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“Nah, a million bucks on my favorite daughter,” he said with a wink.
I rolled my eyes because he always told each of us that we were his favorite.
“I’m serious. You’re top dog now. How many other guys can say their daughter’s slapshot made it on SportsCenter?” he added with a snicker.
4. Tyler - December
“Left, left, left!” I shouted into my Xbox headset. “Yes!”
“Woo!” Erick Hassik, one of my roommates and teammates, shouted out next to me. He reached out and slapped me a high-five.
The TV screen read “#1” and shot off some cool fireworks.
“Numero uno spot. Nice work, boys,” I said into my headset. My older brother, Casey, and my best friend, Duke, were playing on our xbox team as well from the comfort of their own living rooms. Actually, Duke lived in my apartment complex as well, he was only a short elevator ride away, but Casey lived in the suburbs with his wife and twin toddler boys.
I could hear a woman’s voice yelling in the background of one of their headsets. “Ah, I gotta go guys, duty calls,” my brother said.
“Waa-chow!” Duke called out, making fun of him for being “whipped.”
“Shut it, rookie,” my brother replied. “I wouldn’t talk if I were you,” he warned in a gruff tone.
Duke started to argue, “I’m not a rook-” but my brother disconnected his headset before he could even finish his sentence. “Jetts, bro, why does your brother insist on calling us rookies? And what did that mean? ‘If I were you’?” he asked, mimicking Casey’s deep ominous tone.
I snorted. “No clue, but he thinks everyone is a rookie compared to him.” I guess that kind of made sense. Casey retired from the NHL a few years ago as one of the longest and winningest defensemen in the league. His number was retired and hung in the rafters in Boston’s stadium.
A fist pounded on our door then, distracting me. “Gotta go, Dukes. Garcia just got back with our food.” Tommy Garcia was the third roommate here in our lovely, industrial loft that overlooked the snowy city of Detroit.
“Nice. I should probably figure out dinner for me and Claire. See ya at game time tomorrow, boys.”
We said our goodbyes and I got a running start, then slid across our hardwood floor in my socks to answer the door for Garcia, who was holding a huge takeout bag from our favorite Chinese restaurant.
“You assholes are getting your own food next time,” Garcia grumbled, pulling a snow-covered beanie off his jet-black hair.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re the one who lost, bud,” I said, slapping him on the back. “Get to the gym.” A loft rule of ours was that we competed in a pushup contest to see who would have to venture out into the cold to pick up our food.
I took the bag, and he trailed me into the kitchen where Hassik was already seated. I purposely slowed down as I fished our stuff out of the bag, hoping they would forget about the-
“Fuck, no!” I shouted as the bag was ripped from my grasp. Garcia snatched it and ran to the living room, cackling as he went.
Hassik’s lanky ass body was flanking his side in a second.
I ran after him and jumped up on the couch, trying to pull the bag from his grip. But that’s when we toppled over completely, slamming to the ground. It was smart of us to for-go a coffee table, because we wrestled in here way too often. The three of us ended up in a tangled mess on the rug, writhing around, trying to win the bag.
A pounding on the door made us all pause for a split second. Hassik stole the opportunity to pull a prized fortune cookie from the bag.
Garcia then did some weird wrestling move and rolled his body over so he was on top of me, and then he retrieved his own fortune cookie out as well.
I let my head fall back against our rug. Fuck. I was stuck with “the last fortune”, which in our book, was always the worst one. I hadn’t been stuck with the last cookie in months. Garcia was a worthy competitor, but losing to Hassik–our goalie– that was pretty pathetic of me.
“Fine,” I breathed out. “I lose. One of you assholes get the door.”
Hassik threw open the door a second later.
“What the fuck was that huge bang?” Duke asked with wide eyes. He lived directly below us.
“Fortune cookie war,” Garcia responded with a shit-eating grin. “Jetts lost.”
I sighed and stayed where I was, sprawled out on the rug.
