LO
I imaginedthe way he looked at me, right? On his way out the door. And the way he didn’t meet my eyes after? Sighing, I step back into the room. Here I thought we’d gotten somewhere.
Caulder’s always been kind of a quiet person from what I’ve observed. Not that I’ve paid a lot of concentrated attention to him. Just when he’s around—games and common events, mostly. I can’t tell if this is shyness or something else. Very clearly he’s uncomfortable sharing a room and bed.
Strange, since I’m guessing he’s played hockey most of his life. There’s zero doubt in my mind he’s shared both over the years. High schools can’t afford individual rooms for all their players each game. Some colleges can’t either. Hotels always fuck up and the single bed thing happens on occasion.
There’s a chance that it’s me, maybe he doesn’t like me. Frowning, I turn to drag my carry on onto the bed and open it, looking for a change of clothes and my bathroom bag. I stay out of the news so it’s not like Caulder’s seen me there with something scandalous or anything. While I’m admittedly impatient as a person and for stupidity, I don’t think I’m unkind or anything.
I used to have a massive resting bitch face, but I’m pretty sure I managed to curb that after I started talking to the press, so that can’t be it either. The idea that I somehow already made him uncomfortable doesn’t sit well with me.
But for right now, I can’t do anything about it. He’s with his teammates and I have an All-Star team to meet up and eat with. It’s been hours since lunch and I’m hungry. It doesn’t take much for me to get hangry these days.
The Pacific team chose a restaurant within walking distance to the hotel. I recognize Lamar Gibbon from Anaheim just outside the door and quicken my pace to catch up. He grins when I fall in line next to him.
“Hey, Lo,” he greets, smiling. “Glad you could make it.”
“Don’t rub it in that you’re here like every year.”
He shrugs. “Yeah, but I’m here as a fan vote. Not as an All-Star invitation.”
“Personally, I think that’s cooler. You have fans that want to see you here! Clearly a rabid number of them.”
Lamar grins. “Okay, yeah that’s cool.”
“How many goals you planning to score this year?”
He gives me a careless shrug as he looks around. “I only make attempts when they’re open. So I suppose that depends on the teams we play and how often they decide to pull their goalies and leave the net wide open.”
“It’s a risky move.”
“I understand the advantage when they do it. But I’ve seen some really stupid shit go down and some ridiculously easy goals that could have been prevented by a toddler if they’d just left the goalie where he belongs.”
We step into the restaurant as he’s describing a goal that he made and how it shouldn’t have happened, but their opponent was being dumb. It sounds to me like he only scores those goals on teams he deems are playing stupidly.
There’s a handful of people here already. Their conversation isn’t about hockey but the mess happening at the hotel.
“Lix told her right where to go when she tried to put another player in my room with us. He leaned over the counter and asked, ‘do you think they’re going to enjoy watching us have sex in the same bed?’” Noah Kain says, laughing.
“He didn’t say that,” Brian Teethis says.
“He did,” Azure Dayne confirms. “It was entertaining to see the woman turn lobster red.”
“So the trick was to tell them you have an actual partner and force their hand,” Lamar muses. “I suppose it’s a little late for that now.”
“I’ve already seen this fiasco all over ShareIt,” Noah comments, shaking his head. “There are some very loud, angry guests here—a lot of which are hockey players.”
“Airing dirty laundry,” Lamar says, dropping into a chair.
Noah shrugs. “Whatever. This is a major liability suit they have on their hands right now. I’ve seen no less than three petitions to take away their licenses and shit. One massive class action lawsuit from the parents of high school kids who are here for a competition. It’s going to get really ugly.”
“I’ve been wondering just how badly they overbooked,” I add. “Sounds like it’s a lot of rooms.”
“I haven’t met anyone who hasn’t had an issue,” Noah says. “I’m actually a little curious to know what happened to the person who they had assigned to share a room with me. Does that mean they tripled someone up?”
I snort because Caulder and I were just talking about that.
We keep up this conversation as the rest of the team arrives. I’m sipping on my second drink, something blended and refreshing, dangerous in flavor because you can’t taste the alcohol, by the time we finally order food.
