~Beckham~

“Dempsey to Morgan, Morgan to Patrick, Patrick to Morgan, Morgan to Hayes and GOAL!” the coach yells at us in our pregame practice, a night before a preseason game as if we simply don’t understand what Play Gretzsky is. This is what I have been doing since I was a child and just like I know it, my stick kisses the puck which sails past Swanson, our goalie and lights the nets up. A smile curves on my lips at the temporary victory which appears to be equally appreciated by my teammates before Dempsey, our captain aka Jay, my best friend slaps my back before we skate off the ice, ramming our blades into their guards. 

The extended play on the ice leaves me cold to the bones despite the padded gear, but it’s familiar. It’s home. It’s where I am comfortable; where I am myself. The ever-present wet smell in the air, the scuff of the blades against the frozen floor and the coordinated movement of my sharp skates, making me feel like I am floating rather than anything else is second nature. It’s like breathing.

“That was good play, B. Keep that up and tomorrow’s game is ours.” I roll my eyes because while I am good, it doesn’t mean that my team mates are not capable of doing it without me and my good play. I’m sure they’ll do fine, but the thing is I’d much rather they do it with me. Pre-season can be quite stressful with anticipation of the season, the Frozen Fours and bagging that win. It is also the time I get into the groove of being our team’s dependable forward. Not like I need to because, all I have been doing this summer break was that anyway; slum it out at the gym, eat, practice, practice some more and sleep for three hours before getting back to doing the same thing. It’s kinda like a limbo, but it keeps me grounded and focused, stops me from floating away into dangerous territories that might ruin me and in turn, my team. And that is the last thing the Noir Lions need; an out of form, stuck in his head forward. 

Shuffling towards the locker room, I head straight to the cubicles, desperate for a hot shower before I get to head home. Just the heavy fall of the warm water over my stiff muscles put me at ease and I find myself sighing in relief. 

I love hockey. Man, I know I do. 

There might be a number of reasons as to why I had started with it and why I am going through with this rigour but there is only one reason that helps me not quit. 

It makes me happy. 

It drains me more days than not with me barely having the time to turn in my assignments and let’s not even get into the physical strain it puts me in. But it’s worth it, I guess. If I love it, I got to work for it, no? 

When I come back out, ready to pull some clothes on, Jay and Seb, my other best friend slash roommate are sitting in the now fairly empty locker room, their eyes glued to their phones. Sebastian Torres is our other defender and his pairing with Jay is the best the thing that has ever happened to our team, probably in the history of CNU itself. They work together like a well-oiled machine and it pleases Coach Delancy to no end and honestly, me too. Without good defenders to back me, I can never be the promising forward that I am.

 The two of them take in my half naked appearance in the room like it’s an everyday phenomenon (it kind of is when you live together) before Seb rolls his icy green eyes and says, “Man, is your beauty shower over yet?! Put some clothes on, will you? I’m fucking starving!”

That’s just a mild way of implying, Beckham, cook us a fucking meal. 

Before I can even get to answering that, Jay butts in and says, “Bet the bastard was jerking off. You know hockey does it for him.” Looking my way he asks, “Are you good to go?” 

At that I flip both of them off, before quickly slipping my boxers and joggers on. “If you’re so pressed, then maybe you guys should get your own fucking cars to college.” Pulling my head through the hole of the t-shirt, I turn towards Seb, “Man, your dad owns half of Boston. Stop mooching off me!” The brunette defender shrugs casually, putting his broad shoulders and amped up arms on casual display with his barely there tank top with it’s largely cut leaves, leaving very little to imagination with the nipple show and everything. Grabbing my things, I begin to head out with the guys following me before they jump right into their seats of my Jeep.

Jay, my childhood best friend and I have known each other when his parents moved into our suburban Boston when the two of us were barely out of diapers. We’ve known each other all our lives and I have almost no memory of my life before this idiot. Childhood amnesia and all. The two of us went to the same rink for skating practice before taking up hockey as out sport of choice. Before we knew it, CNU had us down with their impossible to refuse sports scholarships. College had been a phase I was looking forward to and there is no one I’d rather experience it with except Jay Dempsey. As for Seb, he had become a part of our duo when he moved into the dorm room across ours and started to train with us for the team. Natural progression of friendship resulted in the three of us moving out the dorms together in an off-campus three-room apartment when our mandatory dorm stay was over in freshman year. To be absolutely frank, it still baffles me to date, how Seb managed to become one of our best friends. 

Jay is the total antithesis to Seb’s carefree lifestyle who is very evidently motivated by the hipster slogan, you only live once. The brunette knows how to live life king-size, blowing his parents’ money when he feels like it, while Jay is what sombre will look like if it’s personified. My choice in friends is clearly ambiguous as fuck, but also making me the point of mediation between people who as different as stone and cotton. 

While I follow the out towards my car, trying to manage a crick in my neck while I am at it, my phone rings. Jay gives me brief look over his shoulder, clearly identifying the unique tone that sounds off rarer than the whole blood moon thingy. I meet his eyes, duck and cut the call. Avoidance is the key, unless the lock changes. 

Quietly, I take the wheel. There’re things far in worse in life than a call from your own mother, I suppose. Except, is there?

~

Another day. Another practice; only one that’s not warranted by the coach or team. Every once in a while, I like to hit the ice just to kinda breathe. It’s funny how the one thing that is capable of suffocating you, can also breathe that very necessary breath of life in you. My usually solitary activity however attracts my very, very nosey best friends occasionally, who are currently flanking my sides as we make our way to the rink after changing into gym clothes and skates. 

The cold air from the rink hits me square in the face, the mild harshness of it almost as inviting as turkey on Thanksgiving Day, bringing a small smile on my face. However, to my slightest of dismays, the rink is occupied. I would like to think that I have the rink schedule down to the ‘t’ but apparently not because, today, it’s filled with the members of our female counterpart making their mark on the ice as the skate from one end of the rink to the other, passing the puck amongst themselves. A three versus three scrimmage is going on and as I watch the puck fly across the flat ice towards the goalie and I look that way, almost expecting Gia Brenson to block it, when I see an unfamiliar figure manning the goalpost. I squint, trying to place her from all the parties and practices I’ve been to with the ladies and… no. Can’t place her. Can’t remember her and I would like to think that I would remember a goalie in our women’s team who glides across ice like fluid.

My eyes stay fixed on this new person, who by the way is yet to miss a puck going into the net. She moves around gracefully, it’s almost un-hockey like and let’s get real, hockey players are already pretty fucking elegant on the ice out there. So, to impress another player with movement? Yeah, let’s just say that it almost never fucking happens. There is something intelligent in the way she’s moving even in all that bulky keeper gear and when Seb lets out a low whistle, I know that I am not the only one seeing it. “That’s not Gia, is it?”

“Nope!” I agree.

“She new?” Jay asks, joining me at the gate that lets us into the rink, when Ellie Kim, our women’s team’s star defender who happens to have skipped scrimmage in favour of tossing around the puck on her own, skates in our direction, fist-bumping Seb on the way. “Hey, you guys!”

I nod in her direction before my brunette best friend lets out the questions that are swarming my mind. “El, dude. That goalkeeper new?” El looks back in the direction of the said person, before nodding. “Yep, transfer from Yale.” She oddly stresses on the Yale, like she can’t fathom why anyone would quit an iconic college for a transfer to CNU. Guess it does make sense, except I think CNU is pretty fucking fantastic in its own right.  She gets my attention when she continues, “I’m sure we played against her, last year. She’s good, huh?” 

The comment also makes her narrow her eyes at Seb, “Seb, can you stop thinking with your dick for once? Girl’s new. She doesn’t need your shit.” The said person only shrugs with a wink and says, “I didn’t do or for that matter, say anything. She’s good and I admire good. I am allowed to.”

El theatrically glares at him, in ways only best mates can manage to do it and drawls, “Sure.”

Seb and El’s dynamic bewilders Jay and I, the same time it’s amusing. Somehow, in some deeply- I don’t know how the fuck that happened- twisted way, Seb managed to befriend a girl he actually slept with and the said girl doesn’t look like she wants to hurl a pot of hot water at him and kick him in the nuts. It’s even more surprising that they are closer in the past two years than we’d expect of Seb’s many, many exes. It’s easy to get his attention and fall for him, I guess. It’s just always just easier for him to be breaking hearts. El appears to be immune to any and all of his Torres charms like he likes to call it and I guess, that is what makes the difference. Truthfully, they’d make a pretty kickass couple in my opinion, one that would obviously never see daylight. They’d both literally kick ass. My ass.

The fall into old banter, one that I have been audience to and has entertained me in more than one occasion, but my eyes keep getting drawn to the faceless goalkeeper’s agility. I can’t stop, even when I am well aware how creepy that can appear. She’s focussed, her attention barely wavering from the puck that’s nowhere near her and for a minute, for a small tiny minute, I think she looks my way. It’s so fast, it almost could have not happened and I’m still not sure it did. 

“Newbie catch your eye, B?” Jay whispers as he sidles up to me. I love over my shoulder, frowning as I do so, because what? I shake my head and tip my chin her way. “She’s good. As good as Walker. Wonder why she transferred out of Yale.”

“Yale’s loss, Thunderbirds gain, I suppose.”

I look at Ellie and ask, “What’s up with Brenson, dude?”

“Sprained ankle over practice that first week this sem. That with her hamstring injury from last season? She needs rest, but we girls have no time to relax with the season coming up. One day we’re worrying about trying out new goalies just before the preseason and the next day Baron says we got ourselves Yale’s best.” Yale’s best, huh? We gotta see about that. Someone transferring from Yale to CNU a month into the new academic year? Definitely got to see about that. 

“You guys gonna be there for Saturday’s party at Mason’s?” she adds, letting her pretty eyes trail across all of our faces, even though she knows we’re gonna be there.

 It’s a party with free booze and bunnies. We are athletes. Do the freakin’ math. 

The whole hockey team’s been invited and the captain needs his backup. So, yeah. I know I’m gonna be there whether I like it or not. Good that I don’t really have to be worried about the not. Seb jumps in and enthusiastically answers for the all the us and we let him. 

It’s around that time Jamie McLaughlin, the forward comes by, swinging the helmet off her head. The whole party talk had drawn my attention away from the ice for a bit and now the scrimmages seem to have come to an end. Her face is flushed, from the ice or from the sight of one hockey captain, I’d never know. She’s obviously one of the few, the guys haven’t managed to dick and is one of the sweeter people I have had the pleasure of knowing in my two years at CNU, especially since she’s best pals with Kim. The girl’s been crushing on Jay since forever, exactly why he would never do anything with her. Jay’s a fucking saint, but I don’t really understand why he’d never hop on with Jamie when she looks exactly like his type- the relationship type. He does a very friendly chin tilt at her before joining Seb and Ellie.

“Hey, Jamie!” I high five her, even when my eyes wander all over the rink to catch a sight of Ms. Newbie behind all that gear. Surprisingly she asks, “Looking for our goalie?”

I frown, turning my attention back to Jamie who’s peering at me with her doe-brown, almost Bambi like eyes. She only smirks in response. “I’d like to let you know that you guys were hardly subtle with all your ogling.”

“We were hardly-”

“Looking, ogling. Same thing, Beckham.”

“She’s good, McLaughlin. Haven’t seen someone as good since Walker in freshman year.” I tilt my head in the general direction of the goal-post that’s now unarmed. “You close?”

“She’s my roommate, actually. Name’s Luca. Luca Ackerman. Cool name, right?” Her eyes brighten like she remembered something and then adds, “She’s also got the coolest pink hair, B.” I’ve never really seen a girl named Luca and that only adds to the mystery surrounding this girl.

Luca Ackerman with the coolest pink hair. Interesting.

~Luca~

When Jamie returns from whatever it is that she had been doing, she jumps straight onto her bed with a huff. The bed is nowhere close to being fluffy, nowhere near as fluffy as the one back at home or Yale, so the whole bouncing thing doesn’t really happen. An injury though, possible. I had been almost surprised with my roommate being a left-winger, to be truthful. Judgmental, I know but also, she’s totally the model looks, charming personality types. Sounds like everything I certainly am not. 

Also, she’s just there. She engages me in a conversation and I indulge her whenever I am in the mood, even though it’s mostly one sided. She doesn’t look like it bothers her the slightest, she’s happy doing all the talking. She’s also not the type to tag the door handle at least five times a week, just so she can fuck, leaving me room-less in the night like many other girls in our floor and dorm. Thank fuck, because I would have lost my shit. In retrospect, I can totally be that roommate, however, I don’t have a catch yet. This, in turn is totally messing with my homeostasis, my body looking for the calm that in most cases is orgasm induced. It’s been two weeks since I made it to CNU, a whole month late for the semester and things are as good as they can be when you have classes and assignments and reading materials to catch and you’re a grouch who refuses to make friends or butter up the professors to get additional assistance. 

Jamie rolls over and faces me with a smile that I return, considerably with lesser watts, before turning back to my phone and getting on with Griffin whining about some irrelevant high-school bullshit that I don’t want to hear, but will bear with because it’s my baby brother who’s asking for my attention. What Griff wants, he gets. Even if it drains me.

“So, Luca.” I flick my eyes in the brunette’s direction to let her know I am listening before typing away texts in rapid succession to my brother. “There’s this party on Saturday and I was wondering if you’d want to go with Ellie and me.” It takes a while for me to process the invite but when I finally do, I give her more attention than I had been giving her initially. “A party? Who’s throwing it?”

“Football captain, Mason.” Oh, I know him. We have economics together. Or was that the hockey captain? Fuck if I know. “I didn’t get an invite,” I tell her before rolling over. “Will it be any good?”

Jamie rolls her eyes, but it’s playful and teasing, so I let it pass even though her comfort with me grates my nerves. We are acquaintances at best, but for a person like Jamie, every person who wishes her a good morning is a friend, so by that standards, I must be her best friend given that I am living with her. My whole sunshine diagnoses had been only too accurate. “That’s because you leave a minute before coach signals the end of practice and you do the same in your classes.” True, but what’s really the point of pointless conversations. I am here to study and play hockey. And deal with everything else that I’d rather have no one know. 

“So, you were saying…” I prod, not really wanting to get into the logistics of how I flee the minute practice or class is over. It’s something I don’t want to discuss. Not with Jamie, not with anyone. 

“Yes, party. You in? I’m sure the guys would like to meet you and it’d be fun to hang out with the girls when we are not practicing.” There is a smug look on her face that I am desperate to wipe off, one that says she knows I am in. But, the truth is I need to really get out. Not to socialize or anything, but just like that. A few free drinks and a possible lay is enough to entice me into agreeing to this whole plan which is definitely going to come with the price of fraternizing. Even still, I find myself nodding. “Sounds like a plan, Jamie.”

The squeal that McLaughin lets out is almost enough for me to retract my agreement, but instead, a small smile curves itself across my lips. .~

~.~.~

Heya! How are you all enjoying Breakaway? Let me know!