Darkroom: A Moo U Hockey Romance

by Kate Willoughby

  “Are you saying that your penis in a non-flaccid state is impressive?” I asked.

  He gave me a decidedly wicked smile. “No comment.”

  I tried very hard not to picture him with a hard-on, but it was impossible. Ever since that fateful afternoon, I sometimes fantasized about what it might have been like if he’d hooked up with me and not Blair.

  Usually, I imagined we were in my dorm room and he couldn’t get my clothes off fast enough. He’d take me on top of the bed, or against the wall, or on my desk. I’d actually come up with quite a few scenarios and they all ended with us sated and sleepy.

  His smile got even more wicked, as if he could read my thoughts.

  “Would you like to join us?” Ruby asked, gesturing to an empty chair.

  “Emerald, right?” He looked at her questioningly.

  “Ruby.”

  He snapped his fingers. “I knew it was a gemstone. I’m Hudson.”

  “I remember.”

  “Okay, let me get some food. Be right back.”

  After he left, I whacked Ruby on the arm. “What are you doing?” I hissed.

  “Giving you a chance to make your fantasies a reality.”

  I quickly checked to make sure he wasn’t sneaking up on us again. “I don’t fantasize about him,” I hissed.

  “Like hell you don’t.”

  I bit my lip. “Okay, maybe once or twice.”

  “Then you need to go for it,” she said. “Ask him out.”

  “Are you kidding? First of all, he’s way out of my league. I also just insulted his penis. I have a better chance of curing cancer than I do getting a date with him.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, my friend. He did agree to sit down and have lunch with you,” she said, slinging her backpack on her shoulder and picking up her tray.

  “Wait a second. What do you mean, ‘with you’? What are you doing? Are you leaving?”

  “Three’s a crowd,” she said with an overly-bright smile.

  “But then I’ll be alone with him and I’ll have to carry the conversation all by myself. I can’t do that. I suck at small talk. Lunch will be one giant uncomfortable silence and he’ll walk away thinking my tongue went on vacation.”

  She put a hand on my shoulder. “Indi, I have faith in you. You can do this. Ask him about hockey. Or his car, if he has one.”

  “Oh, good idea. Guys love talking about themselves.”

  “And if all else fails, talk about his penis some more.” Then, hooting with laughter, she deserted me.

  I didn’t know if I wanted to hug her or strangle her.

  When Hudson returned a few minutes later, he had the same French dip combo that I had gotten—times two—an apple, a banana, a spinach salad, potato salad and a jumbo glass of iced coffee.

  “Did you just come off a fast?” I asked.

  He chuckled. “I have practice later. I need energy for that. Where’d Ruby go?”

  “She had class.”

  As he dug in, I tried to regulate my breathing. I was sitting at a table alone with Hudson Forte. He was close enough for me to see that his blue lagoon eyes were rimmed with green. He had thick lashes, a full lower lip and a tiny scar on a jawline that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Clark Kent.

  “You know, it’s not every day I find two women talking about my penis and in such disparaging terms. I think maybe you owe me an apology.” He raised an eyebrow, but there was a smile playing about his lips.

  This was so unlike any conversation I’d ever had with a guy, especially a jock. It was so disarming. And funny. It felt like we were friends now that we had this private joke. Maybe that was the key. I had to think of him as a friend. That would take all the pressure off. Despite what Ruby said, I was under no obligation to ask him out or even think of him as actual date material. He was pretty much in the same category as a celebrity I had no hope of ever talking with again.

  Taking a mental deep breath, I said, “I would apologize if you were actually hurt by what I said.”

  “I was hurt. I have an incredibly fragile ego. Inside, I’m weeping.”

  “Stop it. You are not. Inside, you’re digesting.”

  He laughed. “Can’t argue with you there. I love their French Dips here. The bread is killer because they grill it with butter and the jus is really beefy. I dip my French fries in it too.”

  “So do I,” I said.

  “You do not.”

  “Yes—” I picked up a fry “—I do,” I said and dipped it.

  His eyes narrowed and we sat there dipping and eating fries in silence, maintaining eye contact like we were in some kind of French fry eating throwdown. After a moment or two, he took three fries as if in challenge, dipped and ate them, all in one go. In response, I grabbed the rest of the ones on my plate—about five in each hand—dunked them into the jus and pushed them into my mouth, heedless of the liquid dripping down my chin and onto the table.

  He laughed. “I give up,” he said, hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. “You win.”

  I wiped my mouth and chin with my napkin, pretty relaxed now. The friend zone trick was working.

  “They said in class you were drafted by San Francisco. I’m not really a sports fan so explain to me why you’re here and not with the team that drafted you.”

  “Because it’s not like being drafted into the military. You don’t immediately report to the team for duty. What being drafted in the NHL means is that San Francisco has, I guess, reserved me, so that when I go pro, I play for them. That way, I get my college degree and they wait for me to finish.”

  “So you’re going to live in San Francisco then?”

  “Most likely.”

  “You’ll be a Forty-Niner. Congrats!”

  He got a pained look on his face.

  “Gotcha!” I said, laughing. “I know that’s a baseball team.”

  When the pained look didn’t go away, I laughed harder.

  “Ha! Gotcha again. The Forty-Niners play football. My dad loves the Patriots.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah? I’m a Giants man myself.”

  “So what is your hockey team? It’s the San Francisco…?”

  “Dragons. The San Francisco Dragons. And get this—they’re not the medieval kind of dragons. This Chinese billionaire, Lillian Pei, owns the team, so dragon is like a snake with four legs. Being Chinese yourself, I thought you might appreciate that.”

  “Actually, I don’t really consider myself Chinese,” I said.

  “Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I swear you said you were originally from China yesterday.”

  “I did say that. That’s where I was born, but I grew up here in America, in Brattleboro, a couple hours south of here.”

  “So, you don’t speak the language.”

  “No. I don’t know much about China at all.”

  “Huh.” He removed one leaf from his spinach salad and set it aside. “Don’t let me forget that.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “My hamster.”

  “Shut up. You have a hamster?”

  “Yup. His name is Deke and he lives like a king.”

  “I wouldn’t in a million years have pegged you as a hamster guy.”

  “I love cute animals. Always have, always will. Now tell me why you don’t know much about China. No judging. I’m just curious.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “My parents weren’t really into it and now, neither am I. In fact, most of the time I didn’t want to be Asian, especially when I was little. It was embarrassing. It singled me out as different. When we went out as a family, we didn’t look like other families.”

  “In a weird way, I kind of know what that feels like, to want to be like everybody else. My family was kind of a big deal in the NHL.”

  “Oh yeah, I remember. What did they say in class? That your whole family was in the NHL?”

  “Someone in every generation has played for the league since it started a hundred years ago. There’s no other family that
can claim that. My dad’s generation had three players—him and his brothers Rick and Matt. Is it something that I’m proud of? No doubt. But at the same time, people I don’t even know walk around with my last name on their shirts.”

  “That must be weird.”

  “I’m used to it by now, but sometimes it is creepy.” He shook his head. “I’m sure I sound entitled as shit right now. Poor me. My family’s famous and it’s such a pain.”

  “I sound just as entitled,” I said. “My parents took me from a state-run orphanage and brought me to a country where I literally have all the opportunities I could ever ask for, but here I am complaining too. Big whoop. There are a lot worse problems to have than not looking like your mom and dad.”

  “Yeah, the grass is always greener.” He ate the last bite of his second French dip and started digging into the potato salad. “Let me ask you something. If you could wave a magic wand and make yourself into the biological daughter of your mom and dad, would you do it?”

  “No one’s ever asked me that.”

  I thought about it a moment. Ever since I could remember, I’d wished I could be my parents' “real” daughter. I even used to make that wish when blowing out my birthday candles. But here was Hudson shining a light on that—let's face it—misguided, childish desire. With the benefit of hindsight and maturity, I could look at the situation with more knowledge about the world and about myself and see that I couldn’t “fix that problem” and still be the person I was today.

  If the wand could get rid of my birthmark, however, I would wave it like I was warding off a horde of Azkaban Dementors. That would have been a life-changing miracle I wouldn’t think twice about.

  “If I became the biological daughter of my adoptive parents,” I said, “and my DNA would be a mixture of theirs, I would pretty much be a completely different person. I would have been born with different skills, tendencies and talents than the ones I have now, and I like who I am. So, no, I would not wave that wand.”

  “Okay. I get it. It’s just an image thing, then,” Hudson remarked. “You just wish you could look white.”

  “Um…no,” I said, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. And bristly. “It’s not about being white at all. Are you…implying that being white is preferred?”

  “No, no, not at all!” he said, straightening in his chair. “I’m just trying to—”

  I didn’t let him finish. “Because, for the record, what I wished for was to look like my parents. If they’d been black, I’d have wished to be black. If they were Indian, I’d have wished for that. I wanted to match, not just be white, you pretentious racist.”

  As he stared at me, shocked into silence, I grabbed my backpack and left.

  7

  Hudson

  I hate doing laundry and will put off doing it until I absolutely have to. I’d tried to get AJ to do my laundry as part of the reduced rent agreement but he’d refused.

  “Dude,” AJ had said, “I appreciate the discount but there’s no way in hell I’m touching your laundry.”

  “Like your dirty clothes smell any better,” I’d countered.

  “Not the point,” he said. “I wouldn’t care if your stuff smelled like lilacs. I will not touch anything that touched your balls.”

  And really, I couldn’t blame him.

  So, here I was, faced with a giant pile of laundry. Fortunately, the building had four washers and four dryers in the communal laundry room, so if no one was using the machines, I could bang everything out in about an hour.

  Before I started the dreaded sorting, I went to Deke’s enclosure and was glad to see he was stirring. Hamsters don’t appreciate being woken up.

  I removed the roof of his habitat and carefully scooped him up in my hand.

  “Hey, buddy. How’s your day been?” I asked, stroking his silky head. “Probably pretty chill. Are you hungry? I brought you a spinach leaf from my disaster of a lunch. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  I held the leaf close to his face and he snatched it from me and started nibbling.

  “What’s your stance on laundry?” I asked him.

  Still munching, he looked at me as if to say, Clothing is a construct designed to inhibit your natural freedom. I pity you.

  I grinned. Deke was a deep thinker.

  When he’d finished his treat, I put him back in the enclosure and put the roof back on. Hamsters are skilled escape artists so I had to make sure the lid was secure.

  Unable to procrastinate any longer, I tossed my dirty clothes into piles of lights and darks and told Deke about my encounter with Indi two years ago after a one-nighter with her roommate.

  “The thing is, I barely even remember the roommate. We hooked up once and that was that. But I did remember the girl who walked in on us as I was getting dressed. There was something about her that caught my eye and she was really funny. I thought about trying to meet up with her again, but it seemed like a dick move after I’d had sex with the roommate. But now, here we are, a couple years later having lunch. What are the chances?”

  Deke snuffled around his food dish, perhaps looking for more spinach.

  “Anyway, against all odds we’re both in my photography class and she’s still pretty hilarious, so I’m doing my best to charm her and everything was going great. We talked about some real personal stuff. But then I had to ruin it all by saying something completely idiotic.”

  Deke’s nose twitched as he continued to look at me unblinkingly. I imagined, if he could talk, he’d sound like Morgan Freeman. Silence is a source of great strength. You should exercise it more often.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. I should talk less and listen more. I should also apologize. Hopefully, she’ll have cooled off by Monday.”

  I ended up with three bags of clean, dry clothes by the time I had to head to the rink for practice. I had to put all thoughts of Indi out of my head and concentrate on hockey. Our first game of the season against UConn was in three short weeks. The freshmen had a lot to learn. The rest of us were still adjusting to the loss of the Graham twins and Josh Gruber.

  Even though there was a part of me that wanted to defy my dad, I was still one of the first ones to show up at the rink and found myself being a little extra cheerful and encouraging to the freshies. I bit my tongue and smiled when some of them complimented me on how great a guy my dad was.

  Then as I was taping my socks, I heard someone’s voice raised. It was Tate Adler. He and Callan Thomas were looking at something on his phone.

  “There, see?” Adler said. “I’m telling you, she died. Look at the way the camera is moving. It’s flying, like she’s a spirit.”

  “Yeah, but when they open the door for her, that floating stuff stops. Replay it.”

  Curious, I ripped the tape, secured it to my sock and went over. “What are you arguing about?”

  “Whether or not Rose dies at the end of Titanic.”

  I suppressed my laughter as I watched the ending scene on Adler’s phone.

  “All the people that are greeting her died at the end, like Jack. You can tell they’re all in heaven because of the white light at the very end.”

  Thomas crossed his arms. “So you’ve watched the movie and confirmed that every single person in that last scene was shown to die when the boat sank.” He said it as a challenge.

  “No,” Adler said, “but I will if I have to. She was a hundred years old in the movie. Of course she died.”

  “She was dreaming, I tell you. Did you ever really listen to the song? The very first line is about her dreaming about him every night.”

  Adler turned to me. “What do you think, Forts?”

  “What do I think? I think that Jack was a fucking pussy. He tried one time to get onto that door. One time. That, my friends, is the definition of a quitter. He didn’t deserve Rose.”

  Both of them stared at me then Adler held out his fist for me to bump.

  “You are absolutely fucking right on that score.”

 
“We should take a vote,” Thomas said. “Raise your hand if you think she was dead.” He counted the hands. “How many think she was dreaming?”

  “It’s a tie,” Thomas said. “Brammy, you didn’t vote.”

  Bramley didn’t even look up from lacing his skate. “I never saw Titanic.”

  Thomas gasped. “What the fuck?”

  “You’ve never seen Titanic?”

  They both gaped at him.

  “Dude,” Adler said, “you’ve got to see it. It’s like mandatory.”

  “Not interested,” Bramley replied.

  “But Kate Winslett is beyond hot in that movie. There’s this really great scene—”

  “The scene where he sketches her!” AJ exclaimed.

  “Yes!”

  Other guys were chiming in now, fast and furious. It seemed that scene was A Moment in a lot of my teammates’ lives.

  “OMFG. So hot.”

  “So fucking hot.”

  “We saw it when it was rereleased in the theaters. My mom tried to cover my eyes!”

  “Mine too.”

  “Guys, tell you what,” I said. “We’ll all watch it at the hockey house next week and Brammy can break the tie. The rookies can make dinner for us. How does hot dogs with all the trimmings sound?”

  Everyone seemed to think that was a great idea, especially when AJ said he’d bring his famous “totchos,” which were nachos made with tater tots instead of tortilla chips.

  But Bramley said, “You guys go ahead, but I’m not watching that lame ass chick flick.”

  He was so adamant that no one said anything after that. Someone turned some music on to fill the awkward silence that followed.

  Pulling my jersey on, I went over to Bramley.

  “Come on, Brammy,” I said in a low voice. “It really is a great movie, especially the last part when the ship is sinking. It’s so realistic. Really makes you feel like you’re there. Don’t let the team down.”

  He sighed. “All right, I’ll go on one condition…that you stop campaigning for the C.”

  “What? What are you talking about? I’m not campaigning.”