Page 21 of Pucker Up
The waitress arrived with my sandwich and set it on the table in front of me, along with another two pitchers of beer. “From the table over there.” She smiled, but focused the majority of her eye contact on Banksy.
We instinctively turned toward the table in the corner. A trio of blondes giggled and held up their glasses. “Please tell them thank you.” Holmes held up the pitcher and smiled at the girls.
“Yeah, and we will take care of their tab,” Banksy added.
“Really?” The bartender’s brow furrowed. I’d be confused too. Banksy had been flirting with her all night and now he had shifted his attention to the table of bunnies.
Harrison rested his hand on top of the bartenders. “I’m a gentleman. In no world is a woman buying a drink for me.”
She relaxed. “I’m just about to go on a break. If you guys need anything, I’ll get it for you now, and I’ll add their vodka sodas to your tab.”
We were on a crash course to an all-day hangover, and there was more beer on the table than we could possibly drink. “I think we’re good for now.” I took a bite of my sandwich. It was no Reuben, but it was delicious and would hopefully sober me up a little.
Banksy slid from his stool to stand inches from the bartender’s body. “Before you go on your break, I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of the restroom.”
If his comment caught her off guard, she didn’t show it. “I’ll show you. Right this way.”
Banksy’s grin stretched as wide as an Olympic-sized rink. “Gentleman, my ass,” Ethan muttered while Banksy was still within earshot.
Banksy turned.Maybe, he mouthed.
“Wow.” Banksy did his fair share of flirting, but I couldn’t see him bending a bartender over a toilet bowl in a west end lounge.
“I wonder how many times that guy has had chlamydia this season?” Holmes shook his head.
“This season?” I popped a truffle fry into my mouth. “How about this week? That whole thing”—I swirled a fry in the air—“has got to get old sometime. I mean, I got tired of bunnies in triple A.”
“I still like one or two every once in a while.” There was a wry smile on Ethan’s face.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been inspired by mister romance.” The sandwich was helping with my drunkenness. I no longer felt like the floor was crooked.
Ethan looked over his shoulder at the bunnies. “Maybe Banksy is right. This season is a bust. I’ve been so focused on training, drills, and practice. Maybe it’s time to have a little fun.” I’d only played with Ethan for a few months, but this behavior seemed out of character. Maybe he was right about that whole lemon thing: shitty attitude, like a cancer, spreads. “Want to go talk to them?”
The girls hadn’t looked away from our table. One of them was biting her lip and then they all were biting their lips. I’d had many women just like them over the years, and I couldn’t remember one of their names. Not one.
“I’ll pass.” I finished the sandwich and washed it down with the gross yeasty beer.
“Tell your brother how to do that.” Ethan winked. I knew it was a joke, but it stung. The Toronto Tigers were in last place, and as much as I liked to think there was only one bad lemon in the bowl, as long as Gideon and I were on the ice together, we were both rotten pieces of fruit slowly eating away at the entire team.
Was there a way to fix the team that didn’t involve tossing us both in the trash?
A loud round of giggles told me that Ethan had approached the table of bunnies. I settled up our tab with the other bartender, the one who was not currently in the bathroom with number nine, and stumbled out onto the street. It was one of those nights where if I were in the country, the stars would’vebeen shining. I knew they were there somewhere, hidden beyond the light pollution and smog of downtown Toronto. As I staggered home, I realized I was twenty-seven years old and if I wasn’t careful, my career would be in my rearview mirror, before it really got started.
I lurched toward the corner of a red brick building and puked my guts out into a dirty snowbank. I was playing in the NHL, had more money in my bank account than I ever dreamed possible, and women were buying me pitchers of beer and throwing themselves at my feet. If I was living my dream, why did it feel so empty?
The phone chimedand I cracked open one of my eyelids. I was home, in my bed, but I didn’t remember how I got there. My phone buzzed and I grabbed it to turn off the sound. It was five thirty in the morning. Before I could silence it, another call came in, the light from the phone screen brightening the entire room.
It was Jamie. I silenced the call and then saw that there were three missed calls from him. I groaned and rolled out of bed. My T-shirt was wrapped around me like a swirled ice cream cone and I was still wearing my jeans. I padded to the kitchen and drank from the faucet. My head pounded and my mouth felt like sandpaper. My vision was blurry and I started to accept the possibility that I could still be drunk.
I returned to my bedroom as my phone was in the process of buzzing to the edge of my nightstand. Clearing my throat, I picked up the call, knowing that I would regret it.
Jamie barked at me. “Emergency Practice. Six a.m.”
Twenty-six minutes from now.
SEVEN
ACE
