Page 4 of Breakaway

“You’re like a proud papa, Surfer-Boy!” Harrison teased. “It’ll be good practice for when Willow is older.”

Travis listened to Sam and Harrison converse, but did his best not to stare. He didn’t want to appear creepy. It was just surreal to be sitting here at a table with Sam Morris, Harrison Dash, and Tyler Kidd. And that was something he needed to snap out of real quick.

“You guys ready to impress us tomorrow at practice?” Tyler asked.

“Always,” Ben said.

“We’ll be there bright and early!”

“Good.” Tyler nodded. “But first, how does dessert sound?”

BACK AT THE HOTEL AND in for the evening, Travis checked his social media, as he did from time to time. He sighed, annoyed as he scrolled through the large number of photos that he was tagged in. Some tagged by teammates, others tagged by random puck bunnies. He was well aware that whenever he put himself in a situation where puck bunnies and alcohol were involved, that this would be the outcome. He decided to untag himself from a few less desirable photos that managed to portray him in a bad light.

He shook his head with a groan. “I was on my first beer here, the only drink I had that night. Too bad all those empty bottles on the table in front of me tell a different story. An untrue story.” Those empty bottles had been from his teammates and the girls.

Untagging himself from another photo, he grumbled, “I swear these girls pick the absolute worse time to snap a photo. I look like I’m a man-whore with all those girls hanging off me.”

“What are you mumbling about over there?” Ben asked from across the hotel room. “Are you looking at Instagram posts again?”

Travis nodded. “Aren’t I always?”

“I don’t know why you bother. Who cares what people post about you? Social media is filled with lies and half-truths. You should just ignore it. I do,” Ben said nonchalantly.

His friend was right, but having untruths plastered all over social media didn’t sit well with him. Travis clicked from one photo to the next, untagging himself. If there was a way to hide the posts from others seeing them, he did that, too.

“You’re wasting your time, bro,” Ben said.

His buddy was probably right. Almost as quickly as he could clear the interweb of this slander, new posts would pop up.

He hated how the photos made him look. Hockey came before partying, and he’d only had two serious relationships in his life, Mariah being the most recent. He liked having a steady girl, but he’d broken up with Mariah, because she was more interested in being the wife of a professional hockey player and excited about where that put her on the society ladder than just being with him for the man that he was. That was not the type of girl for him.

And to this day Mariah was still grabbing onto any hockey player that would have her, especially the guys that she thought would be a household name someday. She was even in some of the photos he kept deleting his name from, always some Falcon player’s arm candy.

His wrist ached from the repetitive motion of deleting his name from photo after photo.

Travis looked at Ben, who was watching television. Maybe his friend was right. Was this a waste of his time? But it didn’t sit well in his gut that he was being seen as a drunk, a partier, and a player to anyone that searched his name. He wasn’t raised that way, and he hoped his Grams would never see these posts. He didn’t think she did social media, and that she stuck to text messages and facetime, but anyone in her circle could mention it to her or show her the photos.

Shaking his head, he pulled up another post. This one was on a local blog with a “nice” little story about the Falcons players being rowdy at a neighborhood bar, running up an enormous tab, and some guys being so drunk they had to be escorted out. And his mug was front and center in the photo, even though he’d only had one drink that night. Not only that, but he’d ended up driving his buddies home, due to them being too intoxicated to get behind the wheel. But the article didn’t mention any of that. The articles never did.

“I’m telling you, Travis, stop letting those things get to you. Someday you’ll have a PR person, and it will be their job to get those things off the internet. You’re young, just have some fun while you still can, and don’t worry so much. You don’t want to get frown lines on that pretty face,” Ben teased.

Frown lines were the least of his worries. He wasn’t the guy in these photos, and it would never feel okay that people thought he was.

Travis’s phone buzzed. A photo of his grandmother graced the screen. He smiled at her photo. She was back home in Minnesota, and he didn’t get to see her nearly enough.

“Hey, Grams,” Travis greeted her cheerfully.

“Hello dear. I just wanted to let you know that I did get your text telling me you’d arrived in Pittsburgh safe and sound. I just didn’t want to intrude right away. No one wants their grandmother bothering them while they’re trying to get to know their new teammates.”

“Oh, please. You know I always have time for you.” His grandmother was the only parent he’d ever known. “How are you doing?”

“Honey, I’m good. Tonight is church choir practice, so I only have a few minutes to talk.”

“I’m sure God will forgive you for being a few minutes late due to talking to your favorite grandson.”

She chuckled. “Yes, I suppose He will.”

“Grams, have you been behaving yourself?” Travis teased. His Grams was a wild one who loved life. She was always on the go.

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