Icehouse
Aleks
“No blue shirts,”Faulker says as I stop to scrub the snow off my boots on the mat outside the Icehouse.
I glance around, “Capitals wouldn’t slum it in Brooklyn unless they won and wanted to rub it in our faces.”
Inside, the Icehouse is already buzzing, that post-win hum rolling off brick walls older than most franchises. Music sits just loud enough to blur conversations. Beer, melted ice, and sweat hang in the air.
Dash, Moretti, and Koa peel off immediately, heading straight for their girls. No hesitation. No pretending otherwise.
Faulker watches them go, then nods like he’s thinking too hard. “You ever think about settling?—”
“The fuck, man?” I snap, cutting him off mid-thought as I scan the room. “And you don’t say that shit around here.”
He lifts his hands. “I’m just saying. They look happy. You don’t think that could be you one day?”
“Faulker,” I say, sharper now, “shut up.”
“All right, all right. I’m just saying.”
“Well, how about you don’t?”
He sighs and bellies up to the bar. “Two shots of Beluga Gold Line, Mick.”
Mick already has them poured. He always does.
As is tradition, we do one shot after every game before joining the team in the back for the obligatory toasts. Costello said we needed to be part of the community that supports us, so a group of us started coming here after wins, and eventually it became tradition. We give them the most precious commodities of all. Time, presence, respect.
Tonight, after a game like that, I’d rather be anywhere else. I’d rather be home in bed watching highlights, learning, growing, becoming the best.
But this is part of it.
“Thanks, Mick,” I say, dropping cash on the bar as he slides over two pints I didn’t even have to order.
Faulker takes one, “Paulaner on tap?” I nod. “You asked him to order it for me?”
“Do not make this weird,” I growl as we move through the crowd, and I hear him chuckle behind me.
We pass the tables directly in front of the player’s section. Tables that used to be all fans, loud and flirtatious and unclaimed. Now, an entire section of that belongs to wives and girlfriends. WAGS, they call them.
“Even the real estate is changing,” Faulker mutters.
“I’m ignoring you for the rest of the night,” I say. “You’ve already ruined my mood.”
“When is your mood not like this?” he laughs.
He’s not wrong.
In the back, the noise spikes as Leo Stone climbs up onto a chair after leaving his wife to join the group. He lifts his beer high.
“Brooklyn’s the real New York,” he shouts. “First capital of the state. Built by dockworkers, builders, and people who didn’t wait for permission. To the number one borough, fucking Brooklyn. We did this for you.”
The bar detonates.
Theo Rivera stands next, beer raised, grin wide. “Home of the Dodgers before someone else took them. Forever home of the Bears because we’re never leaving you, Brooklyn, the real New York.”
The decibels climb higher, rattling the glasses.
