Page 56 of Lucky Sucker

She shrugged. “I don’t even know, but it would fun, you know, going to the games, rooting for my guy, and then I don’t know, like traveling to their away games and being front row to watch.”

“There’s nothing stopping you from doing any of that,” I said. “But you should just come to the games anywhere.”

“Ugh,” she groaned. “I’m reading this one fan fic online right now—”

“You read fan fic?”

“I mean, who doesn’t, especially when someone is writing about your local team.”

It wasn’t me, at least, I hoped it wasn’t me. “Who is it about?”

“They don’t use names.”

Was it me? I wasn’t posting it publicly. “I—”

“It’s about one of the forwards, I know that. But it’s one of those insert yourself fics so I’m basically already dating number twenty.”

“There—” I combed through thoughts. “There isn’t a number twenty on the team.”

She laughed. That makes some sense then, because I tried looking for them online. Well, anywhere, whoever they’re based off is hot. I doubt it’s your man now that he’s outed himself, and I’m not going to imagine it. I don’t want to be disrespectful.”

“So it’s like straight fan fic?” I asked.

“There’s gay stuff as well, if you’re into that.” She winked at me. “I can send you the link if you want. You’ve got to search for the tags though.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to see it. I didn’t want to see anything about Luke, but if it was older content, they could’ve been writing about him for years. “Sure.”

She opened a notebook and tore a strip of paper from it. “The website is an acronym, like, if you know, you know, type of vibes,” she said. “And you’ve got to create an account their to read stuff.” She slipped the paper over.

Immediately, I knew I had an account, and I’d posted to it as well. Not the stuff I was writing now, but other fan fiction about the team from my first year. There was something on their about Luke. “Thanks. I’ll look.” My stomach sank. If Lucy had seen it and read it, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that everyone in the entire library had too.

24. LUKE

We were keeping a healthy distance from each other, both saying it was to not be distracted, although that really didn’t help because we were on the phone with each other for hours some nights. If we couldn’t be in proximity contact, we could at least be there as a voice to speak and tell the other how our day went.

Over the week, we met up for some lunches and he came by practice where the team were always happy to see him, especially from the amazing write-up which didn’t feature me too heavily, and the team seemed to love that I wasn’t getting special treatment. I suppose they didn’t see the real special treatment Wren gave me though, and that was worth much more.

Another night, and another late-night phone conversation. Wren was distant, quiet, the occasional tapping on his keys sounded, breaking the silence.

“Everything good with you?” I asked, breaking my concentration from the business textbook I’d been viciously highlighting yellow.

“I’m fine, I’m just missing you.”

“One more night and we’ll be together,” I reminded him about the upcoming trip. It was in New Hampshire against Whitley College. They were a fierce team and competitor, but they’d lost one of their star players to an early draft pick and another to graduation.

“I guess I just need more than one night a week,” he said.

“Ok. Tell me what you need and I’ll try and make it happen for you.”

“I don’t know, that’s the thing. I just—” in the background of his phone, there was a lot of shuffling around.

“You can tell me what you need or want, or both. Tell me.”

After a moment of heavy breathing from his side, he spoke. “I’m nervous it’s not going to go how I want it to.”

“How what?” I asked. During the week going for lunch together and seeing each other, it hadn’t seemed like he was struggling with anything, and I was on the look out for it. He was an anxious boy, and I really wanted to do my best and make him comfortable wherever he was.

“This,” he said. “I don’t think once you see the full picture of me, you’ll like what you see. And it’s making me nervous.”

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