Page 7 of Lucky Sucker

I wished. I needed to wait to find out.

The Caldwell Chronicle was a dream, but not everyone got what they wanted, least of all me.

I’d probably end up in the lifestyle section, or talking about events happening on campus. The sports section was the biggest, naturally, we had so much going on at the campus with a football field, ice rink, Olympic-sized swimming hall, track, and basketball to name a few off the top of my head.

Glancing up at the ceiling, I imagined glow in the dark stars on it. I’d need to place an order for them or find them in a store and try not to feel embarrassed when the cashier scanned them. “Please,” I said quietly to myself. “Please let me get a good section at the paper.” I paused, pushing my bottom lip out in a pout. “Pretty please. If you’re listening.”

It was sometimes how I spoke to my dad. He might not have been listening, but I swore he was my guardian angel now, and I knew he wanted it for me as well.

4. LUKE

I was the loser of the game in the rink, which was fine, because I was still trying to get over what I’d said earlier in the locker room. I never thought about whether anyone on the team was gay, it wasn’t an issue, and yet, I felt like I had to do or say something to smooth it over. Except, I didn’t want to be the one to bring it up again.

Zach stood with me in the kitchen, watching as I made spaghetti and ragu. It was the easiest thing I could think of without having Julia click her tongue and shake her head at us when she found out we’d been eating junk. “We’re thinking of putting that show on in the den,” he said.

“What show?”

“The gay one,” he laughed.

“Oh my god, it was a joke,” I said, channeling the urge to throw the ladle into the pan. “You know, I didn’t even mean it like that.”

“I know, jeez, relax,” he said. “It’s just, you never know what people are going through. You’re our captain now, Luke, I just wanted to rip on you a little bit longer.”

“I’m down to watch it, I have no problem with gay people,” I said, and as the words came out of my mouth, Noah walked in.

“Damn, I should hope not,” Noah laughed. “You know, it wasn’t a big thing.”

I needed to dunk myself in an ice bath right about now. “I know, I know,” I said, raising my voice in frustration. “But if we could not tell the entire team about it when they all get here, that would be great. Please.”

They seemed to nod in agreement with me, and I once again wanted to reassure them I wasn’t homophobic, although I wondered now, if people on the team were gay, and I was the last one to know about them.

“How long until food is ready?” Noah asked. “We’re all starving in there. Are you making garlic bread?”

“Fuck.” I knew there was something I was missing. Whipping a cloth over my shoulder, I dipped to the large double oven in the island counter. “Give me ten to fifteen minutes, then it’ll be ready.” I turned the dial and pulsed the clicker to ignite the fire, preheating it. “I know what Julia feels now when we’re all coming in here asking for different things.”

Zach backed up, raising his hands. “Fine, fine, we’ll go tell everyone not to bother you.”

I’d never been so stressed, and I once had hundreds of people watching me score the winning point, and that had been stressful. I finished making the food and threw it all into large serving bowls for everyone to help themselves to. I wasn’t their mom; I wasn’t dishing it out for them as well.

When possible, sitting around the dining table was where we ate our meals. Team bonding was important, we needed to all have each other’s backs. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t want any of them thinking that what I’d said came from a place of phobia, and why I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was their captain, I was their leader, I needed to lead by example, so even if I hadn’t lost the game this afternoon, I would’ve still taken this penalty for them.

“Everyone dig in,” I said. “And let’s try not to make a mess.” That was going to be a close impossibility, spaghetti and sauce was the messiest food anyone would eat. And before we all knew it, our mouths were becoming red, stained with the sauce.

We licked our bowls clean and scooped the remaining sauce with the sliced baguette garlic breads. It was all frozen stuff I’d warmed up and the sauce was from a jar. The only thing I’d really done was make sure the beef was cooked properly.

From the end of the table, Liam smacked his stomach and laughed. “What’s for dessert?”

“Dessert?” I asked, looking around to gauge the consensus. “I—”

“Yeah, come on, you can’t make dinner without dessert after,” Justin joined in.

“We have ice cream, I think, but it’s probably been in the bottom of the freezer for months. That shit has freezer burn I bet. And you know, Julia will know exactly how much was there before she left,” I said.

They didn’t seem to care, and I was on a tour of making everything right again. So, ice cream it was. Neapolitan, with only vanilla and chocolate remaining of the three flavors. I’d eaten far too much of the spaghetti, almost like I’d been carbo-loading, I needed a long nap and maybe little a jerk off session to release the tension.

* * *

School was starting up and the house was filling with people who were ready to begin training and get started for the first game of the season which was still an entire month away, but the first game of the season set the tone of the entire semester and we still had a bunch of freshmen coming in that needed to bond with the team.

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