Coming in First Place (Between the Teeth Book 1)
Page 3
David has no idea how Lourdes thinks he’s going to avoid being carded, because he’s big, but he’s still got more of a baby face than practically anyone, looks all of the just barely nineteen that he is, clean shaven, soft cheeked, full-mouthed. Maybe Petersen knows about somewhere in Pittsburgh, some bar that cares more about the Penguins than it does the law or doesn’t particularly care about the law in the first place.
There’s plenty of drinking going on in the hotel rooms anyway, David quickly finds out. There must be a rookie who convinced their All-Star teammate to buy alcohol for them, or maybe the Penguins bequeathed Samuelsson with a cache, David doesn’t know.
He has no interest in drinking with a bunch of people he barely knows, people he’s going to be playing tomorrow or in the future, and he has less than no interest in playing hungover, so he guesses he’s not going to leave his room tonight, lest he run into someone who tries to strong-arm him into joining one of the impromptu parties.
David has a roommate, they all do, but his roommate, Bruyere, a Quebécois kid, makes polite conversation with David in French and then leaves to go get plastered. He’s on the other team, so he can drink himself sick for all David cares, as long as he doesn’t wake David up when he stumbles in.
David falls asleep fairly early, drifting off to the news, and when he wakes up to a burst of laughter, the TV’s off, Bruyere’s snoring in the next bed, and the digital clock beside his bed reads 2:43 a.m.
David groans and rolls over, hears someone making exaggerated shushing sounds right outside his door. Fully awake now and angry about it, David gets up, finding a hoodie on top of his duffle bag and zipping it up over his bare chest before he goes to the door, opening it to find Lourdes, Markson, and Petersen in a huddle.
“How are you this much of a lightweight?” Markson asks, loud enough to make it clear that he’s not sober either. Lourdes says something too low for David to hear, to which Petersen responds, exasperated, “We’re not even staying here tonight. I live here, so find your keycard so we can go home.”
David must shift or something, because Petersen looks up, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Hey asshole,” he says. “Come and help or go to bed. No one needs any more of your superior bullshit.”
David flinches, the guilt abruptly returning, and that must be why he ends up grabbing his keycard from his jeans and shoving his feet, sockless, into his running shoes before going back out into the hall.
“Hold him up or check his pockets,” Petersen says when David comes over. “Your pick.”
David ends up taking Markson’s place, Lourdes’ arm heavy around his shoulders, a crushing weight against David’s side. He looks over at David, smiling blearily.
“Chapman,” he says. “What’s up?”
“Shut up, Lourdes,” Petersen says under his breath, and David likes him more, suddenly.
Markson makes a triumphant sound, his hand in Lourdes’ back pocket — David looks away, flushing — before pulling out a keycard and holding the door open while David and Petersen struggle to move over two-hundred pounds of unyielding weight.
They take Lourdes to the nearest bed and silently communicate a drop, and David feels grimly pleased when Lourdes groans upon landing. It’s close to pitch-black, curtains drawn, the only light from the still open door, so it’s almost easy to look at the shadow that’s Markson and say, “Sorry about today, I didn’t mean to —”
“Whatever,” Markson says. “We’re heading out, and Jake technically shares this room with me, so if you find him aspirin and a glass of water we’re cool.”
They do leave, Markson pressing the keycard into David’s hand, and David goes back to his room, rifling through his duffle as silently as possible until he finds some painkillers, grabbing a bottle of water he’d already put into the mini-fridge and heading to Lourdes’ room, where he’s passed out, fully dressed, exactly where David and Petersen left him.
David puts the water and a few Advil on the bedside table, along with the keycard. He considers doing only as much as Markson explicitly asked him to, leaving Lourdes there to suffer in the morning, but they’re on the same team, at least for tomorrow, and are probably going to be on the same line. David doesn’t like to lose, would never willingly sabotage his chances, so he shoves Lourdes’ shoulder until he responds with a groan.
“Get up, Lourdes,” David says. “You’re still in your coat.”
Lourdes groans again, but after some more strategic shoves, he finally sits up. “David?” he says, squinting up at David in the dim light.
“Get undressed,” David says. “Drink this water. You’ll thank me tomorrow.”
Lourdes struggles with the zipper of his coat, which David isn’t particularly inclined to help him with, considering he’s the idiot who got plastered before a game, meaningless or not. He has less trouble with his shirt, and David looks away, face hot, when he reaches for the zipper of his jeans.
“Well, good,” David says awkwardly. “Drink that water.” He doesn’t wait around to see if Lourdes actually manages his jeans, just heads back to his room and wraps himself in his blankets, tries to sleep, though between the dim rage at being awoken and Bruyere’s chainsaw-like snores, it’s almost impossible.
He does eventually fall asleep, must, because when he wakes up the chainsaw noise is Bruyere’s electric toothbrush. David is groggy at breakfast, unsurprisingly feeling off after a night of interrupted sleep, though at least Lourdes looks worse, red eyes and a slump to his broad shoulders.
Lourdes skates over to David at warm-up, towering over David where he’s on his knees stretching.
“What?” David says, hating that he’s practically getting a crick in his neck trying to meet Lourdes’ eyes.
“Marksy said you helped out last night,” Lourdes says. “Thanks.”
“Whatever,” David says. It figures he wouldn’t remember, with how drunk he was. It would serve him right if he was too sick to play, but he looks fine now.
Better than fine, it turns out. He’s on David’s opposite wing on the first line, and from the first face-off he seems to have a sense of where David’s going to end up, sending passes that go tape to tape, connect firmly, the best kind of set-up David could get. The score’s ridiculous, like it always is during All-Stars, a 10-8 final, but it’s in their favour.
David scores two goals, both with Lourdes assisting, and Lourdes ends up with one of his own, the game-winner. They’re on the ice when the time ticks down, and Lourdes crashes into him, practically bowls him over, forehead knocking against David’s helmet.
“Not bad, Chapman,” he shouts, grinning, and David, always happy to win, can’t help but smile back.
The adrenaline doesn’t really last; the win doesn’t mean anything except maybe to some Penguins who had bets about whether Samuelsson or Petersen would win. There are no points, no medals, no cups. No one cares, not really. Lourdes was David’s teammate for all of a day, but now he isn’t, and that’s what matters.
Lourdes comes over in the dressing room after the game, towel slung low on his hips and hair sticking damply to his forehead, droplets of water beading on his chest.
“Good game, bud,” he says, smiling that smile that David hates more than anything.
David looks up at him, at that stupid, ridiculous smile, all teeth.
“I’m not your friend, bud,” David says, and then he ducks his head, keeping his eyes on the floor until Lourdes goes away.
CHAPTER FIVE
David and the Islanders are back in Florida less than two weeks after the All-Star Weekend. David’s less inclined to soak up the sun this time, less than impressed with everyone who does. Last time, it left them sun-stupid, stunned.
He isn’t planning on saying anything, even though he wants to. No one takes him seriously, the rookie designation hanging over his head like it means he’s immature. He cracks after seeing half the team rushing through breakfast, all talking about catching some ‘rays’.
He looks over
at Brouwer, who’s sitting the closest to David, snorting over The New York Times. At least he doesn’t look inclined to go tanning.
“I don’t think it’s good for our game to spend the whole day lying in the sun,” David says.
Brouwer looks up at him, raises an eyebrow. “Chapman, if anyone needs to spend some fucking time lying in the sun, it’s you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” David demands, but Brouwer just snorts again and then pointedly turns a page of the paper. David’s not foolhardy enough to insist for an answer, even if he has no clue whether Brouwer just insulted him or not. Knowing Brouwer, he absolutely did. David isn’t sure what the insult means, but he’s fairly sure Brouwer isn’t just calling him pale.
Even if everyone spends their time getting sunburned instead of getting their head in the game, it doesn’t end up anything like their last game in Sunrise, which David is fervently grateful for. They notch a goal in the first, an ugly one that just squeaks through, and match the Panthers one for one in the second, David getting a positional tap-in. He receives an absolutely crushing hug from Eisler afterwards, which he accepts with good grace because it was Eisler’s pass he put in the net.
The third period’s a back and forth mess. No one’s playing particularly well, the Panthers thankfully as off as the Islanders; it’s a series of turnovers and quick-whistled icings until the Panthers pull their goalie with a minute and a half left, scrambling around like they’re short-handed instead of up a man, until Farmer pulls the trigger on an empty-net goal, putting the Panthers out of their misery.
It wasn’t a pretty game, but it’s a win, and it’s a win against the Panthers. A win against Lourdes, who was rarely on the ice at the same time as David, but whose presence David had felt in Farmer gritting his teeth through a hasty stitching — the high-stick somehow didn’t get Lourdes a double minor — and in a secondary assist on the only goal to get past Knutsen.
It’s a win, but David doesn’t feel the way he thinks he should, fidgety when the beat reporters come over to him, though he believes he hides it well enough. He has all this excess energy humming through him, like he needs to go lift some weights in the hotel gym, swim laps in the over-chlorinated pool, run a few kilometres until his blood stops singing.
He doesn’t want to go back to the hotel with the team, the idea of the bus making him feel claustrophobic, so he says he’ll take a cab. It’s a short ride anyway. Kurmazov gives him a look and then shrugs it off, tells him not to go out and get in trouble, as if David would.
David lingers in the visitor’s room, making sure he won’t get hauled onto the bus, playing a round of Sudoku on his phone, the equipment managers giving him a bit of a berth. When he leaves the arena’s ringing with silence, hollow around him, except for the fact that just down the hall, hands in his suit pockets and hair curling wetly around his ears, is Jake fucking Lourdes.
“Good,” Lourdes says, straightening up. “I thought I missed you or something, but Benny said you were hanging around awhile.”
David frowns. There are several questions he feels he needs to ask, number one being why Lourdes is waiting around for him, but the one that comes out of his mouth is, “Benny?”
“Benson?” Lourdes says. “Freckles? Tiny?”
Benson is maybe an inch shorter than David. David’s scowl deepens. “I know who he is,” he snaps. “What are you doing talking to him?”
“He was on Team USA with me in U18,” Lourdes says. He’s starting to frown as well, which is a good sign; maybe that means he’ll leave and stop bothering David. It’s not even like he has a win to rub in, and David thinks his goal trumps a secondary assist, even if it was just a tap-in. “You know, when we won Gold.”
It’s not exactly something David’s forgotten.
“Why are you here?” David asks, since Lourdes doesn’t seem inclined to actually explain why he’s choosing to harass David when he probably has plenty of better things to do. Maybe no girls sprawled on his lap to celebrate a win, but David’s sure someone would be willing to commiserate. The Panthers have so many losses they would never be able to go out otherwise.
“Why don’t you like me?” Lourdes asks.
“What?” David asks, taken aback.
“That’s why I’m here,” Lourdes says.
“You’re here because I don’t like you?” David asks incredulously.
“I’m here because I want to know why you don’t like me,” Lourdes says.
“Are you serious right now?” David asks, and Lourdes gives him a look that makes it clear that he is indeed serious about going around asking people why they don’t like him.
David immediately has a half-dozen responses on his tongue, but he holds back, weighs them, and they stick in his throat.
Each one would sound petty if he said it aloud, would make David sound like he’s obsessing over Lourdes’ game, which he isn’t, and bitter that he isn’t as good, but he is as good, and calling Lourdes dirty would just make him sound like a whiner.
There’s nothing he can say, and David hates him even more for that, for making David feel like he’s being mean when he knows he isn’t. Something about Lourdes just pisses him off, puts his teeth on edge. David hates him, and he can’t say why, and he needs a reason. He needs a reason he can say, needs to find one that’s faultless, so he steps forward, chin up so he can look Lourdes straight in the eye. Lourdes is looking back, a little confused, barely a reaction at all.
And David will change that, he can change that. He takes Lourdes by his stupid salmon coloured tie, the fabric slick silk under his fingers, leans up to press his mouth against Lourdes’ slack lips, which are bitten pink like always, something David’s noticed every time he’s seen him, even when he’s tried not to.
Lourdes is statue-still against him, a line of tense muscle, before he pulls back. His tie slips through David’s fingers as he hisses, “Are you nuts?”, and there’s the reason, there’s the reason to hate him. He’s going to punch David, or laugh, or use it against him, he’s going to expose himself as the shitty person David knows he has to be, because he plays like an asshole and David knows he is one under the façade.
David should feel satisfied, but all he feels is nauseous, and not just because he put the one thing he trusts no one with into the hands of someone he doesn’t trust at all. His first kiss — at least his first kiss with a person he’s actually attracted to, which is what’s important — and he did it to prove something to someone who’ll probably use it as leverage, someone who doesn’t know the meaning of fair play.
Lourdes is looking down at David, and David sets his jaw and looks right back up at him, looks him in the eye, because if Lourdes is going to hit him he wants to know it’s coming.
“There are people everywhere,” Lourdes says, then, “Shit, I’m living at Goldie’s, I can tell him to head to his girlfriend’s?”
“What?” David asks, everything in him going blank.
“Like, you can come over,” Lourdes says, and then, sort of sheepish, “I mean, if you want to, I don’t want to assume.”
“What?” David repeats, voice cracking over the word.
“Do you want to?” Lourdes asks. His cheeks are pink. David would think he was blushing, but that’s stupid.
“I—” David says. He doesn’t think he can say ‘what’ again, though he wants to, because Lourdes isn’t making any sense.
David didn’t think his actions through, maybe, not properly, but he sure as hell wasn’t expecting Lourdes to invite him over, and if he wanted to beat the shit out of David for it he could just do it right here. There are people around, maybe, people close enough to come if David called out, but he wouldn’t, he’d take it and he’d hold that pain and he’d let it fester. There’s no reason to invite him over except the obvious one, and that’s too absurd to be true.
“Okay,” he says, because he refuses to be the kind of person to start things he doesn’t finish, balk at something that Lourdes didn’t.
Another guy, though. If there’s one good thing about Lourdes, it’s that he has just as much to lose as David does.
If it is gay chicken, Lourdes is intent on playing it. He calls a cab, because apparently his roommate was his ride and took his car right with him to his girlfriend’s. Lourdes tips his phone screen to show David, like he needs evidence, a text from ‘Goldie’ that reads ya. lol u go man, which implies — whatever this is, probably.
David feels colour rise in his cheeks when he reads it. He can’t meet Lourdes’ eyes, respond to the small talk Lourdes is making: he talks about Benson, who David doesn’t really know that well, since he just got called up last week; about the weather in Florida, which is warm, and in New York, which is cold, like that’s anything new. Everything but hockey or why David’s not going back to his hotel like he should, is instead sitting in the backseat of a cab with a guy he can’t stand, taking up as little space as possible, because Lourdes is all limbs, knee nearly nudging David’s even though David is hunched into himself.
David can feel the heat coming off Lourdes even through his suit pants, tailored tight over the spread of his thighs, feel the heat still in his own cheeks. He keeps thinking about the feeling of Lourdes’ mouth against his, a slightly wet press, caught off guard, and he bites his bottom lip until all he can feel is the sting of it.
They stop in front of a nondescript apartment building, and Lourdes reaches for his wallet. David wants to beat him to until he realises, mortified, that he doesn’t have cash on him and his credit card’s sitting beside his bed in the hotel room, left behind after he ordered grocery delivery for the day of his return.