My phone was heavy in my right hand as I sat in the back of my English class, but not nearly as heavy as the slip of paper in my left.
I bit my lip, staring at the black screen. I could see myself through it, warped by greasy fingerprints. I was trying to build the nerve to talk to Beau, just to shoot him a text. But for some reason, just pressing the 'send' button was so damn difficult.
Maybe it was because the night we had hooked up kept me up at night. I toggled between horniness and shame thinking about it. I felt perverted, I think, having that kind of sex. But then I remembered his pretty face backlit by the streetlamps as he leaned into my car window, and I felt my breath evaporate and my mind urging me to just fucking text him every hour of the day.
I never really cared for English class, but I was fine at it. I had already completed the book report that the teacher, Miss. Bortz, was prattling on about, so instead, my mind was focused on the task at hand. I flicked my phone on and off, chewing my lip, before finally flicking it open to stare at the message I had just spent the last half hour carefully constructing.
hey, it's luke
My finger hovered over the 'send' button, close but not there, but just as I was about to delete the comma for fear of sounding like I was trying too hard, I startled at the bang! of a hand slamming the top of my desk.
I jumped, accidentally pressing the send button and hissing quiet curses, but fumbled to turn my phone off and look up at Miss. Bortz. She looked pissed beyond Hell, with her arm which wasn't pushing my desk propped on her hip and her foot tapping the ground impatiently.
"What are the rules in here about phones, Mister Donovan?" she asked, cocking a brow. I swallowed back a string of choice words and opted for a polite, albeit forced, smile.
"No phones from bell to bell," I replied, placing my phone in her hand when she held it out. Miss Bortz snatched it up, placing it on her desk with an exaggerated flourish. I was sweating, knowing what she was going to say.
She looked at me and smiled, sharp at the corners. "I don't care that it's Halloween, my classroom rules still apply. You can come pick this up at the end of the day." Shit. "Now, do you mind telling me about Oedipus Rex and it's themes about fate versus free will? Or were you not paying attention?"
I licked my teeth, biting back my anger. "Oedipus deals with themes of free will through the use of blindness to the truth, as symbolized by Oedipus sticking a needle in his own eye, which is his only true act of free will in the entire play. He also plays a game of tug-of-war with fate, with his destiny being determined by factors out of his control alongside his own choices, making a blurry case for a definitive answer." I reached into my backpack, pulling out a stapled stack of papers and slapping it down on my desk with an easy kind of smile. "Can I submit my report early, Miss?"
Her grin melted. "I—well, I suppose you could."
She walked over and slipped the paper onto her own desk before giving me a pointed stare and continuing her lecture. I slumped back into my seat, looking up at the ceiling, suddenly anxious. Miss Bortz had my phone, which was currently watching a risky text, and I would have to wait another four hours to check it again.
When the bell finally rang for lunch, I hurried to pack my things and brush by my classmates to Coach's office. I arrived to Simon sitting on the floor, his laptop and textbooks sprawled around him, cluttering the entire room. I stepped over a few highlighters and went to sit on the couch in the far corner, crossing my legs under me.
"What are you working on?" I asked. He looked at me, smiling briefly.
"I have a calc test on parametric equations on Monday, and I think I'll be too hungover after tonight to even try to study this weekend," he said. "Vinny's parties knock the life out of me, and calc three's no joke."
Panic shot up my chest. "Shit, I don't have a costume."
Just as I was speaking, Jason walked in, his backpack slung over his shoulder, and it promptly hit the floor as I finished my thought. He gave me an exasperated stare. "You're joking."
"I wish I was." I pinched my brow. "I've been too busy this week with practice, and Miss Assfuck has my phone, so I can't even ask around."
"Fucking Bortz," Simon muttered, not looking up. "I hate her."
Jase tip-toed over the clutter on the floor, plopping down right next to me on the couch. He bit his lip contemplatively, his gaze flicking over to me. "I think I have some stuff at home I can grab for you before practice tonight, but I might have to adjust it for you, since you're a little smaller than me."
"Wait, you can sew?" I asked, tilting my head to the side. Jason shrugged, glancing to the side.
"Just a little. But I'll find you something and fit you before practice." I was about to ask more questions when a thump startled me.
"Fuck," Simon said from the floor, slamming his hands on the open textbook in front of him. "I just spent the past half hour solving this, and I got it wrong because I had my calculator set to degrees. Suck my—!"
"Watch your mouth," Coach Choi scolded, walking in with a plastic bag of take-out and Thomas at his heels. "I brought a good luck, party-sized pad thai. Who wants some?"
"Me!" Hector called from the other door, the one that led into the locker rooms. He looked at Simon on the floor and grimaced. "Crap, isn't the test on Monday?"
Thomas snorted, dropping a stack of plastic cutlery on the desk before sitting in the swivel chair. "That's what you nerds get for taking calc three."
Simon gave him a droll stare. "Says the guy taking algebra two in senior year. Shut the fuck up—"
"Language!" Coach yelled from where he was bent over, serving the food into foam bowls. Simon chucked a highlighter at his dad, nailing him in the back of the head and making Coach jerk his gaze back to scowl at his son, but there was no real heat behind it.
"You riding with me tonight for the game?" Thomas asked me, dropping his things on the floor.
I nodded. "Yeah, if that's alright." Tom rolled his chair over to clap me on the shoulder and then the back of the head when I shoved him back, making me scowl. "Dick."
He grinned. "Ah, ah. Don't be mean to your ride."
When Coach said nothing, Simon glared at me before returning to his work.
Soon, everyone was sitting around with a bowl of pad thai, talking animatedly. Coach had pulled out a deck of cards which Thomas was cutting, dealing them to himself, Jase, Coach, and I. Hector and Simon were huddled together on the floor in front of the calculus textbook, trying to solve one particularly awful equation.
"Buraco okay?" Tom asked, already separating the cards into the appropriate stacks for the Brazilian game before we could even answer. I scooped another mouthful of food into my mouth, receiving my cards, and we started to play.
"So," Jase said with a grin, bumping my shoulder as he threw out a card, making Thomas hiss out a curse, "how's Iza doing?"
I looked up at him, pressing my cards to my chest. "She's okay. I think she's going to Argentina later this year... why?"
His smile was teasing, and I took a bite of my food to keep my hands busy. "A little birdie told me that you were staring at her the other day, a little more than a friend would."
"Luke!" Thomas exclaimed with that sick, excited gleam in his eyes, leaning forward in his seat. "Is she the girl you fucked?"
I choked on my bite of pad thai, accidently dropping my cards face up. The mortification of the thought lit my cheeks on fire. Coach coughed into his fist, pointedly ignoring the conversation and excusing himself to the bathroom. "No! What the Hell gave you guys that idea?!"
Jase shrugged, leaning back relaxedly. "Your sister mentioned you two were getting all flirty—"
"Since when are you friends with my sister, you fucking creep?!"
"—and someone told me the reason Miss. Assfuck took your phone was because you were kind of busy texting someone during her block. Just put two and two together, is all."
I never knew mortification like this before. Heat flared to my cheeks, and I was tense under my leather jacket. The jacket that smelled a lot like smoke and a little like him, if I thought about it long enough.
"We weren't... together, and I'm not interested," I muttered. "And stop talking to my sister. Shit's creepy as Hell."
Jase shrugged, his grin teasing and his cards pressed to his chest. "If you say so."
The rest of the day blurred by, and by the time the final bell rang, I was an anxious puddle on the floor. My friends could tell I was antsy, and made the assumption that it was because I was waiting on a text from a specific someone.
"I'll bring you your costume and fit it at the rink before the game, stud," Jase said, clapping me on the shoulder.
I poked his chest and started towards Miss. Bortz's room. "Thanks, man. See you tonight."
"Good luck," he called after me in a singsong kind of voice. I flipped him the bird over my shoulder and continued down the hall, meeting Thomas as he left his last class of the day.
"Go see if your girlfriend texted you back," Thomas teased, trailing me as I slipped into Miss. Bortz's room. She was there, sifting through a stack of papers, and frowned when I came in.
"Can I have my phone, Miss?" I asked. Thomas crossed his arms at the doorway.
Miss. Bortz smirked, leaning onto her desk with her elbows. "I don't know, can you?"
I tensed. "May I have my phone, please?"
Miss. Bortz, seeming satisfied, opened the drawer in her desk and pulled it out. I grabbed it out of her hand, facing it up so the screen lit up at me.
No reply.
Trying not to let the dejection get to me, I sighed, following Thomas out of the door and towards the exit. He grinned at me, sharp at the corners. "No text from Iza?"
I rolled my eyes, brushing by him into the parking lot and climbing into the passenger seat. I could hear Thomas' laugh from outside the car, but he was straight-faced and conscious enough to understand I wasn't going to talk about it. "So, Lukey, you excited for your first game as captain?"
I shrugged, fixing my attention out of the window. "Yeah, I guess."
"Did'ja put me to play first? You know I'm great offense," Thomas mused.
"No, you play second. Coach and I went over this with you." I pressed my cheek to the window, holding my phone loosely on my lap. "Don't make me be a dick, Thomas. Please."
"You're already being a dick," he grumbled. "What's the point of your friend being team captain if he doesn't throw you a fucking bone every once in a while?"
I sighed, watching my break fog up the glass of the window. "Leave it, Tom."
The rest of the drive was silent, save for the radio Thomas flipped on to numb the silence. We eventually pulled up to the rink, piling out of the car. Grabbing his thick skating bag from the trunk, Tom shoulder checked me on his way into the rink. I sighed, following him inside.
*+*❅*+*
"There we go," Jason said through the needle bit between his teeth, cutting the tail of a thread sticking out of the costume and pulling the little cap off of his finger. "What do you think?"
He had fitted me to wear a white slacks and a matching suit jacket over a powdery blue button-up, which was too tight to button all the way, leaving my chest poking out of the top. At the back of the jacket, a pair of thick, feathery wings spread only a little farther than the width of my shoulders, and on the bench next to us was a large, golden ring that would sit on my head like a halo.
I looked in the mirror in front of us, twisting to see the costume. It had a slight shimmer to it when it caught the light just right.
"Thank you so much, Jase. It's perfect," I said, looking down at where he was sitting on the bench, closing the little container of thread and needles on his lap. "Where'd you get this?"
Jason blushed, looking away. "I made it, but it's no big deal. And it was forever ago."
My eyes widened. The costume felt professional, with strong stitching and a silky lining in the jacket and pant pockets. "You made this? Since when have you been sewing?"
"Since I was little, I guess," Jase said, packing his supplies into his bag. "Come on, let's change and go before Coach gets pissy about you being late, Cap'."
I complied, reaching into my locker and pulling out my layers of uniform. We dressed and went out onto the ice, and I began to help Coach with out warmup drills. The stands began to fill and my anxiety began to grow, but I swallowed it down, instead opting to watch the other team practice. They were good, but a little uncoordinated during their drills. The opposing captain looked like he was already fuming.
I caught my mother and father in the crowd, and Alex and her friends a little bit behind them. Mom waved, bringing her fingers to her mouth with a shrill whistle. My dad was a little more modest, waving at me with a grin, and Alex seemed to ignore my existence in favor of chatting with her friends. I also caught Hector's girlfriend in the front row, and Hector climbed out of the rink to give her a quick kiss before resuming his warmup.
I was calm, stretching by the benches and going over the positions with Coach one last time. My mind was in that easygoing place, with the biting air and the weighty hockey gear. The stick I leaned against felt sturdy and familiar, and the mouthguard hanging from my helmet gave my something to fidget with as Coach called up the team, rounding us up on the ice, hyping us, calling positions. He grinned, bright and white, and wished us luck one last time.
"Can I get a 'hawks!'?"
"Hawks!"
Cheering and whooping echoed through the stands. I grinned, feeling the cool air nip my skin and the rush of adrenaline through my veins as the team went to step on the ice. Everything felt good and right in the world. And everything seemed to click snugly into place when, just before I went on the ice, I picked up my phone to find a message waiting at the bottom.
New notification from: beau
break a leg
[A/N This chapter's pacing feels breakneck... but I hope it still suits your fancy :) Next one should be out soon!! <33]
[This is also mostly unedited, so lmk if you catch anything haha]