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I appreciated his sentiment even if I didn’t believe it would happen.
It was only as I turned my phone onto airplane mode that I realized I’d been so wrapped up in my own feelings I’d forgotten to find out how severe my Nan’s stroke was. Nor did my mom even say.
***
T.J.
“T.J., man, how about we go fishing today?” Brice pushed his chair away from the breakfast table in their private cabin at the Soaring Eagle Lodge. He stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankle as he supported the back of his head with his interlocking fingers.
“I agree. Maybe out on the water we could get some peace for a bit,” Aaron added as he picked up the empty breakfast dishes to take them over to the counter by the sink. We didn’t have to clean up, having paid extra to have the full-service treatment, but some things were just ingrained.
“What? You don’t like all those women coming up to you? Hitting on you?” Voyageur Bay had changed little over the years. It was still the small town with the small town feel so long as you stayed away from the touristy areas or weren’t here during one of the many festivals that the town created. Not that I begrudged my hometown for encouraging the tourists to come and spend their money here; it was beneficial for the local economy and helped the town to offer its residents amenities that usually weren’t available in a town this size.
But the drawback was that the tourists didn’t give us any space when they recognized us. Nor did the women who wanted a vacation fling. It didn’t help that we were caught between being locals—my parents basically adopted Brice and Aaron as additional sons—and tourists since we didn’t live here full time or even own a house like some of the other professional athletes that this town produced.
Aaron threw the damp dish cloth at me, hitting me square in the chest. Thankfully, I was shirtless and un-showered, having only woken up when the serving staff arrived with our breakfasts. “There’s only one woman from here that I want throwing herself at me, and we all know that’s never going to happen. Not when she won’t even return home during the spring or summer.”
His words kept me from throwing the cloth back at him. We all felt that way. The first few years that we returned during the early summer, before training camp and preseason games gave way to the regular season, we’d arrived full of hope, thinking she wouldn’t be able to avoid us. But the joke had been on us. She never came home. Co-ops and internships kept her away, her mother said when we bumped into her at the farmer’s market. Then the next excuse was that she wasn’t able to get time off work during the spring or summer. We knew the score. She never wanted to see us again. Whatever sent her running from us, cutting off all contact, and then not coming home to visit her family proved the point. So last year we stayed away, giving up on ever getting to see her again. But this year was my parents’ fortieth anniversary which meant all my siblings and their families came home to celebrate, leaving me no choice but to beg the coaches to allow me to return. The same had been true of Brice and Aaron. Thankfully, the coach agreed, allowing us to miss a week of training and a preseason game since he wanted to put some added pressure on our back-ups, giving them a chance to step up in case either one of us ended up sick or injured during the regular season or worse, the play-offs.
Wisely deciding to leave the topic alone, I went back to the idea of going fishing. “I think fishing is great. I’m sure we could charter a boat at the marina to either take us out or to let us go out.”
“I’m in.” Brice pushed his large body off the chair. It was a testament to the structure of the chair that it didn’t make a single sound because Brice, as a professional defensive end, the guy wasn’t small. Not that any of us were, but Brice was the biggest.
When Brice walked out of the room to go shower in one of the bathrooms, I took the opportunity to jump into the other one. Why did Aaron have to bring her up? Visions of her long, wavy, brown-with-a-red-glow hair, her deep brown eyes that looked like they contained flickering flame within them, and her wide smile filled my head while my body remembered how her skin felt against mine. From the way her pointed nipples would rub across my chest when she was turned on to the way the smooth skin of her legs brushed across the hair on my legs when they tangled together.
Cock in hand, I stroked it, remembering how she held it the first time she jerked me off when she was still in high school. And like that first time, I came just as fast, washing it all down the shower drain. Would she ever stop haunting my dreams?
The lodge’s extended golf cart dropped us off at the marina with our fishing gear. “Do you know where to go to get a charter?” the driver asked. From the way he looked at us, he knew who we were, but didn’t recognize me as a local. Most likely he wasn’t local either, but rather a summer hire for the tourist season.
“Thanks. I know where to go.”
With a quick wave and a nod, he drove off, leaving us at the entrance.
As we walked towards the main building, I noticed a couple of fishing boats and a few speed boats being readied to go out on the lake.
“Holy shit, as I live and breathe. It’s T.J.” I groaned, worried that I was about to be accosted by a fan, but then he continued. “And I bet he still can’t stay on the back of a horse.”
This time my groan was audible and done on purpose as a massive grin covered my face. “Sleeping with the pigs and reading them bible stories again, Kyle?” I ran at him, wrapping my arms around him and lifting him off the ground.
“Oomph. Put me down, you big oaf,” Kyle said as he pounded against my shoulders. “What have you been eating? Barbells?”
I laughed as I dropped him back to his feet. While we stood at similar heights, as an inside linebacker, I outweighed him by a good thirty-plus pounds and out-lifted him by at least a hundred. “It’s good to see you, Kyle.”
“You, too. When did you”—Kyle nodded a greeting to Brice and Aaron, having met them each time I came home from university and during the few summers after—“arrive? Aren’t you supposed to be playing a preseason game tomorrow night?” He smacked his forehead. “Stupid. I’m guessing you’re home for your parents’ big anniversary.”
“You know us well. Arrived less than a week ago, but stuck to the resort or my parents’ to relax.”
Kyle nodded. “That explains why the gossip tree isn’t buzzing yet. It takes longer for gossip to spread from the Lodge to town.”
When Kyle shook hands with Brice and Aaron, he noticed the pile of fishing gear. “Are you guys going out?”
“That’s the plan. As soon as bozo here”—Brice jerked his thumb towards me—“puts on the charm and finds us a boat.”
“Well, as luck would have it. I’ve brought Jonathon’s here, filling it up to take some of his hockey friends out to fish before we head back to his place for some fun. Come with.”
I didn’t need any time to think. If these were hockey friends of Jonathon’s, then they were professionals and wouldn’t be hounding us. “Count us in.”
As we followed him to the boat, I couldn’t help but think that maybe things were getting better for us.
