Page 17 of Punchline
Jake’s message bummed me out, but I didn’t let it show.
That’s cool. Actually need to make it next Wednesday. Got an away game on Tues.
I didn’t get a response. When I checked the screen ten or fifteen minutes later, the message hadn’t even been read.
Well, fuck.
I put my phone face-down on the end table, then shifted my attention to the television. I’d been watching the New York-Dallas NAPH game with Nate and Sven, my housemates, but I’d stopped paying attention when Jake’s text had come through. And now, as I watched Dallas battle like hell to tie things up in the dying minutes, I couldn’t shake that bummed-out feeling.
Except that was stupid. He was my fighting coach. Not my boyfriend. Not even my friend, honestly; I would’ve been happy to be friends with him (or more), but he was clearly coming at this professionally.
Which meant I needed to do the same. Getting all maudlin because he’d canceled a session on me, and thenacting like an emo teenager when he didn’t read or reply to my text…
God. Ethan. Get a fucking grip.
I needed to. Seriously.
Maybe it would help if I stopped getting all stupid over my fighting coach. I could get back on those apps I’d been perusing before the season started. I’d been spooked off one because I’d stumbled across our assistant head coach’s profile; he wasn’t out to the team, and I’d been afraid I’d find other closeted players or members of staff. Like it was totally cool if they weren’t ready to come out, but there was a lot of potential for things to get weird if we crossed paths on an app.
Or maybe I’d just been so nervous and freaked out about stepping onto the hookup or dating scenes in a new city, I’d jumped on the first available excuse to bail.
Coward? Yeah, that was possible.
Couldn’t hold my own in a fight. Couldn’t stick my neck out on an app. Couldn’t?—
“Holy shit!” Nate shouted, startling me out of my skin.
Sven whooped and hollered too, and it didn’t take much to figure out why. With three seconds to go in the third period, Dallas had scored. They hadn’t won, but they were going into overtime; still a point, and still a chance to win.
I tried to get in on the enthusiasm, but I just… couldn’t. I still felt like crap over the brief interaction with Jake, and even worse over my own feelings.
Fighting coach, Ethan.
Not boyfriend. Not friend. Not hookup.
Fighting. Coach.
Pull it together.
While the game on TV shifted to overtime, I grabbed my phone and opened one of several hookup apps I’d beenavoiding. I had to reactivate my account, and as long as I was doing that, I might as well go through and spruce up my profile.
Not that I was procrastinating or anything. Nooo. Not me. Never.
“Okay,” Sven said, “here we go.”
I looked up and—oh, right. Overtime.
Speaking of procrastinating…
I put my phone aside as the players set up for three-on-three.
Maybe I’d get lucky and they’d go the full five minutes, followed by a lengthy shootout. That could kill a good half hour or?—
“New York scores!” the commentator shouted.
I blinked as Nate and Sven cheered. Holy shit. It was over in… fourteen seconds? That was it?
Yep. Because New York’s players were celebrating, tackling their game-winning scorer and their goalie in hugs. The guys from Dallas were trooping off to the locker room, every one of them stunned and dazed. They hadn’t been able to keep New York from tying the game in regulation, and then New York had just rolled right over them in overtime. Fourteenseconds.
