Page 48 of Keeper
I didn’t answer.
“Anyway,” she said, “before we were rudely interrupted, we were talking about how hot Vaughn is.”
“Is he a good goalie?”
“Wellllllll.” She stalled. “Hewasone of the best goalies in the league up until, oh, two months ago. Let’s just say he’s on a cold streak right now.”
“How cold?”
“Winter-in-Kansas cold.” She giggled. “Nothing but losses in the last two months. And it’s not that the team is bad, either. They win whenever they play their backup.”
My eyes widened. “Oh. Yikes. That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not. Well, it’s not good for him, but it’s good for me.”
“Why?”
“Athletes are superstitious, you know? If he’s stuck in this terrible losing streak, it makes sense that he’d go outside the norm and try something different.”
“Like agree to do a photo shoot?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure,” she said, though that clearly wasn’t the real reason she had in mind. “Or, y’know … he could agree to dome.”
I tilted my head at her. “Huh?”
“Oh, c’mon, don’t act surprised. I already told you I wanna bone the guy.” She reached for her phone. “Do I have to whip out his dick pic again?”
“No, don’t!” I laughed. “I’m just confused by what you meant when you said ‘do something different.’ I don’t see the connection.”
“Okay. I know a girl he used to date—that’s how I got his dick pic in the first place, remember? Through her, I know a lot about him.”
“Like what?”
“Well, he’s a goalie, obviously, and goalies are even more absurdly superstitious than regular athletes. And he’s no different. When he’s winning, he doesn’t want to change a thing. He wants to see the same girl over and over.”
“But he’s not winning,” I said, “he’s on a cold streak.”
“Yup.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “Which means he’s currently accepting applications.”
“I see,” I said, turning my attention to the game. “So we’re rooting for him to lose, then?”
“We are indeed.”
Marta watched with excitement as our Dallas Devils came under attack. The opponent moved the puck around the Devils’ zone with frightening ease, like grown adults playing a game of keep away with children. They funneled one dangerous shot after another at the net, peppering Vaughn with pucks. But the goalie had an answer for every lethal scoring chance, turning pucks away left and right—and making it look easy, too.
Even though I was supposed to be rooting for the goalie to get scored on, deep down, I have to admit, I got so excited each time he made a save and kept the puck out of the net. How could you not root for the goalie to pull himself out of his slump? He obviously didnotwant to be scored on, and it’s not like he was getting much help from his teammates. He looked like the only Devil who’d bothered to show up for the game.
“Come on!” Marta yelled at the TV. “Get that puck past him, you morons!”
A rebound led to a scramble at the goal mouth and a frenzied flurry of scoring chances, but Vaughn stood tall in net, finally catching the puck in his glove to stop play again. A commercial break followed.
“Damn,” she muttered. “Oh well, the goals will come eventually. Boston’s a really good team—they’re due to score. There’s no way the Devils will win tonight.”
“So what else did your friend tell you about Vaughn?” I asked.
“Oh, so much. I’m not gonna lie, Ainsley, he sounds like a total asshole.”
“How so?”
