The car pulls up to the curb, and the thumping of a bass and flash of strobe lights assault my senses through the tinted black windows. The guys tossback the rest of their beers—because open-container laws don’t count in limo-SUV-hybrids, I guess—and despite my hesitation, I’m the first one sliding out of the backseat when the driver opens the door.
It’s mid-November, but the air is humid and slightly warm. Still, I threw on my favorite cream-colored cardigan over my black t-shirt and light wash jeans combo. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since moving to San Francisco, its that the weather makes no sense and the numbers on the thermometer don’t matter, so always dress in layers.
“God, please tell me you didn’t bring that thing with you,” Syd groans as I adjust the bag on my waist. As if I’d go anywhere without Franny, my neon green fanny pack. She has everything a man could need held in her nylon depths—chapstick, mints, hand sanitizer, sunscreen—and she’s fashionable as hell. My girl Franny gets me compliments and smiles everywhere I go. She has also gotten me laid on more than one occasion, thank you very much.
I’d take her on the ice with me if I thought she’d fit over all of my pads—and if the NHL was woke enough to recognize emotional support accessories.
“I’ll remember all your bitching later when you come around asking to borrow a condom. Whatever unlucky woman you lure into your web is going to see me pulling a strip of Trojans out of Franny hereand beg for me to take her home instead.” I pat the bag on my hips with a smirk. I get an eye roll in return, but I know I’ll be the one to have the last laugh.
Women love a man who is prepared, women love goalies, and women fucking love fanny packs. It's lucky for these guys that I have no plans of getting laid tonight, because if I did? They’d have no fucking chance.
The line to get into The Hive Mind looks pretty long for a Sunday night. Have these people never heard of takeout and reality television?
But, line or not, we don’t have to worry about waiting. A man in all black holds up a hand indicating that our group should follow him. Whether he recognizes us or one of my buddies called ahead, I don’t know. When he lifts a velvet rope and ushers us through a heavy metal door, I shoot a sheepish grin to the groaning club-goers still waiting for their chance to get in.
The special treatment one can expect to receive when they become a professional athlete is something I don’t think I will ever get used to. I feel bad that I get to roll out of a car and head straight into a club that I didn’t even want to be at tonight while all those others have to wait outside. It’s not fair, but I won’t let it affect me so long as I send some good jujuback into the universe. I’ll take pictures and sign autographs for anyone who approaches me tonight. Hell, I’ll buy them drinks, too, and I won’t even complain about the smell of stale beer breath in my face when they lean in for selfies.
That should be enough to offset the small karmic injustice.
The man in black leads us through a set of heavy curtains that hide the sleek, modern looking bar and dance space from any passers by that might try to sneak a peek on their nightly walks. The whole place is back lit with blue uplighting, making the shiny bar top and velvet round booths lining the walls look like something out of a cartoon-robot movie. People in skimpy dresses and sleek, tailored suits sip colorful cocktails and bubbly champagne out of glass flutes.
I feel a little underdressed in my cardigan and wide leg jeans, but I get enough of wearing suits on game days. On my days off, I’d rather be comfortable-ish and committing a fashion faux pas than have a tie around my neck. Some kind of hardstyle-EDM song that doesn’t quite match the too-cool-for-school vibes blasts my ear drums and rattles the walls. I stick my pinky in my ear, wiggling it around as Man In Black leads us up a set of stairs that spirals around the back side of the center bar.
“Jeez, do you think it’s loud enough in here?” I ask Miles.
“What?” he screams back over his shoulder.
My point exactly. I really should buy those earplugs I’ve been eyeing online…
At the top of the stairs, Man In Black pushes open a glass door, and when we step through the threshold to the VIP section, the music is instantly more subdued. Still loud, still a little obnoxious, but tolerable. The football guys are already here, some dancing like idiots to the music and some lounging in the high-back chairs, sipping straight from sweaty liquor bottles. Tables are littered with discarded glasses and mixers, and I watch as two servers in hoochie-shorts and fishnets make the rounds, cleaning up after the small crowd.
Somehow, this space seems bigger than the entirety of the dance area below us, even if it is packed to the brim with big-bodied professional athletes and the well-endowed women draped across their laps. The entire room is surrounded by glass walls, giving us a view out to the rest of the club below. It must be one-way glass, since I know we definitely couldn’t see in when we were downstairs.
And if it weren’t, I doubt some of these guys would be acting the way they are. On a table in the far corner, someone cuts lines of white powder—I’mnot even going to assume what it is, cause I’d probably be wrong. Your boy doesn’t fuck with drugs harder than melatonin. Someone that I think might be a rookie tight end has a woman topless in his arms and his head between her tits. And up against the glass, the big, man-bunned guy that I recognize as the Redwoods’ center has his quarterback’s hands pinned over his head and his tongue down his throat.
In short, this VIP area is exactly the land of debauchery I expected it to be, and I’m feeling extra thankful for the spray bottle of hand sanitizer tucked safely away in Franny’s front pocket.
Another scantily dressed server—this one in nothing but a jockstrap that seems to be doinga lotof heavy lifting—walks by with a gold-plated tray lined with fresh bottles of liquor and beer of every variety on his shoulder. My brows furrow together in disappointment. Between the private room and the free-flowing bottles, I’m not sure how I’m going to solve karmic injustices with booze tonight. We’re separated from the non-athletes downstairs, and everyone up here already has access to everything they need.
I could still send drinks downstairs, but one quick look out the glass window shows the scene below is much like the one up here. There’s drugs—albeit, the tiniest bit more discreet than up here—there’s alcohol, but you know what I don’t see? Food! That’ssomething I can do, feed the hungry club-going patrons.
Maybe this place has a kitchen? I could order mozzarella sticks for everyone. That should alleviate the pain of waiting in line…
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I don’t have to check the screen to know it’s my dad. He always does this at the beginning of every season. He calls, drunk off his ass, and tries to get into my head by telling me what a disappointment I am. I stopped answering a long time ago, and tonight is no different. Even so, Dad’s phone number on my screen adds to my growing anxiety, and I can feel my teeth start to chatter.
“You look like you’re thinking really hard there. What’s on your mind, man?”
Someone bumps my shoulder and I turn, expecting to see Miles or one of my other teammates. But I stop short, my breath stuttering when I’m met with the view of the single most beautiful human I have ever set my eyes on. Tall, broad, and bulging with muscle, the mousy-brown haired man with the scruffy beard and the kind of mustache that my pathetic facial hair follicles could only dream of growing one day gazes down at me under thick, long eyelashes. I can’t tell exactly what color his eyes are, but when a strobe light flashes across his face, I thinkI catch a glimpse of green. His red and gold t-shirt is cut off at the sleeves and cropped high, showing off a set of washboard abs and a trail of hair that starts at his outie belly button and dips below the waistband of his shorts that hug his tree trunk thighs.
He’s perfect. Superhuman. The kind of man scrawny boys want to be when they grow up. Don’t get me wrong, I’m big and manly in my own right. I’ve also got muscles for days, but my floppy, dark brown hair and my inability to grow facial hair mean I lack a certain…aura…that this guy gives off. I don’t think I’ve ever thought of another man as gorgeous before. Objectively attractive, sure. But fuck me, this dude is just straight uphot.
“Earth to…whatever your name is. Are you good?” The beautiful stranger snaps in my face, bringing me out of the daze where my eyes are keyed into the furry divot below his belly button and back into reality.
“Good. Yeah, I’m good,” I stammer. “Just thinking about karmic injustice and your happy trail.”
Did I just tell this guy I’m thinking about his happy trail?
Jesus fucking hell. Why wasn’t I born with better brain-to-mouth control? Now this dude is going to think I’m hitting on him or something. I feel my cheeks heat, no doubt flushing a deep red that willinevitably spread down to my chest and let everyone in this room in on just how embarrassing I find myself. Hopefully the dark ambience of this too-loud club will help me hang on to a shred of dignity.
