Page 2 of Puck Shots
“Seriously?”
“Yep, a surprise show, so keep it under wraps.”
Luka raises his brows in my direction. “If it’s such a surprise, how do you know about it?” he asks with a grin.
“Let’s just say I had a lovely…encounter with their tour manager a few weeks back.”
“So I should be thanking your dick then?” He laughs.
“Go right ahead,” I say, and Luka leans in close to my crotch.
“Thank you, little flash for—”
“Hey, hey, hey,” I interject, stepping back. “You know very well there is nothing little about him.”
“Sorry.” He grins, looking up at me. It’s no surprise people think there is something between Luka and me. Judging by Rover’s slightly tilted head, pinched together brow, and upturned smirk, I bet he’s thinking there is, too. But it’s not like that with us. We met at the rush party for Kappa Omicron Kappa last year and became fast friends. When we both were accepted, it didn’t take too much convincing to let us room together, too. Only seniors get their own rooms in the house; most first years have to share with two or more guys, but Luka and I convinced the Pres to let us stay up in the attic. It was such a piece of shit space without even drywall on most of the walls when we moved in, but with a bathroom and a few home comforts, like, you know, beds, it’s livable. The best part, it only fits the two of us.
“I’m so grateful to you, big, ginormous, super flash dick for charming the pants off the Julius Rising tour manager.”
“Technically, he left his pants on, but they were around his ankles, sooo…”
“Okay, enough of this,” Rover says, grabbing Luka by the back of his shirt and pulling him away. “Get dressed already. We’ve got about ten minutes until they start serving dinner.”
“I’m almost ready,” I say, grabbing my shirt and phone. There are about ten message notifications; most are in the Love The Game group chat, a collective chat that started after a photoshoot celebrating queer athletes I was lucky enough to be a part of. My speed on the ice got a lot of media coverage in my senior year of high school, and I was listed in the “Ones to Watch” section. The day is mostly a blur now, but a few of the guys decided to grab dinner afterwards and created a group chat to organize it all, then we just sort of…kept it going. It’s mostly trash talk and comedic relief, but it’s been nice to havea sports place that isn’t at all infiltrated by my older brothers. They’re both players in the Banana Ball league, and given they’re identical twins, it scores them a huge amount of publicity. Lucky for me, when they did this shoot, no one considered Banana Ball a sport, and even though we’ve added in queer guys from random teams and every other sport you can think of since starting the chat, I’ve managed to keep them out. I just want to hold on to one thing that’s mine for as long as I can.
I flick open the chat, and Pedro, the striker for Liverpool, who was also the oldest at the photoshoot that kicked off this whole Love The Game group chat. His career in soccer has been a decade long, so it was no surprise he announced his retirement shortly after the photoshoot where we all met. He has sent through a selfie of him and his new husband on their honeymoon in the Maldives, a gorgeous aqua ocean behind them.
The comments are mostly congratulations and comments about how incredible the beach looks. I quickly tap out my reply.
ME:
Don’t do it on the sand, or it’ll be like screwing a bucket of glass shards. Unless you’re into that.
A few seconds later, Pedro replies with a pic of a broken window, the cracks spreading out from a hole in the middle like a tennis ball has gone through it.
PEDRO:
Too late. Send help. ***winky face***
I chuckle and am about to lock the screen and put it away when it starts to ring with The Monkees song from that oldtelevision show. I know people don’t really use personalized ringtones anymore, but I love them.
“Hey, Calvin, what’s up?” I ask, and my brother, the nicer of the twins, replies, “Hi Cossie.”
Great, the only time he calls me that is when he’s about to ask for a favor.
“What do you need?”
“It’s not me.”
“Sure, it isn’t.”
“No, I mean, I do need something but it isn’t for me. It’s for a guy on the team; do you remember John?”
“Yeah, the second baseman, right?”
“Yeah. Well, he’s got a younger brother and—”
“I don’t do blind dates. It might have worked out for you, big brother, but no, thank you.”
