Page 11 of Unlovable Player

Austin looks very invested in hisbegel.

All he has to do is shrug and Gray slaps his hand on the table. “Yes!”

Do these guys do everything he says without question? What is this? A cult? A fraternity?

“You comin’ Yale?” Gray asks, his eyes meet mine for a millisecond before he looks away.

“I guess as I’m the new guy I have to buy the drinks right?”

They all start blinking rapidly and looking at each other.

Austin slaps me on the back. “So you guys have that tradition at Yale too?”

Some of the guys can’t hide the laughter behind their hands. I go along with it, pretending they’ve pulled the wool over my eyes.

AUSTIN

Watching my teammates be bought with cheap beer, I can’t believe how fickle they are. I sip the first one Huntington put down in front of me and refuse to bow to his daddy’s credit card by accepting a second.

If these guys wanna be bought with beer, let them. As long as they do what they need to on the ice, I’m not gonna tell them what to do off it. I did ask them to give our new teammate a chance, and I guess that’s what they’re doing.

While I’m scrolling through my phone, wondering when it’ll be late enough to leave, a message pops up.

“Everything alright Donno?” Gray asks.

“Huh?”

He nods to the phone I’ve locked and slipped back in my pocket.

“Yeah.” I take a swig of beer. “Just gotta make a call. Be back in a sec.”

As I weave through the people at the bar, that message runs through my head.

Can you talk? x

I lean against the wall outside and look at the message for a minute before hitting call.

Alyssa picks up on the first ring.

“Hey,” she says. The familiarity of her voice makes me feel like I just travelled back in time. “I didn’t interrupt anything did I?”

“No, what’s up? Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” I run a hand over my face and remind myself to relax.

“I noticed you got a new teammate, from Yale.”

“Yeah.” So she’s checking the team news online? Or my ma told her.

Alyssa laughs. “Glad to see you’ve graduated from monosyllabic answers.”

I smile. “You know I’m shit on the phone.”

---