“Deal,” Law says. I’m afraid he’ll want to shake on it, so I quickly busy myself with rummaging through the locker to seem busy. No way will I be able to shake hands with a very naked Law—who by the way, doesn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that he has no clothes on—without giving him a hint of how his nakedness is affecting me. Because yes, I’m sporting a major boner.
“For the record, I would have been fine with four days,” I say, just to get the last word and distract myself.
Law laughs as he walks past me, and I can totally see his bare ass. His magnificent, fantastic bare ass that flexes as he walks and is all sorts of muscled and firm. He turns his head and glances at me over his shoulder. I quickly lift my eyes, but I’m sure he’s noticed me looking. He has a satisfied smirk on his face as he says, “I would have been happy with two.”
Awesome.
That same afternoon, I get a call from my new stylist, Tricia. She sounds like the epitome of no-nonsense. In five minutes, she’s proposed for us to meet this evening in a coffee shop near campus. She has that whole take-charge attitude down pat, which is good because on my own, I’d probably procrastinate the hell out of this makeover and get to it by the time Falcon has proposed to somebody who looks like a GQ cover model.
The thought propels me to say yes, which is how I find myself in The Jumping Bean at six o’clock in the evening, sitting opposite a thirty-something blonde with a pixie cut, who has been silently studying me for the last ten minutes. If this was a blind date, I’d be sweating bullets, trying to figure out why she’s staring at me like that. But since it’s not a date and she has literally shushed me and told me to let her work, I’m almost stoic about the process.
This is what you wanted, I remind myself every time the staring becomes unnerving, and strangely enough, it helps.
“What are you looking to accomplish?” she asks as she keeps looking at me.
“Well, I guess I want to look more presentable,” I say. I knew this was coming, so I’ve been practicing my answer, and I sound relatively sure of myself, which is always a plus. I’ve opted out of telling this stranger about Falcon. I don’t need another lecture about how I should be who I am and stay true to myself, so I roll out the more socially acceptable reason. “I’m graduating next year, so I’ll need to ditch the sweats and look like a grown-up.” She says nothing at that. “Maybe do something with the hair?” I say, and once again, I sound hesitant, instead of confident.
“You do have a lot of hair,” she finally says.
“Yes?” Where is she going with this, and will I like it?
“What products do you use?”
“Umm… shampoo?”
“Conditioner?” she asks.
“No?”
“I figured. Here’s the plan. Drop the shampoo and use only conditioner for now. You look like somebody electrocuted Einstein, so you’ve got to get some moisture into that mess.” She waves at my hair. “I’ve made you an appointment with my hairstylist for Saturday. She’ll tell you what products to use. She’s going to chop off a couple of inches of your hair, but it’ll still be on the longer side, since Law tells me that under no circumstance am I allowed to shave your head.”
I gape at her. Law doesn’t want her to cut my hair? I don’t know how to feel about it. On the one hand I want to be all, Roar, I’m my own person, and shave my head out of spite, but on the other hand—and that’s the dominant part—I get a warm feeling in my belly. He likes my hair! What does it mean?
Meanwhile, Tricia has continued talking, so I quickly concentrate back on her and make a face to show that I’ve been listening the whole time. “The stylist’s also going to show you how to style your hair step by step, because right now, it’s a mess.”
There’s obviously not going to be any sugarcoating, but oddly enough, it relaxes me. I almost feel like a canvas, and that’s fine with me. I need an artist to paint a nice picture on me, because all evidence points to the fact that, if left to my own devices, the result will look like a preschooler’s finger-painting.
“I also need to see your wardrobe.”
“Why?”
“To separate the wheat from the chaff. I’ve got to see what I’m working with here. Usually, when I’m working with a new client, we make two piles: keep and toss. That way we can figure out what additional items to buy.”
I wince at the thought of buying clothes because I hate shopping, and I can already imagine the price tag I’ll be looking at, shopping with somebody as stylish as Tricia. No way did her clothes come from Amazon with the offer of buy two, get the third T-shirt for free.
Tricia notices my reaction, so she smiles for the first time since we said our hellos and pats my hand. “Don’t worry. Most people don’t realize that you don’t need to buy a whole new wardrobe. We need some key elements, and I’ll show you how to mix and match them. Also, you’re in luck. I love shopping, and I adore thrift stores, so stop looking so worried. It’ll be great.”
She sounds very optimistic about the whole endeavor, and I’m reluctant to bring her down to Earth with my pessimistic outlook, so I just take a deep breath and give her a hesitant smile. “Sounds good. Let’s do this.”
“That’s the attitude. Come on. We’ll do the wardrobe now, so we’ll have a general idea of what we’re up against.”
She gets up, drops some money on the table, and we’re out of there. I’m tentatively hopeful, which turns out to be a mistake, because an hour later, Tricia has declared most of my clothes useless.
“How do you not have a single suit?” she asks as she picks up a green dress shirt. “And the only dress shirt you have looks like a Granny Smith apple vomited it out.” She continues looking through the tiny keep pile, still picking out things to toss from there. “You don’t have khakis, but you have overalls. How is that logical human behavior? Help me out here, Andy.” I don’t have an answer for her. “You have one pair of jeans. One! Are you even American? Jeans are our uniform. I have nine pairs, and I hate jeans.”
“Sorry?” I offer.
“This is worse than I thought,” she mutters.
In the end, most of the things Tricia picks out are the ones my sisters have forced me to buy. If nothing else comes from this venture, at least they’ll know their taste has earned a seal of approval from an actual stylist. I should have Tricia write them a certificate since I won’t be able to afford actual birthday presents once I’ve used all my money on new, acceptable clothes.
It’s what you wanted, I remind myself. And I do. I really do, but the prospect of change is still scary. It’ll probably get easier after I’ve taken the first steps, though. I hope.
I must look pretty defeated because Tricia pats me awkwardly on the back. Two quick, consecutive taps. No one could accuse her of not being efficient. “There, there. Now cheer up,” she says. It’s not exactly a warm, motherly hug, but I guess even a drop of water is something when you’re parched. “The hard part’s done, so now the fun begins. You and I have a date in the near future. Spoiler alert, we’ll go shopping.”
I give her a weak smile. Somehow I don’t think she and I have the same definition of fun, but I’ve come this far, so I’m not giving up now. New Andy, here I come.
8
Law
It’s been two weeks since Andy started teaching me how to tutor the team. We’ve arranged all our sessions so that Andy comes to my place the evening before the actual tutoring, so I’ll remember all the information when I step in front of the guys and try my best to duplicate Andy’s lesson from the night before.
The first tutoring session was… okayish. Everybody seemed to get what I was saying. Andy had put together a little quiz of his own for them to take at the end of the tutoring session, and they all passed, so I counted it as a success.
Since then, though, things have gone progressively worse. I mean, Andy does his part, and he’s going way overboard with all the extras he adds, like the quizzes and notecards. But the thing is, even if I par
rot everything Andy tells me beforehand to the guys the next evening, I don’t know the answers to all the questions they have for me, and boy, do they have questions.
With the previous tutors the guys just sat there, looking bored and uninterested. They gave mumbled answers and there were never questions, except that one time Jared wanted to know what time it was because he had a date.
It turns out Andy’s lessons are so good that people actually understand what he’s talking about. Instead of reciting the material from the book, Andy ties every single topic to real life, which makes the otherwise difficult concepts easier to grasp.
The problem is, I’m still an unskilled teacher, so I say the wrong things and I doubt myself, and it shows. And that leads to the team having even more questions, and when I stumble my way through them—because Andy has anticipated a lot of those beforehand and made notes on what to say—it’s time for the dreaded follow-up questions, and that usually means I’m in deep shit because fuck if I know if the final total momentum when two objects collide equals the initial total momentum.
Some of my old teammates all have gotten into the habit of sitting through tutoring because they know I’m getting in way over my head, so they pitch in and try to play teacher with me. Or maybe they’re just in it for the laughs. I feel like I’m an incompetent dad who’s trying to fumble his way through his kids’ seventh grade math assignments.
Tonight has been especially brutal. The lesson is about vectors, and even though Andy explained it to me yesterday, I could tell that today was going to be difficult because my knowledge of vectors is more than shaky. I understand it on an abstract level but passing my knowledge on to somebody else is a big, fat no. I learnt Andy’s lecture by heart and delivered it, but that didn’t stop the barrage of questions. And dear mother of dragons did they have questions.
At the end of the night, I’m feeling like the dumbest motherfucker on planet Earth because, as is becoming our new habit, I’ve done subpar work with the tutoring.
Mark, our center, flops face first on the couch as the front door shuts, and mumbles something into the pillow. Jordan just stares straight ahead like he’s reliving a nightmare he can’t wake up from. I can’t blame him; he’s an excellent goalie, but kind of hopeless when it comes to physics.
The three of us used to share a house my junior year, and we were good friends, but ever since I accepted the position of assistant coach, there’s been this tension between the three of us. My new position doesn’t really allow me to go out and drink with the team any longer, and there’s an awkwardness between us that didn’t used to be there. Still, at least there’s a bit of camaraderie left between us. My other teammates have taken the stance that, since I’m now part of the coaching staff, we can’t be friends any longer. I guess it was to be expected, but it still bums me out from time to time.
“Is it me, or are we getting dumber every day?” Mark lifts his head from the pillow and frowns.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, man,” Jordan says. “You’ve always been like this.”
Mark flips him off. “At least I have my looks going for me.”
“Way to be an optimist. And you’re right, there has always been a certain demographic who prefers to go for the dumb, pretty ones, so you’ll be fine.”
We sit quietly for a while until Mark sighs. “What the hell is the point of this?” He looks at me. “No offense, man, but you’re not equipped to deal with this shit. None of us are. I mean, fuck, I barely passed Freshman Physics myself, and that was pre-Shaw.”
Jordan bites his lower lip and grunts in affirmation.
“Besides, it’s not like it’s even our fucking problem,” Mark continues and yawns. “It’s not like we’re failing. I say, let them figure it out themselves. They fail, they fail. Case closed.”
“Well,” I point out. “They fail, and more than half of them can’t play because their GPAs will be too low.”
It’s not the first time we’ve had this conversation. Mark’s a good guy, but he had a rough childhood, living in the foster care system. He had some shitty temporary placements in less-than-ideal foster families, so there’s a firm every-man-for-himself attitude planted in him he still struggles to shake most of the time. He’s getting better, though. When he joined the team, he used to hog the puck like he was the only person capable of scoring a goal.
“Maybe it’ll be the kick in the ass they need to get their shit together.” Mark shrugs.
“Maybe. Or, and bear with me here, maybe we’re a team, and we have each other’s backs.”
Mark just rolls his eyes at that. “You have the worst hero complex.”
I bristle at that. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that about myself, and I fucking hate it. I’m a decent person who likes to pitch in when I can. What’s so wrong with that? It’s not like I actively try to find people in trouble and force them to accept my help. “It’s not a hero complex. I just give a shit. What’s your solution when we don’t have enough decent players on the roster because half of them are stuck behind a failing grade in physics?”
“All I’m saying is maybe we should stop coddling them, and they’ll man up and pass the class,” Mark replies.
I groan in frustration. “We tried that already.”
“All I remember is you pulling some strings and schmoozing your way into the dean’s office where you convinced him to force Shaw to let them retake the class this summer, which is probably why he got so pissed off in the first place. He’ll probably fail all the hockey players on purpose from now on.”
“Over seventy percent of the class failed,” I say calmly. “I just pointed it out to the dean. He merely agreed that it might not be solely the students’ faults. I didn’t ask him to demand Shaw repeat the class. That was his prerogative.”
“You meddled,” Mark states flatly.
“Fuck you,” I snap. “I did what was necessary, and I got results. And can I just point out that nobody asked you to be here. If you don’t want to help, you’re free to go.”
“Mom, Dad, stop fighting,” Jordan’s bored voice drawls from the other side of the room. He turns toward me. “Law, you fucking meddled. Own it.” Next, he faces Mark. “And you can stop whining. Wrong or right, if Law wasn’t prepared to go through fire and water for this team, we’d be fucked and you know it.”
We both glare at Jordan, but he’s right and we both know it.
“Yeah, all right,” Mark finally sighs. “Sorry, man. It’s just fucking frustrating. Are you sure this Andy guy wouldn’t be willing to come teach himself? We could probably pay him more, right?”
If only it was that simple. Andy has refused to take my money, saying that I’m already helping him with Falcon, so it would be unfair for me to pay him.
“It’s not the money,” I say. “He has a legitimate phobia. You should have seen his face when I told him he needed to tutor seven people. He went pale so fast I thought somebody had removed all the blood from his body.”
“Still sounds like a made-up excuse,” Mark grumbles.
I push his shoulder. “Way to be an insensitive ass. Besides, it’s not like we can force him to tutor the guys. If he says he can’t do it, he can’t do it and that’s that.”
“What if…” Jordan purses his lips and frowns like he’s trying to catch a fleeting thought. He stays silent for so long that Mark gets impatient.
“What if what?” he snaps. “Dude, just spit it out.”
Jordan glares at Mark. “It’s just a thought, but what if Andy comes to the tutoring sessions? Not to teach, but to sit in the back row and listen, and then he can, like, write down the answers to all the questions and we’ll read them out loud or something.”
I rub my forehead. It’s an idea. Maybe not a great one, and fuck knows if Andy would even be willing to do it, but let’s face it, we’re all in too deep in this ridiculous plan, so we might as well see it to the end.
I sigh. “I guess I’ll talk to him.”
As expected
, Andy isn’t thrilled with the idea, but he agrees to try it after I’ve sent him about thirty different text messages. I tried asking him on the phone, but he hung up on me, so I’ve been shooting him text after text, trying to make my case.
I’m practically begging by the time he replies, Fine. I’ll do it. Now stop harassing me.
He might be a wee bit frustrated with me. Doesn’t matter. As unethical as it might be, the ends justify the means, so even though I feel conflicted about forcing Andy further and further away from his comfort zone, I’ll do it because I’m a selfish asshole.
On Monday we have our next session. I haven’t seen Andy since Friday morning when we went to gym. When a knock sounds on my door, I’m already expecting it and hurry through the apartment much more quickly than could be considered cool.
I throw open the door and freeze.
The guy standing in front of me is… well, it’s clearly Andy, but he doesn’t look like the Andy I know. It takes me a second to put my finger on it.
His hair.
Somebody has tamed it.
When before, it flew all over his head in crazy waves and strands, now there are neat curls. It’s still longish, but the wild lion’s mane that used to be Andy’s hair is now restrained.
He looks good. Definitely. His gray eyes stand out even more now that you can actually see them. So yeah, he looks good. Absolutely. I have no idea why I feel a pang of longing for Andy’s old hair. It’s dumb.
Something else registers right at that moment and I do a double take. His eyes.
“Where are your glasses?” I blurt out.
“Contacts. Not sure about those yet. It took me two hours to get them in. I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble.”
I just stare.
Andy, for his part, looks uncomfortable. He’s fidgety and sort of nervous as he plays with the strap of his bag. Almost like he’s waiting for my opinion.
“You look different,” I say because I have to say something. I can’t just keep standing here, staring at him. The initial shock has passed, but I find it hard to shake this change off and act like a normal person.
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