Four Letter Feelings (The Jeremy Lewis Series Book 1)

by Lasairiona McMaster

  Four Letter Feelings

  Lasairiona E. McMaster

  Copyright © 2020 Lasairiona E. McMaster

  The moral right of Lasairiona McMaster to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents act of 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Author and without similar conditions including this condition being imposed on any subsequent purchaser. Your support for the Author’s rights is appreciated.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead are purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-913878-00-9

  Cover Design: Pink Ink Designs

  Photo Credit: Bernie McAllister

  For the pirate queen.

  My friend, coach and accountability buddy, Clare, who is 90% inspiration, 90% patience and 100% badass.

  No, it doesn’t really add up to 280% - she multi tasks.

  Chapter 1

  “Do you mind if I sit here?”

  A weary voice disrupted his thoughts. Jeremy slowly pulled his gaze from his phone and gave a quick glance around before settling on the owner of the voice. The game hadn’t started yet, and while Huntsville Alabama wasn’t exactly the hockey capital of the universe, Jeremy was surprised at just how many people had crammed themselves into Buffalo Wild Wings for a Thursday night this early in the sporting season.

  There must be another game on tonight, there’s no way everyone is here for hockey – even if it is the season opener!

  “Sure,” he answered, gesturing a dismissive hand toward the empty seat facing him. “Go ahead.”

  Turning his attention back to Tinder, Jeremy’s stomach grumbled loudly and he wondered just how long he was going to have to wait for his food to appear.

  “Thanks, man.” The stranger sounded grateful as he pulled the stool back and sat down, placing his table number next to Jeremy’s. He let out an exhausted sigh. “It’s the only empty seat in the house; must be a baseball game on or something.”

  “Season finished last week,” Jeremy replied, not lifting his eyes from his screen. “Basketball, probably.”

  “Lil early, no? It’s only the 5th.”

  “Pre-season.”

  “Ah, my bad. Still a big crowd though, maybe I missed a Freshers’ memo,” he mused as he scanned the busy restaurant.

  Jeremy shrugged and hoped that was the end of the polite chit-chat. He was here to eat chicken, wash it down with a few beers while watching the game, and that was it. He’d caught a glimpse of a few beautiful women congregating at the bar, though, and the stirring in his pants reminded him it had been way too long since he got laid.

  Like two weeks too long.

  The unsolicited guest fell silent and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

  Excellent.

  Jeremy’s food arrived just as the anthems finished. The teams were settling in for the opening face-off and he realized that his table buddy was there for the hockey game as well. There were TV screens of varying sizes dotted around and there was a different sport showing on each. The guy sitting across from him had angled his chair so he could better see the large screen Jeremy was settled in to watch too. Jeremy smiled to himself as he wondered whether the stranger, who was also wearing his ball-cap on back to front, was cheering for Jeremy’s beloved Toronto Maple Leafs, or the Buffalo Sabres. As the server placed the baskets of steaming food on the table in front of him, he noted the visitor’s eyebrows rise in surprise, probably at the sheer volume of food Jeremy had ordered.

  “That’s a lot of chicken,” he commented, with a smile and a disbelieving shake of his head before returning his attention to the game which had finally started.

  “I have no shame, man. I’m famished, feel free to help yourself until your food arrives, though,” he offered, with a tilt of his chin toward the table. He found he had to almost shout to be heard over the busy bustle of the sports bar.

  What the fuck? Why would you even offer that? You hate sharing your food at the best of times, never mind with a complete stranger!

  Stunned at his own offer, Jeremy watched as the stranger cocked his head with a knowing smirk and he wondered if his face was betraying his horror at having made such a crazy offer.

  “It’s ok, thanks. I’ll wait.”

  “Nah, for real, go ahead. There’s obviously plenty for both of us,” he insisted, feeling a flush creep up his spine. “I mean it.” He was trying to sound genuine but from the look of uncertainty on the visitor’s face, Jeremy was pretty sure he was quickly regretting having sat next to the weirdo with too much chicken. He momentarily wondered if he was giving off ‘murderous don’t-touch-my-chicken vibes.’

  “AJ,” the stranger smiled and reached his hand across the baskets of food scattered across the table between them.

  Jeremy eyed the outstretched hand with curiosity.

  “Well, I kinda figure if I’m gonna eat another man’s chicken wings, I should probably introduce myself first, y’know?” AJ gave Jeremy a lopsided grin.

  “Oh! Right, yeah. Don’t take another man’s meat if you aren’t on first name terms – that’s a good rule of thumb, or… eh, wing I guess,” he nodded towards the food with an exaggerated wink as he closed his hand around AJ’s and shook. “Jeremy,” he paused. “Jeremy Lewis.”

  “Ah the adventurer has returned!” AJ announced, as he let go of Jeremy’s hand and proceeded to help himself to a chicken wing.

  “Uhm… what?” Jeremy paused; chicken wing in hand.

  “The hockey team met with the coach a couple days ago, he said our golden boy, ‘hotshot’ hadn’t yet returned from a year abroad and would be a little late to the party.”

  As he spoke, Jeremy could have sworn he picked up a slight Canadian lilt to the man’s accent, but considering how bad he was at placing accents, he could as easily have been from Minnesota. He dismissed the thought as a desperate pang of homesickness making him hear things he wanted to hear rather than what was actually said.

  Hot shot, eh? What the hell else did Coach tell you guys in my absence?

  “Ah, yeah. I got back late last night. I figured nothing really happens during the first week of term anyway.”

  “You rebel, you!” AJ barely looked up as he picked up his third wing and started to pull the meat from the bone with his teeth. “Year out, eh? Where’d you go?”

  “Europe,” he answered, curtly.

  And please just let that conversation die right now ʼcause I don’t want to talk about why I took a year out right now, thank you very much.

  When AJ seemed to take the hint and didn’t reply, Jeremy took a bite. “Fuck.” He closed his eyes for a minute and savored the experience. “And damn did I miss chicken wings.”

  “Not just wings, man.” Jeremy opened his eyes in time to see that AJ was very clearly amused at how close Jeremy’s experience with the wings seemed to come to being spiritual. “Bdubs,” he waved a wing in a small flourish as if for effect.

  “Damn straight.”

  He polished off a few more wings as the men watched the game together in contented silence – or rather as silent as anyone could manage while surrounded by newbie college students getting very quickly drunk. The server brought AJ his food and another round of beer for the both of them. The huge and noisy crowd that had overwhelmed the place began to dissipate before either spoke again.

/>   Guess they weren’t here for a game after all, then.

  “So, you’re on the team too, eh?” he gestured at AJ with a half-eaten wing.

  “Yeah.” AJ nodded, as he plowed through the mountain of food on the table between them. “I’m ‘The Muscle’.” He used his barbecue sauce covered fingers to air quote his title and flexed his bicep before throwing an eye roll and turning his attention back to the food.

  “Ah, you don’t seem nearly assholey enough to be, well, an asshole.”

  “Thanks, I think. Though I don’t need to be an asshole, until I need to be an asshole, y’know?”

  Jeremy nodded and glanced at the TV in time to see the Sabres get their second goal of the game so far. He cursed, loudly. The second period had just started and they’d scored in less than a minute.

  AJ chuckled and shook his head. “We have no hope.”

  “Keep the faith, man,” Jeremy insisted.

  AJ looked at him as though he’d lost his mind and shrugged as he ate another wing. Without taking his eyes off the screen, AJ asked, “So, which part of Canada are you from, Jer?”

  “What makes you think I’m not from right here in the beautiful south?” Jeremy added a deliberately thick southern twang to his question while side-eying his new teammate.

  “Dude, c’mon. I spent most of my childhood up north; I know a Canuck when I see one. Bet you’ve even got a flask of maple syrup strapped to your ankle and everything,” AJ joked, pausing from the diminishing pile of chicken wings to take a pull of his beer and sliding back against his chair.

  Ah ha! I was right!

  “West Lorne, Ontario. You?”

  “Born right here in Huntsvegas, but we moved up to Toronto when I was a baby.”

  Jeremy nodded. “What brought you back to the deep south for college?”

  AJ shrugged and tugged at the label on his beer. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. You?”

  “Same.”

  It’s pretty much as far away from home as I could get.

  Home.

  A pang of homesickness struck in his chest, and pushing it down quickly, he turned his attention back to the game. Realizing AJ’s gaze was still on him Jeremy glanced back across the table.

  “What?” he asked, shortly.

  “Nothin’.”

  AJ held his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. “Family trouble.” It was a statement rather than a question, but it still managed to ignite something within Jeremy.

  “What?” Jeremy demanded again, feeling his anger bubbling not too far beneath the surface.

  Jesus, Jer. Calm the fuck down, the guy’s just making polite conversation.

  “Well,” AJ paused, flexing his jaw, clearly reconsidering his decision to bring up the conversation. “Things with my dad were getting tense up north. He was getting on my case about what I was going to do with my life and what he thought I should be doing with my life. I just couldn’t take the pressure anymore; I needed space.”

  “So you said, ‘Fuck you, Dad. I’m moving to the heart of the south and as far away from you as I can get without buying a sombrero and learning another language.’ I getcha.” Jeremy nodded thoughtfully, recalling similar conversations with his own father.

  “Pretty much,” AJ smirked. “He was big mad at first, especially when I told him I was going to do a sports management degree and play hockey. He came pretty close to cutting me off. Mom talked him down, though. In the end he kinda threw his hands up and said ‘learn your own damn mistakes’, which is pretty much all I wanted in the first place.”

  “Except now you’re in Alabama.”

  “Yeah, except that.”

  Jeremy picked up his bottle and raised it. “To the heart of the south.” He grinned. “And epic fucking chicken wings.”

  AJ clinked his bottle and glanced back to the TV, grimacing. “And to loving a team that’s never gonna win shit, but we love them anyway.”

  “Woah, woah, woah, there. Dude.” Jeremy took a gulp of beer and put the bottle on the table with more force than he intended. “The season has barely started; you gotta have faith, playa!”

  Jeremy winced as the Sabres scored their third goal of the game and AJ grinned. “Seems like what we ‘gotta have’, Jer, is a mother fuckin’ miracle.”

  “Touché!”

  Chapter 2

  Jeremy had already been for a run by the time he got to the rink for his first practice of the season. He loved to exercise; it cleared his mind. His mom, Laurel, constantly reminisced that he could skate before he could even walk. She liked to tell him that he was such a lazy toddler and always wanted the world brought right to his feet. His parents were only too happy to comply. Despite easily falling pregnant with his older brother, they struggled for years to have a second child, so, when their little miracle baby, Jeremy, wanted something, he got it – no question. As such, he was behind the curve on almost all ‘The Milestones’, until they stuck a pair of skates on his feet and took him out to the lake near his childhood home when he was about two years old.

  Laurel regaled him with tales of how, from the very moment he stepped onto the ice, she knew he was destined to be a great hockey player. She’d smile when she told him of the tantrums he used to throw when it was time to come inside, or when it was too cold outside to go skating. Winter was his favorite season, he loved when the lake froze over and the hockey schedule started. He was only allowed outside when he’d finished his homework, as they knew he’d skate for hours on end, only stopping when his parents insisted he came inside to eat dinner.

  Since the Leafs’ game at Wings with AJ a couple nights prior, Jeremy had been lost down memory lane and he felt the weight of how he’d left things with his parents more heavily than usual. As he stood outside the rink staring at the door, he noticed an unfamiliar flutter of nervousness and anxiety in the pit of his stomach. Generally speaking, he was a confident man. He knew who he was, he knew his strengths, his weaknesses and he knew what he wanted from life – or at least he thought he did.

  With his parents around to support and reassure him it was easy to be sure of what he wanted. Things had become murkier since he’d fought with his dad about his future. Jeremy had deferred his college acceptance by a year – basically to spite him – and to go galivanting around the world to ‘find himself’. He had a layover in Toronto on his way to Alabama from Germany which was why he was late for the semester starting. He wanted to see his parents, albeit briefly, and to reassure them he was happy with his choice to go to Alabama to pursue his hockey and to do the degree he wanted to. His mother had been ecstatic to see him, and his father, though clearly still disappointed that his son wouldn’t become a high-flying doctor like he was, seemed resigned to his son’s choices. Jeremy knew there was still work to be done to repair their relationships, especially with his father, but he was happy that he’d been able to take the first step. In this moment, however, everything he thought he was completely sure of, everything he’d been sure of for almost his entire life, was suddenly laced with doubt and uncertainty.

  “It doesn’t open by telekinesis.”

  A voice startled him out of his thoughts, and as he spun to face AJ, he accidently caught him with his kitbag and sticks.

  “Oof!” He grabbed his side. “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to startle you, but you actually have to pull the door for it to open, y’know? Staring at it isn’t gonna make it happen.”

  AJ grinned at him, pulled his aviators off his face and tucked them into the neck of his t-shirt. Concern flickered across his face.

  “Hey, Jer, you ok dude? You look pretty green ʼround the gills.”

  “I— uh.” Jeremy paused and took his own shades off before considering his answer.

  Don’t be a pussy, Jer. You gotta man up right now and fight down this anxiety shit. He’ll laugh at you if he knows you’re nervous.

  “Ah.” AJ nodded sympathetically. “Nervous, eh? That’s cool. I nearly pissed my pants when I got here on Monday morning.
I mean, I’m still nervous, but it’s a little easier the second time ʼround.”

  Jeremy looked at him, surprised that he was being so forthcoming with his feelings to someone who was essentially a stranger to him.

  “What?” AJ asked with a puzzled look. “Oh.” He chuckled. “I get it. You expected me to be all butch, and manly and shit, pretending like coming to college for the first time and playing college hockey isn’t at all terrifying? Sorry man, if that’s the case you’ll need to find a new friend. I am all up in my feels. Too much, some would even say, and I’ll be damned if I pretend like being out on my own with the parental safety net across the country isn’t even a little scary. Us men feel shit too, yʼknow?” He grinned again and gave Jeremy a playful shove causing him to release a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

  Laughing nervously, he felt color rising in his cheeks. “Thanks, man.” He fervently willed his embarrassment to leave. “I know I just travelled Europe for a year by myself, but… yeah, I’m nervous. I don’t like saying it out loud, you know what it’s like…” His voice trailed off and he wasn’t even sure how to finish his own sentence.

  “All that toxic masculinity shit? Yeah. How us men are supposed to think, feel and act? I know all about that shit, it almost landed me in a mental hospital. My shrink tells me it’s all bullshit and I need to give zero fucks about how society says I should live my life. Felt kinda freeing when I stopped caring about what everyone else thought and focused more on what I thought.”

  Jeremy wasn’t sure if his jaw physically dropped open or not, but he was definitely stunned by this man’s open admission to having a shrink.

  I don’t even know this dude’s last name and I know he has a shrink. We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

  AJ chuckled again. “Yeah, I’m a compulsive over-sharer too. It’s weird, right? I know it’s weird. But hey, if anyone gives you shit for being nervous tell ʼem to come see me and I’ll put ʼem straight; I am the muscle after all, remember?” He threw Jeremy an exaggerated wink and Jeremy couldn’t help but smile. He was already feeling better at having met what was turning out to be a non-conforming teammate who really didn’t fall under the category of ‘typical jock’. It was refreshing. Even when he played rec league hockey on his travels in Europe, he’d felt a somewhat toxic atmosphere both in the locker room and on the ice. He’d never really subscribed to the stereotype that men couldn’t feel, but he was always careful about who he showed that particular ‘side’ to.