Page 41 of Hot for the Hockey Player
I smiled at all of them as Damon, with his hands in his pockets, head down, scuffed up to stand by the tailgate.“Hey, guys.You’re all friends of Damon’s?”
Heads bobbed.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you.I’ve known Damon since he was three.Used to go into his garage and play ball hockey with him.”
Damon’s cheeks ruddied up.
“Sucks what happened to you, man,” the shortest kid in the bunch said.He had the start of a thin, patchy mustache over his top lip.“Barbier is an animal.”
His friends agreed.
The chatter was pretty stilted, awkward in fact, as they asked me a few questions.Damon remained mostly quiet.I wasn’t sure what they wanted from me, but I was happy to ease the tension surrounding my friend.
“Hey, Bevan!”the gangliest kid in the bunch called out, cupping his mouth and directing his words at two pretty, young girls who made their way past us.“Where you goin’?”
“To eat my lunch,” the brunette said, giving him a weird look.She and her friend briefly glanced at me, and offered small, shy smiles, then faced away and picked up their pace.
Another one of the boys with a ballcap and light curly blond hair sticking out under it turned toward the girls, cupped his crotch and shook it.“Come back and suck this, Bettina!”
The rest of the guys—besides Damon—chuckled like cackling hyenas, falling over each other as they snickered, each of them grabbing their crotches and mimicking the kid in the ballcap.
“Bettina!”he called out again.“Where you taking those big lips?”
Bevan’s friend, who was obviously Bettina, glared at the kid in the ballcap, flipped him the bird and she and Bevan picked up their pace even more before disappearing off campus and down the hill out of sight.
“Bet you get a lot of pussy, huh?”asked the gangliest kid who’d catcalled Bevan first, turning back to me.“That one’s been holding out on me.Fuckin‘ cock tease.”
“Same with Bettina,” said the ballcap genius.“She pretends she doesn’t like it.But she does.These chicks need a man—theywanta man—to take control.Take care of them, but also boss them around a bit.”He bobbed his brows until they disappeared beneath his cap.“And maybe toss them around a bit.”
His friends chuckled and nodded, shifting back and forth on their feet like little gangsters or something.I gaped at Damon, who kept his head down.
“How old are you guys?”I asked.“You’re in Damon’s class?”
“Small school.Freshman and sophomores take some classes together,” the wiry kid who didn’t deserve Bevan—or any woman for that matter—said.“I’m a sophomore.”
“Um, I really don’t think you should be speaking about girls in your school—about women, people—like that.You’re children.And that’s really disrespectful.”
“Fuck, man.What do you know?You’re not my dad,” the kid snapped back.He gave me a derisive look.“Easy to condemn other people when you’re sitting in your ivory tower with pussy raining down on you like champagne.”
Where did this kid think he was?The streets of Compton?Why was he talking like some low-level gang prospect?My brain hurt trying to figure out what the hell was happening.But it wasn’t just him.Besides Damon, the other boys were joking and speaking the same way.I’m pretty sure one kid murmured that he’d like to, “Tap that.”Referring toBevan’sfriend.
“Good pussy is scarce, man,” the gangly one said.“And bitches these days don’t know how to respect a man.They don’t know how to recognize a high-value alpha and give us what we’re due.”
I glanced at Damon again, but he refused to make eye contact with me.
“You’rehowold?”I asked again.
“You gotta understand,” the shortest kid said.“It’s slim pickings here on the island.Not a lot of pussy.Not a lot ofgoodpussy anyway.”
They were also freaking children.They shouldn’t bepickinganything.Besides the food out of their teeth with a toothpick before getting tucked into bed by their parents, for a good night’s sleep.Was I that out of touch with reality?
I grew up in a hockey-focused family.Everything we did revolved around getting to the NHL.What we ate, who we associated with, how we spent our free time.Maybe I was just in a different crowd than this, and boys like this existed when I grew up.I was just blissfully ignorant.
I could also tell that Damon was extremely uncomfortable.
These boys were not his friends.Or at the very least, not people if given the choice he’d choose to befriend.Small pond, not a lot of fish to choose to pal around with.And unfortunately, he was forced to associate with goblin sharks and blob fish.
“Oh, there’s Ms.Mendoza,” the shortest kid said.“How do you say, ‘Show me your titties,’ in Spanish?”He cackled at his own stupid joke, and so did several of the other guys.
