Page 96 of Hockey Halloween
…and if he was, what the hell sport caused someone to look likethat? Because Felix needed to be watching it ASAP.
“Hey,” Felix said and smiled his brightest smile. Mr. Hunk looked up, his perpetual frown smoothing a fraction when he saw Felix. “How've you been?”
“Good,” Mr. Hunk said. For a few seconds, that seemed like all Felix would get, but then he added, “You?”
Felix tried not to laugh. A man of few words. He could work with that. Besides, Felix could talk enough for two. “Pretty good. I managed to go a whole day without anyone spilling anything on me,so a total win.” When he saw Mr. Hunk’s confusion, he added, “I work at a daycare. Between meals and art time, it's a miracle if I go a week without a new stain.”
Mr. Hunk nodded seriously, looking at Felix with more consideration than a conversation about laundry warranted. “No wonder you own the biggest travel mug I’ve ever seen. Working with kids seems like it'd be exhausting.”
Look at that! Two whole sentences! A new record. Felix laughed and blushed, pleased Mr. Hunk had noticed and remembered anything about him. “When your day starts at 6 a.m. and you’re greeted by four-year-olds who don’t know that it's illegal to be energetic in the morning, the caffeine is definitely a necessity. If I could just inject it intravenously, that’d probably be easiest, but alas, coffee it is.” He took his usual locker and steadied himself with getting out his goggles and swim cap before asking, “What about you? What do you do?”
“Hockey player,” he said, like it wasn’t possibly the sexiest answer he could’ve given. “I play for the Gliders.”
Felix didn’t follow any sports—he was usually exhausted by 7 p.m. and the prospect of staying up to watch a game was never as appealing as falling asleep to Netflix in bed—but he knew the gist of hockey: ice, puck, really strong men fighting each other while thousands of people cheered them on. “You look like you’d be a…” He sifted through his limited sports vocabulary. Goalie? Maybe. Quarterback? No, wrong sport. Uhm… “...defense…person.”
Nailed it.
“Yep.” Still no smile, but he looked pleased despite Felix’s fumbling. “I play defense.”
“What’s your last name?” Felix asked, as if he even knew the guy’s first name. “I'll try to catch a game and look for you.”
“Warner,” he said with a hint of pride. He didn't smile—Felix had never seen him smile, but he was determined to—but his eyes lit up and the corner of his lips curled. Like he wanted to smile but maybe had forgotten how. Adorable. “Number Nine.”
“Well, Warner Number Nine,” Felix said, “I’ll be looking for you next game.” And yep, Mr. Hunk—Warner, he corrected, thoughhe’d have to look him up on social media later to get a first name—definitely blushed. “I’m Felix, by the way,” he offered.
“I know,” Warner blurted out, then went red. “Sorry...that sounded—Our apartment numbers are similar. Sometimes I get your mail.”
Felix raised his eyebrows. His apartment was 309, and sometimes he did get mail for 306, but he’d never paid attention to the name before. Hell, he hadn’t even considered it might’ve been Warner’s mail.
“I just...leave it outside your door,” Warner mumbled. “Sorry.”
“No apologies necessary,” Felix said. “I do the same thing. I just wish I’d been paying more attention.” Then a yawn interrupted him, and he remembered it was already the evening. If he stood a chance of making this swim happen before he got too tired, he had to move. “Well, I’ll see you around, Number Nine.”
“We play tomorrow night,” Warner said. “Against Baltimore.”
“Tomorrow night, then.” Not quite a date, but hey, it was a start.
Brock
Brock took the steps up to his apartment two at a time. Yeah, there was an elevator, but he was only on the third floor, and it was a nice little mini-workout whenever he got home. He rounded the last corner and pushed open the door to the hallway, only to nearly run over the person coming from the elevator.
“Sorry,” he said, reaching to help them steady the giant box in their hands.
“No worries.”
When Brock realized it was Felix, his cute neighbor, that he’d almost sent flying, he winced. Felix was tall, nearly as tall as Brock, but lean. He wouldn’t stand a chance if Brock accidentally checked him in the hallway.
“Since you're here”—he pushed the box into Brock’s hands and started toward his apartment—“you might as well make yourself useful.”
The box washeavy, and Brock immediately reevaluated Felix's strength. “What’s in here?”
“Halloween decorations.”
“Why do you have a metric ton of Halloween decorations?”
Felix just laughed, that sweet laugh that always made Brock melta little. “Because Halloween is the best holiday in the world.” They arrived at Felix’s apartment, and the little alcove around the front door already looked like Jack Skellington had thrown up all over it: a skeleton hung from the door knocker, a plastic jack-o-lantern stood watch next to a real one, the door itself was decorated with purple, black, and orange streamers along with stickers of creepy eyes, and the doorknob had a fake spider web.
Brock gaped at it, then looked down warily at the box in his hands. “What’s left, an actual mummy?”
