Page 4 of Cherry Picking
You’re telling me this behemoth of a man has even a single shy bone in his body?
Color me surprised.
“I guess I’d better give it to you real good, then, right?”
Hawks cackles, but there’s that look in Easton’s eyes again. The one he throws my way that holds an underlying simmer that piques my curiosity.
Queer players aren’t necessarily common in the league, but there’s a good handful I’ve met over the years, and I’m usually pretty decent at reading them.
Easton, though, looks equal parts interested and confused.
I’d best stay away from that one.
A bi-curious hockey player is a dangerous one.
And I have no intentions of threatening my spot on the team by being some experimental booty call.
It’s a shame, because Easton has exactly the kind of body I appreciate on top of me.
I have to shake it off and show this team that even if I’ve got a loud mouth and busy hands, I’m a motherfucking asset.
Practice is grueling.
Not that I expected anything less, but hot-fucking-damn. I’m half dead in the shower when Hawks calls out for me to go to some bar I can’t remember the name of with them.
So I throw on a tank and a pair of basketball shorts and hitch a ride with one of the other players.
If you ever wondered where a group of athletic knuckleheads might hang out after sweating their asses off for hours, the answer would be a cereal bar known as Lucky Sparks.
If you’ve never been to a cereal bar, it’s exactly like the name describes. All those classic sugary cereals from our childhood? Those plastic bowls with an attached straw? Lucky Sparks has them. Along with a selection of fancy coffees and alcoholic beverages.
There’s also a game corner with a pool table, air hockey, and some of those shooter and racing games you’d see at an arcade.
Hawks claps me on the back when I stand frozen somewhere in the middle of this childhood memory conglomerate.
“Not what you were expecting?”
I open my mouth, but not a single sound comes out.
“Some guys like to unwind by getting trashed and finding a pretty piece of ass. Me? I’ll take spiked Cocoa Pebbles and kicking ass at generic Grand Theft Auto any day.”
He smiles bright and heads over to the counter while a couple of the other guys have wandered to the games with beer in hand.
It’s not what I was expecting, but the laughter and lo-fi music reminds me of building blanket forts in the living room with my sister as a child. Strange as a twenty-three year old man, but an odd kind of relaxing.
I’m not much of a drinker, so I make my way to the air hockey table where a tiny winger named Rory—and by that I mean I don’t know how the other players haven’t snapped him like a twig, he’s so thin—and a hulking forward named Mashburn are slapping the puck around.
I raise a hand in greeting. Mashburn doesn’t look up but grunts his acknowledgement. Rory flashes me a beaming smile that drops as soon as the puck pings into the hole on his side.
“Fiddlesticks.” He crosses his arms and aims a pout at our teammate, who finally looks over at me with an eye roll and smile of his own.
“Hey there, Thirteen.”
I frown, and Rory breaks out into a fit of giggles. “It’s what the team dubbed you. Since, ya know, we’re your thirteenth PHL team.”
Yeah, alright, that’s fair.
“Interesting choice of hangout.”
