Page 19 of Hockey Bois
“Promise me you’ll try to get laid or go out on a date or something, and I’ll stop.”
“I promise,” Nick said quickly.
“Fuck, I promisefor him,” Terry threw in. “No sex talk with family.”
“You’re all prudes,” Jenna said and finished her beer. “Let’s get another round and call it a night, boys.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
*
Nick put a pin in his cousin’s suggestions. It wasn’t a bad idea to have a casual hookup to de-stress and get his mind off Brady, but doing so didn’t particularly interest him at the moment. All the best places for hooking up were in DC, and by the time he left work, he didn’t have the energy to head to Adam’s Morgan or Dupont Circle, and weekends were no better.
Terry (3:16 p.m.)
You have energy for hockey
I could be your wingman!!!
Nick (3:18 p.m.)
hockey is fun
pretending i want to pound back beers with college kids is NOT fun
also you are a terrible wingman all you do is get drunk and try to sit in my lap
Terry (3:20 p.m.)
That was ONE time and it was to DEMONSTRATE that your lap is comfortable
Nick (3:28 p.m.)
you’re an idiot
He closed his messages, ignoring Terry and Jenna poking at him to get out of bed on a miserably rainy Thursday night. Yes, odds were good he could get a hookup, but the odds were equally good the person would still be in college and barely old enough to drink.
Nick could drink at home, on his couch, under a blanket, like a normal person.
“God, I am so damn old right now.”
Bored, he opened up Facebook to mindlessly scroll through his feed… and realized he didn’t just feel old, he was acting it, too. He didn’t know when Facebook had been relegated to something “old people” used, but it was definitely around when his parents had joined, along with his aunts, uncles, and most notably, his grandma.
Confirmed: Facebook was for Adults (tm), not just kids in college playing at being adults.
Sure enough, one of the first things that popped up was a picture of Benns, Captain of the Jagr Bombs during late weekday nights but otherwise known as Curtis Bennet, husband and father of two young twin girls. The picture was slightly blurry, tilted to one side, and captured the girls swinging at a piñata. How very Dad of him.
Nick “liked” it and kept scrolling.
Almost immediately, he got a PM from Benns.
Curtis Bennet: Hey glad I could catch you! Would you be interested if I created a group chat for the team?
Nick blinked. He’d gotten the friend request from Benns right after he’d joined the Jagr Bombs and then done nothing with it. It hadn’t occurred to him that maybe Benns would be friends with other members of the team, and thereforehecould friend them, too.
It took a monumental effort not to leave Benns hanging and start going through his friends list.
Nick J. Porter: yeah that’s fine
