Page 12 of Lucky Sucker

I got back to the Icehouse, the pod where the Orcas lived to see Finn as I walked through the door. He hauled a heavy bag up a flight of stairs.

“What a surprise,” I called out to him.

“You gonna give me a hand?” he asked, wiping his brow. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought this much with me.” Finn was just shy of six feet, easily a great skater, could move swiftly between players. Needed work with his stick and traveling with the puck, but nobody was perfect. Myself included.

“Yeah, but first, I just saw your girlfriend,” I said, walking up the stairs to grab the bottom of his luggage. It was no joke heavy. “Fuck. You trying to smuggle someone in here with you?”

He didn’t pick up his side, he just looked at me, blinking wide. “I don’t—I don’t have a girlfriend, Luke,” he said. “I’m sorry if you got scammed out of tickets or whatever, but I’m very single.”

I dropped the end of the suitcase and stared at him, trying to figure out if he was playing me. “You serious?” I obviously couldn’t tell. “Because she was adamant. In fact, she kinda threatened this guy and used you in the threat.”

“Lemme guess, Sophia,” he said, rolling his eyes. “We went on one date. It didn’t go well. She was on her phone all night, taking pics and posting selfies, and obviously, I don’t mind that, but she just didn’t care about anything I said.”

“I guess she didn’t hear when you said it wasn’t going to work out then.” I picked the bottom of the luggage up again, this time putting my back into it. “You really didn’t have to bring this much back with you.”

“My folks bought me a bunch of textbooks I had to bring back with me,” he said, hauling the suitcase up to his chest. “After nearly flunking two classes last semester, they’re telling me I’ve got to knuckle down. A free ride only means so much if I graduate.”

Pretending to be someone’s girlfriend to get tickets to games wasn’t a new scam, I’d almost had girls pull the same stunt on me, but I’ve always kept a distance from all relationships. Where Finn’s parents were getting him to hit the books, mine were telling me to be on the ice whenever possible. And I wasn’t exactly interested in anyone romantically. I could see the appeal in people on an aesthetics, but to be intimate wasn’t something I craved. I didn’t know what I wanted, but it wasn’t another person.

“You’re gonna have to tell her the two of you aren’t together,” I told him as we made it up the second flight of stairs. “The guy she was threatening is our new reporter for the college paper, and he seems cool.”

Wren was another factor in all of this. I didn’t like distractions, and he was so closed off, I wanted to get an oyster shucker and open him up just to see what was on the insides. I’d already seen his stuffed orca, but he was so quiet, I wouldn’t know even if he told me the reason why he had it. And I was only partially buying that he was a fan.

“So, you were sucking up to him?” Finn chuckled. “Trying to get your name dropped in the paper as often as possible. You keep the scrapbook?”

“Obviously. I’ve got to let scouts see all my accomplishments.”

And so, what if I was sucking up to Wren. It should be easy. He was wearing a rainbow pin. I was going to two birds one stone with him since some of the team thought I’d made a homophobic comment, which I desperately needed to prove otherwise, even if my face said I was slightly uncomfortable with the drag queens, I mean, it was spooky, some of those guys could really transform themselves.

“Fingers crossed I get a mention,” he said. “Maybe I should date Sophia then if she’s got sway.”

“She doesn’t,” I immediately countered. “Coach already wants Wren, and so do I.”

“Thanks, man,” he said, bringing it in for a bro hug. “Are we having group meal tonight?”

“Is Julia here yet?”

He shrugged. “I only just got here like thirty minutes ago.”

I nodded, recalling what Sophia had said. “Also, you might not want to keep posting your location to your socials. I think you might be being stalked.”

“She’s just a fan,” he said, laughing it off. “Got to keep them happy, right?”

“Notthathappy.”

* * *

All the sophomores, juniors, and seniors playing for the Orcas were boarding at the Icehouse. By the time the semester started, everyone was moved in. Both lucky and unlucky that the first Monday of term was also Labor Day, and since that was a holiday and Julia had only just started back over the weekend, we were in a weird in-between state of whether we wanted to celebrate, or have Julia tell Coach we partied.

We had a barbeque right in the back yard, invited all freshmen Orcas over, and Wren, he was team adjacent right now, and I wanted to crack that shell, and seem friendly, which I absolutely was, but I’d given him the wrong impression already.

Julia had made sure we were only eating the best cuts of meat, but she was taking the day off and wanted us to have cleaned the entire kitchen before she got in tomorrow.

The weather was still nice enough to be in khakis and a nice short sleeve shirt.

Liam was on the grill and some of the other guys were playing field hockey with some of their old sticks. We had our names on sticky white labels, pressed to our clothes since there were five freshmen, and it was easier for us all to know their names that way.

It was easy to spot the freshmen, they huddled together. We were the orcas, not the penguins, we weren’t huddlers. “Come on guys, get stuck in,” I said. “I don’t think any of you are goaltenders, which is good, we’ve got three of those already, but you should go over to the bottom of the yard and get stuck in.”

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