BLAZE: Enemies to Lovers College Hockey Romance

by Eddie Cleveland

  My eyes dart over to her. Her short, bobbed hair is silver, but she has the smile of a woman who knows she’s beautiful. Giving myself one last scowl, and my hands a shake, I grab some paper towel to dry them.

  “You’re here with the tattoo guy, right? That wild one with the beard?” She looks back at me in the mirror.

  “Uh, yeah.” I don’t bother explaining the situation. She has enough insight into my life.

  “And you’re talking yourself out of that?” She turns and looks at me fully. “Are you insane? Did you say it’s his birthday? I would hum Happy Birthday on his dick like a kazoo. You go ahead and do you, but you are straight-up crazy if you’re in here talking yourself out of that tasty snack waiting out there.” She dries her hands and gives me a pointed look from the corner of her wrinkled eye, but she doesn’t say anything else before leaving.

  She doesn’t know the whole story; I remind myself as I head back out to our table. I get to my seat just as a waitress drops off a pitcher of beer and a couple glasses. She and Blaze look like they were having a conversation, and she doesn’t seem impressed that I interrupted. I guess strangers in the bathroom aren’t the only ones who want to play his dick kazoo.

  “I didn’t agree to this.” I point at the glasses that Blaze is filling up, and the waitress takes off.

  He pushes one over to me. “It’s a beer. Relax.”

  “Wine and beer aren’t a good mix. Besides, just because I don’t think it’s right to cancel your birthday, doesn’t mean this is going to be a crazy night. Some of us have responsibilities. We don’t all get to ride the easy train to slutsville.”

  “Oh, so being a judgy slut-shamer makes you grown, huh?” He lifts his eyebrows. I cringe. I did sound pretty judgy. And slut-shamey.

  Maybe my last job got to me more than I thought. I know it messed with my confidence. I literally had a pinch-me moment when Presido PR hired me straight out of Westbury. That job. In California. That was the entire dream. I knew I would have to work my way up from the assistant’s assistant, but I was thrilled to get my foot in the door.

  I wanted that job so badly that I couldn’t admit when the shine started to wear off. I told myself that my boss was a different generation. He didn’t realize how uncomfortable his comments made me. I ignored his lingering eyes. The first few times he would grab my hand, or put his hands on my shoulders, I was so uncomfortable I felt sick.

  It’s weird how quickly he wore down my boundaries. After a couple months, my shoulders didn’t feel like a violation. But the way he’d purposely reach for things on my desk, pushing his cock into me because he “needed to borrow my stapler” was the new boundary he felt comfortable crossing. That job was my dream for so long, I couldn’t admit that it had become a nightmare.

  Originally, the compliments were about my job and how I was a quick learner. My impressive depth of knowledge. The potential he saw in me. At first, his attention was sort of flattering. The physical compliments started out sparsely peppered in conversations, innocently enough. I had a pretty smile. Beautiful eyes, apparently. But when the compliments became more crude and more frequent, I made it clear I wasn’t interested in that kind of attention anymore.

  Nothing surprises me now that I know who he really is. His first formal work complaint against me, shocked me to my core. I was pulled into the human resources office, told to sign forms about some made-up negligence. He didn’t file that complaint directly. There were ones after that he did do himself though. After nine months of compliments turning to comments and then complaints, I quit.

  “I’m not slut-shaming. I’m saying I have responsibilities, a word you’re not familiar with, I know. I have a job to perform, rent to pay, adulting to do.”

  “Sounds lame.” Blaze half closes his eyes, losing interest.

  “Not everyone can get drunk and high and screw around all the time. Some of us have responsibilities.” I ignore his groans. “Even if I didn’t, I still wouldn’t want to live like that.”

  “What? Why not?” He’s skeptical.

  “Doesn’t it get old? All the crazy partying and the endless parade of girls... don’t you get tired of living like this?” I lift up my still mostly full glass.

  “It has highlights.” There’s a twinkle in his eyes. He reaches across the table, picking up the glass of white wine that Damon left behind. “Can’t let a good time go to waste, right?” He watches me as he lifts it to his lips and empties it in one gulp.

  “It’s kind of lonely lately. I actually haven’t been seeing many girls since someone put a kink in my hose.” I’m glad Blaze isn’t serious most of the time. It does weird things to me.

  “You’ve fucked so many girls, you don’t even know where you’ve put your dick. Your hose needed to be kinked.”

  I like how surprised he looks. He’s so used to being the one that shocks me. Blaze is cocky about everything, but when he says something that makes me turn red, he’s particularly proud. It’s not like he’s standing there with his mouth hanging open. I didn’t make him blush, though it might be hard to tell with his beard. He just pauses for a second, not sure what to say.

  “That’s just a stereotype. You don’t know my life,” he lies.

  “I know more than you think.” I know for a fact I’m right about this. He doesn’t remember his hands on my body. His lips on mine. His cock inside me.

  But I do.

  “Yeah, well, you can’t believe everything you hear.”

  Why does he want to convince me that his man-whore reputation isn’t earned? I’m annoyed that he’s even trying.

  “What about what I see? Like, with my own eyes. Should I believe that?” I slide my fingers back and forth in front of my face, in case he forgot where the general eye-area of my head is.

  “That’s low.” He leans back in his chair. Disappointment rolls off him like a cold fog.

  “How is that low?”

  “It’s my birthday, Prissy. Maybe you can give my viral sex video a break for one day.” He raises his voice to an annoying YouTuber volume, and people at other tables half-turn in our direction. My face heats up, and he cracks a wide smile. He’s enjoying this too much. He’s so used to having the upper hand.

  “I did see that. Unfortunately. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “What then?”

  “You and I.” My throat dries up. I don’t know how to say the words. There’s a very sober and wise part of my brain trying to shut this conversation down. I should listen to that part.

  “You and I what?” He frowns, but his eyebrows lift to the ceiling when he starts to understand.

  “Are you saying that you and I…?”

  “Yep,” I answer.

  “No.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Really?” Blaze sits forward, leaning into me, searching my face.

  “We had sex.” I say it as plainly.

  “That’s not possible,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t seem so cocky now.

  “Would you two like anything else, or just the bill?” Our waitress reappears beside our table.

  Maybe it’s my bad date, or because it’s Blaze’s birthday, but I’m not ready to call it a night yet. “Yeah, could we get a couple of shots of tequila and another beer for each of us?”

  “Absolutely,” she answers.

  “Aren’t you just full of surprises.” Blaze looks like he might be reevaluating his entire life.

  “Happy twenty-first,” I answer.

  10

  Chicken Tattoo

  Blaze

  I thumb through familiar faces in my mind like I’m trying to make a cartoon dance through a flip book, but I have zero memories of Prissy naked. I keep waiting for her to crack, to tell me that she’s just fucking with me. She doesn’t.

  “Your story doesn’t add up.” I can still feel the heat of the tequila shot down the back of my throat. Prissy didn’t even wince when she downed hers.

  “My story?” She does air quotes. Who re
ally does those?

  “You don’t have to put on a grammar performance. I’m not saying ‘story’ like I don’t believe you.”

  I don’t believe her.

  “Well, I don’t know how I’m supposed to prove something like that.” Prissy tucks her hair behind her ear looking down at the table. “I could tell you about your chicken tattoo. You told me why you have it, like, why it’s crossing the road.”

  That is more specific than I was expecting. If I knew that tattoo would get so much attention, I would’ve gone to a better artist. Then, instead of the simple, black outline of a chicken, it would be something that looks less like I did it myself. Any guy that wants a lot of attention on their tattoo should get it above their cock. Of all the ink that covers my skin, that’s the one every girl asks about it.

  My chicken tattoo isn’t my favorite, but it’s the one I have the most fun with. She stands at the edge of a road that’s neatly perched across the top of my pubic hair. When I get the inevitable questions about it, I always say, “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the cock on the other side.” It’s not exactly an icebreaker, but it does help draw attention to my other attributes.

  “Bunnies talk.” I know the truth in my gut. I don’t remember fucking Prissy, but she remembers being fucked by me. It’s weird to go from feeling like someone is a stranger to realizing your cock has been inside them.

  Prissy scans the bar like she’s worried someone might hear her. “Would a bunny tell me you like to say, ‘Sit on my face, babe. I wanna taste the day on you?’” Prissy’s bad impersonation of me is made worse by whispering.

  “They might.” I know they didn’t. She’s not gonna crack because she’s telling the truth. “I believe you. It’s just… it’s strange.”

  “Yeah. It is. I probably shouldn’t have said anything.” Worry flickers in her eyes.

  “Why? It doesn’t change anything unless you tell me you took this job just to get back at me. Then you’ll have more of a backstory for your Becky Ball-Buster persona,” I joke.

  Prissy starts laughing. “I swear I didn’t know this job had anything to do with you when I applied.”

  “As long as this isn’t a sexy stalker thing. I mean, I’m still down. It’s not a total vibe-killer or anything.”

  “Blaze.” She uses her I’m warning you voice. Normally I like to push it just a bit more, wait until her temper blazes in her cheeks and then back off.

  She looks at her almost empty glass.

  I do the same. We’re both silent for a minute. The whole place has really quieted down. It’s just us and two other tables with stragglers, dragging out dinners they aren’t ready to end.

  “It’s getting late.” She pulls her phone out of her purse and checks the time. “We should probably call it.”

  “You can’t pull the curfew card on my birthday.”

  “Curfew was almost an hour ago. And in ten minutes, it’s not your birthday anymore.” She turns her screen around to show me.

  As far as nights go, this one could have gone a lot worse. I decide not to push it. “We’ll share a car.” I figure out how much it is to settle the bill and put the money on the table.

  “You don’t live that close to me.” Prissy frowns at her screen, trying to book a driver.

  “It’s not that far. Our neighborhoods are like a Venn diagram… a lot of overlap.” I interlock my fingers, and she laughs. We walk over to the coat check.

  “A Venn diagram, huh?” She finishes ordering the car, and I grab our winter coats.

  “I’m not just a killer hockey player with a pretty face. I know things.”

  Prissy laughs. “It must be fun being you. Always impressed with yourself. Never caring about what people think.”

  I only ever cared about one person’s opinion, and he’s dead. Not that I’m about to get into any of that.

  “It’s easy being me,” I agree with her. When the car shows up, we slump together in the back.

  The silence is comfortable. The streets can slide by, and we don’t need to fill the air with pointless chatter. I like that.

  “So, this probably wasn’t your best birthday, but was it the worst one you’ve had?” Prissy seems to have a different take on the silence.

  “Best and worst were the same birthday,” I roll my head back on the seat, closing my eyes. Memories from the party I had in my last year of high school flood my mind. I can still feel the buzz of the baseline in my chest and smell the Everclear in the air.

  “What happened?”

  “It was like a movie. You know the typical parents-are-out-of-town party?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was that.”

  “Okay.”

  “There was puke in the potted plant. We had to break up a couple fights. Chicks kept making out with each other in every room.”

  “I get the picture.” She rolls her eyes.

  “Right. Well, then my parents came home.”

  “Ah, did they freak out?” Prissy nods with understanding.

  “I wish. If my parents just lost their shit or grounded me or whatever that wouldn’t be so bad. They’ve seen this all before though. I’m the youngest, so there have been other parties. Other freak-outs. Mom took a different direction with me.” I squint, hoping it will blur the image in my mind’s eye. The one I’d pay to erase.

  “And that direction was…”

  “Dancing.”

  “What?” Prissy laughs, but I don’t. “That’s genius.”

  “Yeah, not like that Elaine from Seinfeld dance either. Dad was bad enough. He kept telling everyone he could floss.”

  “Oh no,” she giggles.

  “Mom had that stop-the-record moment though.” Even the memory makes me cringe. The embarrassment is branded onto my soul.

  “What did she do?” Prissy is laughing at the idea, and she doesn’t even know what it is yet.

  “She cornered a bunch of the cheerleaders and got them to teach her dances.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad.” She tilts her head.

  “No son should know what their mom looks like twerking.” There isn’t enough brain-bleach in the world for that one.

  “No!” Prissy rolls back and forth in her seat, laughing. “You win. That’s the worst ever.” She struggles to breathe.

  The car stops, and she wipes little laughter tears away before she unbuckles her belt.

  “This is where you live?” I let out a low whistle. They must be paying her well to keep me out of trouble. “I’ll walk you to your door, you lush.”

  “Oh please, I’m fine. You drank way more than me.”

  I don’t listen to her, of course. I get out and ask the driver to give me a second. He’s fine with it, so I lead her up the cobblestone path, and she stops in front of a row of townhouses. All of them are made of brick and have big windows.

  “Fancy.”

  “It’s a nice neighborhood,” Prissy agrees. She looks out into the darkness at the peaceful little road. “I had fun.” She smiles up at me.

  “Me too. I’ve got a confession to make.” I step in.

  “What?”

  “I don’t really think you’re too drunk to walk over here.”

  “No, I’m not,” she starts, but I cut her off.

  “I just wanted to do this.” I grab her and kiss her. Not like at the bar. This is private, intimate and slow.

  She blinks up at me, both of us only speaking in cloud puffs from the cold air.

  “I forgot to give you your gift,” she murmurs, digging out her phone.

  “Really? What is it?”

  Prissy fires off a message and grabs my hand. The driver pulls away from the curb and disappears up the street.

  “Me.”

  11

  Pull-Cord Cock

  Blaze

  Kissing her is my instant addiction I’ve got no will to break. Even as she fumbles, reaching behind her for the handle, her lips never leave mine. I slide my hand from her cheek to the ba
ck of her head until my fingers are lost in her hair. We roll against the doorframe, the wall guiding us inside the house. It’s dark inside and only gets darker when I shove the door shut. Holding her jaw in my hand, I pin her against the wall and kiss her like she’s mine.

  Prissy finally breaks her swollen lips free. That knowing sparkle dancing in her dark eyes, it’s just about making me fucking crazy. “Let’s go to my room,” she whispers.

  She unzips her coat, tossing it toward a hook on the wall without looking. Under different circumstances, I’d be impressed that she got it. When my cock is surging against my fucking zipper, begging for release, I don’t give a fuck. I want to cover her naked body with mine. I want to feel her pussy tighten and see how red her cheeks turn when she cums. I remove my coat and kick my boots off. One of them hits the wall with a loud thud.

  “Shhh.” She presses her finger into her lips… lips I’d like to feel against my shaft as I slide my cock into her mouth inch by inch. “You’ll wake her up.” Prissy’s eyebrows pinch together quickly, and her eyes dart over my shoulder.

  “Who?”

  “My…” She sorta stares off for a moment. “My roommate. Obviously, I can’t afford this place myself.”

  It’s dark as fuck, but my eyes are pretty much adjusted. When I bother to take a look around, it’s clear that this place has been decorated with more class and money than I’m used to. Then again, I live with a bunch of guys who think beer can pyramids and wall posters are art. I’m used to slumming it on futons and Ikea sofas.

  Prissy’s sofa is classy with its rounded arms and the billion copperhead tacks pinning the fabric to the frame. It looks sturdy too, like it wouldn’t collapse if I fucked her on it. I’ve got half a mind to strip her down and bend her over it. To hell with her roommate. A little peep show wouldn’t kill her. If she’s still up, sneaking around in the darkness at this hour, she’s probably hoping for one.