Page 29 of Lucky Sucker

“Perfect. Ok. So, I guess I’ll give you the real tour, and then I need to go to bed.”

And now he was kicking me out. I really couldn’t get a read on Wren at all now.

* * *

The locker room was full of talk about the party last night, and turned quickly to me. I didn’t know if they were going to express their thoughts about me as their captain, and give me more insight into the fucker who spread that shit about me on the internet, or if they were going to be glad that I wasn’t going to be replaced.

“Your boyfriend didn’t stay long,” Jamal said with a smirk.

“Yeah, first week back, probably exhausted,” I said.

“How long have you know you were gay?” Zachary “Zee” asked, sitting in one of the corner locker seats.

“I’m not gay, I’m just with a guy, I’m probably more bisexual than anything,” I told him, and the rest of the team that were listening. “You know, it’s probably not something I ever thought too much about.”

“Yeah, but you were getting girls every week,” Ryan aka “Tank” said from two seats beside me. “You’ve got to think about what they weren’t giving you, especially if this is the first public relationship you’re about to have.”

It wasn’t even a relationship, but if it was, it would be the first real one. “Sometimes, life works out like that,” I said. “But I hope I still have all of your support.” Quickly trying to glance around at all the team, excluding the freshmen joining us. I wanted to see responses. I needed to know who tried to snipe my position from me, and I hoped it wasn’t Ethan, aka “Snipes” who’d tried it.

“Kinda shitty that someone basically did that and you were forced to out yourself,” Liam, sitting beside me said. “I hope everyone else feels comfortable to be and do and say what they’re going through to the team. I’d never judge anyone and I hope they’d never judge me.”

“I’m straight, for what it’s worth,” Owen said. “I’ve been with Rayelle since our freshmen year. You’ve all met her.”

Before everyone could start announced their sexualities, Coach walked into the locker room with two others, the assistant coaches, one for defense, the other for offense, Robert and David. I’d long assumed they were together, but it wasn’t my place to even think about someone else’s sexuality.

“Our goaltending coach, Elena isn’t feeling too well, so we’re going into today’s training without her,” Coach said. “Robert will be taking defense, David our forwards, and goalies will be tasked with movement drills and lateral skating. I’ll be watching all of you on the ice, and I want by the end of practice for our A and B team to have a match, remember, it’s friendly fire, so don’t act like you’re like jackasses out there bodychecking each other. Got it.”

“Got it,” I said, my voice the loudest.

“And for what it’s worth, Luke is still your captain, regardless of what you saw on the internet, he’s always had this team’s interests at heart, and he has the full support of the coaching staff behind him,” Coach added. “Let’s give a hand for your captain.”

It was appreciated, but I knew someone among us didn’t have the team’s best interests. They wanted us to get bad press before the season had even began. Lucky for us, and for me, by name, we had Wren as our reporter, and he wasn’t going to let them ruin this make or break season for me.

13. WREN

The irony wasn’t lost on me that after my first class on ethics in journalism had mentioned reporters reporting on people they knew being unethical and unbiased. Although it wasn’t illegal to do so. And for Harper Lin, the editor-in-chief of the Caldwell Chronicle to suddenly bump into me after the class.

“Can I have a word?” she asked.

“Sure. Everything ok?” I asked as she walked me to a small window with a bench beneath it. We both sat and she looked at me, intensely, trying to hold eye contact which was almost immediately uncomfortable for me.

“There’s a reason Sophia’s wants were dismissed,” she said. “She wanted to report on the Orcas, but since the Coach for the team wanted you, we obliged. Now, you’re the story for them, all over the message boards with their captain, Liam Hotchkiss.”

“Oh. Well, it’s not serious.” It wasn’t anything at all, but I wasn’t going to blow that for us all now. “Although, I believe I’m able to report on their games and the team without making it about me.”

Harper hummed, her tongue pressed against the back of her front teeth. “You’ll have to talk about it,” she said. “The first issue of the semester will need to address those social media posts, because people want to know.”

“Can’t it be part of the news section?” I asked. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for the sports section. It’s more like gossip.”

She looked at me, almost confused I’d made a good point.

“I don’t want to get involved with something that isn’t about the team and how they’re preparing for the season,” I told her. “I think that’s most important. But if people want to gossip, they absolutely can, just make sure it’s in a different section of the paper.”

“Well, what I was going to say is, you could include a section within the allocated space for the Orcas and include words from the captain about the situation,” she said. “But now that you’ve mentioned it, I think keeping it away from the sports section is probably the right response.”

I didn’t know if it was, I was flying high on the confidence talking about the Orcas and Luke gave me, plus, it was almost like they’d backed me into a corner and maybe they were about to give my assignment to Sophia. I couldn’t have that.

Harper left me, sitting on the bench, thinking about why I hadn’t seen Sophia at the birthday party yesterday. I wasn’t sure I hadn’t seen her, but I assumed she would’ve sought me out and tried prodding me with her devil’s fork that she always kept on her. I assumed, at least.

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