Page 6 of Puck Shots
“Well, it’ll be nice to have some brains in here to counteract the brainless beefcakes,” he says louder with a chuckle, like he’strying to make sure his comment is heard by anyone else in the vicinity.
“Who you calling beefcake?” someone calls back.
“Everyone knows hockey players have more muscles than brain cells,” he replies, and I don’t know if I should laugh or smile or what, so I just stand there awkwardly staring at my feet.
“It’s you lacrosse players that are missing a few screws. Your games are like watching girls run around with butterfly nets,” the same voice replies.
“Don’t listen to Flash. He’s been hit in the head too many times by the puck. Come on, I’ll show you the room and then you can unpack while we finish setting up for the welcome party.”
“It’s a party?”
“Yeah, we like to keep things casual here at KOK.”
I don’t think I will ever be able to just casually say that word the way these guys seem to. I’ll stick with the full name, Kappa Omicron Kappa, I think.
He leads me through the kitchen to the rec room behind it, but instead of housing a bunch of tables and chairs and various games like foosball like I saw in my research, they’ve moved them all out and set up with twelve air mattresses scattered throughout.
“So this is your home for the next few weeks. If you make it through rush, you’ll move upstairs. Cool?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say, and he drops my bag down in front of the bed closest to the door. “Any questions?”
I can think of at least three off hand, but I don’t want to be the guy with all the questions, so I just shake my head.
“Cool, come find me when you’ve unpacked. I’ll introduce you around.”
“Thanks,” I say, and he slaps a hand down on my shoulder.
“No worries. Welcome to KOK.”
I can’t really unpack, not properly anyway. While the air beds are at least the kind that are a few feet high, there is no bedside, only a trunk at the foot of each bed for our things, so I take a few minutes to unpack my books, stacking a few of them beside the bed to make a sort of bedside table, and the rest inside the trunk. I refold my clothes and stack them beside the remaining books and then grab the wooden chess box out. It’s one of those ones that you open completely and flip over to use as the board. I bought it at a thrift shop not far from Mom and Dad’s place. I made the chess pieces myself, though, over the course of two years from bits and pieces I found on the beach or in the woods. My favorites are the queens. They are made from mostly alternating pieces of red and blue sea glass. I discovered the red one at low tide peeking out from under a giant rock. I have no clue what it used to be, but it was as thick as my thumb and about two inches long when I dug it out. The sculpting took forever, I was terrified I’d break it, but now it’s glued to a smooth stone from a riverbed with a fancy button and part of a bottle cap on top.
I keep my other personal items in the suitcase I brought them in and sit it on top before closing the trunk and sitting on the end of the air bed, but in the quiet, my brain starts analyzing the room, and before I know it, I’m moving beds a few inches this way and that until each is positioned with equal portions of the room only stopping when I hear Riley talking to someone, giving them the same basic lay of the land he gave me. I quickly return to my area and open the trunk, waiting for him to enter and then closing it like I only just finished unpacking.
“This is Eli,” Riley says when he walks through the door. His brow picks up a little over one eye as his gaze sweeps over the room. “Is there something different in here?”
“No,” I reply immediately, avoiding eye contact. I know I suck at lying. Not once have I been able to deceive anyone.
“Huh, okay. Umm, this is Toby, he’s another legacy.”
“Hi,” I say, holding out my hand for him to shake.
“I thought this was a sport frat, you can’t be a player,” he says without shaking my hand, leaving me standing there with it just out there.
“No, ummm, I’m a physics major.”
His eyebrows rise and fall slowly, and I try to swallow the lump that has risen in my throat. My heart is pounding; this is exactly what I was worried about. All these guys are going to be sports guys. Guys like John. I don’t belong here, and sooner or later, they are going to see that, too. My bet is on sooner.
“I’ll take that one,” Toby says, tossing his bag towards one of the far beds, but he’s thrown it with way too much force, and the air mattress is essentially a trampoline and… yep, there his bag goes bouncing off it right into the wall with a thud.
“So, Riley man, intro me to the frat brothers,” he says, and I realize I’m still holding out my fucking hand. I pull it back and cross my arms over my chest tight, like I can somehow squeeze the awkwardness out of me. I normally go for walks when I get like this. All anxious and nervous energy bubbling through me like an overboiling pot. Would it look bad if I left the house? There’s a section of wood behind it that looks like it has a path.
“You want to come meet the guys?” Riley asks me, and I shake my head.
“I, umm…” Shit, this is not a good start.
“Come on, they’re all pretty chill, I swear.”
“I guess so, okay,” I concede.
