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Four years later.
Ktt-tsch! Ktt-tsch! Ktt-tsch!
I wake up in my hotel bed to the sound of a cell phone camera's shutter snapping over and over. Groggy confusion sets in. I'm not sure if I'm still half-dreaming, or if someone's actually in my bed taking photos. If someone's next to me – how'd they get here? I can't remember, 'cause last night's still a blur.
I try to open my eyes, but my vision is hazy and the shapes around my room haven't yet come into focus. My head is cloudy and my thoughts swirl and churn in a muck-filled bog.
I do remember being at the bar with a bunch of my teammates. It was Fresno's birthday last night and he dragged us all out for drinks. But I don't remember leaving ...
The blinds are drawn and the room is dark, but the eerie blue light from the cell phone next to me is too harsh for my still sensitive eyes. I squint my eyes shut, wishing the light would go away, but I know it won't.
Besides, it's time to get up anyway. I let out a tired moan and stir to life.
“Oh, you're awake!” a bubbly, feminine voice next to me says, and she quickly turns off her phone and lays it on her far side.
“Yeah,” I grumble, rubbing the bridge of my nose. I try to recall the events from last night, but I can't remember how the night ended. All I remember is being at the bar with the rest of the boys. What happened afterward?
She flips over on her side and faces me. Her reddish, strawberry-blonde hair, done in braided pigtails, frames her face. She's a real cutie, no doubt about it. She's got that youthful, cheery brightness behind her eyes. The world's still her oyster and all that.
But after sleeping on them, her pigtails aren't as neatly braided as they were last night. And that thought is what triggers my memory. Random snap-shot memories from last night rush through my mind.
I remember getting ready to head home at 11 PM with the other players.
I remember Fresno urging me to stay just a bit later. “C'mon, Vance! It's my birthday! Just one more drink!”
But one drink turned into a lot more.
I remember Fresno jabbing his elbow into my side. “Pst. Babe alert. Nine o'clock. She's looking at you, man.”
I slyly took a peek. There she was – this cute redheaded girl who'd end up in bed next to me – staring at me from across the bar. She gave me that sultry stare. Pushed her tits together and leaned over the bar, giving me a better view.
“Eh,” I said to Fresno. “We're already gonna be dead tired tomorrow. I should just head home.”
“Dude, c'mon!” he jabbed his elbow into me harder. “She wants you so bad. And you need to get laid, man, it's obvious. You're gripping your stick so tight lately, you can't score!” He made a hand-gesture like he were giving a cock a tug. “Don't be a coward, man.”
“Alright, alright, Fresno,” I mumbled. “Lay off already. I'll talk to her.”
So I approached her. She didn't know who I was. That was a plus.
(Or, if she did recognize me, she didn't mention it. But now I'm not so sure.)
The rest of the night – after we rushed out of that bar and jumped into a cab and zipped back to my hotel – comes back to me now, too.
A filthy set of images, like a porn video on fast-forward, flashes through my mind. Her tongue sliding up my hardness, my balls gripped tight in her hand, her innocent-looking pout gazing up at me as she pushed her lips down my length. Then I'm on top of her. The bed's headboard banging against the wall as I crashed my pelvis into hers, thrusting into her as deep as I could. Then I'm behind her. My thighs slamming into her pale, round ass from behind. My hands pulling at those pigtails, yanking her head back. The sound of her screams reaching higher and higher as I fucked her harder, faster.
She went wild. Screamed, at the top of her lungs, some embarrassing things about what an animal I was, how good I'd fucked her. Things I'm sure my neighbors appreciated learning about me at 2 AM.
But truth be told, I was only trying to feel ... something. Anything. And it's the same story as it ever was. No matter how deep, how hard, how fast I go?
Sigh. It just doesn't do much for me. I don't know how I became so broken. But those kinds of thoughts don't help me. So I push them away.
“Tyler Vance,” she says, using my full name like the star-struck fans always do. She runs her fingers through my chest hair. “I still can't believe it. I actually slept with Tyler Vance last night.”
“Ah.” I grin at her, walking my hand over her flat stomach. “So you knew?”
“Of course!” she giggles. “You think I'd just go home with anybody?”
I grimace. How the hell should I know? I don't know anything about her. And besides that, as rare as it is for me, I just went home with an 'anybody' ... so what's that say about me? Am I some kind of slutty scum?
She gets ticklish with my hand sneaking across her waist. She thinks I'm going to pull her naked body closer until it's tight against mine, and she's loving it.
“I knew who you were the second I saw you at the bar, silly. I love the way you play. I know things aren't going great this year, or heck, the past few years ... but I know you've still got it in you, Tyler Vance, you can turn this year around. I know you can. I know it.”
I resist the urge to groan. Fans always want to share their messages of inspiration with you. They think that all it takes is faith; total, uncompromising belief in one's self. And magically, things will fix themselves.
They don't know the reality of it. That it takes so much more, things far beyond your control, for a team to come together. The stars have to align perfectly.
And those things are not happening for the Hawks this year. Right now, we're a hot mess, and we're about to miss the playoffs for the second straight season.
My hand sneaks across the other side of her tummy. She tenses up, taking short, delighted gasps as her sensitivity ratchets higher. But instead of wrapping my hand around her waist and pulling her into me, I snatch the cellphone at her side and hold it up.
“... And so you took a picture for the memories, huh?”
“Hey!” she squeals, but she doesn't stop me. She knows she's busted.
I turn the phone on and her Twitter pops right up on the screen. That's how I learn, or re-learn, her name: Britt.
I also learn that Britt's taken a selfie. She's smiling real big, the bedsheets just barely covering her nipples. But even with her cleavage in the foreground, it's the background that is clearly the subject of the photo: me. I'm asleep next to her. She has the caption written and ready to Tweet to the world:
Look who I scored on last night! #tylervance #hawkscaptain #greatlay
I let out a groan. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. And above all, I'm relieved I caught it just in the nick of time.
“C'mon ... you can't send that out, Britt. It'd be all over the media. I don't need the attention.”
“Okay,” she sighs playfully, “I'll delete it.”
I hand the phone back to her. I watch as she deletes it like she said she would.
“Thanks.”
“No problemo.” She nestles closer and starts to climb on me. Puts her leg between mine and rubs it up and down, until the hairs on my thigh tingle and stand up. “But after last night I'm all wound up. Ready for round 2.”
“Eh.” I look at the alarm clock. “I can't. I've got a morning skate to go to. I actually gotta get up.”
“Oh ... that's really, awfully, too bad.” Her voice is dripping with sarcasm and she pouts with fake disappointment. Her hands dip under the sheets and trail down my torso. Over my hard abs. Down my thick bush of pubic hair. She grabs my cock and squeezes it with her dainty hands, willing it to pump up. She strokes it slowly, up and down.
“Ugh.” I groan. “I really can't. I'll be late.”
But with a carefree giggle, she crawls under the bedsheets and crouches between my thighs. My manhood plunges into the wet heat of her mouth. The tight seal of her lips pushes and pulls at my length. A chorus of sloppy slurps, giggles, and muffled moans come from under the sheets.
Fine.
I close my eyes and try to enjoy it. For just a bit.
***
I STROLL DOWN THE SIDEWALK, the arena coming into view amid the other downtown Chicago buildings. At 10 AM, the crazed panic of rush hour is over – and even though there are plenty of cars out and about, the late morning traffic lacks that anxious, cut-throat edge that normally marks the time when the masses are hurrying to their day-jobs.
At this point in the morning, the early Spring air is still a little nippy – but I knew that by the time our skate is over, the Sun will be over our heads, its rays beating down on us, and the temperature will be nearing the 70's. So I didn't bother wearing anything heavier than my suit jacket. A beanie, tight and comforting on my head, kept my ears warm and covered up my light-brown hair, still wet from my morning shower.
With the way the team is playing, and the stretch of must-win games coming up? The last thing I needed was to catch a cold.
Someone on the sidewalk recognizes me as we pass each other. He grins and nods his head at me, quietly and politely says, “hi!”
I smile back, and return the nod. “Mornin'.”
Ever since my rookie year, I've lived in a hotel downtown – our hometown rink just a couple blocks away. I've made this walk before and after games and practices. I haven't had any run-ins with a psycho fan, like my teammates always joke about – psychos who might stalk me back to my hotel room and chop me up into a thousand pieces when I refuse to confess my love for them.
Actually, most fans seem polite in person – maybe even shy – and don't know what else to say to me but “hi.” Or, depending on how the team played most recently, they might say – “good game last night!” or, “tough game last night, eh?”
In my experience? It's not the fans you run into in person ... it's the nameless, faceless jerks on the internet who are the crazy, hate-filled ones. I don't bother with the internet. I've never even thought about 'tweeting' and stopped reading what the media had to say after we lost that Cup game.
Seems like everyone on the internet just wants to drag everyone deeper and deeper into the mud until they all die a muddy, sloppy, awful death. So no thanks. Twitter, Facebook – they're not for me. Not after the shit I've been through.
Anyway. Some of the guys on the team – the older, more veteran guys, mostly – give me a hard time about still living in my 'rookie digs.' Why don't I have a place of my own yet? I'm 29, after all, which in career terms is ... well, it's not ancient, but it's definitely 'time to settle down,' as they never fail to remind me.
But all the married, veteran guys have huge houses on the outskirts of the city. Their wives do a hell of a lot of work to make sure the household runs smoothly. With us players on the road for half the month, their wives are practically single parents. Plus they handle all the cooking, cleaning, bill paying, etc. All the over-looked things that have to get done, the things that an athlete can't really handle when he's away from home for half the month.
All these married guys love to joke – because I'm living in a hotel – that I must be out late at night, hopping from bar to bar, taking home hot, young, hockey-crazed and sex-starved puck bunnies. Surely, I'm some kind of playboy, too busy chasing skirts, too irresponsible to keep a place of his own. I'm not sure if they actually believe that this is what I'm up to ... or if they just wish they could be doing that.
Truth be told? Last night was the first time in a couple years that I've been with a woman – but I'm not about to tell any of the boys on the team that. I might as well cut my balls off in front of them and toss my pair into the middle of the dressing room for them to point and laugh at.
By the way, I should just clear something up right now. In hockey player's lingo, every player on the team, no matter how old he is – is “one of the boys.” It's got nothing to do with age, alright? Just a thing us hockey players say. So get used to seeing it!
My walk comes to an end. I reach the arena and walk around back, to the athlete entrance, and head in for another day at the office.