The More Boys I Meet

“Why are you getting in so late?” Viktor asked, watching the baseball highlights on the TV. “Why do you look like a train blindsided you?” he laughed, standing up.

I looked up. “Train?” I asked, not really hearing him. My mind was somewhere else.

He narrowed his eyes. “You okay there kid?”

“Oh yeah!” I waved him off. “Great. Good night,” I said and shut my door, falling on my bed, groaning into my pillow.

The next morning, he woke me up and stared at me. “So how was Ellie’s apartment?” he asked.

“Great! Fabulous!” I was wide awake. I had barely slept at all last night. My mind was somewhere else.

He nodded slowly, not sure whether or not to believe me. “Okay. Well come on and get up. We’ve got practice in an hour.”

I thought I had gotten away with my weirdness, but Viktor must have spread the word that something was up because Hoss, Sharpie, and Crow were following me all over the ice.

“Aren’t goalies supposed to. . . you know guard the net?” I asked.

He shrugged. “So what happened at Ellie’s?” he asked, ignoring me.

“Nothing,” I said cooly. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh I don’t know,” Sharpie said sarcastically. “You two, an empty apartment, Stally said you looked like a deer in the headlights when you got back. It’s obvious.”

“Obvious that nothing happened,” I said and skated away. My mind was somewhere else.

I needed to talk to Ellie. Now.

An hour later and I felt my phone vibrate as I skated to the bench for a quick water break. I managed to sneak away without anyone seeing me or following me and I ducked into an empty hall.

“You’re not allowed to get drunk anymore!” I hissed upon answering.

“Jesus,” she moaned. “You yell a lot. Stop shouting. I’m right here.”

“What happened last night?!” I brought down my voice for her and to keep curious hockey players away.

“I don’t know okay? I’m still hungover!”

I paused. “You drank the rest of the bottle didn’t you?”

She sighed. “Yes. Was betting on the powers of forgetting.”

I actually felt a pang of hurt. Was I really that bad of a kisser? Focus Marcus at the task at hand. “How’d that work out for you?”

“Well you didn’t forget!” she sounded annoyed.

“So let me get this straight,” I put a hand to my forehead. “You drank the other half of the bottle in high hopes that I would forget?”

“It was more of medium hopes,” she admitted.

“Why did you kiss me?” I asked warily, moving onto the slightly touchy subject of the day.

“Why didn’t you kiss me back?” she threw back at me. “Or react? Like at all?”

I was at a loss for words. “Well. . . .uh. . . I didn’t really know what to do.”

“I saw you kiss Rachel and boy you knew what you were doing there,” she said.

Dammit. She got me there.

“You surprised me was all,” the words came tumbling out of my mouth, trying to make amends. “I mean I wanted to, but you were tipsy, and I wasn’t expecting that kind of goodbye!” I admitted.

“Huh,” she said. “I’m not sure whether to take that as an insult or a compliment,” she said.

“Compliment would be better all around,” I pushed her in the right direction.

She laughed and winced. “Don’t make me laugh. I’m still drunk.”

“Did. . . did you want to kiss me?” I asked tentatively.

“Darling, sober or drunk, I wouldn’t have done anything I didn’t want to do.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Okay.”

“So what now?” she asked.

I would have answered, except I saw Kaner and Sharpie walking my way and my eyes widened. “Gotta go. We’ll talk about this later. Bye,” I said, hanging up and hiding my phone in my gear, hoping they didn’t see it.

“What, are you hiding?” Kaner laughed.

I shrugged. “Taking a quick breather from Coach’s suicide plan.”

“Tell me about it,” Sharpie laughed. “Come on kids. Back to work,” and we went back to practicing. Except my mind was somewhere else.