“Didn’t you two already look up all his info when he signed with Philly?” I ask, and both of them blush.
“Yeah, but you can never trust what the media says,” David explains.
“Yeah, like they said you were dating that actress you helped out of her car that time. Then there was David’s girlfriend, who they thought you were living with because she was here like every day.”
“She was like a decade younger than you too,” David adds, and I can see Luka’s smile out of the corner of my eye.
“That’s not a huge difference,” Luka says. “I hear lots of people prefer older guys.”
“Actually,” David says, waving his fork in my direction. “I’m pretty sure she only started dating me because she wanted to get to you, so that tracks.”
“Really?” I ask, and he nods.
“That’s not very nice,” Luka replies, and David shrugs.
“It’s been like that for years. I mean, for me it’s pretty easy to weed them out when I tell them he only likes—“
“People his own age,” Benji interjects as he shoves David in the side, causing him to spill his cup of water over the table.
“Dude, what’s your damage?” David yells, standing before the water drips over the edge and onto the floor. I’m up in a split second,grabbing paper towels to mop it up, and Luka helps move David’s plate and cutlery to the open spot on his other side.
“It was an accident,” Benji claims.
“Sure looked like it,” Luka says with a raised brow.
“Boys,” I begin as I retake my seat across from Luka. “He knows, so you can relax.”
David’s mouth is open in disbelief, while Benji’s is in a wide grin.
“Really?” Benji asks.
I nod.
“That’s great,” David finally says, turning to Luka. “Maybe you can help us convince him to start putting himself out there. I swear it’s been forever since he’s gotten any.”
I almost choke on my mouthful of pasta, and Luka laughs.
“I think he’s probably doing alright on his own,” Luka says, but neither one of them believes him. I don’t actually date, not really. Mostly because I’m too busy with these two plus my NHL career, but also because I don’t want who I’m dating to be the only thing anyone asks me about in interviews. I’ve seen it happen to other out players exactly that way. They answer politely, but I can see the image they’re trying to project falter just a little. I like that I have something that’s just mine, even if until now that something was actually nothing at all.
I didn’t plan to hook up with Luka—okay, so I booked a hotel room, so I did sort of plan that—but what I mean is, I didn’t mean to fall for him. He got under my skin from day one, though, and everyday since it’s been harder and harder to ignore the way he makes me feel.
“Enough about me. Do you know when you need to be in Savannah for tryouts?” I ask Benji.
“Three weeks, then if I make it into the team, I’ll move out there after your playoffs.”
“You mean after we win the cup?” Luka says, and the boys gasp.
“Luka doesn’t believe in superstitions,” I reassure them, but both are just staring at him with their mouths open.
Luka shrugs. “It’s not that I don’t believe there could be some kind of mystical forces at play. I’ve just never found that talking about winning has had any effect on me actually winning.”
David scootches his seat a little further away from Luka, and I chuckle.
“Relax, you won’t catch the bad juju,” I say.
“You don’t believe in that stuff either, do you?” Luka asks.
“I don’t like to wear the same underwear every game or refuse to wash my socks or anything like that, but we all have our thing.”
