Page 4 of Untouchable Player

Tell him, he’s your captain, and your friend, tell him you need help.I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Maybe I can just figure it out myself? Buckle down with the books. Pull more late nights. Drink less. Wake up earlier to study. Actually set foot in the library. I know I’ve had enough of people being disappointed in me for one day, and it’s not over yet.

The team starts showing up for practise. The locker room getting noisy. To people on the outside, it probably looks stupid, but it’s the best feeling ever. I fucking love this team and I’m pissed that I won’t get to play here after this season and wear this jersey with pride.

We run through the usual drills. Neutral zone passing, 3 on 2 defence drills. Me and my line mate Clarke defend the goal with our crazy goaltender Petroski, while each line comes at us and Petroski screams at us to cover his ass in about three different languages.

By the end of it all I’m sweating, but I’ve got a smile on my face, and I’m not thinking about the future anymore. Thank fuck.

We hit the locker room to change and I see an opportunity for that tutoring prof talked about.

“Hey Clarke, you’re majoring in sports nutrition right?” I try to keep my voice down and my tone casual.

“Yeah, why?”

Jones looks over, so I shrug and think of something else to say.

“Do you think prof is hot?”

“She’s a bit too uptight for me.”

“Don’t talk about Sunita like that,” Petroski says.

I forgot Petroski has the same major as me, he hardly ever turns up for class, though he seems to pass, maybe I should ask him to tutor me? He’s looking at me and Clarke right now like he’s going to kill us and bury the bodies somewhere no one will find them, so maybe not.

I should probably study, but I don’t have any books with me and the library is like a thirty minute walk from the rink and I’m exhausted and need to refuel before I even think about reading a book.

It’s a good kind of tired you get after practise. Pumped tired, where you couldn’t sleep if you tried, but you don’t want to do anything either. You’re just… satisfied.

I’m grateful when Jones says he’s going back to the house and asks if I want a ride. I can eat and maybe take a nap and wake up feeling refreshed. AndthenI’ll study.

His car still has that new car smell and I try not to feel jealous as I sit in the passenger seat and think about messing with the dials on the stereo. Jones has it hooked up to Spotify on his phone and some rap playlist is pumping through the speakers.

“We’re making the play-offs this year Engels,” he says. He’s not looking at me and I wonder if it was meant to be a question.

“It’s our last chance.”

He glances at me now and I think that look means it’smylast chance.He’llhave chances to win the Stanley Cup one day. He won’t give a shit about the Frozen Four when he’s inducted into the Hall of Fame. But me… this is the highlight of my fucking life, right?

“I know.”

Jones throws his head back and groans, “I’m fucking starving!”

“I’ll make some stir fry when we get home.”

He laughs, “what would we do without you?”

Starve? Order take-out every night? I still can’t believe no one else’s mom taught them how to cook before they left for college. Like, not even stir fry? What kind of helpless fucks are they?

After we eat, I take a nap and when I wake up it’s dark outside and Jones and Clarke are playing on the PS5 in the living room. I gulp some OJ from the carton and run back upstairs to my room and the lock the door – one good thing about living away from home, you get a door with a lock on it.

After I flop back on the bed, I open the app and start scrolling. The guys you don’t match with don’t pop up, but that doesn’t mean they can’t see you before they swipe left. I’m still not happy you can see my tattoo in the picture I chose, but it’s the best one by far and every other one made it look like I had no arm or was doing something weird with it out of frame. Fuck it. If anyone I know brings it up, I’ll ask them why they were on a gay hook-up app anyway.

All the guys on here are generic as fuck or posers. You can tell they spend hours in front of their bathroom mirror, getting the right angle so people on the internet will compliment them. I get it. It’s how we judge each other on apps like this. It’s just about how you look. Maybe one out of ten guys I talk to even asks to see my face. And then it’s only if we’re going to actually meet up. Most of the time, I just ask someone if they want to video chat and jerk off. They don’t care what my face looks like then. If it’s really that ugly, they can just put something over that part of their phone and stare at my dick instead.

A nerdy-looking guy in a t-shirt who looks like he wandered onto the wrong app pops up and I hesitate before I swipe onto the next guy. In real life, I’d look twice, but this isn’t about looking for a boyfriend. I never want one of those. I like girls as well and that’s who I see myself ending up with. I want kids and marriage and all that stuff. That’s the main reason I don’t tell anyoneabout this. If I was just into guys, then yeah, fine, but I’m not. This is just about sex. I like to fuck guys sometimes, so what?

College isn’t the right place to meet my future wife. While I’m still playing hockey, that’s all they’re going to see. As soon as they realise I’m not making it to the NHL, they’ll drop me for one of my teammates – a pretty boy or someone more talented, like Jones. So for now, I’ll get guys out of my system. Isn’t that what college is for? Experimenting?

I swipe past the cute nerd and go for the first generic six pack who pops up and ask if he wants to video chat. When he says yeah, I double check Jones and Clarke are still glued to the game downstairs before locking the door again and taking off my pants.

---