Chapter 2
MOZZARELLA STICKS ARE THE ANTIDOTE TO BAD JUJU
Alex
“Why are we going out on a Sunday night again?” I groan as the oversized SUV a few of my teammates and I have piled into slows to a stop at a red light.
The button of my jeans digs into my belly button and I shift uncomfortably in my seat.
Two hours ago, I was having the most perfect night off.
I had a mango and avocado face mask softening my skin, a new season of some “Real Housewives of Backstabbing Bitch County” lined up on my TV, and a stomach full of the best dim sum San Francisco has to offer—hence the jeans digging into my belly button.
I’m a fit guy, but soy sauce bloat is real.
I was going to veg out all night and wake up early and well-rested for morning skate tomorrow.
That is, of course, until three of my teammates Miles, Syd, and Dallas showed up on my doorstep.
“The football team won their game against Philadelphia, and it is our duty as San Francisco athletes to support our brothers in arms! We’re all going out! Put on real pants, Holmes. It's going to be so much fun!”
Well I’m not having fun, and my tummy hurts.
“Because we just came off a stretch of away games—” Miles starts, but I hold up a hand in front of him.
Miles is the team captain of the San Francisco Thunder and has been my buddy ever since we were assigned roommates during our rookie year in the league.
We were traded together when San Francisco was building the league’s newest hockey team.
Miles is probably the guy I’m closest to on the team, but in a “he’s like my pain-in-the-ass older-brother” kind of way.
“Exactly why I want to be relaxing in my own bed, where I don’t have to hear you snoring over the noise of your CPAP through the hotel wall.
Seriously dude, I thought that mask was supposed to stop you from snoring but all it does is keep you alive longer to annoy me.
I can’t figure out why the hell Sarah willingly sleeps in the same bed as you every night. ”
Miles hits me with a knuckle punch to the top of my thigh and I groan, the pain from his pointy fist radiating under my skin.
“Mother fucker…” I mutter under my breath.
“We just came off a stretch of away games where we cleaned up in Nashville and Chicago, and the Redwoods won their home game today. San Francisco sports are on fire, and we need to celebrate it.”
I huff out a breath. Miles has a point. If he didn’t, I would’ve slammed the door in his face when he showed up at my apartment instead of getting dressed to meet the football guys at some club in the Mission District.
It’s the Thunder’s first season in the NHL as a fully formed hockey team, and even though we’re only a few weeks in, we’ve been killing it so far.
It may only be November, but it’s high time we pat ourselves on the back for our winning record.
As the freshman class of the San Francisco Thunder, there is a lot of pressure on our shoulders to prove that we belong, not just in the city, but in the league.
The sports analysts had all but written us off before preseason even began.
“Any team can do well in exhibition. We won’t know what The Thunder is made of until they’re on the ice in a real game,” they said.
“They won’t last two years in San Francisco. Even their football team doesn’t play in the city. There’s a reason the league has avoided the area—it’s all a bunch of baseball and basketball fans,” they said.
“They’ve got a female owner and a female on the coaching staff, and they expect us to take them seriously as a professional hockey franchise? Pathetic,” they said, and that one just straight pissed me off. As if gender has any indication on whether someone is a good business owner or coach.
Also, dudes who refer to women as “females” give me the ick, big time.
Well, fuck them all. We’re a month into the season and we’ve only lost one game. Hell, in eighteen games, I’ve only let five goals past me. I haven’t been on a hot streak like this since college, so there.
Those geriatric, misogynistic sports analysts can suck on my super-goalie nuts.
And besides, we’ll be doing a bunch of charity events with the other San Francisco teams in the next few weeks.
Coach Hannigan and the team owner, Charlotte Gagnon, told us all about it on our flight back from Detroit earlier this week, so it can’t hurt to go out and get to know some of the guys before we’re serving mashed potatoes together at the local soup kitchen or whatever.
The car pulls up to the curb, and the thumping of a bass and flash of strobe lights assault my senses through the tinted black windows.
The guys toss back the rest of their beers—because open-container laws don’t count in limo-SUV-hybrids, I guess—and despite my hesitation, I’m the first one sliding out of the backseat when the driver opens the door.
It’s mid-November, but the air is humid and slightly warm.
Still, I threw on my favorite cream-colored cardigan over my black t-shirt and light wash jeans combo.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned since moving to San Francisco, its that the weather makes no sense and the numbers on the thermometer don’t matter, so always dress in layers.
“God, please tell me you didn’t bring that thing with you,” Syd groans as I adjust the bag on my waist. As if I’d go anywhere without Franny, my neon green fanny pack.
She has everything a man could need held in her nylon depths—chapstick, mints, hand sanitizer, sunscreen—and she’s fashionable as hell.
My girl Franny gets me compliments and smiles everywhere I go.
She has also gotten me laid on more than one occasion, thank you very much.
I’d take her on the ice with me if I thought she’d fit over all of my pads—and if the NHL was woke enough to recognize emotional support accessories.
“I’ll remember all your bitching later when you come around asking to borrow a condom.
Whatever unlucky woman you lure into your web is going to see me pulling a strip of Trojans out of Franny here and beg for me to take her home instead.
” I pat the bag on my hips with a smirk.
I get an eye roll in return, but I know I’ll be the one to have the last laugh.
Women love a man who is prepared, women love goalies, and women fucking love fanny packs. It's lucky for these guys that I have no plans of getting laid tonight, because if I did? They’d have no fucking chance.
The line to get into The Hive Mind looks pretty long for a Sunday night. Have these people never heard of takeout and reality television?
But, line or not, we don’t have to worry about waiting.
A man in all black holds up a hand indicating that our group should follow him.
Whether he recognizes us or one of my buddies called ahead, I don’t know.
When he lifts a velvet rope and ushers us through a heavy metal door, I shoot a sheepish grin to the groaning club-goers still waiting for their chance to get in.
The special treatment one can expect to receive when they become a professional athlete is something I don’t think I will ever get used to.
I feel bad that I get to roll out of a car and head straight into a club that I didn’t even want to be at tonight while all those others have to wait outside.
It’s not fair, but I won’t let it affect me so long as I send some good juju back into the universe.
I’ll take pictures and sign autographs for anyone who approaches me tonight.
Hell, I’ll buy them drinks, too, and I won’t even complain about the smell of stale beer breath in my face when they lean in for selfies.
That should be enough to offset the small karmic injustice.
The man in black leads us through a set of heavy curtains that hide the sleek, modern looking bar and dance space from any passers by that might try to sneak a peek on their nightly walks.
The whole place is back lit with blue uplighting, making the shiny bar top and velvet round booths lining the walls look like something out of a cartoon-robot movie.
People in skimpy dresses and sleek, tailored suits sip colorful cocktails and bubbly champagne out of glass flutes.
I feel a little underdressed in my cardigan and wide leg jeans, but I get enough of wearing suits on game days.
On my days off, I’d rather be comfortable-ish and committing a fashion faux pas than have a tie around my neck.
Some kind of hardstyle-EDM song that doesn’t quite match the too-cool-for-school vibes blasts my ear drums and rattles the walls.
I stick my pinky in my ear, wiggling it around as Man In Black leads us up a set of stairs that spirals around the back side of the center bar.
“Jeez, do you think it’s loud enough in here?” I ask Miles.
“What?” he screams back over his shoulder.
My point exactly. I really should buy those earplugs I’ve been eyeing online…
At the top of the stairs, Man In Black pushes open a glass door, and when we step through the threshold to the VIP section, the music is instantly more subdued.
Still loud, still a little obnoxious, but tolerable.
The football guys are already here, some dancing like idiots to the music and some lounging in the high-back chairs, sipping straight from sweaty liquor bottles.
Tables are littered with discarded glasses and mixers, and I watch as two servers in hoochie-shorts and fishnets make the rounds, cleaning up after the small crowd.
Somehow, this space seems bigger than the entirety of the dance area below us, even if it is packed to the brim with big-bodied professional athletes and the well-endowed women draped across their laps.
The entire room is surrounded by glass walls, giving us a view out to the rest of the club below.
It must be one-way glass, since I know we definitely couldn’t see in when we were downstairs.