Page 3 of Wingmen

“The fuck is that?” said Dustin.

Rodriguez looked over his shoulder. “Electric Lemonade. Plus Red Bull. You want one?”

“Jesus. No. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything less.”

Rodriguez scooped up the glass and turned to prop his elbows on the bar behind him. He didn’t lean on the bar somuch as pose there, tipping his chin up and pulling the corners of his mouth down like he was being extra-manly to counter the cocktail’s fruity little umbrella.

“Okafor’s going to get himself traded if he keeps up that behavior,” Dustin said, setting his empty shot glass on the bar and waving off the bartender.

Rodriguez swigged from his fishbowl. “Nah. He scores too much.”

“Scoring doesn’t protect you forever.”

“Spoken like a man who peaked at twenty-five.”

Dustin turned to lean on the bar too. “Pretty good handle you have on my stats.”

“I’ve watched you a lot.”

“Got a bit of a crush?”

Rodriguez sniffed, shrugging, and plucked a toothpick out of the dispenser on the bar beside him. “I study hockey. You’re in a lot of videos.”

“I bet I am.”

He checked his watch while Rodriguez picked his teeth with the toothpick – ten forty-five. Probably acceptable to leave at this point. When he looked up, Rodriguez was grinning with the toothpick hanging out the corner of his mouth. “Time for bed?”

Dustin pulled his jacket sleeve back over the watch, took another deep breath, counted to three, and told himself he didn’t care what some shithead twenty-one-year-old thought about what time he went to bed.

Then he turned to the bartender and ordered a double.

“You’re sticking around Portland for the summer?” he said, as the bartender poured.

Rodriguez tongued the toothpick around in his mouth and shrugged. “I don’t think so. You?”

“I’m here every off-season. Have a loft in the Pearl District. The city’s nice in the summer, and it’s not really a hockey town,so you don’t get hassled. And the facility out here has elite rehab.”

“Right.” Rodriguez glanced at his knee. “How long has it been since that happened?”

“Four months.” Dustin scooped up the shot glass and sipped as Elliot turned his gaze back to the room.

“So what do you do around here?” said Elliot. “They got bingo and early bird specials for you old folks?”

Dustin squared his jaw. “They have a farmer’s market and a lot of good local beer.”

Rodriguez nodded absently, his eyes on an ass jiggling by in a skin-tight miniskirt. He pulled the face guys like him always pulled when an ass of that caliber was in the vicinity, and called, “¡Hey Mami! Si cocinas como caminas, me como hasta el pegao.”

The girl sent an unimpressed look over her shoulder and kept walking.

“Smooth,” said Dustin.

Rodriguez scoffed and fiddled with his toothpick. “I’ll get her on the next pass.”

Two hours later,Rodriguez still hadn’t won over the girl, and Dustin still hadn’t gone home. He blamed this lapse of judgment on Reef Okafor, who kept coaxing him and Rodriguez into little competitions. Who can spit an ice cube the furthest? Who can burp more of the alphabet? Who can get the girl in the miniskirt’s number?

Dustin refused to take part in the alphabet burping competition, which may have been what gave him the edge when it came to getting the girl’s number. She looked repulsed when Rodriguez sauntered up to her after burping all the way through ‘Q’, and sent him away empty-handed. Dustin returned to the bar a few minutes later with a sly smile and the number written on the inside of his wrist.

Rodriguez rolled his eyes. “So she’s got a thing for old men.”