The first long one is easy enough. I miss the narrow one and have to calm myself down. It’s fine. This is fine. The second attempt goes in. My first attempt at the second long one goes in and I speed on, grabbing the intended puck and make my way through to the next obstacle—weaving between wide barriers.
The trick isn’t just speed, it’s skating skills and puck control. Losing the puck on one of these switchbacks could cost you everything. I slow it down, just a little, and stare at one goal at a time. Left, turn, right, turn. Two down. Four down. Six down. Eight.
That’s it, I take it for the goal, digging my skates in and taking a shot a dozen feet away. The buzzer sounds and I turn for the timer. Fuck yeah! I didn’t suck at this. I’m less than a half a second behind Lo at 43.963 seconds. I’ll fucking take it!
Chest heaving, I take a seat.
“Way to go, Caulder,” Lo cheers.
I smile and we all turn to watch Max. Honestly, he’s the one to beat today. He has probably the most skill in all areas combined, the most rounded player among us. We all have ourstrong points where we excel, but we all have weaknesses too. That’s been proven today.
Max, though. I’m not sure what his weakness is.
The bench is silent as we watch him. I think we’re all holding our breaths.
He’s quick. So damn quick. Nearly flawless. The little hiccups that would cost anyone else a second or two, Max manages to play off as if they didn’t make him stumble at all. His bridges are easy. His transition to the nets is easy. Weaving among the barriers is like a walk on the beach. He has time to get right up to the net to assure his win and sinks it, sounding the buzzer.
He wins by almost three fucking seconds, ending it at 40.606!
As bummed as I am at losing, Max is a damn legend.
“Damn,” Lo says, shaking his head. “We never stood a chance.”
I laugh as I get to my feet. We really didn’t.
“Time for interviews. Then we’re getting out of here.”
He meets my eyes, and I don’t have to imagine the heat in his gaze. My cock twitches in my cup and I stifle a shudder. “Yeah,” I agree, turning my back on him. No eye contact right now or I’m going to end up rethinking catching up with Mattias. I’m already reasoning that we have tomorrow night, too. It can be postponed.
But no. Definitely not. I’mnotputting hooking up first. Even though this is likely the one and only time it’ll happen until I retire and I should be getting my fill. Not even for that.
I’m a hockey player first. I keep my commitments.
Glancing at Lo behind me, I mentally groan. He makes it so hard to be strong!
CHAPTER 12
LO
I stick close to Caulder,hoping I can entice him to come back to the room with me. Maybe if I emphasizecomeenough times and make my intent clear, I can coax him back. Mattias falls into line with him before I can catch up and I’m following them down the chute.
Since I was the player to beat for a hot minute for the obstacle course line, there are several people wanting to talk to me as I sit on the bench and begin unlacing my skates. At least with Caulder finishing just later than me, there are also journalists around him, and he can’t slip away.
Interviews last for several minutes and I’m asked the same questions repeatedly. What was my strategy? How do I feel about Max winning? How has my experience been at my first All-Star Games so far?
Blah, blah, blah. Finally, they are ushered out of the locker room, and we can get back to freeing our junk from the cups they’ve been locked in for several hours and shower. I’m careful to pace myself with how quickly Caulder undresses so he doesn’t get away before I can get him back to the room.
Is it too much to join him in the shower? That’s crossing a line, right? Probably. Instead of trying that, I slip into the showeracross from him, keeping my eyes trained on the tile just beyond the curtain in hopes that I catch his feet.
I’m too anxious that I’m going to miss him though, which is stupid since we’re both headed to the damn bus. Still, I’d like to score a seat with him before he becomes convinced to go celebrate with others.
Wow. I’m becoming obsessed. That’s lame. For a second, I stand under the water and try to decide whether I want to force myself to let this go or not. I mean, we have two more nights. That’s it. It’s not like this thing we’re doing goes beyond this weekend. We said as much last night.
Then yeah, I’m totally going to allow this three-day obsession.
What I’m not going to do is stalk him in the showers. I clean thoroughly, but quickly, then wrap my towel around my waist and get back to the bench. My clothes are where I left them, so I spend a minute drying off before slipping into my underwear and onto the bench.
I can stall a little because it’s not a lie that I hate putting wet feet into socks. That’s gross. I let my feet air dry as I tap on my phone for a few minutes.
