Would You Rather

24 - WYR: take advice from Owen Langley or Deal With It

FIDAN

FINLEY: hey you were acting kinda strange yesterday, I'm wondering if everything's okay. You kind of bolted after the power went out. I understand if you have things to do but I'm a little worried.

I leave my phone at home and go to practice. I don't think about it. I don't think about her. I don't think about her kissing my throat for the first time. My throat, my collar, my jaw, my cheek. I don't think about her stepping close to me in her dark basement and forcing myself to step away. I don't think about how goddamn good it felt to sink into her yesterday. How much I needed it. How much I crave her body the second I'm not near it, how it lingers on my hands like pine sap or whatever the hell happens when you touch too many railings in public.

Worse. Dated him.

I have got to be the most difficult person to have a long term sex arrangement with. But also, long term my ass, it's barely been six weeks and I'm practically leaping out of my skin to be near her. She's probably just getting more comfortable with me. There's no real scientific proof that says that a girl kissing your neck for the first time means that she's in love with you. There's nothing to back that up. There's just me and this girl that clearly has a hard time letting people into her life or whatever, or maybe just letting me into her life because God knows she seems to have a lot of friends but it's nothing. There's just me and this girl that clearly doesn't want to date me. At all.

It's fine.

I'm not thinking about it.

I'm doing offensive drills. I'm not thinking about how if I move my upper lip just right she's still there in my stupid fucking fundraiser mustache and it still smells like ecstasy no matter how many times I scrubbed my face last night. No matter how much I sweat today. No matter what I eat. I think, maybe, it's a hallucination. The Gods in charge of my testosterone production suddenly decided to redirect it from on-ice aggression to a penchant for making my situationship more of a situation that it needs to be.

There. I said it. Situationship instead of fuck-buddy because God knows you don't go to parties and share moonshine with your fuck-buddy, you don't meet your fuck-buddy's Dad, you don't go skating with them. You don't teach them how to check. You don't spend an hour and a half in the car with them laughing about everything and anything. You don't offer to take them to Quebec fucking City for cripes sake.

Suddenly, I kind of get why girls hate it when guys suggest that to them. Let's just fuck. Let's just explore that attraction. Let's hookup every time we see each other while out. Normally the guys take it at face value. The amount of teammates I've had in my life that took that at face value and then acted surprised when the girl got attached? No fucking wonder. Now I'm attached and now I'm spending all my time– NONE of my time– thinking about her and I get it. I get why the girls always seemed so insane. I want to be the one to post a picture with her on social media to stake a claim. I want to be the one to glare at other– what's the word in english– suitors? at the bars. I want to ask her what we are. I want to ask her out.

I'm falling apart but I'm too desperate for her to even really consider that cutting it off would probably save me a whole lot of hassle.

I'm falling apart but I happen to think she makes a habit of going to Casey's after pharm tests, God knows what pharm is, and I happen to be out with teammates.

Maybe this is why she doesn't want me. I don't know what pharm is. I need someone to police my buzzed brain. A little bit of alcohol and I'm making plans to hang out with Langley and Finnican during the week, too, and I'm thinking about Finley and how I want to just... be near her at any given time of the day. A little bit of it and it's like I'm some little kid begging people to be nice to me again. A little bit of alcohol hits me and it's like I can't control anything happening in my head.