Page 6 of Branded
“Fuck, I didn’t miss that,” Raph muttered, bending over and tying his shoe.
“My glorious body?” I asked, shaking my ass, and yeah, my dick.
Which earned me more groans.
Ha.
Fuckers.
The best part of being in a locker room was being able to annoy my teammates.
Okay, the best part of this locker room was being able to play with these guys.
I could be myself.
And they might bitch and give me shit, but ever since Luc had begun making changes a few seasons ago, the team had gelled in a way that meant I’d never had a better experience, never wanted to play somewhere else.
Plus, I got to shoot a rubber disc at a net—well, at a goalie within a net—be naked a lot and in a way that didn’t get me arrested, and I got to travel.
That was one of my favorite things to do.
Maybe I didn’t get a ton of time to play tourist, but I had a job that brought me to different cities, and I took advantage of that.
I found the small hole-in-the-wall restaurants.
I hiked or visited random-ass museums.
I walked around, saw shit, met people.
It was epic.
The groans about my nakedness faded, and I yanked on my underwear before plunking down on the bench, reaching for my shirt and shrugging it on, closing the buttons along the front.
Then it was socks, slacks, the uncomfortable shoes.
I fucking hated suits, though I did my best to make the most of them—for example, my suit today was an epic blue and green plaid that had elicited the same groans as me coming out of the shower had.
Maybe I shouldn’t like to torture my teammates…
But…meh.
It kept the locker room environment light, and up until the last couple seasons, the team had needed light.
But now we’d cut the toxic players from the roster, had won two Cups in a row, had good management, great support staff. We were good.
So now we needed the room light more than ever.
Because the pressure was on and we needed a way to release it, and I didn’t mind that it was me. My shoulders were big enough to carry it.
Let the guys laugh at me, groan at my antics, whine about my nakedness.
If that blew off some much-needed steam, then let that be part of my assistant captain duties.
“You coming to meet us for udon?” I asked Raph, who was shrugging into his suit jacket.
My teammate shook his head. “Nah, man. I need to get home to Monica.”
Monica being the woman Raph had started dating in the off-season. She was tall, thin, blond…and had turned up pregnant.
