Chapter 10 ’Wiener Boy’ Doesn’t Hit The Same #2
The whole thing is unbearably cute. I don’t think there is a kid out on that ice who is older than ten or taller than four feet, and they’re all decked out in hockey gear that makes them look like a gang of padded up penguins.
Between dressing hot dogs and stirring hot chocolates, I watch as the Thunder guys take the kids through skating drills, play rounds of tag, and shoot pucks back and forth.
My favorite part is when the kids line up on the ice and start taking shots on goal.
Alex is so good with them, putting on a show of diving to catch pucks and just narrowly letting them slide past him, letting the littles feel like they got one over on the real NHL goalie.
He looks so damn intimidating—and so damn cute—in all of that padding. I have to actively remind myself not to think about what he looks like underneath it all. It’s an especially inappropriate time to be thinking horny thoughts about my friend.
By the time the drills and play practice are over and the rink is opened up to family and friends for free-skating, I feel like my heart has grown three sizes in my chest.
“Hot Dog Man! More ketchup!” A pair of blonde twins in pink gear and pigtails yell up at me.
“Lemmie, Mellie, you know me! I’m Elliot, not Hot Dog Man!
” I say with a chuckle, holding out a bottle of ketchup and squeezing more on to their dogs.
One funny thing about being a famous football player in an arena full of famous hockey players is that the kids don’t give two squats about you.
They’re here for the hockey gods, and all of us football players have been reduced to mere peasants.
It’s refreshing, though I prefer ‘Hot Dog Man’ to the other nickname I’ve been given by some of the older kids. ‘Wiener Boy’ just doesn’t hit the same.
“Hot dogs! Hot dogs! Hot dogs!” The girls start to chant as they run away with their freshly ketchup-ed dogs.
“All these hockey players around, and the hot dog man is the most popular guy in the place. Typical.”
I turn to find Alex next to me, looking like a whole entire snack and making my mouth water.
He’s in his pads still, but dressed casually in a pair of black compression pants and Thunder hoodie, with Franny the fanny pack buckled around his waist. His damp hair is tucked under a backwards baseball cap, with little dark strands curling out from underneath the rim.
He still has skates on his feet, so he’s taller than me for once, and he’s got a second pair of skates slung over his shoulder.
His cheeks are pink from exertion, his hands tucked sweetly into the pocket of his hoodie as he rocks side to side next to me.
Aside from the neon green bag, he looks relatively normal like this.
Not that I don’t love the butterfly clips and body glitter version of Alex, too.
I think I’m starting to love all the versions of this man.
Fucking hell, it almost hurts to look at him. He’s so pretty, it’s entirely unfair.
“I don’t know, Goat. You had an entire hoard of littles hanging on to your every word out there. I just provide the snacks.”
Alex takes his hat off, running a hand though the wet curls and then places it back on his head. I get a whiff of his scent—sweat and soap and woodsy deodorant that makes me want to bury my face under his arm and inhale him all day.
But like, in a cool, casual, “I totally don’t think you’re hot and I’m not at risk of falling for you” kind of way.
“And what a good job you did at snacks, Elliot. But you’re done, I’m springing you free.
Come skate with me,” Alex says, pushing my ass down onto the bench behind me.
He bends at the knee in front of me and whips the skates off his shoulder.
I don’t even have time to appreciate the view of Alex on his knees—let alone talk myself out of appreciating the view—before he has my left foot propped up on his knee and is untying my laces.
“Woah, woah, woah there, Goat. I don’t skate,” I protest, trying to take my foot back. But Alex pushes on.
“That’s poppy cock. Everyone skates.”
I can’t help the unsexy snort I let out at his use of “poppy cock”.
I’m also helpless to stop him as he removes my sneakers and replaces them with a pair of black ice skates that I can only hope belong to him, but then that’s not entirely true.
I could stop him. At any point, I could tell him to let me go, that I really don’t skate, that I’m afraid to go out on the ice.
But I don’t, because there’s something so intimate about the way Alex gently slides my shoe off my foot and adjusts my sock so that the bottom of my jeans are tucked into them.
I’ve never been a foot guy, I don’t happen to find them particularly sexy.
But I swear to god, my dick skips a beat when Alex’s fingers brush softly over the arch of my foot.
I bite my tongue as a shiver runs through me, and I accept my fate. Alex is putting ice skates on my feet. Alex is going to take me skating around this rink, and I’m going to let him even if I’m fairly certain I’m going to break both my knees and destroy my career in seconds.
I won’t break my knees or roll an ankle or fall on my ass, because Alex won’t allow me to. Alex will hold me up and keep me safe.
Alex is irresistible and unavailable, and this burgeoning friendship between us is running a real risk of ruining my damn life.