Page 1 of Puck Shots (Love The Game #6)

Cosmo

“ G et it out of there!” someone calls. I don’t know who, but I get my skate behind the puck and send it skimming across the ice. Unfortunately, it lands right against the waiting stick of the winger for the other team.

“Fuck.”

I can already imagine the look on the coach’s face. Frustration mixed with a good dose of disappointment.

I’m immediately after it, but Luka, my best friend, is there first. He fights the winger for the puck, sends it right to me, and then it’s like everything slows down.

I’m lightning on the ice, the puck moving back and forth, cool air filling my lungs, as I zero in on the net.

The goalie gets smaller and smaller the closer I am.

The hockey angel on my shoulder, the one I imagine telling me how amazing I am, is there, grinning widely and telling me I can do this, I can make the shot.

A blur of color moves in from the side, but they won’t get to me in time.

“You bet I can,” I tell the hockey angel, and then I shoot. The puck hits the back of the net, the horn sounds, and all at once, the world starts moving at hyperspeed.

Luka slams into my side, wrapping his arms around me.

“Fuck yeah!” he screams, hugging me as tight as he can with the bulky gear on.

Orlando joins our celebration, launching himself into our hug with the energy of a five-year-old.

“Woooooo,” he cheers, and my smile is wide as we skate back past the team, sticks raised in celebration, tapping their gloves. The coach is smiling, too, but one brow is raised, and I know exactly what he’s thinking.

“Next time, do that without handing the puck over first.”

He’s a tough fucker, Coach Lorenzo, but he knows his shit. It’s the reason they have him running this year’s elite summer training program. If I want to get drafted to the NHL, this program will give me my best shot.

“Yo, Flash. Send it to Rover,” Luka calls, and a second later, the puck hits my stick, and I rebound it right across the ice to Rover.

But he’s checked and slams against the glass, losing the puck.

I bolt after it, but Terrance Cross has it, and if there is a guy close to as fast as me on this ice, it’s him.

He’s on a breakaway. Our goalie is good, but Cross is better, and after a fake out to the left, he shoots for the right, and the puck hits the post and rebounds in. Fuck.

The final buzzer sounds, and we’ve lost the game, and that means we’re now tied for the summer camp cup with one game left.

“Good hustle out there, Flash,” Coach says on my way back to the locker rooms.

“Sure, thanks.”

It was good, but not great, and great is what I have to be if I am going to show the scouts this year that I am done with the partying Playboy lifestyle that took up my days last year.

I’m not the only one hoping to grab the attention of the scouts this year by spending the summer at this training camp instead of relaxing with friends and family.

Four of the guys from the Boston U team are here, too, my best friend and frat brother, Luka included.

It’s intense. They have us up early, breakfast is in the main dining hall at six, and then we are on the ice by eight for a minimum of ninety minutes.

After a twenty-minute breather, it’s into the gym for another ninety minutes of weights and strength training.

We usually hit the ice baths after that, before refueling for the afternoon personal development sessions and physio.

Days like these are my favorite, though.

Thursday through Saturday afternoons, we split into teams and play for the summer cup.

It’s intense, with all the players here training, wanting to take the win, but it’s the fun kind of intense.

***

“Why are we going out again?” Rover asks, massaging his shoulder as he waits for me to get dressed.

“We’re celebrating,” I remind him, drying off my arms and smiling down at the small lightning bolt on my wrist. It’s faded after the shower but won’t be that way for long.

Drawing on my inner wrist with a Sharpie started when I was trying to figure out a brother tattoo to get, something my oldest brother, Brent, could do when he visited.

He’s a tattoo artist, ad lives in the UK.

We still haven’t decided on anything, so maybe by the time he visits next, we’ll actually have picked something.

Drawing the lightning bolt though, has become a sort of pregame ritual that I just can’t seem to stop.

It’s not just the symbol; it’s the feel of the cool felt tip of the pen as it drags softly over my skin.

The smell of the ink, the way it spreads into the tiny lines at the edges like it’s a living thing, reaching out and fusing with my body.

A symbiote or whatever they call them in those sci-fi movies.

Pretty sure they aren’t good things though, but this is.

Ever since I started, every game, I somehow manage to pull off shots like today.

True, I screwed up first, but the bolt and I came good in the end.

Rover scoffs. “We lost. What the hell are we celebrating?”

“Your bad ass hit, what else?” Luka chimes in, linking his arm around Rover’s neck and scruffing his flame-red hair with his fist.

“You’re finally taking hits like the big boys. I swear at the start of camp, a shot like the one you took today would have had you on your ass for a good twenty minutes.”

“Most players celebrate wins, you know?” he asks, shrugging out of Luka’s grasp and backing up against the locker. “But I know, I know. You aren’t like most players.”

I tap my nose with my pointer finger.

“You got that right, sunshine. We’ve spent the whole summer working our asses off, we deserve at least one night of fun, and tonight we’re hitting The Flock.”

“You know I’m not gay, right?” he asks, and I laugh. The Flock has fast become the best gay club that lets in under twenty-ones within an hour drive from here, but that’s not why we’re going there tonight.

“Julius Rising is playing tonight,” I say, pulling on my jeans and zipping up the fly.

“Seriously?”

“Yep, a surprise show, so keep it under wraps.”

Luka raises his brows in my direction. “If it’s such a surprise, how do you know about it?” he asks with a grin.

“Let’s just say I had a lovely…encounter with their tour manager a few weeks back.”

“So I should be thanking your dick then?” He laughs.

“Go right ahead,” I say, and Luka leans in close to my crotch.

“Thank you, little flash for—”

“Hey, hey, hey,” I interject, stepping back. “You know very well there is nothing little about him.”

“Sorry.” He grins, looking up at me. It’s no surprise people think there is something between Luka and me.

Judging by Rover’s slightly tilted head, pinched together brow, and upturned smirk, I bet he’s thinking there is, too.

But it’s not like that with us. We met at the rush party for Kappa Omicron Kappa last year and became fast friends.

When we both were accepted, it didn’t take too much convincing to let us room together, too.

Only seniors get their own rooms in the house; most first years have to share with two or more guys, but Luka and I convinced the Pres to let us stay up in the attic.

It was such a piece of shit space without even drywall on most of the walls when we moved in, but with a bathroom and a few home comforts, like, you know, beds, it’s livable.

The best part, it only fits the two of us.

“I’m so grateful to you, big, ginormous, super flash dick for charming the pants off the Julius Rising tour manager.”

“Technically, he left his pants on, but they were around his ankles, sooo…”

“Okay, enough of this,” Rover says, grabbing Luka by the back of his shirt and pulling him away. “Get dressed already. We’ve got about ten minutes until they start serving dinner.”

“I’m almost ready,” I say, grabbing my shirt and phone.

There are about ten message notifications; most are in the Love The Game group chat, a collective chat that started after a photoshoot celebrating queer athletes I was lucky enough to be a part of.

My speed on the ice got a lot of media coverage in my senior year of high school, and I was listed in the “Ones to Watch” section.

The day is mostly a blur now, but a few of the guys decided to grab dinner afterwards and created a group chat to organize it all, then we just sort of…

kept it going. It’s mostly trash talk and comedic relief, but it’s been nice to have a sports place that isn’t at all infiltrated by my older brothers.

They’re both players in the Banana Ball league, and given they’re identical twins, it scores them a huge amount of publicity.

Lucky for me, when they did this shoot, no one considered Banana Ball a sport, and even though we’ve added in queer guys from random teams and every other sport you can think of since starting the chat, I’ve managed to keep them out.

I just want to hold on to one thing that’s mine for as long as I can.

I flick open the chat, and Pedro, the striker for Liverpool, who was also the oldest at the photoshoot that kicked off this whole Love The Game group chat.

His career in soccer has been a decade long, so it was no surprise he announced his retirement shortly after the photoshoot where we all met.

He has sent through a selfie of him and his new husband on their honeymoon in the Maldives, a gorgeous aqua ocean behind them.

The comments are mostly congratulations and comments about how incredible the beach looks. I quickly tap out my reply.

ME:

Don’t do it on the sand, or it’ll be like screwing a bucket of glass shards. Unless you’re into that.

A few seconds later, Pedro replies with a pic of a broken window, the cracks spreading out from a hole in the middle like a tennis ball has gone through it.

PEDRO:

Too late. Send help. ***winky face***