Page 19 of Phantom Faceoff
Sometimes I can be pushy and snobby when it comes to music, but I know not everyone shares my obsessive passion for it. Especially people like Zander Hale.
There’s no answer, and just when I think he might have passed out, he lets out a quiet huff.
“Because I thought it would be easy,” he says, voice laced in disbelief. “Art is subjective, right? Wrong. Turns out I’m just not deep enough to understand it.”
Normally, I’d agree. In my experience, most jocks are pretty one dimensional in the creativity department, but I’ve seen Zander put in the effort. I’ve caught him with Julian in our dorm more than once with headphones in making chicken scratch notes in a journal.
“You just need to find something that speaks to you. Deconstruct it. Boom, you’ll learn how you connect to art and how to go about interpreting something else.”
A long pause. “That is a lot of words, and my head is spinning too much to understand them.”
Right. No philosophical teachings for the drunk hockey player.
The Den is dark, locked, and void of company when I arrive.
“Where are you?”
Something rustles over the mic, a smack of lips and a groan. “Told you already.”
“Unless you’re invisible, you aren’t here.”
He grunts. Huffs. “Look up.”
I pinch my brows. “What—Fucking shitsticks, Hale!”
There he is, perched on the edge of the roof above the entrance, gaze locked on mine with a lazy salute.
“Could you lend me a hand?”
“I can lend you a foot up your ass.”
“Hm. Not my kink. But if you help me, I’ll try anything.”
After this, we’re having a serious discussion on how to hold our liquor and to not accept random sexual propositions from people when we are too blasted to give consent.
I might have no interest in banging him, but that doesn’t mean someone else who could come across him wouldn’t.
Removing a drunk-off-his-ass hockey player from a roof in one piece is no easy feat. It involves a lot of strength and nimble maneuvering, but we manage all the way up until we’re climbing down the ladder.
As soon as I get a foot on the ground, the metal ladder creaks, followed by a curse as Zander misses a rung. I reach out to steady him at the same time that he decides to give up on the slow and steady and fuckingjumps the rest of the way down.
Not with any warning, because what kind of decent human being warns someone before dumping all of their body weight on them?
I grab onto his waist so he doesn’t fall flat on his ass—or on top of me—but the force has us both stumbling until my back hits the brick wall behind us.
“Fuck.” I drop my hands to grab the back of my head, which took a pretty good bounce on the brick.
Zander turns—clumsy and off-center—and crowds into my already minimal space. He leans his face close to mine, smacking his palm on the wall to keep from falling over.
“Shit. Sorry.” When he tries to push off, his body sags in response, and I latch onto him again to keep him upright.
“Dammit. Stop moving for a minute.”
He drops his head to my shoulder, and we both take a moment to catch our breath.
The pain in my back is just enough to distract me from the warmth of Zander’s breath dancing along my neck and his fingers digging into my sides.
“Are you okay?” I rasp once I find my voice.
