He laughed along with Douglas and Sánchez, but the thought of Fletcher not wanting to room with him anymore caused a pit in his stomach to form. He was completely unsure of where things stood between the two of them after what happened last night. He felt sick to his stomach. He knew they needed to talk about it as soon as possible before things got messed up even more. If that was even possible.
Coach turned the lights off in the room as she started the footage. The room grew silent as she covered their plays from last night. She called Sánchez and the veteran goalie Calhoun up to the front of the room to discuss strategy for the game tonight since Calhoun was still injured from their last game. Sánchez and Calhoun had been swapping as goalies for the games to take the pressure off, which made Sánchez really excited to have more time on the ice.
Sánchez sauntered up to the front of the room, which left Fletcher and Taylor sitting right next to each other. He looked over to Douglas, who was focusing intently on what Coach was telling them. Deciding that now was his chance, Taylor slid over into Sánchez’s empty seat.
“We need to talk about last night,” Taylor said under his breath, quiet enough so that only Fletcher would hear him.
Fletcher looked at him with a somber look on his face. Or was it a look of regret? His expression was kind of unreadable. It pissed Taylor off.
“Not now, Piers.” He responded dismissively.
“Don’t be like that.” Taylor said sharply. “Don’t shut me out. What the hell happened last night? You know you called mebaby,right? Like multiple times,man.” Taylor didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. The only reason he wanted to talk about it was to cover his ass. Last night was a mistake. It wouldn’t happen again, so they needed to be on the same page.
Fletcher didn’t respond, so Taylor begrudgingly narrowed his focus back onto whatever Coach had to say. He wasn’t going to dwell on it when he had another game against fucking Boston to deal with.
After the team reviewed the game tape, they all hopped on the bus that took them to the practice rink near Boston’s stadium. Taylor found his usual window seat near the back of the bus, and secretly let out a breath of relief when Fletcher took the seat next to him. Taylor was about to drive himself crazy if Fletcher started acting weird. The last thing he needed was people questioning why the two of them seemed to be on the outs. In fact, he decided he was kind of feeling pissed off. Maybeheshould be the one giving Fletcher the silent treatment.
He reached down into his bag and pulled out his headphones, putting them on to tune out the chatter of his teammates. He put on one of his meditation playlists as the bus pulled out of the hotel’s parking lot.
Despite looking out the window the entire time, he could feel Fletcher’s eyes on him. He tried to ignore it, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to focus on his meditation session if he didn’t at least acknowledge Fletcher.
He turned his head to meet his gaze. “What?” he mouthed, annoyed.
Fletcher tapped on his ear, motioning for Taylor to take off his headphones. But after being dismissed by him this morning, Taylor wasn’t really in the mood to talk.Two can play at that game, dipshit,he thought to himself, smugly. One thing about Taylor was that he wasn’t above acting petty.
He made a show of turning the volume up on his phone before turning his head back to the window. He tried to ignore Fletcher for the rest of the bus ride, but his phone buzzed with a message from Fletcher a few seconds later.
Fletcher: Don’t act like I was the only one who was into it last night
Taylor hastily wrote out a response.
Taylor:Oh so now you’re ready to talk about it
Fletcher: Why are you getting pissy? You obviously liked it
Taylor looked over to Fletcher and glared at him before typing out another message.
Taylor: It was just my body reacting.
Fletcher: Mkay. So you just reacting when you begged me to give you a hickey
Taylor: I don’t even remember what I was saying.
Fletcher: Bullshit. You’re such a liar
Fletcher: You remembered me calling you baby…
Taylor:So you admit you did
Fletcher scoffed and put his phone down on his lap, ignoring Taylor. He put on his headphones and turned the music all the way up, loud enough for the music to spill outside the headphones. Taylor huffed as he quickly typed out another message.
Taylor: If you’re going to keep shutting me out and acting likea fucking brat then at least let me have some peace and quiet before practice begins
Fletcher: I’m not shutting you out. I don’t want to have a conversation about it
Taylor looked over at Fletcher again, who had a mix of frustration and defeat on his face. Fletcher quickly typed out one last message before turning his phone off and turning to look away from Taylor.
Fletcher: Just give me time to wrap my head around it
