Page 1 of Body Check
1
Dutton
“Fuck ‘em.” My voice rings out in the weight room. It’s empty except for me, my best friend, and a shit-ton of state-of-the-art workout equipment. “I’m serious. Fuck. Them,” I repeat, adjusting the plates on the leg press and settling onto the bench.
Blue Halliday knows me better than anyone on the planet. We’ve been friends for most of our lives, so he knows my words are sincere. I’m not being reactive or trying to start shit. I’m a surly bastard, and I say what I mean. But the way Blue’s peering through the floor-to-ceiling glass of the weight room, watching as our new teammates stroll right past us and out into the late-August sunshine, tells me I need to elaborate.
“They’re dicks,” I tell him.
“You don’t know that,” Blue, ever the optimist, counters. “Okay, Mickey never stops moving and Jablonski never stops yapping, but JT’s a solid guy. And a damn good goalie.”
He’s right on all counts. I never planned on transferring halfway through my college career. And if someone would have told me even a few months ago that I’d be trading in my purpleWoodcock Bushtits jersey for burgundy Bainbridge Wolves gear, I’d have laughed in their face.
And I don’t laugh a lot.
I’m not a funny guy, and I’m not here for a good time. “We’re here to play hockey. That’s it. We don’t have to like them, and they don’t have to like us.”
Blue pulls down on the bar of the lateral press. “You might technically be right,” he admits, releasing the weights. “But our season will be a whole lot more tolerable if we don’t actively hate them. Hell, it might even be enjoyable. I know you’re allergic to fun, but you should give it another try.”
Gesturing to the now-empty hallway, I scoff. “We’re supposed to play nice? No fucking thank you. Besides, they didn’t roll out the red carpet for us, did they? It was dead silent in that locker room when Baylor introduced us. No welcome, no nothing. If that’s the way they want to play it, fine by me.”
“They started it? That’s what you’re going with?” he asks, shaking his head. “This isn’t middle school. Besides, they were probably in shock. Even you’ve gotta admit that was a ballsy move on our new coach’s part. He just ripped the bandage right off. No warning.”
“Warning?” I ask, my tone incredulous. “We’re two of the top-ranked players in men’s college hockey right now. The only people who need to be warned about us are our opponents.”
“Yeah, well,” Blue says with a humorless laugh, “that’s who they used to be. And based on the way they all trooped out of here without a fucking glance in our direction, that hasn’t changed.”
Hopping off the bench, I reset the machine, wipe off the bench, and move on to the free weights in the corner of the room, taking a swig from my water bottle as I go. “Hence my sage wisdom: Fuck. Them.”
My buddy laughs. “You should be a motivational speaker, Sparky.”
I hate that stupid nickname. When we were little, my best bud decided we needed nicknames, so since his first name is Grover, I decided to call him Blue. It’s dumb, but I was in kindergarten. Granted, my creativity is still at about the same level now as it was then. I bestowed him with the simple nickname that stuck like glue.
Meanwhile, he chopped up my last name, Wagner, and decided that since a dog wags its tail, I should be called Sparky. Like a freaking dog. Thankfully, it never caught on. And it never will, if I have any say in the matter. “Call me Sparky again and I’ll ram a kettlebell down your throat.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he shoots back. “You know I don’t mind a little gagging.”
“What I know,” I tell him as he joins me on the mat, “is that I’ve learned way more than I ever wanted to about your sex life.”
The guy my parents consider a second son just shrugs. “Until you get one of your own, I figure I should give you a little something to let you live vicariously.”
Planting my feet firmly on the mat and cradling a medicine ball in my left hand, I flip him the bird with my right. “Sue me for not treating it like a sport where ranking up points is the object of the game. Besides, I have sex.”
“You’re such a bullshitter. You haven’t been with anyone since you were cockstruck in that diner a couple months back.”
“Cockstruck? Pretty sure I’d remember something that painful,” I say, tossing the ball into his waiting hands. I’m playing dumb, but I know the exact moment he’s referring to. We’d played Bainbridge late last winter and headed to a diner after the game. I was sitting there bitching about the loss, and Blue was eating his weight in pancakes when my eyes landed on the most beautiful woman to ever walk this earth. While I waswiping the drool off my chin, she saw me, too. The smile she sent my way stole my damn breath, but before I could haul my ass out of the booth to approach her, she glanced at her phone, got a worried look on her face, and practically ran out of the diner.
He fires the ball right back at me. “Yeah, cockstruck. It’s a great word. I’m pretty sure I invented it. It’s like lovestruck, only?—”
“I understand what it means, dumbass. But you’re wrong. Yeah, that redhead was the hottest woman I’ve ever fucking seen, but she’s not the reason I haven’t had sex since?—”
His laugh rings out in the open space. “I fucking knew it! Dude. You didn’t even talk to her. You need to let that shit go. I realize we now live in the same town where you lusted after her for all of five minutes, but the chances of you seeing her again are basically nonexistent, which is why we should go out tonight. We’ll head over to our new place, drop off our stuff, shower, and hit up Jock Block to see who’s partying.”
“I hate going out,” I grumble, knowing damn well that I’ll probably never set eyes on my diner beauty again, but that doesn’t mean I want to go out and socialize.
“You hate everything,” Blue responds, wholly unbothered by my grumpy attitude.
When we pull up to our new digs an hour later, even I have to admit I’m impressed. The brick house is massive, with a wraparound porch and manicured lawn. From the driveway, I can spot the edge of the back deck and the glittering pool beyond. I’m not bragging when I say I grew up with money. It’s just a fact. My family owns a chain of car dealerships along the Eastern Shore, and I’ve never wanted for anything. But thisplace is nicer than any college housing I’ve ever seen. If you picked it up and dropped it into the center of my folks’ gated neighborhood, it would fit right in.
