28 – Competition and Trash Talking

The week had mostly been uneventful. His workouts kept progressing. Between his regular workout and an additional 2 hours a day spent at the gym he was making rapid gains. His home workouts and jogs were becoming little more than warm ups with the gym being his main workout now.

His father was still slowly recovering and was starting to get a decent bit better though it was slower than the doctors had predicted. It could be losing the ability, but very well also could be the rampant drinking he had partaken in despite being in recovery. That couldn't be good for his body's recovery ability.

He suspected it would be at most another week before his father could start training, but a lot of damage had already been done. The rest he needed for the concussion had just exacerbated the decline due to losing his ability. Without being able to work out his muscle mass had decreased even more than it would have otherwise. It was not starting to become noticeable visually with his father's frame having shrunk.

Despite his father slowly improving Jackie wasn't becoming any less daring as she managed to pull him in to bathrooms, closets, bedroom and the kitchen at various times to sneak in some intimacy or more whenever she could.

As for Kate since she was refusing to stop hanging out with Dave things hadn't improved with her boyfriend yet. Quite the opposite, they were only getting worse as he continued to push her more to cut off their relationship which just made her more stubborn. In her frustration she was even becoming more and more daring.

-Friday-

The week was almost over and it was time for P.E. class again. He was expecting things to be different this time. It had now almost been 3 weeks of being on the grind and he was looking good compared to where he was at. He couldn't wait for dealing with his bullies.

They warmed up with a run and some stretching.

Coach Brown clapped his hands to gather their attention "Ok, time to team up. We're doing dodgeball," he said.

It didn't take long for the class to gather up and start choosing teams.

As expected quite a few of the jocks were teamed up with Jeffrey.

Unfortunately, unlike last time Dave's team was put up against Jeffrey's team this time.

To start the match Coach Brown tossed a ball on each side of the court. This time Dave was feeling confident though and sprinted for the ball on their side before any of the others on his team could even react, as usual he was teamed up with the losers so he was the most athletically inclined one right now.

A moment later a ball came flying his way, but he managed to deflect it using the ball he caught. While the thrower was still caught in a daze after expecting to send him off the field Dave's ball was sent careening over hitting him in the face full force and knocking him out of the game.

He had hit him in the face hard enough that it was going to hurt for a while.

"Yes! Keep it up Dave!" Kate cheered from the spectators causing him to smile. She was the only one so far though.

The ball he deflected had ended up with one of his team mates who threw it and ended up being knocked out himself due to his weak throw being caught by his target.

The match had barely started and both teams were already down to 5 members on the field.

The one that caught the ball was one of Jeffrey's friends. Him and Jeffrey nodded and the guy passed Jeffrey the ball.

Jeffrey with his usual annoying smirk looked at Dave and pointed to taunt him.

'Is this guy stupid?' Dave thought to himself, but he knew he was just underestimating him. The most they had seen of him was during the basketball match and that could be excused as a one-off lucky shot.

"Hey loser, catch this with your face," Jeffrey said with a sneer.

As predicted Jeffrey threw the ball as hard as he could towards Dave's balls. Fortunately for Dave sports wasn't Jeffrey's strong suit and it was relatively easy for him to jump forward sliding on his knees and catching the ball mid flight eliminating Jeffrey.

Jeffrey was still staring at him in surprise. "Mara is better at handling balls than you are," Dave taunted him with a smirk as wide as Jeffrey's had been.

He could immediately tell Jeffrey was turning red in rage, but he was forced to leave the field regardless of how he felt about it.

The match was proceeding rather evenly as moments later another of Dave's team members was eliminated tying the two teams once again, this time at 4 players each.

The better news was both balls had ended up on his side of the field allowing him and a team mate to work together. He pointed the other guy at someone on the other team for them to target together.

They both threw, unfortunately the other team member's throw was weak again and the guy caught it. Thankfully it at least managed to distract the guy who caught it which lead to Dave's ball hitting him and eliminating him after all, though they still hadn't managed to break the tie due to it and now the other side had both balls.

Having noticed they weren't doing near as well as they expected and Dave was giving them a run for their money unlike usual they decided to do the same thing and tossed at the same team member of Dave's easily eliminating him. Leaving Dave on the losing side for the first time in the match with only one other person on his team left while they still had 3 members on the field.

Given how Jeffrey the weakest member on their side was already eliminated that gave them an even bigger leg up since his own member was likely going to be useless and eliminated soon enough.