Hockey Is My Boyfriend: Part One

by Ting, Melanie

  “I don’t really know. Goalies are different ’cause they’re separate. I mean, most of them are kinda weird. But Jim’s not like that. If a goal goes in, he usually shrugs it off. But there was this one tournament game, and when this big goal got scored on him, he really went off on the d-man for screening him. Like screaming at him and—”

  I stopped because I could see that Karen wasn’t really listening. I talked about hockey way more than my friends liked. I got back to the topic of guys. “Well, as a boyfriend, I think he might be the kind of guy who doesn’t take responsibility. Maybe even a little psycho and unpredictable.”

  “Hmmm,” said Karen. “So probably no. Okay, new topic. Last weekend when I was leaving Park Royal, I saw Phil with this really hot guy. He was big and sort of blond, wearing a black jacket. Do you know who I mean?”

  “Probably Dave Vanderhauf. He’s one of Phil’s best friends, but he goes to another school. Handsworth, I think.”

  “Maybe it’s him. Is he totally cute?” Karen wondered.

  “I don’t know. I don’t find him cute.” Dave was okay, but he was definitely full of himself. He played rep hockey, and he always seemed to mention it within five seconds of any conversation.

  “Huge surprise,” said April. “Who do you find cute?”

  I scrunched up my nose and considered this. If I confessed that my nighttime fantasies usually involved me playing on Team Canada at the Olympics, I would probably get pelted with takeaway cups.

  “Um, Brendan Morrison is cute.” For an old guy anyway, he was, like, 24 or 25.

  “No.” April scowled at me. “Who do you find cute that doesn’t play hockey for the Canucks? Like a normal guy we know. Do you think Phil is hot?”

  “Phil? Phil Davidson? That’s gross, he’s just Phil.”

  “And you’re just blind,” said Karen. “Phil is not still your little buddy from grade four. He’s the cutest guy in grade ten. He’s totally hot with that dark hair, that gorgeous face, and that athlete’s body. And he’s into you. But if you don’t jump all over that, he’ll start dating someone else.”

  Charmaine piped up. She could see I was getting upset, and she hated conflict. “Kelly, that was a beautiful goal you scored. And the winning goal! You must be so excited.”

  I smiled at her. Charmaine was so sweet. I figured she wasn’t interested in guys yet either. I didn’t get why everyone was in this big rush to date and stuff. Life was confusing enough.

  3

  In Hot Water

  Phil Davidson

  The day after our championship win, I was getting dressed and looking at the trophy in my room. It was pretty fucking big. Everyone on the team was getting a turn with it, and Coach Jerry had chosen me first. He said it was because of my hard work during the whole playoff run, but I thought Kelly should have gotten it since she scored the winning goal. I was getting ready to go for a run with her.

  I liked Kelly—like, really liked her—and I had for a while.

  Kelly and I had been friends since we were ten years old. I could remember the exact day we met. It was the first hockey practice of the new season. Parents were doing up skates, and everyone was joking around and getting caught up.

  Then she walked into the dressing room, all alone. She was dragging an enormous hockey bag, and she stood in the doorway and looked at all of us.

  “Hi, I’m Kelly Tanaka, and if you guys are Atom C3, then I’m on your team.”

  She had a funny croaky voice. Her brown hair was short, and she was wearing a red t-shirt with a hockey logo and track pants. Some guys started moaning about having a girl on the team. But she laughed and said, “Don’t worry, I’m really good.”

  I couldn’t stop staring at her; she looked different from other girls. It was weird, but I remember thinking that she looked like sunshine. Maybe it was her energy or something.

  I moved my stuff over to make a spot for her. She sat down and started talking hockey with me. Right off, she was the easiest person to talk to. Some of the parents offered to help her with her equipment, but she insisted could do it all herself.

  “My mom has to look after my little brother, so she dropped me off,” she explained. And then she smiled at me, and I couldn’t help smiling back.

  Once she got out on the ice, she was as good as she had said. She was a fast skater and she had some skills. After practice, she was really amped. Her face was red, she had helmet hair, and she was talking a mile a minute.

  “Holy guacamole, you guys are really good. You’re way better than my team back in Ottawa. I bet we’re going to have a great season. Hey Phil, have you guys ever won anything—like a tournament or a championship?”

  I shook my head. Our team was good, but we weren’t the best.

  “My team came second last season. Sooooo close. Maybe this is our year, that would be cool, right?”

  I nodded. It felt good to hear her say that we were a great team. I noticed most of the guys in the room were also listening to her but pretending not too. Later in the season, she got the nickname Sparky, because she was the team spark plug. She was this little Energizer bunny, working her ass off and encouraging everyone to play their best.

  She was the last one to finish packing up her bag, but I wanted to keep hanging out with her.

  “You want to come over now? We could play some road hockey,” I said.

  “Wow, cool. I’d love to!” Kelly smiled at me again. And that was the start of our friendship.

  I could also pinpoint the day I started liking Kelly for real.

  It was a few months ago. For a while, I’d been noticing that she was developing physically, and I was changing too.

  One day, we went for a long kayak ride. It started raining on the way back, and we were getting chilled. After we put the kayak away, we ran up to the deck, and jumped in our hot tub to warm up. She didn’t have her bathing suit, so she stripped down to her sports tank and borrowed a pair of running shorts from me.

  “Holy doodle, this feels great.” Kelly sunk down into the water. “Really, it’s like everything good at once, we’re getting warm and the jets are massaging us.”

  She fully immersed herself for a moment. Then she brought her head up and made this noise, almost a moan, and I got a hard-on. Her eyes were closed, and I really looked at her.

  Lots of half-Asian girls are cute, but Kelly was all bright and energetic. When she talked, her whole face lit up. But now, when she was completely relaxed, she looked beautiful. Her face was kind of heart-shaped, with tanned skin, a few freckles, long eyelashes, and really full lips. And her body was hot, too. Kelly was strong; she went to the gym a lot, so she had great definition in her arms and legs. But she also had a tiny waist and this incredible ass.

  She opened her eyes and smiled at me. Luckily she had no clue what I was thinking, which was mainly about how I’d like to jump her, right there and then.

  “Look,” Kelly pointed down. “Your shorts are all billowy in the water.”

  For a moment, I thought she’d seen my hard-on, but she was pointing to the shorts that she was wearing. I really didn’t want to start staring at her crotch. I turned up the jets for camouflage and tried to think about something boring that would make my erection go down.

  “Ouch, I’m a little sore. Paddling is a great arm workout, eh?” Kelly started doing shoulder rolls, which made her tits stick out.

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on everything I’d been studying for my Socials test. British Columbia has a resource-based economy. Important industries include agriculture, logging—

  My eyes flew open when I felt Kelly’s hand brush my forearm. “Jeez Phil, look at that big bruise you’ve got.” She leaned forward, and I could see down the front of her wet top. Concentrate, Davidson. Logging and… mining, fisheries.

  Kelly kept talking. “That was from the game Thursday, wasn’t it? I saw that a-hole slash you. Don’t worry, I got him back. Just a little whack on the back of the leg, but he felt it.”

 
“Uh, thanks,” I said.

  “Is everything okay?” Kelly asked. “You’re so quiet.”

  “I dunno, I guess I’m a little tired.” How ironic was it that I couldn’t string two sentences together with the one person I’d always found it easiest to talk to?

  “No way! You’re always the ultra-fit one, while I’m trying to keep up. Maybe I’m getting fitter.” She leaned back against the hot tub and closed her eyes again.

  Fuck it. I gave up and just gazed at her. Even her arms looked hot, all defined with nice shoulders. As she breathed, I watched her tits rising and falling. Crap, my cock was getting so hard I was afraid it was going to breach the surface like an orca.

  And ever since then, things had been like that. Kelly being all cute and sweet and having no idea how hot she was, and me being a total idiot.

  I’d been holding myself back. I wanted to get with Kelly, but I didn’t know what she wanted. I knew she liked me, but I didn’t know if it was more than that. So I kept waiting for the exact right time to let her know how I felt.

  4

  Kelly’s First Kiss

  Phil and I decided to go for a run together around Rice Lake. It was one of those sunny February days that make you forget it had rained for two weeks straight. We rode our mountain bikes up to the lake, which was a pretty major workout in itself. Going home would be way easier because it was all downhill.

  “Good goal yesterday, Sparky,” Phil told me as we were locking up our bikes. Sparky sounded more like a dog’s name to me, but I had been called worse. I started getting ready to run, and took off my tearaways and put them in my pack. I turned around and found Phil checking out my butt.

  “Eyes up, Davidson.” I told him. “Have you never seen spandex before?”

  “Not stretched out like that,” he said with a grin.

  After everything Karen said about Phil yesterday, I was feeling uncomfortable and didn’t laugh off his comment.

  I stared at him, trying to see what a stranger would see. He did have great hair; it was thick and dark brown and fell slightly over his forehead. But his eyes were the nicest part of him, they were this neat hazel colour and they crinkled up when he joked around. He had a nice smile, but I could still remember when he wore braces. Body-wise, I already knew he was built, because I went to the gym with him and he could bench 250. But usually when I looked at his body, I was more envious of his upper body strength than thinking anything, well, sexual.

  I guessed he would be attractive to other girls. He certainly looked older than sixteen. I realized that once he started dating, our relationship would change. Maybe his girlfriend wouldn’t want him to hang out with me anymore, or maybe he wouldn’t want to be bothered. That would hurt. This boy/girl stuff was a real pain.

  I sighed loudly.

  “What’s wrong?” Phil wondered.

  “I wish things didn’t have to change. I wish we could keep the same team, the same friends, and everything the same.”

  “We’re getting older. We’ll be going off to university in a couple of years. Gotta think about the future, Kel.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  I had a tendency to think about short-term stuff and not plan ahead: like concentrating on my hockey training, but never trying to figure out the best way to get on the radar of the women’s hockey people.

  When I was little, I figured I’d play in the NHL someday. It wasn’t because I was the best player, but because I improved every single season. Some guys stayed the same or even got worse. So, I imagined that I’d get better until I was the best. Stupid kid-thinking.

  We walked along the trail until we got to Rice Lake and then did a quick stretch. Our run took us around the perimeter of the lake. Phil was taking it pretty easy. With all his soccer, he was an excellent runner, and he could clean my clock in a race. I ran daily but short fast sprints. On weekends, Phil liked to take conditioning runs: long gentle runs to keep his endurance up, like today. Once around Rice Lake was about a kilometre; we circled it five times, and I was pretty beat.

  We cooled down a bit and then went off the trail to sit down in a small clearing by the lake. The lake looked so great, calm and ripply and full of dark secrets. That awesome post-workout feeling, that endorphin high, was coming over me, and I exhaled happily. Phil looked at me and smiled, so I could tell he was feeling the same way. He pointed out the purple bruises by my elbow and on my thigh.

  “Is that from yesterday?”

  “I think so.” I shrugged. I always had new bruises from hockey, and I never knew how they happened.

  He ran a finger along the thigh bruise, and I jumped. His warm touch on my skin made me feel a bit funny.

  I reached back into my pack for my water bottle. I took a long drink, and then squirted some on my sweaty face. I mopped it off with my sleeve.

  “Looks good,” said Phil. “Can I have some?”

  I didn’t know why I was feeling so immature today. I said sure, and then I turned around and squirted Phil in the face.

  He swore at me, and then he grabbed my wrists and twisted them until I dropped the bottle. I was laughing and trying to get my hands free. But Phil wasn’t laughing at all. I looked up into his eyes; they looked darker than usual, and he was staring at me. I felt almost scared of him.

  “Phil?”

  He was still holding on to my wrists, and he pulled me towards him. Then he bent his head to the side, and his face came closer and closer. I was frozen, and then his lips came down onto mine.

  At first, his kiss was only a touch, and I could barely feel the slightly chapped skin of his lips and his warm breath. Then he pushed his mouth hard into mine and opened up my lips. I couldn’t breathe, and a bunch of weird sensations came over me. There was this tiny part of me, below my tummy, that wanted to grab onto him and keep kissing him. But a bigger part of me wanted to knee him and shove him off me.

  After a long, uncomfortable moment, the shoving part of me won, and I pushed him away with both hands. Luckily for Phil, I held off on kneeing him.

  Afterwards, we looked at each other for one second or one eternity.

  “Uh.” I started giggling. Laughter was kind of a nervous reaction for me when I was out of my element.

  Phil smiled. “Kel? So, we’re good?”

  I shook my head. “No. Don’t do that. That’s not us. We’re buddies, we’re not… the other stuff.’’

  He looked upset now, and I felt terrible. “I’m sorry, Phil. I mean, you caught me off guard there.”

  “Well, I wanted to talk to you about it, but that happened instead. I like you, Kel. I’d like us to go out.” There was this hopeful tone in his voice that made me wonder for a moment if I should go out with him. I mean, I liked Phil and I liked hanging out with him. That kiss wasn’t completely horrible. But I really wasn’t into dating and making out and everything. In fact, thinking about it made me feel a little queasy.

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I’m not there yet.”

  Phil didn’t bother saying anything else. He stood up and brushed himself off. He turned back to face me, and his face had no expression at all.

  “We should get going,” he said, and he started down the trail without waiting for me. I ran up beside him, but even though we were side-by-side, we didn’t say a word to each other.

  I was confused, which was so unlike me. I usually knew exactly what I wanted. But Phil was the planner in our relationship. He decided we should kayak to Raccoon Island or snowshoe up Mt. Seymour; I always followed along and had a great time. So if he thought we should be a thing, was he right?

  I had just spent so much time around guys, at hockey and at family events where I was the only girl cousin. Guys were nice, but it was hard to take them seriously.

  Sometimes, I’d be with Karen, and she’d say stuff like, “I wonder what Greg is thinking about right now.” She would want me to say, “He’s probably thinking about you too, at this very moment.” But the truth was that Greg was probably thinking
about eating some pizza, or kicking butt at some video game, or maybe nothing at all. He would think about Karen when he saw her, but not until then. I didn’t really get why girls made such a big deal about guys.

  We got back to the parking lot, and as we unlocked our bikes in silence, I tried to get things back to normal.

  “Phil, I’m really sorry. Are you mad at me?”

  He shrugged. “Kelly, stop apologizing. I thought maybe you felt the same way, but it’s no big deal.”

  “So, we’re still friends?”

  He nodded, but he looked pissed. Maybe Phil wouldn’t want to go back to the way things were. He was only a few months older than me, but more mature in so many ways: physically, mentally, and emotionally.

  A week passed after the weekend of our big championship win and our kiss, and I didn’t speak to Phil at all. Since hockey was over, we didn’t see each other at practices or games, and he seemed to be avoiding me at school. And I really missed him.

  5

  Cougartown

  Phil

  “Lil bro, you need make yourself scarce tonight.” Ray had poked his head in my room.

  “Christ, Ray, have you not heard of knocking?” I was only playing the guitar, but still.

  “Yeah, good point. I don’t want to catch you jacking off. But I’m having a few people over, and you’re not welcome.”

  “Are you having a party? Mom will kill you if she finds out.” It was Friday and our parents had gone to Whistler overnight for a closing dinner with my dad’s work.

  “‘If she finds out’ being the key words. It’s not going to be a big deal and Viv’s going to help me clean up. Can’t you go over to Marcus’s or Dave’s for the night?”

  “You can’t kick me out of here. It’s my house too.”

  Ray scowled at me. “What is up your ass? You’ve been in a shitty mood all week.”