by V. L. Locey
I looked back at Bryn and bobbed my head. “Well, not so much being here but being on a date in general. It’s been at least a year.”
“Wow, that’s a long time.” His dark eyes flittered around the interior of the packed eatery. “It’s been several years since I’ve been in a working-class bar.” His dark eyes flared when he realized what he had said. “That sounded terribly elitist, didn’t it?”
“I’m flattered that you would do that for me,” I replied to put him at ease. “And no, not really. I’m sure once a person achieves a certain amount of notoriety, they tend to spend more time away from the masses.”
“You’re worth it,” he replied then handed me a menu. “I don’t wish to sound as if I dislike our fans because that’s far from the truth. There are just times that I’d like to spend time getting to know my date and not be disturbed by someone seeking an autograph or a selfie.”
And to prove his point, two younger guys slipped up to our table to ask Bryn to sign their Ravens sweaters. He did, and with a warm smile, but as I sat there quietly watching, I could see how the adoration would be annoying at times.
“Now, where were we?” he asked then smiled at me. “Ah yes, I was saying how there were times that I wished to spend losing myself in my date’s amazing eyes.”
I felt a hot flush creep up my smooth cheeks. “I’m actually kind of tongue-tied at the moment, so I’m going to hide behind the menu and stare at the entrees.”
He placed his menu on the table then rested his elbows on top of it. I glanced up from the appetizers to find him looking at me. Another rush of heat rolled over me.
“You’re incredibly cute.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Thankfully, the server, a tall fellow with blond hair and an eager to please smile, arrived to take our drink orders. We both ordered imported beer, and I watched the waiter hustle to the bar.
“Can I ask you something?” I enquired after laying my menu down. I knew I’d get the fish dinner with a dish of coleslaw on the side and I really wanted to look at Bryn, flaming cheeks aside. He inclined his head, his steady gaze a little unsettling. “How in the hell did you ever come across my blog?”
“Serendipity.” Our two bottles of beer arrived. We placed our food orders and then fell back into the conversation as if we had never left it. “I was having dinner with some friends. Someone mentioned your blog and that was that. I saw you in that sexy tweed jacket singing a song with Liam and I knew I had to get to know you better.”
“Okay, that’s fair.” I took a sip of the ice-cold beer and sighed in pleasure. I rarely drank anymore because I didn’t want Liam to see me acting stupider than I normally do. “This whole thing is surreal, you know that, right?”
He shrugged a wide shoulder. I liked the way he moved. Even on the ice under all that padding, you could tell he was sleek and strong.
“There are far odder ways to meet a person,” he commented as a server hurried by with a platter of hot food. Bryn’s gaze moved back to me. “So tell me about you. I know all about Liam and Kelly, but I don’t know much about you.”
“Well,” I began and gave him a smile. “I’m thirty and single. I like to dress like a hidebound academic, love hockey, hate onions on my tossed salads, and spend most of my nights at home with a storybook in one hand and a cup of masala chai tea in another.”
“If you add in hockey your life sounds a lot like mine, minus the storybook.”
“You drink masala chai tea?”
“No, I drink latte, although I should probably drink the tea instead. It’s far healthier I’m sure,” he said after taking a swig of his beer.
“Kelly can tell you all about the advantages of tea,” I told him.
“I look forward to speaking with her about it,” he replied then leaned back to allow our waiter to place our dinners in front of us.
We dug in, eating and talking, the jitters disappearing completely as the meal slipped into dessert and coffee. Bryn was confident and funny, intelligent, and threw off a dominant vibe that I found wildly appealing. This was a man who knew what he wanted and where he was going. Confidence. Mm-hmm. It was an aphrodisiac to rival ground rhino horn and cost no animal its life.
I caught him glancing at his watch then frowning after we had figured out what we had both owed. The bill rested on the table, cash for the meal and the gratuity in a small black leather folder.
“I was hoping that we could sneak off to this little jazz club I drop into on occasion after dinner.”
“I’d love to do that!” I shoved to my feet with all kinds of enthusiasm. Bryn smiled sickly up at me. I sat back down. “Or not.”
“We have a matinee game at one tomorrow with Buffalo, and I really should have been in bed an hour ago. It’s already close to midnight.”
Well didn’t I feel like a baboon’s backside? “Of course, I didn’t realize so much time had passed.” I flipped my phone over, checking the time as if to verify that he could, in fact, tell time correctly. “We’ve been here for hours just talking.”
He leaned up, his forearms resting on the table, his dark eyes glittering in the atmospheric candlelight of our little nook. “It’s been a delightful night. Would you like to do it again?” I nodded and battled down a nervous giggle. With a small nod of his perfectly styled head, the next date was agreed upon. “I’ll call you after the game and we’ll set something up. Maybe for Sunday night? We don’t play then.”
“Sure, yes, awesome.” It was more than awesome it was fantabulous, but I kept that inside. No need to look stupider. God knows I had flown my doofus flag proudly all night.
He stood up, slid on his jacket, and waited for me to stop gawking and get to my feet. We left the eatery, talking about mundane things that faded from memory as soon as the words left my lips. When we stopped by a sleek black Mercedes, I bent over and peered through the sparkling window.
“Not a juice box to be seen,” I murmured. Bryn laughed at the comment. I turned to look at him and he leaned in for a kiss. It was a quick one, barely a touch of his lips to mine, but my body—aka dick—reacted with embarrassing speed. “That was far too slick to even be considered minimally lurching.”
“I’ll do my best to lurch properly next time.” His smile made me weak in the knees. I waved at him when he pulled away from the curb. When he turned the corner, I then threw a fist into the air, hooted like a high school freshman who had just gotten his first kiss, and then drifted dreamily back to my car, the one with empty juice boxes and vomit stains on the back seat from that time a year ago when Liam had puked up yogurt and corn chips. Never feed them to a child in the same sitting. Life lessons. They’re so important. As are sweet kisses and incredible first dates.
Six
Bryn
The Buffalo Chargers were one of the toughest teams in our division. They’d won the championship last year and were on track to repeat. There was just one thing in their way. The Pittsburgh Ravens. We’d given them a season filled with jostling elbows and shoves from first place to second so far and tonight’s game was no exception. One point separated us now, and I suspected come April and the playoffs, that lone point was going to be the deciding factor as to who went to the playoffs and who went golfing.
I was doing all that I could to ensure we didn’t lace up our tacky golf shoes too soon, but the Chargers weren’t making it easy. They had incredibly agile and fast forwards, and a burly Russian winger who liked nothing better than to stand in front of me like a billboard. By the third period, I was heartily sick of his presence in my crease and started shoving at him gently. With my stick. In his kidneys. That got his attention. He slapped at me with a hand, his eyes on the action taking place in front of my net. The Chargers had the puck and were passing it back and forth, looking for an opening in the defense. Viktor Popov stood his ground until I used my stick to remind him of his need for crease courtesy.
“Hit me again, you cocksucker, and I will polish my skates with your bandana,” Viktor
snarled.
That made no sense.
“I don’t wear bandanas.” He spun to face me, his gray eyes sparkling. A shot from the left flew past him and into my catching mitt. “Ah look, the cocksucker has the puck.”
He glowered at me as I tossed the puck to the linesman.
“I know what you are, Mettler.”
“A goalie with the skill to keep your team in second place?”
Viktor cursed at me in his native tongue, carefully avoiding using a homophobic slur in English with the officials all in proximity. I let the hatred slide off my back. I had to. Being a goalie is a mental game. If I started letting every gay taunt and comment hurled at me sink in, I’d be done in this league. And players like Viktor knew better, but if he could sneak in a gay jibe, he’d use it on the sly. Such was the way of things when you didn’t hide your sexuality. People talked. I wasn’t broadcasting my preference of men, but I wasn’t going to secret my gay away either. And if this thing with Michael took off as I hoped it would, the city of Pittsburgh was going to see a lot more of me and him out and about. Thinking of Michael in his tweed and with those laughing green eyes made me feel a little flighty. It had been a long time since a man had stirred up such giddy emotions in me.
I smiled sweetly at the hulking Russian as he skated to his bench. I took a fast drink, the splash of cold water cooling me down just a bit. Once I had my bottle back in its holder, I returned to the game, chuckling at the chirping going on between my team and the Chargers. Good-natured, or most of it was. Nothing off-color or hateful. Most were pretty open about things now, but there were a few trolls who liked to dig a bit deeper.
The game ended with a mad flurry at our end of the ice, the Chargers goalie coming out as they were down by a goal. Six Chargers men on the ice made for seventy seconds of insanity. Somehow, with the assistance of men willing to throw themselves in front of a puck, and my leg pads, we managed to hold off the opposition and grab the win. For a day or two we’d be in first place. It was enjoyable having such a tight race. It kept us competitive and hungry. I’d been on teams early in my career that had had huge leads and they tended to get lazy or egotistical. That, so far, was not a problem for the Ravens.
The showers were loud and boisterous after the press grabbed their small soundbites from the nights three stars. The fact that I was one of those three was lovely, but probably not deserved. I would have given my star to Derrick Robbie, one of the Ravens defensemen who was off now getting the massive contusion on his ankle from a blocked shot iced down. As I tell the press, no one player wins a game. It’s a team effort.
“Hey, so, how did the date go last night?”
I rinsed the soap off my face and blinked a few times. Brent was in the next stall, looking over the tiled wall that was supposed to afford us some privacy. Obviously, the walls didn’t work.
“How did you know I was on a date?” I stopped lathering my chest to gawp at my captain. Had Michael blogged about it? I hoped not. I had no issue with his previous post when he was joking about going out with me. I just didn’t want a real date to be made into public fodder or played off for shits and giggles.
“We didn’t. But Misty said I had to ask every day until you asked how we knew and then we’d know for sure that you did ask and had, in fact, had a date.”
“That made my head spin,” I confessed with a wry smile.
“Yeah, mine too. So, the date. Was it with Mike the blogger?” That was one trait our captain possessed in spades. Tenacity. As did his wife, it seemed.
“Oh hey, did Mets have a date?” Dave, the third member of my duo of closest friends on the team, asked when he stopped next to us while on his way to an unclaimed shower stall. “Oh! Was it with Mike Kneller?!”
“Is Mets dating?” someone else asked as they joined the throng.
Within ten seconds, there were eight naked men looking at me expectantly as I tried to wash my ass. It was touching, in an odd and creepy sort of way. Also, had it truly been that long since I’d been on a date that it should garner this kind of morbid curiosity? No. I’d dated a man just a few weeks ago. Well, perhaps it was a month…or two. Or was that in the summer before I’d started training in July for this season trying to drop a few pounds to hopefully make my reflexes a little bit faster? Damn. It had been in June. Late June. That man had been a dull-witted fool with a large ego and I’d never called him back.
“If I tell you I had a date will you all go away and let me shower in peace?”
They all nodded.
“Yes, I had a date. Yes, it was with Michael Kneller. Now go away.” I waved them off with a soapy hand then returned to scrubbing off the sweat from a hard-won game.
“Who does Mike Kneller play for?” I heard someone asking. I ducked my head under the water and lost the whispered conversation. Coming out of the stream, I got a wink from Brent before he returned to scrubbing his short hair. No doubt Misty would know before I rinsed the bubbles from my backside. Maybe she already did. There were times I wondered if hetero couples were joined mentally somehow.
“So, in case you’re looking for a discreet but nice place to take Mike on date number two…” Brent opened with when we were dressing to leave the arena. “Misty says there’s this swinging little diverse nightclub, totally smooth type of place and not hot sexy gay stuff that you wouldn’t like.”
I stopped knotting my silk tie to look at him. “Are you saying that I’m a dull, sexless gay?”
His brown eyes flared. “No, of course not. You’re a classy Swedish gay. We just don’t see you in sloppy sex clubs or grimy gay bathhouses.”
“Okay, well, I’m glad everyone seems to think I’m this elite sort of man, but even if I wanted sloppy sex clubs or grimy gay bathhouses those are hard to find in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.” I snickered and returned to fixing my tie. “At least to my knowledge,” I added because who knows what lurks on the wild side of any big city?
“Right well, you know what I mean. Anyway, Misty said to take Mike to—”
My fingers fell from my tie again. “What makes you think I’m taking Michael out? Perhaps I’m dating several men at once.”
“Right.” Brent chortled, slapped me on the arm, and then called Dave over to relay my funny comment to him. They both laughed. I rolled my eyes and finished with my tie. “So, take him to this little place called Springs. It’s new and fancy, very chic, and totally Bryn Mettler, or so says my wife.”
“Ashley said to make sure you give him flowers on the second date,” Dave chimed in, buttoning his dress shirt as he spoke.
I wanted to snap at them to remind them that I was four months away from thirty-three years old and did not need dating advice from two straight men.
“Did you give Ashley flowers on your second date?” I asked, shrugging into my suit jacket.
“No, which is why she knows that you should. Do as she says not as I do,” Dave mumbled then wandered off, his shirt buttoned crookedly.
“So you got it?” Brent enquired, handing me my winter coat.
“Yes, Springs the chic diverse club and flowers. Would you like me to have you on speed dial in case I get him alone and forget how a zipper works?”
“Okay, see, that was uncalled for my friend. You’re above that kind of petty comment.”
Brent went off to do something aside from try to run my love life. I chuckled under my breath then left the busybodies behind, stepping out into cold air that made me wince. Yes, even Swedes minded the cold. In truth, it was colder here in Pennsylvania than it normally was on average in Gothenburg where I was born and raised.
Should I bring flowers to a second date? That seemed over the top. Still…
I slipped into my car, grateful for remote starters and heated seats. The ride home was short. I lived only ten minutes from the arena in a lovely little condominium that had been my home here in Pittsburgh since I’d arrived eight years ago. The place was refurbished to my specifications three years ago in shades of dark blue, sea gr
een, and soft grays. It was on the smallish side but perfectly suited for a single man.
Making myself a cup of latte after I had slipped into lounge pants and a thick fleece top, I settled into the sofa, the fat gray cushions nearly swallowing me, and I studied the night sky and sipped. There was nothing I enjoyed more than my treat before bed, the fattening drink my one weakness in an otherwise tightly followed diet and exercise plan. Being on the downward slope of over thirty, I had to stay lean and strong if I wanted to hold onto my position. Our backup was ten years my junior and had my net firmly in his sights. Not that I blamed him. I was just as hungry at his age. But I had no plans to go anywhere. I had a lucrative contract with the Ravens that had a no-move/no-trade clause. I’d retire from this team, if at all possible, but that was years off—I hoped.
I turned the TV on low and began searching for a florist and the number for Springs as the news played in the background. The club preferred reservations be made. I glanced at my watch then frowned. Close to midnight. Too late to call Michael. I would do so in the morning and see if and when he was free again, then I’d make reservations. And find a florist. What kind of flowers did a man buy for another man on their second date? For some reason, I suspected I was being hoodwinked, but I had no idea why or by whom.
Seven
Mike
I came awake slowly, begrudgingly, angrily, cussing at the sound of my cell chirping at me steadily. Eyes gummed shut, I slapped a hand to the nightstand, blindly feeling for my phone. What I found was something sticky and wet. I lifted my hand, phone still ringing, and peeled an eye open to find a chewed-upon granola bar pasted to my palm. I shook my hand. The honey held it in place. The phone continued to ring.
