Page 28 of Lucky Sucker

“Yeah, I’m still trying to figure out who posted that stuff online. I need to kind of see who might look at this like a stunt, which—I guess it is, even if there’s something here.”

On the sidewalk, we paused under a streetlight.

“I like you back,” Wren said. “But you said it yourself, you don’t know who you are or what you like. And that’s confusing to me.”

“I know, it’s confusing to me as well,” I told him. “Maybe you could help me learn more about myself.”

He hummed and nodded, as if mulling the thought over. “I suppose I could teach you about the community. But you’ve got make me a promise.”

“More promises?” I asked, already putting my pinky finger out for him.

“Not that kind of promise.”

“Ok, then what?”

“Promise me that this is something you actually want,” he said. “Because I don’t want to get hurt by you just telling me in the end that it’s a phase.”

In the back of my mind, I’d had these nagging thoughts for a long time already. I knew it wasn’t a phase, even if I’d tried phasing those thoughts out. They were part of me, I just needed to learn and understand what it all meant for me.

Wren lived near the main road in Maplehaven, which was a nice place to be. The townhouses looked amazing, and I was excited to see the inside of one. We kept quiet as we entered, but that didn’t stop us from walking right into the people he was living with. Two men and two women.

“Oh my god, I know you,” one of the guys said.

“Hi, this is Luke,” Wren said. “We’re just gonna head upstairs and then he’s leaving.”

It was brief, Wren’s anxious energy pulling me away from them. As we walked upstairs, I overheard them, hardly whispering as they spoke about me and the Orcas. They were all complimenting the team, which I took as a personal win.

“Ok,” Wren said, standing in front of a door. “So, this is my room. It’s boring.”

“I wanna see.”

“No judgement.”

“Absolutely zero judgements from me.”

The room was as he’d described it, a single bed, a suitcase in the middle of the floor with yarn sprawling out of it. There were stuffed teddies I assumed he’d made himself on his bed, and a couple of blankets.

“I’ve got some posters and stuff I want to put on the walls, and I really want to get one of those solar system lights because who even uses a ceiling light,” he said, sticking his tongue out in minor disgust.

“Well, now I guess I shouldn’t have kept mine on,” I said. “You know, I have a projector so I can watch movies on the ceiling, maybe something like that.”

He let out a tiny gasp. “Like maybe just a picture of the solar system, one of those high definition NASA ones.”

“I’ve never tried it, but sure,” I said. “I’ll send you the link to the one I got, and you could probably even see it in action the next time you come over.”

“Once you’re back in full-time training, I don’t think you’re gonna have much time to keep this up,” he said, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to help you and stuff, but we should probably keep this friendly.”

“Friendly,” I repeated. “Yeah.”

He was friend zoning me. I’d never been friend zoned before, I was usually the one putting people in the friend zone. I just smiled and nodded because what else was I supposed to do right in front of him, tell him that I liked him again. I didn’t want to come on strong, but I was coming on to him, I thought that was obvious.

“Oh, and the ice hockey fantasy draft picks start in two weeks,” he said. “It gives us two weeks before the season starts officially, so I’ll need to see where I am in the picking order, and I’ll be coming to the training because I want to see how the Orcas are shaping up before the first match.”

I could only nod at that point and do a little fist to hand snapping moment.

“You have any idea who I should pick, apart from you?” he asked.

“I’ll need to see which colleges first.” I wasn’t completely familiar with all the leagues, but I’d heard of the Ice Kings league, I’d seen the flyers around campus for it. “But I’ll help, you have my promise with that.” My stomach was now in a knot of nerves. It was still so unusual to feel this way.

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