Page 14 of Lucky Sucker

“Ok, let me go get you another hot dog. I want to know more about that.”

His bright eyes barely blinked at he stared at me, so excited. My heart skipped a beat for a second, and I was losing my breath. As I stood in front of the grill, staring at Liam, I was sucking in deep breathes on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Yo, you good?” Liam asked, smacking the metal tongs near my face.

“I’m just—” I fanned my face with a hand.

“No shit it’s hot,” he laughed. “Let me know what you want. Or is it for your friend? You two look cozy.”

He was right. We must’ve looked cozy, because I’d practically ignored everyone all day since he arrived. I looked over at him, nobody else had taken the spot I was in. He was just sat there, holding his teddy up to his face as if he was having a conversation with it.

“Gotta keep him sweet,” I mumbled. “Since he’s gonna be with us all season. And I—I don’t know about you, but I’d like to make sure every mention of me is a good one.”

“I don’t mind being a little rough around the edges,” Liam said. “Plus, you’ve got that pretty boy image going for you. We don’t need to do too much, just play a good game. I think we’ve got this season in the bag.”

Pep talks should’ve been my thing now, and yet, I couldn’t formulate the right pep talk for myself in this very moment because I didn’t know what I needed to be talked to about. There was something happening inside me, it was strange, oddly welcomed, but there was nothing I could do for it, just take deep breaths.

“I’ll take a plain hot dog,” I said. “Then I’ll gather the team.”

Liam snapped the tongs in my face again playfully before giving me the hot dog. “You better be quick; I’ve got Marcus barking orders at me for near blue steaks. He wolfed down like two already. He’s a beast.”

“Make sure they’re cooked still, don’t want an earful from Julia or Coach.” And I didn’t know which of them would deliver the harsher tongue lashing.

When I presented the plain hot dog in the napkin to Wren, he gasped as his eyes lit up. “Thank you,” he said, placing his teddy on his lap. “I can teach you how to crochet if you want. But it’s an addictive hobby.”

“You sure you want me to have a hobby?” I asked. “You should be recommending me to put as much time into hockey.”

“You can’tjustdo that, you’ve got to have other hobbies, otherwise you’d be petty two-dimensional, and that’ll make for a boring interview,” he said, finding in his voice it seemed as he giggled.

I nodded, trying to figure out what hobbies I had. There was hockey, obviously, and besides that, I was great at in class, I could just about write an essay, and I liked to read sports biographies, but at my core, I was boring. God. I needed a hobby.

7. WREN

I didn’t feel nearly half as judged as I thought I would be going to the ice hockey house, although I had misread the text Luke had sent me. It was easy to do when our last conversation had been about me interviewing him. But the guys there all made me feel welcome, it was nice, even if I kinda thought they were all only being nice to me because I was practically the press pool for the team.

After eating a little and talking to Luke about my crochet hobby, I left, not wanting to overstay my welcome, and he seemed to stay by my side the entire time I was there, which I liked because he was lowkey a nice person to be around, even if my first impression of him wasn’t that great.

I snuck back into the house, trying not to get anyone’s attention. I was able to sneak upstairs to my room and settle in for the evening. In my onesie, surrounded by all my stuffies, and with a selection of notepads. It was a struggle committing to just one of them when I would go from writing notes to scribbling ideas and then drawing.

Today had given me a deeper insight into one of my secret hobbies that nobody knew about. I was a little scared to even write about it on paper in case someone found out, everything relating to it stayed on my laptop.

The fanfiction. I wrote it about the ice hockey team. Specifically, I wrote it about Liam and Dominic. It was from one of the first matches I saw played at the home arena. They did this thing where they grabbed each other’s shoulders and bashed their heads together. It looked like they were whispering something, but they had mouthguards in, so they probably weren’t. And even tonight, I’d seen it. Liam was a big guy, and Dominic was much slimmer without all the equipment on him.

Whenever I managed to steal glances at the grill, Dominic had always been there, and Liam chased him around with steak, telling him to eat. These steaks were the size of Dominic’s head, even with the spiked hairdo.

Laid in bed, I giggled and kicked my feet about the idea that they might’ve been dating, even if it was just boys being boys or whatever. I played with my teddies, replaying the event for them. I used Bloo as Liam given his size, and one of the small jellyfish as Dominic.

“And then they kissed,” I giggled, smooshing the teddies together. “Mwah, mwah.” I hunched in at the sound of the floorboards near my door creak. I hoped I hadn’t been too loud, and I hoped nobody had heard me. Staying still, the creaky floor continues all the way across the hallway.

It didn’t stop me playing, I played with the teddies a little more until an email notification pinged on my laptop.

The Ice Kings Fantasy League was back again for another year. It was a college-based fantasy league for D1 ice hockey teams, there were other fantasy leagues that existed, but I liked this one, mostly because of all the blue and white colors that looked like crushed sea ice.

Reading the email, I was ready for this season of the fantasy league to begin. I now had an insight into the Orcas, and I knew who I wanted for my team, even if the way players were drafted on a team still annoyed me. I just wanted to have all the players I wanted, and most of them were Orca players.

“I know who I want for certain,” I told Bloo who had no choice but to look up at me in that moment. My first pick was going to be Luke, he was nicknamed Lucky for a reason, and he was clearly driven to having the best season possible since it was his final one in his college career.

They listed the important dates and all the details in the email, so I didn’t have to worry too much just yet. The season wasn’t beginning until October.

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