Page 99 of Wrong Pucking Jersey

The hairstyle makes me want to pull at it so I can grip those strands while I fuck her from behind.

Maddox moves his hand to her thigh. He’s standing as close as he can to the examination bed, so he can support her the best way he knows how.

Mikayla responds best to touch.

That’s why Maddox’s close presence and his hand laying on her top left thigh must be making this confessing moment a tad easier.

“What is our baby girl regretting?” he quietly asks. “If it has something to do with us, can we talk about it?”

“No.” She shakes her head quickly to ensure we don’t get the wrong idea. “I’ve never regretted us. Or our crew. I guess my thoughts were just really negative this weekend. Or maybe before I found out about the internship. I thought it would fix itself with this new journey I’m embarking on with this internship and somehow managing to be placed on a hockey team that respects me and what I can contribute as a team nurse. I should be on cloud nine…”

“But?” I ask and approach until I’m on her left side while Maddox remains to her right.

“The weight of regret on my shoulders is still there… and it just drives me mad when I see Jayce.”

I understand why, and I know Maddox does as well when we quickly exchange a look.

“I don’t want to go back and think about the past. I don’t want to look so childish with me reacting so negatively over something that happened more than seven years ago. It looks stupid and unprofessional, but… I got into a heated argument with my dad over the weekend, and I guess seeing Jayce and having him ignore me…”

“It triggered things,” Maddox concludes and watches Mikayla as she nods.

“Do you want to talk about the argument you had with your dad?” I offer. It could help her address how she feels and get a second and third opinion.

Her cheeks blush a little, but she breathes deeply and decides to explain what happened this weekend to make her in more of a foul mood than her acknowledging her mother’s death anniversary.

“It was over something stupid, but it was important to me because I don’t want to finish this internship with more regrets on my list. Maybe the timing was wrong. Dad was already upset since a few past comrades called him to actually mock his new position. Saying it was just a last-minute fill-in position and that he wasn’t actually chosen with consideration of his experience and past coaching gigs that led to us winning the Stanley Cup years ago.”

I try not to show that the news of Coach Johnson’s apparent “colleagues” treating him so poorly upsets me. This is when one should be celebrated for obtaining such a rare opportunity.

Instead, their jealous antics are getting to his head.

We’re obviously on rivaling teams and won’t ever have Coach Johnson as a coach but we don’t wish him evil or failure.

“I was reading a hockey book. It intrigued me because the female character is a doctor and gets her internship to be a doctor on a hockey team. I connected to it in many ways due to the similarities of my life and circumstances, but what really surprised me was that she was falling for more than one guy in the book.”

I’m listening intently, just like Maddox, because this could tackle what we want to talk about.

What we’ve craved to acknowledge between all of us.

“I hadn’t read the story summary before picking the book, so it was a surprise to me as the story continues to unravel. Just reading their challenges as they try to figure out if this whole dating more than one person can work,” she elaborates and looks nervous.

Her hands are in her lab coat, fidgeting to the point, I reach out to scoop her right hand.

Just as Maddox does the same with her left.

She has no choice but to glance down and acknowledge our unexpected execution of supportive touch. Her hands eventually wrap around our hands. It seems to do the trick in encouraging her to continue, knowing neither of us would judge.

“I was explaining it to Dad, and well… he just shut the idea down. Normally, he’s open about conversations like these. When I wondered about my sexual orientation in my teens or was unsure of my identity in my young adulthood, he always supported me. I thought he’d do the same with me bringing up this book, but he was so against it. Saying it would make him look bad if I dated more than one man. It just was so unexpected… and hurt a lot more than I dare share with him. No matter the angle I approached to reason to him why the girl in the book had every right to try things and open her heart to more than one lover, Dad just got angrier. He made it sound so forbidden, so taboo. That it was disgusting to think about it, and it just made me so mad.”

“Because he wasn’t willing to listen to you?” I ask.

“No,” she answers and closes her eyes. “It made me mad because I felt… if my mom… was alive, she’d listen and encourage me to explore the idea for as long as it made me happy.”

She’s right about that one.

Mikayla’s mother was open-minded. Despite us being young adults, we could see how open and supportive Mikayla’s mother was. It always made me wonder whether she would have been with Coach Cyrus later on in life or potentially have an open marriage by inviting Coach Cyrus to the occasion.

I knew they were close.

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