Page 6 of Puck Lust

To process what’s flared to life again since he showed up in Oakland.

“I didn’t ask to come out here. Team management begged me to take their deal. They wanted someone who wouldn’t crack under pressure. So I really don’t know why they came looking foryou,” Jack says, his pompous-ass voice grating against my ears.

Holy shit, this guy hasballs.

I take a deep breath to stop myself from pummeling him with my stick. “You always thought you were such hot shit.”

“And you’re pissed off because you’re not?” he says, a hint of a smirk lifting his lips. “How is that my problem?”

I want to pound this fucking guy’s head against the wall so badly right now.

My voice shakes as I move closer to him, the heady smell of his sweat stinging my nostrils. I breathe him in like I need to store up his scent, like I don’t want to forget it.

As if I ever did.

I press my lips together.

No. Fuckno.

That night didn’t mean shit.

He was upset and vulnerable. And I…fuck, I was confused. Conflicted. And something foreign swarmed my mind, something that shocked the shit out of me, something I didn’t understand. I didn’t know what was happening to me so I thought…I tried to…

I suck in a breath.

It was one time. One really strange and fleeting moment that made me think and feel things I never had before.

I chalked it up to all the pressure I was under, the hopes of being drafted to the AHL, the uncertainty about whether or not I was good enough, being faced with the reality that maybe I just wasn’t…no matter how hard I tried. It all messed with my head.

So did what happened with Jack.

Being friends with him was bittersweet because he was so damn good, it made me doubt my own ability. I guess I was jealous, too, always being compared to him, never measuring up.

And he used that against me.

The asshole fucking shattered me.

For years, I trained tirelessly every day, getting up at the crack of dawn to work out, to practice, to do everything and anything I could to be the best.

Except I wasn’t, not as long as Jack was around.

And it pissed me off, always feeling like I’d never be recognized by NHL scouts even though I lived, ate, slept, and breathed hockey. That was part of the reason why I was so drawn to Jack. I felt like maybe if I mimicked him and played like him, I’d be recognized, too.

It didn’t work that way. When we played junior hockey together, he never had to work for anything he achieved. Everything came naturally to him.

Then he got out, got exactly what he wanted.

And I was left behind with all of those unresolved feelings and without any offers to join an AHL team. Hell, I didn’t know if I was going to make it beyond college hockey.

What happened that night always hung over me like a black cloud, a harsh reminder of what I might never achieve.

Jack became a true all-star, always in the public eye. And years later, when he picked up with Sam Hartley, the tight end for the Oakland Saints, they were a golden double.

He was on top of the world.

Until recently, it looked like he might stay there.

Can’t say I wasn’t a little happy to read about his love life imploding on the pages of every print and online tabloid.

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