Page 18 of Hockey Bois
“Oh well,” Max said. “Work good?”
He shrugged. “I still like the things I used to like, and I still can’t stand the things I didn’t.”
“But there’s a decent balance?”
“Can’t complain.”
“Oh, he complains,” Jenna said.
“Everyone complains about work,” Nick shot back. “You ranted for like twenty minutes about your boss last week.”
She held up her hands in surrender.
“Dating anyone?” Max asked. It was casual, the obvious next step in his line of questioning, but Nick could sense Jenna’s meddling at work.
“No,” he said with a note of finality that he knew none of them would heed.
“There’s a hot guy on his team he wants to bone,” Terry said.
“They text each other all the time.” Jenna’s grin was downright evil. “Meet up a couple times a week to play hockey.”
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Max asked.
Nick wanted to melt into his seat and die. “It’s not like that. I mean, yes, he is hot and yes, we play hockey and yes, I would not turn down any boning, but it’s not at all flirty or anything like that.”
Max licked his lips. He had his “dad face” on, the one he used when he was about to be the responsible, grown-up one and say something they didn’t want to hear. “You sure he’s not interested? Because if he were—”
“He’s not, I swear to God.”
“But if hewere—” Max pressed.
“Oh my God.” Nick dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone, unlocking it and opening his messages. “Look!” He held up his phone. It was still open to his current conversation with Brady, and he pointed to it emphatically.
“‘See you Wednesday night,’” Jenna squinted and read. “Yeah, totally not interested. He’s just made plans to see you—”
“We have a game!” He was shouting like a madman. He saw the looks his cousins were giving him, so he took a deep breath and tried again. “The name! Read the name!”
“‘Jensie from Hockey,’” they read in unison.
A pause.
“I don’t get it,” Terry said. “Is that… that’s bad? Why is that bad?”
“He put his name in my phone! He put in his nickname from hockey instead of his real name, and he added ‘from Hockey’ because that’s the theme around which all our interactions are based!”
“Yeah, okay,” Max said with a hesitant nod. “I can maybe see that.”
“Have you eventriedflirting?” Jenna asked with obvious disappointment.
Nick floundered for an answer. “Not really?” She opened her mouth, and he cut her off. “Regardless, I don’t even know if it’d be a good idea to make a move. We play on the same team. He’s the guy I practice hockey with. I flirt and make him uncomfortable, or worse, we date and it goes badly, then things are just awkward. I gotta find a new team, and I gotta find a whole new practice routine to avoid him… I like things too much as-is to ruin them because I’ve got a schoolboy crush.”
His cousins were mercifully silent. While deep down he might have held out hope they’d have some miraculous answer where he could have his cake and eat it too, he knew the score. He’d been the gay guy with a crush on a straight friend before, and he knew he was right about this, so he was thankful they weren’t challenging him on it.
“Well,” Max said with a shrug, “then it sounds like you need to get laid to get your mind off of the cute hockey boy.”
“Jensie from hockey,” Jenna corrected.
“Ew. Please don’t talk about sex, Max,” Nick begged. “I’m still not over you being the one who gave meThe Talkwhen I was a kid. It weirds me out.”
