Chapter 7
Jacob
Being spanked by Tane was something that Jacob hadn’t seen coming – other than in his fantasies.
And while the spanking hadn’t ended in the same way it did in his late night dreams, Jacob still walked away from it with a smile on his face.
Oh, and a sore butt too. But Jacob could handle a red butt if it meant that Tane would be slightly more chill in future.
And it wasn’t as if a part of Jacob didn’t agree that he probably had gone a little bit overboard in trying to establish his role in the hierarchy of players.
Jacob felt conscious that he was a new, young player on a large salary and in his mind the best way of dealing with this was to be as confident as possible.
Maybe Jacob had gone too far.
But now that the spanking was out of the way, Jacob felt like he might be able to settle down a bit and concentrate on what mattered most – scoring and assisting goals on the ice.
However, that didn’t mean that the good times off the ice had to stop…
“Okay, let’s jump in after three,” Jacob laughed, standing at the side of the pool with Ricki next to him. “Three.. two…”
Jacob had spoken to the building management at his apartment building and hired out the rooftop pool for the morning. It would be just Jacob and Ricki in the heated pool – oh, and just about every kind of inflatable animal you could imagine too!
“Three… two… one!” Ricki giggled, holding hands with Jacob as the pair of them jumped in together.
Jacob was wearing a pair of blue and pink octopus pattered MeUndies swimming briefs, perfectly complementing Ricki’s pink flamenco pair. It might have been fall, but with the water temperature set to warm, it was a perfect play date setting for the two buddies to have some serious fun.
“Underwater breath holding contest?” Ricki giggled, paddling over toward the collection of multi-colored inflatable ducks and submerging himself under the water
“Hell yeah!” Jacob replied, a big smile on his face as he followed suit and splashed his way over to the ducks too. “Loser buys the coffees later!”
The two pals laughed as they came up for air and began to play with the ducks, zooming them across the pool one at a time and racing them with the kind of wild abandon that was all part and parcel of their friendship.
“Watch out!” Jacob hollered, picking up a dolphin and diving him back down into the water. “This dolphin is on the rampage right about now.”
Ricki squealed with delight as he moved some more ducks in and around the dolphins, navigating a safe passage through the playful and boisterous dolphin pod.
“This is fun,” Ricki said, swimming down to the shallow end with his family of ducks. “It’s so awesome you hired the pool.”
“I guess that’s a perk of the job,” Jacob said. “It’s like whatever I ask for here, they just let me do it. I’ve heard some rumors about the Cardini family, but they seem pretty cool to me.”
Jacob could see a look of concern come over Ricki’s face.
“Did I say something wrong?” Jacob said, paddling over toward Ricki.
“No, not at all,” Ricki replied, his eyes looking from side to side as if to check that no one was listening to him. “We don’t really talk about the Cardini family. It’s just best to not think about them too much.”
“Why?” Jacob replied. “You don’t really think they’re… you know…M-”
“Don’t say it!” Ricki spluttered. “I don’t know if they are or aren’t. But all of us physios say the best way of dealing with it is to say nothing and do our jobs the best we can.”
“What about Antonio Cardini though?” Jacob said, not willing to give up talking about the subject just yet. “I see him around all the time. He can’t be a mobster if he’s just looking after the Enforcers day to day.”
“I don’t know about that,” Ricki said. “We shouldn’t be talking about this.”
Jacob could see that Ricki really didn’t want to get into any deeper waters about the Cardini family. And with the pair of them having such a fun time in the pool, Jacob could understand that too.
“Come on, lets” swim our duck families back home for their bedtime stories and snuggles,” Jacob laughed. “Last one home gets a spanking!”
Ricki burst out into laughter and the pair of them splashed, dodged, and dived their way back through the giant dolphin kingdom and back to the valley of the multi-colored ducks.
Once the pair of them were safely back on the other side of the pool, Jacob decided that it was time to share with Ricki what had gone down between him and Tane Rivers.
“Wow, that sounds… hot,” Ricki said, treading water in the deep end of the pool. “It’s sounds painful, but definitely hot.”
“It really was both,” Jacob replied, blushing at the memory of Tane eyeing him up as he stood with his briefs down around his ankles waiting for the spanking.
“Do you think he might be boyfriend material for you?” Ricki said. “I know that relationships between teammates aren’t exactly encouraged, but…”
Jacob wasn’t sure how to respond to Ricki’s question. Ever since the spanking, Jacob’s mind had been full of thoughts about whether him and Tane could be a thing.
On the one hand, it was very easy to imagine how it might work. The pair of them clearly felt an attraction to one another, and the spanking did feel right – and afterward Jacob genuinely felt glad to have received it too.
But like Ricki said, the prospect of being in a relationship with a teammate was full of potential problems…
“I don’t know,” Jacob said. “I still don’t know whether Tane was spanking me for being too much trouble for the team, or whether he was seeing it as a potential couple situation. Or both?”
“It could be both, you’re right about that,” Ricki said, ducking his head underwater briefly before popping back up. “But you should try and speak to him about it, you really don’t want any mixed signals.”
“True,” Jacob said, his mind already wondering exactly how he would handle the situation next time he saw Tane. “Either way though, I might just need to keep my sass going just enough to get another ass warming from him!”
With that, the two friends burst out into excited laughter once more.
This had been a great idea. Jacob was feeling better than he had in quite some time. First the spanking, and now a super-fun hangout with his friend. Things were looking up for Jacob across the board, and that could only mean his performance on the ice would benefit too…
* * *
“Good hustle, Jacob,” Coach Tremaine barked, visibly impressed as Jacob worked hard in one of the final drills of the day’s training session. “Keep working. I want to see you take it all the way home.”
Jacob felt a sense of pride that the coach had picked up on his increased work rate during training. Jacob had never especially enjoyed the training drills, fitness tests, and more banal aspects of being a hockey player.
For Jacob, the thing that got him hot was playing the game – but with Tane’s words about improving his attitude still ringing in his ears, Jacob was determined to give it his best shot.
And to Jacob’s delight, Tane noticed his increased effort too…
“I like it, Jacob,” Tane said, skating over and stopping just in front of Jacob as he sucked down an electrolyte drink between drills. “Keep this up and even Connor might warm to you.”
“I heard that!” Connor barked. “But, yeah, good work today kid. Just make sure you keep it up.”
“See?” Tane laughed, patting Jacob on the shoulder and skating back to his small group who were on shooting practice.
But just as he was about halfway toward his teammates, Tane stopped and turned to face Jacob again.
“Coffee after practice?” Tane said, a warm smile on his face. “I can run over some thoughts ahead of the next game. How about it?”
Jacob felt his heart skip a beat.
Is Tane asking me out on a date?
Or does he actually want to talk tactics outside of practice?
Hey, a milkshake is a milkshake though…
Jacob smiled and gave a thumbs up in return to Tane. The prospect of hanging out with Tane outside of official Enforcers time was exciting. Jacob didn’t know for sure how Tane saw the situation, but for Jacob it felt good.
As Jacob watched Tane bark orders at some of the other players, Jacob realized that despite coming over as having a stick up his butt when they first met, Tane was coming from a good place – even if it took a spanking to break the ice between them.
With the prospect of a hangout with Tane for coffee to come, Jacob refocused his energies on the final training drills and was determined to go even harder and give it everything he had until Coach Tremaine called him.
And Jacob wasn’t just going to see to it that he gave it his all, he was going to encourage his fellow players too.
“Yo let’s go guys,” Jacob said, hustling his team mates along. “The more we put in today, the greater the reward on match day.”
Jacob’s teammates all responded well to his rallying call, and the intensity and focus in the final drill was on point. Jacob even noticed that Tane, Connor, and Alex broke away from their warm down to check out the action.
Jacob knew that fully winning over the senior players wasn’t going to happen in one training session. But any progress was good, and Jacob was determined to keep it up and reap the rewards.
Suddenly, Chas was beginning to realize that training didn’t have to be quite so much of a drag as he’d always imagined to be. That said, the sooner he was sinking a coffee the better…
* * *
Fresh from his shower and a quick drive from Pine Rise into the city, Jacob stepped along the street toward the coffee spot.
Ever since moving to Toronto, Jacob had been totally in love with the vast array of coffee spots in the city. He might have loved nighttime partying and getting wild, but that didn’t mean that his growing love of coffee was any less important to him. Far from it, in fact.
Jacob stepped through the glass and metal striped door and took a moment to take in the sights and sounds that made Roast Days such a wonderful place.
With the elegant décor and perfectly retro furnishings, there was something super-comforting and safe about Roast Days.
In a sense, it reminded Jacob of childhood – albeit now he was old enough to order whatever he wanted on the menu and not have to worry if he wanted to order a second coffee or even go all out crazy and get a coffee milkshake.
But Jacob’s daydreams were soon interrupted…
“Hey, Jacob, good to see you,” Harry said, jumping over the counter to give Jacob a warm embrace. “Great game last week by the way. Me and
Silas were watching on the TV at home, but We’ll come to the stadium for the next game for sure.”
“Hey, I’ll fix you up with some free tickets,” Jacob said, smiling as Harry’s wild mop of blonde and blue hair bounced all over the place like a shaggy dog’s furry coat.
“Well that sounds like a great offer,” Silas said, his burly frame emerging from the kitchen area. “And in return, how about a free milkshake or two?”
Silas was Harry’s man and together the pair of them were a great combination. They were always full of laughter, jokes, and of course the most delightful coffee and milkshakes in the whole city.
“Let me think about it… yes please!” Jacob laughed, pointing up to the menu on the wall and selecting his favorite coffee fudge milkshake. “And for Tane I think I’ll choose…”
“Hey, boy, no one chooses my drink except for me,” Tane said, entering Roast Days and immediately making his presence felt. “But I might make an exception just this once.”
“Good to see you Tane,” Silas said, leaning over the counter and shaking hands with Tane. “I’m thinking the Enforcers are all set with you two combining on the ice now you’re back from injury.”
“We’ll see, I just need to keep this young man under control,” Tane chuckled. “But don’t bet against us going all the way.”
Jacob blushed and rapidly scanned his eyes across all of the options.
Figuring that Tane wouldn’t want anything too sweet or overloaded with colorful extras, Jacob decided to go for the Oreo Extravaganza milkshake with a triple shot of espresso for good measure.
“Good choice,” Tane said. “You’re growing on me, Jacob. Come on, let’s take a seat.”
With that, Jacob walked alongside Tane over toward the table next to the window. Jacob still didn’t know exactly how to define what was going on between him and Tane, but whatever it was, it felt good.
And with two super-caffeinated milkshakes due to arrive soon, Jacob was full of confidence that this could be an afternoon to remember.