Seduced by the Game (43 page)

But I feel kind of
self-conscious once I have him in my living room. I’m not quite sure what to do
next. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“Water’s good,” he
replies, so I grab a bottle of Dasani out of the fridge and hand it to him. He
cracks the lid and downs seemingly half the bottle in one big gulp.

And again I’m not sure
what to do. I try small talk. “You guys don’t have a practice tomorrow, do
you?”

Bryan shakes his head. “No,
we got the day off since we won, and we don’t play next ’til Tuesday.”

“Cool.” I feel a yawn
coming on, and I press the back of my hand against my mouth as I try to stifle
it.

“Tired?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you, uh... Do you want
me to go?” he asks. He’s kind of shy about it, and I think that’s cute.

“No,” I tell him. “I want
you to stay.” I feel another yawn threatening to escape.

“Maybe you should go to
bed.”

“Only if you come with
me,” I flirt.

“Yeah, definitely.” His
smile is big and broad.

He knows where he’s going,
and he takes my hand and leads me to my bedroom. I watch as he removes his suit
piece by piece: his jacket, his tie, his dress shirt, and his pants. In just
his blue plaid boxers, he pulls back the covers and slides underneath the
sheet. To even up the score, I step out of my jeans and take off my bra so I’m
clad in only my black panties and my Comets shirt. I feel his eyes on me the
entire time as I lean over and turn off the lamp.

“Good night, Bryan,” I
whisper, placing my hand on his chest as I kiss his jaw. For good measure, I
press my lips to his.

Without responding
verbally, he kisses back. This is no little peck. When I lean away from him, he
leans forward and follows my body in order to keep kissing me. I let him,
loving the attention he’s lavishing me with.

“Tell me if you want me to
stop,” he says as he drags his lips to my neck. It’s the same spot that had
been bruised and needed covering.

“No, don’t stop,” I tell
him, enjoying this way too much to want it to ever end. I’d be lying if I said
that Tuesday’s events don’t replay in my mind. Even now, I keep thinking about
what we did and that fuels all the emotions and hormones that are raging within
me.

But he does stop—the exact
opposite of what I said. I look up at him as he asks me, “Do you think we
should take this slow?”

I want to laugh at him
because we can’t possibly slow down since we slept together the same day we
met, but there’s an innocent, naïve look in his eyes that makes me think he’s
not totally ridiculous. But even though it endears him to me, that doesn’t
change the way my body’s reacting to him. I place one hand on his cheek, which
is warm and flushed. “I want you.”

Thank God that’s all I
have to say to set him back in motion. I’m enjoying this experience more this
time around since we’re sober and fully aware of what we’re doing. And of
course it’s even better because we know why we’re doing this, because we like
each other. It’s different this time—slower and more intimate.

I’m flat on my back,
waiting impatiently for Bryan to finish putting on the condom, my fingers
moving just enough between my legs to keep me warmed up for the action to come.
He watches me for a moment before he bats my hand away and replaces my fingers
with his thumb and then pushes himself into me. He’s a fast learner, and he
knows exactly how to push my button. I really like the attention. Being with
Bryan is better than I remember and better than all the daydreams that have
been playing in my head.

But the best part is when
I wake up the next morning to find him still in bed with me, snoring softly and
nestled against me.

# # #

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jaymee Jacobs is a hockey fan with a writing habit. When not
cheering on her Pittsburgh Penguins, Jay writes stories about her favorite
sport. She started publishing in 2013 and has released three full-length
novels:
Play the Man, Shots on Net
, and
Game On
. More information
can be found on her website,
jaymeejacobs.com

Jaymee Jacobs

Author,
Play the Man;
Shots on Net;
and
Game On

Twitter: @JaymeeJacobs

~ * ~

Heir Apparent

© V.L.
Locey

Acknowledgements

A hearty “Thank You!” to
Mike, aka Glovesave235, for his invaluable insights into the mind of a goalie
.
Heir
Apparent
could not have happened without you! Let’s go Rangers!

As always, a hug of
appreciation must go to my hockey guru, Lola. May your Pens score often.

Of course a hearty thanks
must go to my family, hockey loving nuts that we are all! Your support means so
very much to me.

One

The first time I saw Cam
Evans play I was five years old. My father had taken me to my first ever
professional game as part of my fifth birthday party. It was just me and Dad.
Mom and Jane, my sister who is four years older than me, stayed home since both
disliked how cold the stadium was. See, Mom had been to “The Game” many times
before in our home state of New Jersey. My father lived, breathed, and
defecated Pittsburgh Puma hockey. His den was a shrine to the Pumas; the walls
had even been painted green and gold, the Puma team colors.

So yeah, back to my first
time seeing Cam Evans in net. I was five; my toes were cold despite the two
pairs of socks my mother insisted I wear. My cheeks were warm with excitement.
Three rows back from center ice we sat in the Jersey Jaguars stadium, two green
and gold backers among a sea of black and silver. Well, sat is a misnomer. Our
seats were empty more than they were filled. I stood throughout every period,
my eyes dried out like parchment from absorbing every movement Cam Evans made
in the crease. Of course at five, I didn’t know a butterfly goalie from a
soccer goalie, I just knew that whatever that man in the mask was doing, I
wanted to do it too. That day the obsession began.

My father was elated when
I said I wanted to play hockey. On our way home from the game we stopped at the
nearest sporting goods store. Dad purchased me skates, a stick, and a puck. I
still have the skates and puck. That first stick was broken years ago.
Countless hundreds have been purchased in its place. Mom became a hockey mom
that evening. She must have logged in a million miles shuttling me to rinks all
over the eastern seaboard. Years of practice, games, scrimmages, stitches,
tears, tantrums, and thousands of dollars for bigger, better, newer equipment
followed. Man, that first stick was something special, though. So was Cameron
Evans.

Imagine the knot in my
throat now to be sitting ten rows behind the legend at Dawson Wells Arena,
watching the man I idolized working the crease as only Cam Evans can work the
crease. I was leaning forward, my elbows to my denim-covered knees, my sights
intent on the man as he stayed tucked tightly into his net. I was a little
bolder than Cam. I tended to range out, dancing dangerously at times on or
beyond the arc of blue ice under my skates.

“So, Jacobi, what do you
think?” I tore my eyes from that famous number fifty in green and gold. My dad
smiled at me. A larger ball of anxiety formed directly behind my Adam’s apple.
Finally I was here. In “The Wells” as the Pittsburgh arena was called. The call
to come up from the Dawson Hills AHL franchise had come yesterday. Gregor
Rosovich, the backup tender for Cam Evans, had been placed on waivers after a
dismal performance filling in for Evans, who had started to develop performance
issues of some kind. Gregor had been a so-so netminder throughout his career,
so when the waiver word appeared, Gregor decided to retire. With his
retirement, the call was made to Dawson Hills. I was told to have my backside
in Pittsburgh before the next game. I did a Sammy Hagar driving from Jersey.

My dad had wept when I
called him with the news. Then he had met me at the stadium, where he hugged me
so hard for so long I feared cracked ribs. Now here we sat. There was no
denying that I was Roger Neal’s boy. We had the same reddish-blond hair, same
angular face that housed deep green eyes, a normal nose and functional mouth.
My height and weight, two hundred and forty pounds on a six foot six body, was
exactly what dad was when he played defense in the minors back in his glory
days.

“Do you see how he’s
working the glove side?” I asked as we slowly rose from the gold and green
seats. “He’s off his game." Another shot from Cam’s teammate soared
cleanly over his mitt to shake the twine. “What do you think is inside his
head?”

“He’s Cam Evans,” Dad
said, tossing me the hastily packed Dawson Falls Dragons duffel I had brought
with me. “Whatever his issue is of late, I know it has to be eating him up.
That’s why he’s doing double practice, I bet. That last healthy scratch knotted
his knickers.”

“That son of a bitch is
intense,” I said with admiration. We left the practice behind. Within an hour,
I had been assigned a cubicle, had spoken briefly with the head coach, Arthur
Webern, and was told by the goalie coach, Ivan Mars, to get dressed for
scrimmage. I sincerely thought my father would faint when I emerged from the
locker room with the Pittsburgh golden puma on my chest. The large two and four
on my back felt heavy as hell.

“Just do what you always
do, son. No matter what happens, you know we’re proud of you,” Dad said,
squeezed the back of my neck, then disappeared down one of a hundred hallways
under the ice. I had to inhale then exhale a few dozen times before I could
make my legs work. Down the gold and green runway I went, my skates sounding
dull as they hit the thick carpet runner leading from dressing room to ice. I
took just a minute to let the import of this all embed in my mind. My first
practice as a Puma was about to happen. All the blood, sweat, tears, and pulled
groin muscles would be paying off as soon as I touched blade to frozen water.
My hands trembled a bit inside my blocker and catcher. My leg pads felt too
big. My mask a touch too small . . .

“You coming out or what,
kid?” Pierre DeLoux, our first line center and team captain asked, spewing ice
as he hit a side stop in front of the team exit. “Nerves a little bit bad?” the
Quebecer asked.

“My knees just locked
up." That amused the team captain tremendously. With his arm around my
well-padded shoulder, I was escorted out. Introductions were done quickly, a
smile accompanied by a glove rap or pat to the helmet. I stood at center ice,
the multi-million dollar Jumbotron over my head, enrapt with the approach of
Cam Evans. He seemed larger than life, but in reality I had about six inches
and sixty pounds on him.

I had studied his form,
his technique, his life. This was the first time that I had stared directly
into his brown eyes. Some sort of sucker punch to the gut occurred when we
locked sight.

Fuck. I was rattled badly.
Not because I was attracted to a man. I’ve known that I was gay since that time
I was playing basketball when I was thirteen and inadvertently rubbed bellies
with John Reynolds on a layup attempt. I came down with a whole new understanding
of who I was that day. No, it wasn’t that. It was the rush of lust that sprang
up for such an older man. My sexual partners had generally been dudes around my
own age of twenty-two. All one of them. Who has time to cruise when you have
hockey, final exams, hockey, and even more hockey? Maybe I need a life. Or a
therapist.

I shook off the
attraction, chalked it up to simple adoration like any fan, then removed my
blocker to extend my bare hand out to the legend. Cam gave my hand a quick look
before placing his sweaty palm into mine. His touch made the wheels in my mind
spin aimlessly. I stumbled over the greeting I had planned. Cam was as cool as
a refrigerated radish. He smiled at my stupidity, ran his fingers through his
neatly trimmed brown hair, then waved his hand at the goal.

“They say you’re the next
me. Show us if the talk is real or bullshit.”

I gaped for a moment. The
entire team stood around the two of us, some leaning on their sticks, some
simply chewing on their mouth protectors, while some shifted from one skate to
the other with evident impatience.

“There can never be
another you, Mr. Evans, but I’ll show you what Coach Truhill taught me,” I
said. A low murmur of approval moved through the Pumas. Alex Truhill was a
legend among collegiate coaches and had coached some of the best in the league.
It had been an honor to play under him during my four years at Boston College.
Exhaling sharply, I pulled my mask over my face then skated to goal. Cam had
already scuffed the ice nicely. I gave it a fresh go-over to suit me. Once I
had a little snow wall in place to hopefully slow down the puck, I whispered my
special silent prayer, dropped down into my hybrid stance, and waited for the
team to line up. My tongue tasted tinny. My eyes locked onto Brad Cooper, the
first-line right winger.

Cooper was the top scorer
on the Pumas and could deke better than any other player I had ever seen. My
glove hand was up. My stick was down. Brad Cooper locked eyes with me, winked,
flipped a puck skyward with the edge of his stick, then proceeded to race down
the ice toward me. His moves were so slick, so smooth, so sure, that I almost
pulled myself too far to the left. Cooper switched up at the last minute. The
puck flew at the gaping hope that should have been open over my left shoulder.
I caught the puck in my glove. The “Thwak!” of rubber in the basket filled me
with pride.

I had about zero point one
second to revel in outmaneuvering the Puma`s deke master. Shots then came fast
and furious, each player attempting to sucker me in. After the last shot went
wide of the net, I looked behind me. Two pucks rested against the twine. Two
missed shots out of twenty-three shots on goal. Not bad, but not good enough. I
straightened up, flipped up my lid then grabbed a squirt from the bottle of
water attached with Velcro to the top of the goal. I grimaced at the grape
sports drink when it ran down my parched throat. I hate the grape flavor.

“Not too badly.” Ivan
shouted from his spot between Coach Webern and Cameron Evans. “You’re gliding a
bit. Paddle-down stops too soon.”

I nodded at the famed
Russian goalie coach. Cam Evans said nothing but his brown eyes never left me
in his crease. I had to look away then because ten men were lined up to deliver
slap shots to the newbie in the net. The first one hit me so hard in the center
of the chest I felt the bruise pop up. I remember reading that the great Bobby
Hull had a slap shot clocked at over one hundred and eighteen miles per hour.
Most are around a hundred MPH, give or take. That one felt all of a hundred as
it rebounded off my sternum. Possibly two hundred. There was no time to whine
even if I had wanted to. Which I didn’t. An hour flew by. I was soaked with
sweat, banged up, dehydrated, and elated.

“Guess the reports about
you were true. Good stuff out there, kid. Just watch your tendency to
paddle-down too soon,” Cam said after I had skated off the ice.

“I’ll do that, Mister
Evans."

“Drop the Mister, okay?
You don’t have to remind me that I’m old enough to be your father,” the living
legend said while we made our way off the ice.

I swallowed quickly to try
to salvage the gaffe. Cam clapped my shoulder, his brown eyes growing warm. He
was carrying some serious stress lines around his eyes. Pity, since those had
to be the prettiest eyes I had ever seen on a man. The way his dark lashes
framed those pools of chocolate…

“Sure, I can call you
something else, sir.” Shit.

“That was not an
improvement." I felt the edges of my ears grow hot. Cam sauntered into the
locker room. I searched for a closet to hide in even though I had vowed to
never go back into one again. But a nice tidy area to hide my face at the
moment wouldn’t be looked down upon. Sir!? Shit. Shit. Shit. I chugged into the
locker room hot on Cam Evans’s heels, making bumbling words that sort of
sounded like apologies. The man stopped short. I nearly rear-ended him. I
skittered backward. He turned to look down on me. I know, physically he was
looking up, but trust me, he was looking down at me.

“Okay, kid,” he said raising
a hand to stall my blathering. I clamped my mouth shut. The sounds and smells
of a room packed with men ebbed and flowed around us. “Jack, right?”

“No, sir, Jacobi. Jacobi
Neal,” I muttered, stepping to the side to allow one of our D-men to jog past
naked as that proverbial jaybird. My gaze stayed on Cameron Evans. He really
seemed to be the most impressive male here.

“Jacobi,” he chuckled. I
didn’t see what was so amusing about my name. “Yeah, that sounds like your age
group. Jacobi, do us both a favor, will you?” I nodded like the oaf I am. “Just
relax. I hold my dick to piss the same way you do, right?”

“Sure, right.” I laughed
nervously. My face was aflame now. “I knew that. I’m just…”

“It’s okay. I remember my
call-up as well. You’ll make a fine backup for the Pumas.” He held out his
hand. I shook it with a little too much enthusiasm. I stood there smiling like
a moron. A wet towel slapped me in the side of the face. I sputtered as I spun
to find the culprit. Soon I was inundated with soaking wet towels. Some smelled
like sweaty balls. I had a flash of Alec Baldwin appearing on NPR on SNL. I
won’t go into detail about the shower of jock straps that followed, but I did
scrub my head four times in the shower after the initiation was over.

Two

An hour after my first
scrimmage I was seated on a stool as some reasonably nice lady chewing
peppermint gum tried get my hair to lay down flat. Her efforts were in vain. I
smiled sheepishly at Clark Hunkers, the host of
Puma News,
the team’s
weekly show that aired every Sunday at ten. Clark was a retired defenseman who
had played with the Pumas about twenty years ago. He wore outlandish suits, had
no hair, and his nose sat on his face as if it owned it.

The hair lady finally gave
up. Hunkers kept telling me not to be nervous, that at one time Paul Cooper,
Legendary goalie for the Pumas back in the sixties, had sat in that same exact
seat. As the nice lady with the wad of gum dabbed some sort of TV makeup onto
my face, I wondered if Paul had felt like he wanted to toss his cookies. More
than likely not.