Page 27 of Pucker Up
The Chicago version of Ace was on a breakaway and the two of us paused our conversation to watch him deke out the goalie and raise the puck for a bar-down shot.
“Goldie, I completely forgot. Enough of this crap.” He turned off the game and the screen glowed with all of the streaming platform logos. “What did your advisor say?”
The whole reason I’d rushed into the house was to tell him the good news. I squeezed the blanket to my chest. “It’s approved. I can use the Toronto Tigers for my study. He recommended that I not tell them about my relationship to the team.”
“Woohoo.” Dad raised his hands above his head. “I’m so happy for you, sweetheart. Are you sure it’s ethical not to disclose your relationship to the coach?”
“You would think so, but Roger said that it would be unethical to tell them, and that it would impact the way they responded to me. It’s all thanks to you, Dad.”
“No. You put together a great proposal. This deserves a celebration. What do you want for dinner? We can go to that steak house that all of the players have been raving about, or we could go to Canoe, or anywhere. You pick.”
Canoe was one of the fanciest restaurants in the city, and so not my style. “Could we order in from Wahlburgers and watch some games?” I used to love watching the games with my dad. He would explain things to me from an insider’s point of view. I hadn’t wanted to watch games lately, but now that I’d be studying the players, it would be a good way to try to get inside their heads. At the suggestion of burgers and game tapes, the sparkle returned to my dad’s eyes.
“You got it, Goldie Girl.” Dad had already hopped off the sofa, ready to place our order.
“That nickname has really stuck.” Up until I lived in Toronto, no one called me Goldie Girl. Now, it seemed like it was catching on with everyone around me, and I kind of liked it. “Shit.” I dropped my hands into my lap. “I told Mel that I’d celebrate with her if I got it.”
Dad was halfway up the stairs, but turned to peek between the steps and the floorboards of the main floor. “The more the merrier. That is, if she eats burgers.”
If all it took was burgers and some old games to change the mood, I was going to do it more often. Morton and I followed my dad upstairs. Once he had placed the order, I asked him the question that had been on my mind all day. The recent game tapes had made it seem even that more pertinent. “Hey, Dad.”
“Yeah?” He handed me a wineglass and started opening a bottle of Brunello, one of the fancy ones from the wine cellar.
“Maybe I could help you with your decision about the Bailey brothers.”
He grinned. “I would love your opinion.”
“I need to get to know them better.”
He took the empty glass from my hand and poured wine into it. “I’ve got you covered, Goldie Girl. Ace and Gideon are on the top of my list for your study. They just don’t know it yet.”
“Oh, Dad. They’ll have to agree to participate.”
A sly grin appeared on his face. “Oh, don’t you worry, they will agree.”
NINE
ACE
The temperature had droppedand the sidewalk was slippery as hell. I should’ve been wearing skates instead of running shoes. My shoes crunched on the pebble-sized chunks of salt the city dumped to melt the ice. Ahead, a husky-like dog trotted next to its owner, its feet wrapped in what looked like balloons. After growing up in the country where our dogs ran free and instinctively knew to shit in the bush, watching owners put boots on their pups and pick up shit didn’t seem like fun.
Was it Goldie and Morton up ahead? My heart rate monitor inched up a few beats per minute, returning to normal when I realized it wasn’t the brunette and her malamute. I took it easy on my run. If I got the blood pumping too hard, my bruised racoon eyes started to pulse.
A lot of the guys didn’t run. They felt that it fucked with their gains. I didn’t run for the workout, I ran to clear my mind. It was where I did my best thinking. I thought I was all right with Gideon hating me, but after practice, I realized that even though he was a complete fucking asshole, I missed him. I hated to admit it, but he influenced my playing, both good and bad. Running the play with him last night reminded me of the fuckingdomination we had in our days playing together in the Junior league.
The wind whipped across the frozen channel and bit into my face as I rounded the corner and headed south towards Lake Ontario. The cold actually felt good on the spot where Gideon’s fist had met my face, but I tucked my chin into the collar of my workout jacket and veered onto the next side street. I turned up the volume and ACDC blared through my headphones.
When I got back home, I stripped out of my running clothes. While I waited for the shower to heat up, I flipped through my vinyl collection. It took me two times to find what I was looking for—ACDC. They had amped me up on my run, and I wanted to keep the intensity going. If I’d have alphabetized my vinyl collection, like Gideon told me to do, I wouldn’t have stepped into a steam room of a bathroom. For being banged up, I felt good. The music was cranked and the glass shower walls shook with the bass.
I had promised myself that I would stop thinking about that girl, but I found myself wondering what kind of music she liked. I would never see her again, and maybe it was a good thing. Maybe I’d find out that she listened to Michael Bolton.
I didn’t jerk off before games; that was my ritual. Coming before playing messed up my concentration, but today it was only a practice. If I was going to forget about Goldie, I would do it once I shut off the water. Until then, I shut my eyes and imagined what kind of panties she wore. A thong would look incredible on her ass, but I had the feeling that she was more of a boy short girl, which was equally as hot, even more if they were the colors of my jersey. My cock pulsed with the thought. Number eleven would curve nicely over her butt. If the eleven was on the front, that would be even sexier, the bottom of the ones would be damp. The fantasy was working for me, especiallywhen I imagined her biting her lip and tucking her thumbs into the waistband of the orange and black undies.
I continued slowly stroking with my eyes closed, my dick veins rigid in my palm. What if she was wearing my jersey, my name across her shoulders? Instead of pulling down the boy shorts, I slid my hands up her belly and inhaled her hair.
Vanilla. Fuck. Would I ever forget the way she smelled?
She turned and licked her lips.
