Page 91 of Untouchable Player

“Did all that dicking down knock some brain cells out or what?”

I groan. “I should have never told you that.”

“No, you shouldn’t. But go on, you said you want him to understand you. Tell me more about that.”

“Now you are making fun of me.”

“You’re right, I am, a little, but I’m also not. Nate, you want someone who’ll understand you, that’s called empathy, you want someone with empathy and Jesse has that. He doesn’t know everything you’re talking about all the time because he doesn’t read the same textbooks as you and take the same classes, but he listens to you when you talk, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So you have this fantasy of you and your academic boyfriend in your tweed and your apartment filled to the brim with stuffy limited editions and you imagine standing in some wine and cheese party discussing Dostoyevsky…”

“Okay get out of my brain.” My face is so red right now.

She laughs.

“What is it, beyond the superficial things, the status symbols, the smart boyfriend you can show off to people who you probably don’t like anyway, what part of it actually makes you happy on some deep, visceral level? If you can tell me that in all honesty, then I’ll stop shipping you and Jesse. But if you can’t, then I’m going to annoy the shit out of you until you admit it, because from everything you’ve told me, that boy adores you and treats you the way you deserve to be treated, and he likes you for you, not some superficial bullshit, and you like him, not because he plays hockey, because you fucking hate that, but because of his personality, and I’ll bet not a lot of people have reallyseenhim the way you do before. And if you stop letting your stupid fantasy life get in the way, then maybe you could let yourself be happy, like, really, truly happy, in the real world.”

I stop dead and Katie asks me what’s wrong.

“You’re right.”

“Sorry, could you say that a little louder?”

“Shut up.”

“Seriously, can I say I told you so yet?”

“No, never.”

“Go on, just once.”

“No, don’t… don’t do it.”

“just once really fast?”

“no,”

“please?”

“No, don’t.”

“ITOLDYOUSO! Ah, that’s better.”

Jesse

Quinnipiac come out swinging. Scoring a goal in the first six minutes so we’re all on our toes, defending like crazy and trying to force them out of our zone.

It’s obvious they’re on Jones because he’s our star player and named MVP in the league two years in a row.

It’s cool having that guy on your team, but it’s a bitch to defend him.

Jones manages to find a way through Quinnipiac’s defence just before the end of the first period and he breaks away, getting it past the goaltender to score the leveller before we go into the second period.

I look up into the stands to see Nate’s mom hugging him. When she lets him go, he looks down onto the ice and I think he smiles at me, and fuck, that feels good.

It gives me the extra energy I need to kill it in the second, and we don’t let a single goal in, but we don’t score one either.

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