Page 86 of Absolutely Pucked
He snorted. “Yeah. They’re trying to figure out if we’re boning or not. They’ll take bets.”
“Oh, uh…”
“Don’t worry, we’re not going to bone.”
“I wasn’t worried about that?” I said, frowning as he led the way toward a set of double doors. “You don’t care though?”
“Why should I?”
“Because you don’t like guys.”
Jonah stopped and scoffed, leaning against the wall. “Look, if I ever met a guy I liked, I’d fuck him. Or date him. You know, whatever. I just never have. But I’m not a closed-minded asshole or a bigot.”
“I didn’t think that.”
He softened a bit. “There are dozens of out players in the pros now, but it’s hard to shake off the old bullshit bigotry. And honestly, it’s a bit like high school. Everyone cares what everyone else is doing with all their bits, and it gets a little…invasive. I let them guess and take bets, and one day, I figure I’ll just show up married, and they’ll have to shut their mouths forever.”
“Sounds like you have it figured out.”
He snorted. “It’s the only thing in my life that is figured out. Now…” He started walking again and stopped near the end of a corridor that opened up to the ground-level seats. “To the left—is there anyone sitting there?”
I squinted. “Some guy. Reddish hair, kind of tall. Sunglasses. Looks like he’s wearing one of your team jerseys. The back says Carlen.”
“Oh. Okay, that’s Asa. He’s the backup goalie, but he’s got a torn Achilles right now, so he can’t play. You can go chat with him. Tell him I sent you.”
Before I could argue, Jonah turned and walked off, leaving me entirely on my own in the nearly empty arena. I had half a mind to hunker down in one of the closer seats and not socialize, but Jonah was right. If I had any hope of getting over the heartbreak, I had to do something with myself.
I needed to get my own place, get a job, and pull myself together. I was too damn old to be doing this.
On the verge of announcing my presence to Asa, I tripped on the edge of a step and fell flat on my face. He jolted and spun, brows furrowed.
“Um, what the fuck?”
“Hi. Hello. I’m on the floor. Give me a second.” As if my life couldn’t get more humiliating.
He snorted. “Do you need a hand up?”
“Nope.” I crawled onto my hands and knees, then stood and dropped into the seat one away from his.
“Newly blind?”
“Nope. Just clumsy as fuck. I’m Killian. Jonah sent me over to bother you. He bullied me into watchingpractice this afternoon because otherwise I was going to sit in my bed and rot.”
Asa grimaced. Up close, he was very attractive, though he didn’t look a day over twenty. He had that annoyingly smooth, blemish-free skin that I’d always wanted but genetics denied me. He was pale and covered in freckles with a button nose and full lips.
“It must be bad if you’re trauma dumping to a total stranger. Which I don’t mind, by the way. I’m a whore for gossip, and all of my old friends won’t talk to me anymore, so I feel kind of left out.”
My brows rose. “What did you do? Did you fuck one of their partners?”
Asa choked. “Dude, that issospecific. But, uhh…no. I went blind.”
“Oh. Shit. That’s…why wouldn’t they talk to you after that?”
“Because they don’t know what to do with me now. I was blind in one eye before, but since I could fake the whole perfectly sighted thing really well, they were fine. But then shit happened, and, well. I don’t know if you were ever in a fraternity…”
“Oh God. Yeah.” And I knew exactly what he meant. My fraternity brothers kept in touch so long as it benefited them in some way. It had been all crickets since Delia left, and I realized I hadn’t even thought about them this entire time. “I thought I was hot shit, then my life fell apart, and now I’m worthless to them. I get it.”
“My mom made me join,” he said with a sigh, turning his face back toward the rink. Off in the distance, I could see a group of people heading towardthe ice, and I realized it was the team. “She was fixated on me being, like, normal or whatever?” He waved his hand. “She forced me to take driver’s ed and dragged me to all these ridiculous-as-fuck monuments all over the country as though not seeing those white dudes on the side of a sacred Native American mountain was somehow going to create regret and resentment.”
