Alex
I didn’t say it was a bad thing :)
Elliot
Alright then,Alex Goat Holmes.
“You havesomething you want to share with the class there, Elliot?” Breaker asks, his whole body twisted and turned in the front seat to try to look at my phone screen. I pull it back against my chest, instantly incriminating myself in doing so.
“Mind your own business, Breaker,” I say, kicking the back of his seat.
“What? You look like the cat that got the cream, that’s all. I’m just wondering if you’re chatting with your new boyfriend on the hockey team.”
My mouth drops, and Lennon eyes me through the rearview mirror.
“Don’t look so surprised, Elliot. Your little pizza party outside of The Hive Mind was all over social media, and don’t think we didn’t see you two leave the club together holding hands. Did you kick a three-pointer past that hot goalie or not?”
I open my mouth, close it, then open it again. I’m sure I look like a gaping fish, but I don’t exactly know how to respond to all of that.
“Okay, Len, you’re mixing your sports metaphors and it's not working. Alex was having a weird superstition moment and I was helping him out. Besides, he and I weren’t holding hands when we left the club. You would know that ifthe two of you weren’t fucking against the glass.”
Lennon scoffs as he pulls into the parking lot behind the large food bank. It’s already packed to the brim with flashy sports cars and oversized, over-shined SUVs—a stark contrast to the lives of the people we’re here to feed today. It kind of feels like we’re pulling up to a rich asshole convention, but I try to shove aside my own negative feelings and just appreciate the way the team administrations have brought us all together to do some good today.
“Excuse me, Mr. Judgy McJudgyPants, but Breaker and I are classy. We weren’t fucking against the glass wall, we were dry-humping against it. We fucked in the bathroom of the club, like two men in a loving, committed relationship should.”
I make a show of gagging as Lennon throws the truck in park, even though getting off in a club bathroom had been the only thing on my mind when we went out Sunday night.
I grab on to the car door handle, ready to fling myself from this vehicle and this conversation, but Breaker flings back across the center console and grabs my shoulder.
“Not so fast, Elliot. Are you and Holmes a thing? Because if so, I love that for you. He’s totally hot, in a weird, quirky, doofus kind of way.”
I bite back the surge of jealousy roiling in my gut when Breaker calls my guy hot, because he’s not my guy, even if I can still feel his lips on mine when I close my eyes. I also have to fight the urge to punch Breaker square in the jaw for having the nerve to refer to not-my-Alex as a weird, quirky doofus.
“Yes Alex is hot, and yes we hung out. We’ve been chatting, but we’re just friends.”
“Are you sure?” Breaker asks, drawing out the question. “Because I saw the pictures of you two handing out slices outside The Hive. You had stars in your eyes, and Alex was looking at you like he wanted to get into your pants.”
“Trust me, Alex doesn’t want to get into my pants. He’s straight, he told me so himself.”
“So was I,” Lennon murmurs under his breath, and I roll my eyes. Lennon might have thought he wasn’t queer once upon a time, but anyone with two brain cells to rub together could see that he was head over dick in love with Breaker since their college days.
“He told you he’s straight? He just offered up his sexuality on a platter to you, for no reason?” Breaker asks, his eyebrow arching menacingly. But I don’t want to give them all the details. I don’t want to tell them all about how I kissed Alex and he—kindly, so kindly it ached—shot me down.
“Not for no reason. We were talking about post-game adrenaline, which led to a discussion about sex, and the fact that he sleeps with women and only women was thrown around. Can I get out of the truck now?” I ask, and don’t wait for an answer as I jump down out of the car and into the brisk, chilly air.
“Huh. I mean I met Alex last year at the US Open and I got the vibe from him, you know? Dude seemed way into the men’s doubles, if you know what I mean. I could’ve sworn he was one of us,” Lennon says. We cross the parking lot, nodding and saying quiet hellos to a few Redwoods rookies as we walk.
“Well he’s not, so can you two just drop it and not make things weird today? Alex is my friend, he’s new in town, and he’s super into all that superstition and karma stuff. That whole pizza thing was the result of a wayward thought. The last thing he needs is you two love birds poking around where you don’t belong and throwing him off, okay?”
I shoot a pleading glance their way, knowing that if I make myself serious, they’ll drop the whole thing. If there’s anyone who knows about the complexity of friendship when there’s attraction on one side or the other, it's Breaker and Lennon. Their “will they, won’t they” dynamic during their first season with theRedwoods a few years ago was a dramatic scene for the ages.
Thankfully, they agree to let it go and have moved on to discussing the merits of canned cranberry sauce versus fresh by the time we enter the large industrial kitchen. The whole place already smells like thyme, sage, and butter. The windows are fogged from the warmth of the ovens, where turkeys have been roasting since long before I woke up this morning. It's noisy and chaotic, already overflowing with people from every professional San Francisco sports team—some of whom I recognize, some I don’t.
Coach Mancini and James are standing by the service station, looking over an iPad with the Thunder team owner, Charlotte Gagnon, probably going over station assignments and lunch shift times. The Redwoods offensive coach, Luke Cannon, is sitting in the cafeteria at a table covered in construction paper and safety scissors with his daughters and a bunch of other kids, watching while his husband demonstrates how to make a proper hand turkey. A small, loud blonde woman bosses around a guy with a man bun and a flannel tied around his waist who seems to be trying to hang a banner over the door with the help of a taller man in a cardigan, while a man with grey streaked hair and a baby strapped to his chest leans against the door frame, watching herwith stars in his eyes. Someone tosses me an apron, and I catch it and tie it around my waist, ready to man whatever station needs manning.
I may not be much of a cook, but I can stir a pot of mashed potatoes like nobody’s business.
I’m about to head over to Coach so I can ask for my morning assignment when a warm palm smacks me right in the middle of the back.
