Page 13 of Pucker Up
“No, but it’s like bro code, but even more serious—hockey code. You don’t bang the coach’s daughter. And who the hell is Mitch Buchannon?”
Mel laughed. “He’s the main guy fromBaywatch.”
“You and your classic TV,” I yelled from the bathroom where I put toothpaste on my toothbrush. I didn’t watchTheGolden Girls, but that didn’t stop Mel from calling me Goldie Girl every chance she could get. She said that she was Blanche and I was Dorothy. “Are you sleeping on the sofa, or calling for an Uber?”
“It’s too cold to go anywhere. Can you pass me my pillow?”
I jammed the toothbrush in my mouth, pulled the spare pillow from my bed, and tossed it to Mel. She spent so much time at my place, she had her own shelf in the medicine cabinet. She said she was tired, but I knew she was going to stay up watching reruns of something cheesy and fall asleep in her clothes.
Mel stretched and pulled a second blanket on top of her. “What do your spidey senses say about him?”
She was one of the few people who knew that I had what I called an uncanny knack for reading people. My mom called it something else, but to me, it was nothing but intuition. I paused in the doorway to my bedroom. “There weren’t any red flags that I could see, but it doesn’t matter. I told him that I couldn’t date a hockey player.” That was only the partial truth. I felt a warmth when I was with Ace, the opposite of a red flag reaction. There was a pureness to him, but I didn’t want to tell that to Mel. I also didn’t want to admit it to myself. It didn’t matter that I felt both calm and excited when I was with him; it was a bit cruel, actually. One of the few men who made me feel something was completely off-limits. “So forget about it. You can date him if you want.”
“He’s not my type.” The TV flickered as Mel flipped through the channels. “That behemoth of a brother of his though…get a read on him. I’d like to see if everything is to scale.”
I tossed the pillow at her. “And with that, I bid you good night.”
She might be able to sleep off the two bottles of wine in the morning, but I needed to get to sleep. Tomorrow was one of the most important days of my academic career. I couldn’t let a night of girl talk, or thoughts of Ace and his goofy smile, keep me up one second longer.
FOUR
ACE
There were onlya few lights dotting the skyscraper across from mine. Morning. My favorite time of day. The rest of the world is still sleeping and I have space to think. My childhood had been spent in the country, where we’d wake up before the sun to drive the forty minutes to the small town rink. It’s where Gideon and I found our love for hockey.
Every young hockey player dreams of playing in the national league, but the one thing that they don’t tell you, is that you’ll be a city boy the whole time. The pond we skated on in the back field was surrounded by frogs in the summer, the kind whose song came alive in the spring. Now, as winter draws nearer to spring, the only thing I’ll hear is the ding of the elevator as it reaches my floor.
My running shoes crunched on the snow as I sprinted through the quiet streets. Toronto and Chicago had similar climates to where I grew up in Northern Michigan, so I was used to the brutal cold. I was also thankful that they had great food options, and that I wasn’t stuck in the rain of Seattle, or in Winnipeg.
I drove my classic pickup truck to the arena and parked alongside Gideon’s pretentious Range Rover. I was wearing my workout clothes and sprinted through the building to the gym.
“Acer!” Harrison, one of the defensemen raised a fist for me to bump as I entered the weight room.
“Banksy.”
Gideon was at one of the squat racks. He cast me a glance and gave a cursory nod before returning to his Bulgarian split squats.
The assistant coach, a guy named Jamie, shook his head as I entered. “What did I tell you about running?”
“I didn’t run. I sprinted.” I grinned. Jamie didn’t want me doing too much cardio and sacrificing the gains he was trying to put on my body. I was naturally lean, and if I didn’t eat at least five thousand calories a day, I would start to drop weight faster than my brother loses a faceoff.
“Good.” Jamie grunted. He handed me a shaker bottle with his secret concoction of what I assumed was protein and creatine...and bull cum. Whatever it was, it tasted like chalk and vanilla had had a baby, and that baby had thrown up in the shaker. “Now, go spot your brother.”
I narrowed my lips and thought about protesting. “Sure, boss.” The relationship between me and Gideon was described as a rivalry, but those who were close, knew that it was closer to hatred. My brother was an asshole, and if it were up to him, he’d have me traded to some European league and never speak to me again.
“I don’t need a spot.” Gideon grunted.
His quads shook as he pressed up and placed the bar on the rack. “I’m done anyway.” He threw his towel over his shoulder and moved on to the free weights.
I shrugged. “You don’t need a spotter when you’re only squatting…” I paused to count the plates on the bar. “Jesus Christ.” I couldn’t hide my reaction. The guy was squatting morethan anyone on the team. Gideon watched in the mirror with a smirk on his face as I removed four plates from the squat rack.
Banksy and I alternated our squats while the rest of the team sauntered into the weight room. It was my leg day, but some of the other guys were doing explosive work, jumping on the bike and sprinting as hard as they could and then pumping iron, before returning to the bike. The Tigers’ training was far more grueling than when I had played for Chicago, and I think that’s because Coach Swanson is a big guy, and he puts a lot of value into size.
I didn’t agree. I felt faster when I was lighter, and as a winger, I needed speed, not brawn. Gideon had always played center, and comparisons had been made between him and Eric Lindros, who, back in the 1990s, was known for being bigandfast, something that was a rarity. To this day, Gideon was compared to the former star—whose career had been cut short from head injuries, something that both Gideon and I had experienced. In fact, one more bad TBI would likely end our time in the league.
Jamie came over to the squat rack and made some notes on his clipboard. “Coach wants to see more power, Acer.”
“I know.” I grunted as I completed my reps. “If I had something to skate for, it would make it easier to put on the jets.”
