Chapter 3
Two hours later, the house was packed and I had the nicest buzz.
“You were so right about hockey boys and cuteness,” Abby said to Chloe.
We’d spun in our barstools to face the room, but other than that had not moved.
We didn’t need to; Philly was still behind the bar and everyone came for refills to the area where she manned the keg and the pitchers.
Dex had moved to the main room, but checked on Philly often, asking if she wanted out from behind the bar, but she always shooed him away.
“Right? Jesus, look at the thighs and ass on him,” Chloe said.
“Which one?” both Abby and I said.
Chloe started to point to one guy standing in the crook of the couch configuration, but then her hand moved to another guy, and then again. “All of them,” she said, causing both Abby and me to giggle and nod in agreement.
“Never dated a hockey player?” Philly asked. I’d forgotten she was standing just a bar’s width away. But she’d been really pleasant to us newbies while she tended bar, so I felt—and this was probably the lovely buzz—that she was one of us. At least tonight.
“Never knew a hockey player,” I said. “I’m from Nebraska. We’re football country.”
“Ah yes, those big ol’ corn-fed boys. Well then, you know a different, but also pleasing, type of manly body.”
I thought of Blake’s body. Neither the sculpted muscle of hockey nor the beefed-up football body were looks he would ever have. And he didn’t want to, being more of an arty guy.
Which I loved about him, and thought was totally my type. Even being around guys who got football scholarships to many a Big Ten school.
But this room of hockey players had me rethinking that.
“Well, they’re an interesting bunch, Pucks,” Philly said.
I spun back, reluctantly taking my eyes from the Asses of Greatness. “In what way?”
Philly filled the glass of a girl who approached the bar with an empty cup. “You okay, Ches?” she asked her. The girl, Ches, apparently, nodded and pushed her hair off her face while she took a long drink of beer.
“Yep. Aces, Philly. You?”
“I’m good, yeah. Might want to slow down there. Pace yourself. Night’s still young.”
Ches smiled at Philly. “Yeah, probably. He’s not here, you know. I checked his room.”
Philly took a deep sigh and moved the pitcher away from Ches. “You shouldn’t be going to the guys’ rooms without them knowing it, Ches.”
“It’s not like I’ve never been there,” Ches said with a bit of defiance.
Chloe and Abby were still facing the party, but I couldn’t turn away from what was transpiring. It felt like I’d just stepped into the third act of a play.
“True. But not when you haven’t been asked.”
“Is that why he’s not here? Is he avoiding me?” There was more sadness than petulance in Ches’s voice, and I could tell Philly heard it too. She leaned across the bar to where Ches was standing, sandwiched between me and the wall.
“Ches, babe. I’m sorry to say this to you, but it wouldn’t even occur to him to be avoiding you.”
My breath caught and Philly gave me an “it’s true, what can you do?” shrug. But Ches, whether not one for subtleties or not capable of it in her current state, actually brightened. “So he’s not avoiding me. Where is he?”
Philly sighed again and mentally gave in. “They had late practice, then a meeting. Straw’s probably just running behind the other guys. Most of them have only been here an hour.”
At that, Ches downed the rest of her beer (how had she drunk that so fast while I’d sat right next to her?) and held out her empty cup for Philly to refill.
“A half and that’s it. You’re cut off.”
“Philly, don’t be a narc,” Ches said, shaking her cup, then steadying it as Philly gave her exactly half of a cup. “It’s bad enough that you always monitor the pitchers so nobody can spike it with something, but you don’t have to be portion-control warden too.”
“I’m not a narc, but you obviously pre-partied somewhere. You’re two beers from shit-faced, and you are well on your way to making a fool of yourself when Straw walks in. I’m trying to help you out here, Ches.”
Ches pouted. She was a very pretty girl with honey-blond hair that she wore long, stopping just below her shoulder blades, which were bared from a black top that had a deep scoop in the back.
She had on a short skirt and ankle boots that I knew had cost a mint because I’d bought the knockoff brand, and they still set me back more than I should have spent.
She was tall and thin. Model material, really.
The pout would have many men groveling to be allowed to fix whatever problem had caused her such harm.
But I had a feeling only one guy would do for Ches tonight.
“You’re no fun, Philly. You should really just leave the pitchers out for everybody. Who made you Beer Cop?”
“Just trying to keep everyone safe,” Philly said, but Ches had already left the bar, moving through the room, presumably in search of a guy who would not want to be found.
Two players came to the bar and Philly filled two cups each for them, one of which they both downed quickly. The others they sipped while they introduced themselves to Chloe and Abby, who were still turned away from me.
I could have swung around and gotten in on the intros, but I kept facing Philly. “So, what’s her deal? The guy is blowing her off?”
Philly sat across from me on the stool behind the bar, a full pitcher left on the corner in case refills were needed. “That’s a great segue into what I was talking about with hockey players. Or, at least, the ones here at Bribury.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Philly took a sip from a can of Diet Coke that she’d kept behind the bar.
“Let Ches be your cautionary tale. These guys like to play hockey first, party second, get laid third—okay, maybe that’s second; it’s a toss-up—go to school, and then, really distantly, is entertaining the thought of a girlfriend. ”
“Why no girlfriends? Like a team rule or something?”
“Nothing like that. They just don’t prioritize it. They don’t need to.” She swept her arm to the room. “All these girls are here to sleep with a hockey player. They know the score. It’s fun for a night, but that’s all it’s going to be.”
“But that’s like all of college these days.
Hanging out, hooking up…” We’d made that a mission of ours tonight too, Chloe, Abby, and me.
“It’s not a hockey thing. Or a Bribury thing, for that matter.
” Lots of my girlfriends from high school were enjoying the freedom of college and not looking for anything more than a fun night or two with a good partner.
“Yeah, I know. But there’s just something about a Puck. It makes girls forget they only want a hookup.”
“Like Ches,” I said.
“Like Ches,” Philly agreed.
“But you and Dex? It looked like a relationship to me.”
“Exceptions to every rule, of course. And some of the girls here are actual girlfriends. None of them are with guys who live in this house, except me.” She pointed to the adjoining room, which in a normal house would have been the dining room, but here was cleared out, except for some coffee tables pushed against the wall.
There were four couples dancing, in various stages of making out, to some old Phil Collins song that my mom used to play all the time.
Don’t think about Mom. Don’t think about Mom.
“So, you’re telling me that hockey players are so good in bed that even if you just want a hookup, you’re going to fall into the Ches territory of stalking a guy who wouldn’t even notice you if you did?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
I laughed and twirled on my stool to face the room. “You’re crazy,” I said.
And then I saw him.