by A. E. Wasp
He’d spent years practicing and training, pushing his body to the limits for hockey, and his brain beyond what he’d thought possible. He’d struggled for years to keep his grades up so his parents wouldn’t make him quit hockey.
After he’d been diagnosed with dysgraphia and dyslexia – he was a learning disabilities overachiever, alright – he’d agreed to all the tutors and special classes, and to writing aids and learning sign language, only to barely manage to keep his head above water academically.
He was never going to write a book or teach a class or even manage to speak more than a sentence in a row coherently. Hockey was the only thing he was good at. Promising himself and his parents that he would make something of himself, whatever that meant, he poured his heart and soul into it.
Unfortunately, according to his parents, making something of himself didn’t mean ‘playing games’ for a living, as they referred to any level of sports. They didn’t see much difference between the local bowling league and professional hockey.
“Well,” his father, Grant, had said as he looked over the contract from the Thunder. “You’ll be paid well for the next three years, at least.” He put the paper down on the big table at which all business was discussed. “What happens after that?”
“I don’t know,” Robbie said. He looked down the table at Georgia for moral support.
“No one can say for sure, Grant,” Georgia said to his father. “It’s kind of like writing. You never know where or how that is going to work out either. Robbie is joining one of the most elite sports franchises in the country. They’re spending millions on him, and they have a vested interest in seeing him succeed.”
If anybody had asked him to describe his relationship to Georgia, Robbie would never be able to find the words. Twenty-five years older than Robbie, Georgia was somewhere between his best friend and his non-blood related aunt.
She was also a six-foot-tall fiery redhead whose fashion icon was Dorothy from The Golden Girls – a show Robbie had watched with her many, many times. He adored her.
Georgia, born George, had been a tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles. As an undergrad in Jenny’s Gender Studies program, she’d come to live at the combination boarding house/writer’s commune Robbie’s parents ran. They usually only accepted grad students, but as a transitioning thirty-year-old freshman, she’d needed someplace better to live than a dorm.
Georgia had been sort of a nanny-slash-babysitter when Robbie was young, and she’d been the one to suggest a struggling Robbie try sports as an outlet for his frustration at school. She’d gone to every practice and every game and taught him more about how to live as an athlete than anyone ever had since.
Obliviously, she was the first one Robbie had called with the news. She’d cried. He’d cried. Through the power of the internet, she’d had a huge bouquet of flowers and congratulatory pizzas for him and his friends sent to his apartment.
“Isn’t there any way you can put them off until you’ve finished your degree?” Jenny, his mother, had asked when he’d told them about the offer.
“No, Mom. I don’t think so,” he told her. He didn’t add that the chances of him ever graduating hovered around zero.
Buoyed by Georgia’s encouragement, Robbie signed the contract.
The funny thing was, his life hadn’t changed much since joining the supposedly heady ranks of elite athletes. He still split his time between playing hockey, traveling somewhere to play hockey, working out, and occasionally, if he could squeeze it in, eating and sleeping. He just did it on much nicer buses and planes, he ate better road food, and stayed in fancier hotels.
The world hadn’t changed because Robert Rhodes from Omaha was playing pro hockey. If he died today, the world wouldn’t notice.
Not that he wanted to die. He just thought there should be more to life. Maybe. His parents made a difference. They created things. His father’s books touched hearts and changed lives. His mother opened people’s minds on a daily basis.
What could he do just by playing hockey?
He laid on the old futon and surveyed his kingdom. Paul was right. This place probably was the same size as his last place. But it came with a mortgage, something Robbie couldn’t believe he now had. He didn’t love it, but he didn’t hate it.
He was hungry, but he knew there was nothing in the fridge but ingredients for meals. This cooking stuff was harder than it looked. He wondered if Paul would want to get something to eat.
No. That would be a terrible idea. They’d only talked for twenty minutes today, and Robbie had already kissed him. He was better off staying far, far away from Paul—call me Chip—Dyson.
Too bad they were going to see each other almost every day for the next few months.
He read Paul’s message again. I don’t know, he texted back. But it does. You think it’s weird now, wait until tomorrow. You’ll be happy we have such nice bathrooms.
He laughed when Paul sent back a text that was just a picture of a guy scratching his head.
You’ll see.
10
Paul
Robbie was right; this is a nice bathroom, Paul thought, even though he couldn’t see much of it with his head hanging over the toilet bowl. But the fancy floor tiles were cool under his knees, and given his current circumstances, the room smelled surprisingly nice. Lemony.
At least his first game was a home game. How much more embarrassing would it be to throw up in someone else’s bathroom?
Since he was already on his knees, Paul sent a short but heartfelt prayer of thanks along with a request for the strength to play his best tonight. And forgive me for praying against a toilet, he added at the end. It probably wasn’t what Jesus meant when he said to go into your room and shut the door to pray, but he figured God wouldn’t mind.
The outer door opened and closed, and someone walked over to the stall and knocked. The door swung open because Paul hadn’t had time to throw the latch. “You okay, Dyson?” Robbie asked leaning against the door.
“Just peachy,” Paul groaned, giving a shaky thumbs up. He leaned his head on his outstretched arm. “Is everyone laughing at me?”
Robbie chuckled. “Nah. Well, just a little. Mostly they’re taking bets on how many times you puked.”
“So far? Only two.” Paul pulled himself up to his knees. It was a start at least.
Robbie scoffed. “Not even close to the record. Lipe puked six times before his first game.” He reached a hand down. “Ready to go?”
Paul mentally checked in with his stomach. He pictured himself skating out in front of all the fans and facing the Penguins across the ice. His stomach clenched, but vomiting no longer felt imminent. “I think so. Ready as I’ll ever be.”
He took Robbie’s hand and let himself be pulled up. “How long did it take before you stopped being nervous?”
“I’ll let you know when it happens. Come on, let’s go get you suited up.”
Later in life, when Paul tried to remember his first professional hockey game, most of it would be a blur.
It had been minutes of tension interspersed with thirty or forty second bursts of heart-pounding action that left him bruised and dripping with sweat.
He’d thought he’d been ready after his years in Juniors, then college hockey and then his months in the AHL. But this was a whole other level of play. Even the fourth stringers could skate circles around most of the guys he’d played with before.
Two things kept his head and heart firmly in the game.
One, he was there, right? Nobody got a charity spot on a team. And it wasn’t a temporary call-up. The Thunder had wanted him. He had a three-year contract. Barring a last minute transfer, he was there for a while.
Two, Robbie. Somehow, through some miracle, they were paired up together for second string, and every time he felt like might be a little lost on the bench or on the ice, Robbie seemed to know. “You got this,” he said as they jumped over the wall for their first time skating together.
&n
bsp; By the third period, he’d gone through two pairs of gloves and three jerseys. The last time he’d been this tired from a game was an OHL game that had gone into double OT. They were sixteen minutes twenty-seven seconds into the third period when the coach called for a line change. The Thunder were down two to one. Jake had scored their only goal in the first period with an assist from Anderson, the first line right winger.
Paul and Robbie leaped over the wall without looking at each other, racing into position while the puck was down at the Penguins’ end of the ice.
An intercepted pass turned over possession of the puck, and the Penguins raced down the ice. As Paul blocked the Penguins’ forward, Robbie got in position in front of the net. Robbie grabbed the puck on the rebound, and hugging the net, swung around for the breakout pass.
The Penguins winger caught his stick and Robbie went down. Paul was moving towards the middle of the rink before his body hit the ice.
The Thunder forward raised his arm for a switch and Paul caught the Penguins’ defense zipping towards the bench for a quick change. Jake sped up the middle of the ice, as Robbie quickly reached out, stick in his right hand, and batted the puck across the defensive zone right onto Paul’s tape.
Paul scooped the puck up, sending a perfect saucer flying over the heads of the Penguins’ offense and dropping flat on the ice in front of Jake.
The crowd roared as Jake barreled down the ice on a breakaway, nothing between him and the net but the goalie. He wound up, swung, and buried a slap shot right over the shoulder of the Penguins’ goalie and deep into the back of the net, tying up the game with less than three minutes on the clock.
Paul registered the announcers saying something about him and Robbie being college rivals as they slammed into each other in a violent victory embrace.
The high from the play and the slaps on the back from his teammates carried Paul on a cloud through the last three minutes of play. He barely registered their second line center scoring the game-winning goal just two-minutes and ten seconds later.
The home crowd went insane. They may have been the franchise's newest fans, but they were also the most dedicated. Paul had been concerned that all white collar yuppies populating Seattle would be reluctant to let loose, but the fans screamed as loud as the best NASCAR fans, blowing horns, and ringing cowbells until the stadium rang.
The reporters were waiting for them as they made their way off the ice and back to the Thunder’s fancy new locker room.
Paul leaped at Robbie’s back with a whoop of joy. Robbie staggered under the weight, but grabbed his thighs and laughed.
“Robbie, Robbie,” one of the reporters waiting in the hall called as they passed by. “Is it true you two were rivals in college?”
The team PR guy tried to hustle them into the press room so they’d have the nice Thunder Logo backdrop, but Paul yelled out anyway.
“Hell, yeah. Bemidji sucks.” He slipped off of Robbie, standing in front of the reporter, sweat dripping down his neck and a smile he couldn’t hold back stretching across his face.
“This guy, though, he ain’t so bad. ‘Course that move he did, I taught him that.” Paul elbowed Robbie in the ribs.
Robbie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Keep telling yourself that, Dyson.”
“Is that true?” one of the reporters asked Robbie.
“Yeah, it’s true,” Paul answered for him. “Took him out on the pond and showed him a thing or two.”
Robbie raised an eyebrow at Paul. “I seem to recall showing you a few moves back then, too.”
Paul’s jaw dropped. He didn’t just…he wouldn’t…?
Robbie gave him a challenging look confirming that he had, and he would. Lust mingled with the adrenaline pumping through his veins.
Robbie laughed at the look on his face.
“Okay,” the PR guy said, “Can we move this out of the hallway?”
A young, handsome guy with dark brown skin and a neat Afro turned to Robbie. “When Paul was on the Chargers, he got a hit on you that cost him two games, isn’t that right?”
“Yeah,” Paul jumped in. “I was totally a dick that night. I deserved it.”
“Is it hard playing on the same team now?” Tall, dark, and handsome asked Robbie, despite Paul having been the one speaking. He smiled more than Paul felt was strictly necessary.
Robbie pretended to think about it, then whacked Paul on the shoulder. “Nah, he’s a’ight for a country boy. We’re all dicks some days, right?”
Paul pushed between the two of them. “Rhodes is a great guy and a great player. I’m looking forward to playing with him and the rest of this amazing team. But now, I just want a shower.”
With a practiced smiled, the PR rep ushered the reporters into the press room where some other players and the coach were already waiting for them.
Paul and Robbie headed for the locker room.
11
Robbie
The Thunder locker room might have been the nicest one Robbie had ever been in, but all the money in the world couldn’t make a locker room smell any better.
He breathed in deeply as he walked carefully around the Thunder logo woven into the carpet in the middle of the room. The scent of sweaty men and damp pads might have been kind of gross, but it was more familiar to him than any other. It linked past and present and future in one unbroken smelly line.
The room was the normal end of game chaos as he clomped over to his changing stall. He stripped off his jersey, tossing it into the nearest laundry hamper.
Paul dropped down onto the bench next to him and pulled his jersey off with a sigh. Balling it up, he gave it an easy overhand toss into the hamper. “How awesome is it to have people to take care of this stuff now? And the equipment room,” he went on before Robbie could answer. “Oh, my Lord, it’s like I died and went to hockey heaven.”
Since it had only been a few months earlier for him, Robbie remembered what it was like walking into the room and being told to take his pick of anything he wanted. He’d had time to break in new pads and figure out what sticks he wanted.
Paul was still using his equipment from before with some shells in the Thunder colors thrown over them. The jersey they had already. The team kept one with the names of all the players who might be called up from the A.
Robbie stripped down to his under layer before heading for the changing room. It was going to be a long night. They were flying out to Chicago for the start of five nights on the road. He hoped he’d remembered to take the milk out of the fridge.
Paul passed him on the way to the showers. Robbie deliberately didn’t look at him as he peeled off his sweaty clothes and followed him into the room.
The shower room was full of steam, the splash of water on the floor, and the sound of laughter bouncing off the tiles. Robbie hesitated at the doorway. Paul had picked a spot two down from Robbie’s usual shower head.
It shouldn’t be a big deal; there was an empty spot between them. He contemplated using a different one this time, but he didn’t feel like dealing with the inevitable questions about why he had moved.
No deviation from usual behavior went unremarked on in the locker room area. And nothing was off-limits in the shower.
“Jesus Christ, keep that monster leashed, Pergs,” Lipe said as Sergei turned around to rinse his hair off.
Case in point.
Sergei’s laugh boomed through the room. He turned and waved his crotch at Lipe. “Aw cher, you love my gos queue. Don’t be jealous.” He even spoke French with a Russian accent.
Paul leaned over to look. Nothing wrong with that. It would be more obvious if he didn’t. Robbie bit back a grin and watched Paul as he anticipated Paul’s reaction.
Paul didn’t disappoint. He flashed a wide-eyed look at Robbie before nodding appreciatively. “Damn, Serge. That is impressive. Tell your daddy he did good work.”
“Da. The next time we speak, I will be sure to mention.” The big man shut off the shower and shook the water off h
is hairy body. The effect was mesmerizing.
Robbie choked on a laugh as Paul signed Oh, shit to him under the pretense of soaping up.
When Paul closed his eyes and rinsed the shampoo out of his hair, Robbie risked a quick look at his naked body. Paul was stronger and more muscled across the shoulders than he had been two years ago. His ass had gotten even more perfect, damn it, with a slight inward curve of muscle definition setting off the firm curve.
Paul cleared his throat, and Robbie looked up quickly, caught dead to rights. He shrugged at Paul’s smirk. So sue him, he’d been ogling.
In return, Paul’s eyes dropped with what Robbie was sure was supposed to be a covert checking out of his body. Let him look. Robbie knew he looked good. He fought the urge to turn the cold water higher at the feel of Paul’s gaze on his body.
The smile slipped off Paul’s face, and his eyebrows drew together as he stared at a spot near Robbie’s collarbones. He leaned closer, soapy hands frozen on his body.
Concerned, Robbie looked down, reaching for his chest. Oh crap, he thought as his fingers touched the necklace he wore every day.
Paul’s necklace.
Robbie had stopped noticing it against his skin ages ago, so he hadn’t even thought about Paul seeing it.
The noise from his teammates seemed to fade away as he met Paul’s eyes. The intensity there blew him away, and he remembered kissing Paul yesterday in the garage.
Feeling the blood rushing to his face and another place, he dropped his eyes to the floor and hurried through the rest of his shower.
It didn’t mean anything. The necklace or the kiss or the way he responded to Paul. The guy just made him crazy, that’s all. And so far his luck had been good, and he wasn’t about to get rid of it and risk that changing.
Shutting off the water with a hard twist of the knob, he rushed out of the shower room.
With a little creative maneuvering and timing, he was able to avoid being alone with Paul for a while, but Paul caught up to him as he was changing back into his suit for the trip to the airport. Not caring about anything as abstract as personal space, Paul crowded right into Robbie as he buttoned up his suit pants.
