Chapter Two September #4
“Well,” Max said with a shrug, “then it sounds like you need to get laid to get your mind off of the cute hockey boy.”
“Jensie from hockey,” Jenna corrected.
“Ew. Please don’t talk about sex, Max,” Nick begged. “I’m still not over you being the one who gave me The Talk when I was a kid. It weirds me out.”
“Promise me you’ll try to get laid or go out on a date or something, and I’ll stop.”
“I promise,” Nick said quickly.
“Fuck, I promise for him,” Terry threw in. “No sex talk with family.”
“You’re all prudes,” Jenna said and finished her beer. “Let’s get another round and call it a night, boys.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
*
Nick put a pin in his cousin’s suggestions.
It wasn’t a bad idea to have a casual hookup to de-stress and get his mind off Brady, but doing so didn’t particularly interest him at the moment.
All the best places for hooking up were in DC, and by the time he left work, he didn’t have the energy to head to Adam’s Morgan or Dupont Circle, and weekends were no better.
Terry (3:16 p.m.)
You have energy for hockey
I could be your wingman!!!
Nick (3:18 p.m.)
hockey is fun
pretending i want to pound back beers with college kids is NOT fun
also you are a terrible wingman all you do is get drunk and try to sit in my lap
Terry (3:20 p.m.)
That was ONE time and it was to DEMONSTRATE that your lap is comfortable
Nick (3:28 p.m.)
you’re an idiot
He closed his messages, ignoring Terry and Jenna poking at him to get out of bed on a miserably rainy Thursday night. Yes, odds were good he could get a hookup, but the odds were equally good the person would still be in college and barely old enough to drink.
Nick could drink at home, on his couch, under a blanket, like a normal person.
“God, I am so damn old right now.”
Bored, he opened up Facebook to mindlessly scroll through his feed…
and realized he didn’t just feel old, he was acting it, too.
He didn’t know when Facebook had been relegated to something “old people” used, but it was definitely around when his parents had joined, along with his aunts, uncles, and most notably, his grandma.
Confirmed: Facebook was for Adults (tm), not just kids in college playing at being adults.
Sure enough, one of the first things that popped up was a picture of Benns, Captain of the Jagr Bombs during late weekday nights but otherwise known as Curtis Bennet, husband and father of two young twin girls.
The picture was slightly blurry, tilted to one side, and captured the girls swinging at a pinata. How very Dad of him.
Nick “liked” it and kept scrolling.
Almost immediately, he got a PM from Benns.
Curtis Bennet: Hey glad I could catch you! Would you be interested if I created a group chat for the team?
Nick blinked. He’d gotten the friend request from Benns right after he’d joined the Jagr Bombs and then done nothing with it. It hadn’t occurred to him that maybe Benns would be friends with other members of the team, and therefore he could friend them, too.
It took a monumental effort not to leave Benns hanging and start going through his friends list.
Nick J. Porter: yeah that’s fine
Polite acceptance taken care of, he started scrolling through Benns’s profile.
Gregg Cox. Add Friend.
Ed Hughes. Add Friend.
Gail King. Add Friend.
Donnie Owen. Add Friend.
Alex Warner. Add Friend.
Guy Prince. Add Friend.
Marc Garcia. Add Friend.
Gregory Smegory. Weird choice, but Add Friend.
He’d gotten nearly to the end of the list and still hadn’t seen him. Maybe Brady was just not on Facebook. Lots of people weren’t, it wouldn’t be that weird—
He almost scrolled past him because the picture showed a teenage kid, but he doubled back when he registered it was a teenage kid in hockey gear, and then instantly slammed the “Add Friend” button when he read the name “Brady Derek Jensen.”
If he were going to lie to himself and say he wasn’t interested in Brady in particular, he was adding the whole team, he would have kept looking for the rest of them.
Right now, he wanted instant gratification. He could make up a lie to soothe himself later.
There wasn’t a whole lot to see on Brady’s profile, possibly because of the pending friendship request, possibly because Brady didn’t seem like the type to post much.
There were a couple pictures (notably ones he was tagged in, not ones he’d posted himself), a map showing a road trip he must have taken over the summer, and a picture of a beer cross-posted from Untapped a good four years ago.
Despite his higher brain functions warning him not to, he clicked on the profile picture.
There he was: teenage Brady Jensen in full hockey gear taking a knee on the ice.
He was wearing a blindingly bright purple jersey, the team name obscured by the huge gold medal he was wearing.
He wasn’t smiling—that would’ve been too uncharacteristic—but he definitely looked pleased with himself.
He couldn’t have been more than fourteen, and he was friggin’ adorable.
It explained why he was so damned good at hockey, too. Nick had assumed Brady had been skating a while, and now he had proof in the form of Young Brady, winning MVP at some tournament a dozen or so years ago and yeah, Nick was a goner.
He was a total fucking goner.
Almost instantly he got notifications from teammates accepting his friend requests. Painfully (but unsurprisingly), he didn’t get one from Brady.
He did get an invitation for a group chat that included Brady, so that was something.
Curtis Bennet: Thanks to everyone for joining the chat! I thought this would be an easy way for us to keep in touch while we’re in the off season and to keep track of who’s in/out for games next season.
Curtis Bennet: I also was hoping we could take this as an opportunity to talk strategy and improve as a team.
You all know that I appreciate the skills you bring to the table and that we have had success the past few seasons, and I don’t know about you guys, but I’d like to bring home the Wheaton Cup one of these days.
Nick J. Porter: what’s the wheaton cup (unless it’s exactly what it sounds like)
Gail King: It is absofuckinglutely exactly what it sounds like
Gail King: Except instead of being 35 lbs of solid metal glory it’s a giant coffee mug that’s got a million chips in it because every team that wins it gets blackout drunk and puts a new dent in it
Nick J. Porter: for real???
Gail King: [wheaton_cup.jpg]
[Image Description: Photo of a hockey team on the ice, huddled together in front of the benches.
The goalie sits front and center; he holds a large coffee cup that he could probably turn over and fit on his head.
Handwritten letters on the side of the cup read “THE WHEATON CUP” in black marker. The cup is chipped and dirty.]
Gregory Smegory: [notworthy.gif]
[Image Description: A gif of two men bowing profusely with text that reads “We’re not worthy.”]
Gregg Cox: Yeah we’re not worthy that’s the whole point
Gregg Cox: What’s the plan Benns?
Curtis Bennet: I’d like to focus on improving a different skill each week as a team. Things like the breakout, so we can make improvements in team play. The individual abilities are there, we just need to come together and get the Ws.
Alex Warner: I don’t get it did you read a book on coaching or something??
Curtis Bennet: It’s actually a book on leadership, but there is a section on coaching as well as on how to lead a sports team by example. There are a lot of valid tips there that I think could really help us take our play to the next level.
Brady Derek Jensen: why the fuck does my phone keep vibrating what the fuck are you talking about
Nick J. Porter: hockey
Gregory Smegory: Winning
Alex Warner: Breakouts apparently
Gail King: Coffee
Brady Derek Jensen: great there a way to mute this or?
Curtis Bennet: There is a way to mute the conversation so that you will not receive a notification for each new message, but please be sure to check in periodically before games to let me know if you’re in/out.
Brady Derek Jensen: cool
Curtis Bennet: I’ll send out some links to videos and articles that I think do an excellent job of explaining how to run a good breakout. They talk about how both the forwards and defensemen can contribute and support the puck carrier. Guy, you just do your thing in net :)
Guy Prince: Bien s?r. Best part of being goalie is the strategy is very straightforward :)
Brady Derek Jensen: wtf does J stand for?
Curtis Bennet: I’m sorry, Brady, I don’t understand your question.
Brady Derek Jensen: sorry wrong window
Nick got three alerts at once: a few notifications from the group chat, Brady accepting his friend request, and then a new chat message from Brady via Facebook.
Brady Derek Jensen: wtf does J stand for?
Nick J. Porter: Jakob
Nick J. Porter: you know how much shit i get for having my middle initial in my facebook name and here you are parading around with your full fucking middle name
Brady Derek Jensen: it asks for your name that’s my name
Nick J. Porter: you are such an old man
Nick J. Porter: i assume you’re messaging everyone else on the team to demand what their middle names are
Brady Derek Jensen: no i’m trying to figure out how to mute that chat
Nick J. Porter: jfc you really are an old man
Brady Derek Jensen: ??
Brady Derek Jensen: you coming to stick and puck this weekend?
Nick J. Porter: ??
Brady Derek Jensen: ??