canterwalk, Gill Bellows, Tim Dresdon, Raymond Cello, Will Washington, to name a few. Saturday mornings from eight until noon. Sunday mornings from nine until one. There are eight teams in the area that battle each other: Templeton Thundercats, Cradle Colts, West End Eels, Baxter Hole Bears, Rendell Rockets, Yull Yaks, Umberton Torandoes, and Pillson Pikes. It’s what we do. It’s who we are. Rugby at its finest. Men of men. Us. Grrrrrr!
I know so much about Darsey that it might turn your stomach, and mine. His flat is on Espy Street in the Market District of Templeton. The place where vendors sell flowers and fruit in the mornings and on weekends. He drives a red Mazda 5. His parents are Rudy and Elanor Haas. They’re happily retired from the United States post office and live in Tempe, Arizona in a comfy trailer next to a red rock the size of the Pentagon. Darsey has one older brother, David, who looks just like him and could pass as his twin. David’s in the Navy, posted somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Darsey spends his evenings watching professional rugby games from around the world, drinking beer, and eating pizza, and is usually in my company, palling around with me, since we’re close friends. Not best friends, but close friends.
