Page 23 of The Grinder

Justin walked into the living room with a sandwich in one hand and a glass of chocolate milk in the other.

“Yeah. It’s fine. It’s just…my parents.”

“They sick?” Justin sat in the chair opposite him, munching away, oblivious to the fact that he was already wearing some of the mayo from this sandwich.

“No. I don’t know.” He shrugged. “My dad’s having trouble with his leg. My mom’s worried. I’m not there.”

“Hey, man. They were adults before you were born. I think they can take care of themselves.”

The simplicity of Justin’s statement made Riley blink. And then grin as he shook his head.

“So you going out with that girl again tonight?” Justin asked. “She was fucking hot, man.”

Before Riley could answer, Justin continued. “You think Coach is gonna switch up the lines tonight? A few of the guys were talking about it— Why are you laughing?”

It took Riley almost a minute to rein in his laughter while Justin looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

“You gonna tell me what the hell you were laughing at?”

Riley shook his head. “Man, does your brain ever shut off?”

Justin shrugged, not offended at all. “Nope. So you seeing her again?”

“Yeah, I am.”

And tonight, he wasn’t stopping until she asked him to.

* * * * *

“Hey, fucknugget. I’m gonna fucking put you on your ass the next time.”

“Fuck you, asswipe.” Riley baited the opposing player as they came out of the corner. “Try not to play with yourself in the box, kid. Don’t want everyone to see how small your dick is.”

For a second Riley thought he’d managed to piss off the opposing player enough to take another swing at him, but the linesman had a good grip on the kid’s arm and they skated toward the penalty box before Riley could say anything else.

Probably a good thing since the Redtails were going on the power play and Riley needed to get off the ice.

There were eleven minutes left in the third period and the Redtails were down by one. The St. John’s team was fucking fast but they were young and a little undisciplined. They’d managed to get two goals in the first period but they’d taken five penalties, two of them drawn by Riley.

Now, the Redtails needed to capitalize on this one and tie the game. Then they needed to get their heads out of their asses and win this game.

They’d played like shit tonight, their first line sluggish and out of sync. The defense had broken down more times than he could count and they were lucky to only be losing the game by one goal.

“Good job, Hatch.” Coach smacked him on the back as Riley sat on the bench then shifted down with the other guys to make room for the next line.

“Yes. Nice job, Chickie.” Jake leaned over and bumped shoulders. “Now if only we make it count.”

Their power play team hadn’t been doing so well this year. They’d been working on their special teams hard the past week but they still hadn’t gelled. Two minutes later, they hadn’t scored and Riley skated back on the ice for his shift.

But the ice never tilted back in their favor and they lost the game two to one.

The mood in the locker room was subdued. Coming off last night’s win, they’d been expecting another two points. Having their asses handed to them tonight sucked.

And now he needed to throw off the pissy attitude because he had a date.

For a split second, he considered texting Aly to call it off. Then he realized that was a shitty solution and took himself into the showers to soak his head.

By the time he came back out, he felt a hell of lot better because he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Aly.

---