Would You Rather

20 - WYR: meet her dad or meet her ex?

FIDAN

Despite Nico's small lecture to me about the state of the world and the patriarchy on the plane back from our game in Montreal, there is still something very distinctly awkward about meeting the father of the girl you're having sex with. Frequent sex with. The father of the girl you want to be in a real relationship with. The father of the girl who, as expected, I have thought about nonstop, and who made my heart jump when I saw her.

It's also awkward to meet said girl's father with a stupid ass half beard and wearing a little too much of your own merch. It's just a hoodie, but I can feel his eyes glued to it.

"Hello." He extends a hand, and I look at it for a split second before reaching back. The guy has colossal hands.

"Hi, I'm Fidan."

"Mark." He shakes, looking down his big nose at me. I feel like I'm being surveyed. It's a bit worse than when Nico and Jorgen do it because I at least can kind of guess what they might say.

He definitely knows.

I can tell when he huffs out a little bit of a breath, turning to look at her, then turning back to me.

I look scrawny as hell next to him, too. It's not often that I meet someone and go yeah, he could break my spine but Mark Shaw? Mark Shaw could break my spine. And he looks like he wants to.

"So you and Finley are friends?" He puts emphasis on the friends. Maybe not real emphasis. Maybe I'm paranoid.

"Yeah, yep."

"Yeah, yep?"

I swallow. "We are."

"How did you meet?"

That gives me a little bit of a mental scramble. There's really no reason we should, situationally, be friends. Without, of course, explaining to him that his daughter drives me absolutely wild. "Um, my good friend on the team is going out with Nat, her roommate. So... we hang out a lot."

He looks back at his daughter, catching up with two boys of similar terrifying stature in the living room.

"And you play for the Wolves." I can't tell if muttering is a constant for him, or if it's some sort of thing he's doing to scare me. I'm coming across a hunch that maybe everything he's doing is to scare me.

Something Rocket said weeks ago bubbles back up to the front of my mind. He compared himself in relation to the team as a poly pony compared to a bunch of clydesdales. This is not true, he just picks Yeti to hang out with and Yeti is a brick house. Rocket is both taller than me and weighs just a little bit more. If he's a polo pony I'm on the same polo team.

Well, Mark Shaw is Brooklyn Supreme and I am a petting zoo donkey that is afraid of its own shadow.

"Yeah, I play for the Wolves." I slide my hands into my pockets and rock back on my heels, sort of hoping that he thinks I'm harmless.

He's studying me in dead silence. I'm pretty sure he's doing it to scare me but I'm not positive. This could just be what he's like.

"Right wing." I clarify, filling up the airspace.

"I figured." He pockets his hands to mirror me. "And you're taking her skating?"

"Well, not really, I mean." I can't quite come across the words. My english goes to shit in high-pressure situations. "I asked, yeah, but, you guys. Um. Saskatchewan sort of has this. Like the rinks are the same temperature as the outside and I got... curious? Is that the word? Yeah. I asked. She's taking me, though."