Page 13 of The Home Game

Matty nodded. “Yup. Sounds good to me. I could eat a fucking moose.”

Dustin laughed. “So the usual?”

“Yup.” Matty grinned.

But as he soaped his body, he thought of Antoni again. Maybe it was the mention of Italian.

Whatever it was, it was probably dumb to be so worried about someone Matty had only talked to for an hour or so but thoughts of Antoni and the kids had hooked into his brain and refused to let go.

No matter how many times Matty checked his phone that day, the texts were the same ones he always got.

By that evening, he had messages from his family back in Oklahoma, group chats from the guys on the team about dumb stuff, updates from his real estate agent and the tradespeople coming to fix up his house. And a couple from some guys he knew in town.

They weren’t friends, exactly.

In the past few years, Matty had let a couple of them crash at his place for a while and loaned several of them some money. Dom and Dustin were always telling Matty he shouldn’t be so generous but Matty had been where they were—or at least close to it—and he hated to see people struggle.

Of course, not all of them got around to paying him back …

They liked to throw parties too. Drink his booze and eat his food. And Matty didn’t mind—he loved having the company—but with the house going up for sale next Wednesday, Matty had told them his place was off-limits.

They’d sounded a little annoyed but what was Matty supposed to do?

Risk having another hole in the wall from a couple of guys drunkenly tussling? No, Sharon would kill him and he wanted this place gone.

Still, on nights like tonight, when Matty was stretched out on the couch in front of his TV watching Sunday night pre-season football, he almost wished one of those dudes was crashing here.

At least the house wouldn’t be so damn quiet. Playing at the lower levels of hockey, a guy got used to sharing rooms on the road or sharing apartments or rental houses. The leagues paid peanuts and players had to make every dollar stretch as far as possible.

Matty had hated the loneliness after he started playing for the Fisher Cats. Maybe that was why he’d married Courtney so quickly.

Of course, as his mother liked to say, marry in haste, repent at leisure.

His parents had grown up together and dated for a long time before they got married and they’d been happy for nearly forty years so Matty supposed she knew what she was talking about.

This was what he got for not listening to her.

Annoyed and restless tonight, Matty went through his messages again. He contemplated asking Dom if he wanted to hang out but he was always busy on Sunday nights.

Matty never knew with what but, well, Dom could be weirdly tight-lipped about his personal life.

Dom had never once brought anyone to team events or even hooked up with someone at the bar. Matty would assume he was asexual or something but once or twice the team had spotted marks on his collarbone from someone’s mouth, so clearly, he was doing something with someone. Even if he’d never say who.

But whatever Dom was doing and whoever he was doing it with, he absolutely never answered his phone on Sunday nights so that was a lost cause.

Unable to sit still any longer, Matty got up, leaving the TV playing so there would be some noise, and walked over to the home gym.

He made a beeline for his squat rack and stripped off his T-shirt.

Weightlifting wouldn’t make him less lonely but at least he wouldn’t have time to stare at his phone and wait for a text that was never going to come.

“Bye, Antoni!” Tabitha Alvarado called out as she passed his classroom the next morning. “See you tomorrow!”

“Bye! See you then!” Antoni called back to the world lit teacher, tacking the last poster on the wall of his classroom. He surveyed the walls and nodded. There. At least it was starting to look like his space again.

He’d planned to buy several more this year but that definitely wasn’t happening now.

He wasn’t spending a single penny he didn’t have to.

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