MM Hockey Romance Firsts

1. Tennant

ONE

Tennant

“Ten, honestly, I think you should talk to your agent again.”

I looked at the three faces staring at me from my laptop monitor.

The one talking now was Brady, my oldest brother.

Brady plays for Boston. He’s their captain.

He has a beautiful blonde wife named Lisa, who’s a legal aide, two-year-old twin girls Gwendolyn and Amelia, and a house that you need Google maps to navigate.

Brady is thirty-one and one of the best defensemen in the league.

He’s also the pushiest and bossiest person in the history of ever.

“I’m not talking to my agent again, Brady. It’s a done deal, and I’m really sort of okay with it,” I told Mr. Overachiever, and cracked open another peanut shell. The pile of empty hulls sitting beside me on the sofa was impressive.

“If he’s happy, Brady, I think we should back him instead of trying to make him feel worse about it.”

Face number two and the current talker was Jamie, or James as my mother always calls him.

Jamie is the middle Rowe brother and plays hockey as well.

He lives in Fort Lauderdale, where he’s an alternate captain and plays left wing.

Jamie is also married to a Lisa—I call her Brunette-Lisa, and Brady’s wife Blonde-Lisa.

Not to their faces, of course, but how else am I going to differentiate?

Brunette Lisa’s a stunning dental hygienist who’s expecting their first child in three months.

They’ve been married for four years. Jamie’s role in the Rowe-trio dynamic is Mr. Negotiator.

“There’s really not much that can be done at this point anyway.

His contract was only for three years, and Harrisburg picked him up.

” And that was talker three, my dad, Bruce Rowe.

Sire of the famed Rowe brothers from South Carolina.

Dad’s a district manager for several Happy Marts in the Myrtle Beach and surrounding areas, and has forgotten more about hockey than the three of us players will ever know.

If you look at my dad, you can see all of us in about thirty years.

Black hair still thick and wavy, green-blue eyes, and a smile that Mom says still gets him into trouble.

“But really, Dad, he’s taking a step back in his career,” Brady said yet again.

I chewed and listened. That’s my role in the family.

Tennant, the baby brother, is preached to by the older Rowe boys, because obviously he has no clue what to do with his life.

He is the youngest, after all. Mom always coddles him.

Just look at him sitting there in a small apartment in Dallas, lacking a fancy house, with no sexy model with double Ds on his arm, and now being traded to some team that didn’t even manage to make the playoffs last year.

“To go from an established team like Dallas to this new expansion team in Pennsylvania is a slap in the face. His agent should have pitched a fit. I mean, the very least he should have done was get him signed to an Original Six team.”

“Oh, here we go, time to look down your nose at those of us who aren’t playing for Boston or New York or Montreal,” Jamie snapped.

Dad and I exhaled theatrically. I broke another shell open and Dad took a sip of his coffee. This would run on for some time.

“Jamie, don’t start that shit again. I never meant there was anything wrong with playing for an expansion team,” Brady said as if by rote.

“Right, like you haven’t been sitting here for fifteen minutes telling Ten what a shit deal he just got being traded to an expansion team. Was that not you just saying all that in your whiny Boston accent? Get out of the way, Boof.” Jamie removed his ginger cat from the laptop keyboard.

Brady was on that like white on rice. “Okay, for one thing I do not have a Boston accent.” He really did. “But if I did, I’d be proud of it even if it was whiny. Secondly, I’m not saying that some expansion teams haven’t done well for themselves over the years but…”

My mother sat down beside my dad with her own cup of coffee.

She gave me a smile. I knew it was for me, because it was her special ‘Tennant is my baby’ smile.

Mom was the exact opposite of the Rowe men: fair, blonde, and petite.

She still taught music at the high school all three Rowe brothers had attended.

It was Mom who’d loved hockey to death but still insisted that her boys learn to play one musical instrument so they had skills outside shooting pucks and knocking people on their asses.

“But nothing. Who won the Stanley Cup last year? Yeah, that’s right, an expansion team. Suck. My. Dick.”

“James!”

“Sorry, Mom, I didn’t see you there. Boof was in the way.”

“I’m sure Tennant knows what suits his life best,” my mother said.

“I don’t really feel bad about it,” I said yet again, as I pondered easing out of the Skype group call and fading to black. My brothers and father wouldn’t even notice I was gone for at least five minutes.

The conversation about me and my butchered career ran on as my mother and I made silly faces at each other.

When Brady had to go give the twins their baths, Jamie remembered he had to scoop out the cat box.

Dad kissed Mom on the cheek, and then padded off to watch an old western starring James Coburn.

“Well, now that the know-it-alls have left, why don’t we talk?” Mom pulled the laptop across the kitchen table and leaned in close to the monitor. “How do you honestly feel about this trade, Tennant?”

I swallowed the mouthful of peanut. “It’s really okay.” Her thin eyebrows tangled. “No, seriously, I’m fine with it. I’m thinking this might be my chance to get out of that huge shadow Tate Collins throws over every center on the team.”

“I thought you liked Tate.”

I took a swig of chocolate milk and looked from the laptop on my thighs to the city of Dallas spread out below my condominium.

Tate Collins was Dallas hockey. You know that song about the stars at night being big and bright?

Well, no star shone brighter than Tate Collins in the heart of Texas.

He was the face of hockey, the league’s premier center, and its goal-scoring leader for three years running.

No way I would ever be noticed—or have a shot at first line—with Tate on the team.

And that was nothing against Tate. Tate was a good guy.

Friendly, humble, generous, everything a hockey player should be.

But for those who toiled away in his shadow, the darkness got depressing at times.

I knew, for a fact, that I could be first line on any other team.

For sure, first line on a second-year team like the Railers.

That wasn’t ego talking, it was confidence speaking.

I knew my skill set, and it wasn’t second line.

“I do, but I’m tired of being in someone’s shadow all the time.”

“That’s the curse of being the youngest, honey.” Mom gave me a sad little smile. “How’s Chris going to feel about you leaving Dallas?”

The half-gallon carton of milk slipped off my lower lip. “Chris?” I coughed and hurried to wipe my chin with the back of my hand. No way. No way could she know about Chris. He and I had been super discreet.

“Yes, Christine, that bouncy redhead you took to the Texas Athlete of the Year Award over the summer?” Mom gave me a look that said she wondered about my brain. “She tweeted about it for weeks.”

“Oh, Christine, right.” Sure, I knew who she meant now. One of several dates who served as beards. Yep, that Chris, not Chris the barista with the beard and man-bun, who I’d been hooking up with on the sly for a couple of weeks. “That kind of died off.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. She was pretty. Anything on the horizon?”

“Nope, not really.”

Dallas shimmered with heat even though it was night. The Texas Athlete of the Year Award. I recalled it well. I’d come in second to Tate for the Brightest Star on Ice award two years in a row.

“That’s probably just as well. You’ll be moving soon. I’m sure there are lots of lovely girls in Harrisburg.”

“I’m sure there are.”

Ugh, this sucked. Lying sucked. Being the only kid on either side of the family who was gay sucked. Having to date women sucked. Having to sneak men into my apartment sucked. I worked up a measly grin for her.

“You’ll meet the right person, Tennant.”

My dad called for her. She rolled her eyes, and I snorted.

“I swear that man can never find his glasses. How much do you want to bet they’re on top of his head?”

I chuckled.

“I’d better sign off and let you rest. You’re going to have a busy few weeks packing and moving. We love you, Tennant.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

I closed the lid of my Dell, dropped my hands over it, and stared at the city I’d be leaving behind.

I’d miss Dallas. It was one hell of a great city, with amazing fans.

I wasn’t sure I’d miss Chris too much. Chris with the facial hair, I mean.

We’d gotten into some heavy frottage, but that was about it.

He was cute, but we were missing that spark you hear so much about.

Probably, if I’d been staying, we’d have gone further simply because I was tired of masturbating, and that’s a piss-poor reason to sleep with someone.

I guessed being traded up North had just had another check mark put in the ‘This might be an okay thing after all’ column.

I had a few concerns, such as finding a place to live, what the guys and coaching staff would be like, and had Frank Sinatra or any other big name ever sung any songs about Harrisburg.

You know a town has made it when it has a popular song about it.

Places like New York, Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago…

they all had songs. Hell, even Allentown had a song.

A song meant you were a kickass place to live, right?

A quick Google search informed me that one dude named Josh Ritter had indeed sung about the town I was moving to. I guessed we were golden, then.