I drop my gear bag and put away my groceries. Then I grab a controller, settling onto our IKEA couch that’s held together by prayers and hockey tape. The living room smells like the protein shakes Rigsy lives on and that vanilla candle his mom bought us for Christmas.
For twenty minutes, we blast our way through digital alien hordes, and I almost forget about three-word text messages and hot bartenders who apparently think I’m some kind of communicable disease.
Almost.
“Dude,” Rigsy says during a loading screen, “you’re not bringing your usual finesse to this alien genocide. What’s up?”
I pause, controller in my lap. “It’s just pixels on a screen. Don’t you ever get frustrated by how meaningless it all is?”
He stares at me like I just suggested we take up competitive knitting. “Bro, it’s a video game. Of course it’s meaningless. That’s the point.”
“Right. But don’t you get frustrated? Like, with real stuff?”
“Well, yeah. That’s what sex is for.” He grins and elbows me. “Speaking of which, I thought you had something good going on. Wasn’t that why you were sneaking around like a teenager with a fake ID?”
My chest tightens. “I thought I did too.”
“Ah.” Rigsy’s face goes serious, which is weird because I’ve never seen him be serious about anything except protein powder and his bench-press max. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“Cool. Want to blow up more aliens instead?”
“’Kay.”
But my heart’s not in it. When Martinez shows up, I hand off my controller with no remorse.
“Hey,” Martinez says as I’m sneaking out of the room. “Some of the guys are hitting up Mulligan’s tomorrow night. You should come.”
I shake my head automatically. “I don’t like that place.”
“Then let’s go to your bar instead. The one you disappear to every week. We can be flexible.”
I freeze.
Martinez doesn’t notice. “Not flexible like a goalie, I mean. Dude, that would be weird.” He laughs at his own joke.
But I’m spiraling. “I, uh, go to that bar to get away from it all,” I say, maybe a little too quickly.
Rigsy pulls his head out of the refrigerator. “Get this—Beck’s hookup is a bartender. Explains why he goes to a bar without a wingman. He doesn’t want us cutting in on his action.”
“That’s exactly right,” I mumble.
Martinez’s eyes light up with understanding. “Oh buddy, it all makes so much sense now. Bartenders are hot, am I right? Their titties bounce when they shake up the drinks.” He mimes a shaker motion. “You don’t want us cramping your style.”
I nod and make some noncommittal noise, hating myself for the omission but not willing to fix it. Coming out to my teammates feels pointless when I don’t even have a boyfriend.
“Respect, man,” Martinez says, his voice following me down the corridor. “Keep your territory marked.”
If only they knew my “territory” consisted of getting spectacular sex a few times and then being ghosted like I’m some kind of stage-five clinger.
My phone sits silent on the coffee table, mocking me with its lack of notifications.
Way to go, I think bitterly. Way to fucking go.
Maybe I am a stage five clinger, because I can’t help but wonder what Forest is up to now.
But then I have an idea. So I pull out my phone and google “Stickhandlers Hockey Denver.”
