3. Nolan
NOLAN
Seattle has won one game in two weeks.
And tonight I’m dressed like a monkey in a too-tight suit while people pay fake money to play poker with me.
The suit fits exactly the way I paid for it to fit, and I look better than half my teammates. It still feels too tight. Most of them own one good suit because the league makes them travel in it. I own four because I have mirrors.
I left the top button of my shirt open so the ink along my neck shows above the collar. A woman near the silent auction looks at it, then at my face. A man carrying two glasses of wine does the same thing ten minutes later. I smile at both of them.
Taking one of them home would improve the evening.
It’s been a while, mostly because losing makes me mean and sex is more fun when I don’t spend half of it thinking about the standings.
I’ve been trying to keep my focus on the season.
That hasn’t been going particularly well since Ben Pope showed up.
The golden boy was supposed to put us back on the map. So far, we’ve won one game after their goalie stopped a shot with his ass and Bobby knocked the rebound in off somebody else’s skate. That was sheer dumb luck. Pope hasn’t put anybody back on the map.
I spot him across the ballroom talking to one of the sponsors.
His suit is dark, his tie is perfectly straight, and he has the same serious face he wears when Gunderson draws up a play.
The sponsor laughs, and Pope gives him the exact smile the moment requires.
Then his eyes move across the room and land on me.
Again.
For two weeks, I have felt Pope looking at me. On the ice, in the locker room, during video, across the table when the team eats together. Sometimes I turn and catch him. Sometimes I turn and he’s already busy with something else.
If a hot man looked at me that often under any other circumstances, I’d appreciate it. Ben Pope is six-two, built like somebody ordered a center by the pound, and unfairly good in a suit.
Unfortunately, he’s straight.
He isn’t going to drop to his knees and suck my cock, which limits the practical value of all that staring.
I look back at the woman by the auction table. She’s moved on to a signed stick, and the man with the wine is talking to someone who keeps touching his arm. Fine. Maybe I’ll go home alone and preserve my commitment to the season.
A member of the events staff catches me before I can decide and points me toward an open seat at one of the Texas hold’em tables. Pope is sitting in the chair beside it. Of course he is.
The guests donate real money for stacks of evergreen chips stamped with the Leviathan eye.
At the end of the night, whoever has the most Leviathan Bucks can trade them for auction credit, rink-side seats, signed gear, and other things rich people could buy for themselves but apparently prefer to win from hockey players.
Every empty stack means another donation. Nobody cares which of us wins.
I sit beside Pope and smile at the rest of the table. “Sorry. They save me for the high rollers.” The woman across from me laughs as the dealer gives me a stack of chips and two cards.
Pope glances over. “You’re late.”
“People expect that from me. It’s part of the experience.” I pick up my cards while Pope goes back to his.
I barely look at mine. The older man to my left wants to know if hockey players are allowed to bet on themselves, which gets us into a conversation about how much I would pay for Anton to score a goal. By the time I remember we’re playing, the dealer is pushing the pot toward Pope.
“Did you win?” I ask.
“You were here.”
“Physically.” The woman across from us laughs again. Pope stacks his chips without smiling.
On the next hand, he raises before the flop. His face doesn’t change. A sponsor in an expensive blue suit calls him. I fold a hand I probably could’ve played because the sponsor is telling me about the first Leviathans game his father took him to, and that’s more interesting than a pair of fours.
Pope bets again. The sponsor thinks about it long enough to sigh, then folds. Pope pulls in the chips and turns over a seven and a three.
“You had nothing,” the sponsor says.
“I had chips,” Pope says.
I look at him properly. By the third hand, it’s obvious his serious face has nothing to do with his cards. He sits the same way when he has something, when he has nothing, and when I’m leaning across him to steal one of the tiny chocolates from the bowl beside his elbow.
Pope is good at bluffing. Now I want his chips.
I start paying attention. He folds the next hand, which tells me nothing. On the hand after that, he calls me all the way to the river while I keep betting a pair of queens. He turns over three eights and takes another pile of my money.
“Those are for charity,” I tell him.
“Then donate more.”
I do, because one of the volunteers appears at my shoulder with another rack and the man to my left immediately buys one too. The whole table applauds. I bow from my chair and tell them I’m expensive company.
Pope looks at his cards like he’s at a real table and somebody’s mortgage depends on the next bet.
I lose to him twice more. Once because he’s bluffing and I don’t call.
Once because I decide he’s bluffing and he isn’t.
The third time, I fold early and spend the hand talking a woman into bidding on the signed goalie mask Anton painted himself.
She knows perfectly well Anton did not paint it himself. We raise the bid anyway.
“I have to say,” the sponsor in the blue suit tells Pope, “when I heard Seattle picked you up, I figured they’d finally hired someone to babysit Fraser.”
I keep smiling. The first answer that comes to mind would make the sponsor’s wife laugh and him hate me forever. Anything I say at this table will reach the press office before dessert.
I know when to behave myself. Tonight counts, so I look at my cards and say nothing.
Pope shoots me a look. It’s quick, but I see it. Then he turns back to the sponsor.
“Nolan and the rest of the team have been great to play with,” he says. “I’m looking forward to turning the season around with them.”
The sponsor lifts his hands. “Fair enough.” The dealer starts the next hand, somebody asks Pope about the Cup, and the whole table moves on. I keep hearing my name.
He could’ve laughed. It would’ve been easy, and nobody here would think less of him for it. Ben Pope, responsible adult, brought in to handle Seattle’s problem child. The story already exists. All he had to do was nod. Instead, he used my name, and I lose another hand thinking about it.
A few minutes later, Pope pushes back from the table. He says something to the dealer, gives the rest of his chips to the woman across from us, and walks toward the far side of the ballroom. I watch him go, and then I’m standing.
“Deal me out,” I tell the dealer, and follow Pope before I come up with a reason.
He disappears behind a cluster of potted trees near the windows. They’re supposed to make the ballroom look less like a room full of rented tables and men asking each other what they do for a living. Mostly, they create a place for Ben Pope to hide.
He’s alone, one hand in his pocket, looking through the leaves at the room.
I should leave him there. He said something nice because he has media training and a functioning sense of self-preservation. He doesn’t need me following him into a corner to make it weird.
I’ve been on my best behavior for several hours, though, and it’s starting to chafe worse than the suit.
A waiter passes before I reach the trees. I take two flutes of champagne and hold one out to Pope.
He looks at the glass, then at me. “What do you want?”
I smirk. The glare should make me want to bother somebody else. Instead, a quick spark of attraction catches low in my stomach. Bad.
Pope is straight, and I don’t get involved with teammates. That’s a sure recipe for blowing up a line, a locker room, or both. It doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun.
I push the champagne closer until he takes it. “That was touching.”
Pope takes a drink without looking away from me. “What was?”
“Your speech about how great I am.”
Pope lowers the glass. “That’s not what I said.”
“You used my name. I heard the important part.”
His eyes stay on me as he drinks again. “Did the press office write that for you?” I ask. “You sounded almost sincere.”
“I was sincere.”
I had another answer ready. It disappears.
Pope lowers the glass. He’s close enough that I can see the blue mixed into the gray of his eyes. I knew they were blue-gray. His player photo is six feet tall outside the arena now. I didn’t know the blue sits near the center.
“We’ve won one game,” I say.
“You can still play.”
I know I can play, and I don’t need Ben Pope to tell me. I like that he did anyway.
“Careful,” I say. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”
“It was.”
I step closer. Pope doesn’t move. The corner isn’t big enough for both of us unless one of us gives up some space, and apparently neither of us plans to. His tie hangs between us, perfectly centered against his shirt, so I catch the end of it between my fingers.
I expect him to jerk back. Maybe tell me to fuck off. At the very least, he should look annoyed. He goes completely still.
His eyes drop to my hand. I rub the fabric between my thumb and forefinger, then slide my fingers up an inch. His throat moves above the knot.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was into this. But Pope is straight, so he must be waiting for me to finish being an asshole.
“Are you always this stiff?” I ask.
A low sound comes out of him. Not a word. Almost a growl. It goes straight to my cock.
Someone at the nearest table bursts out laughing. The whole group joins in, loud enough to cut through whatever the fuck just happened behind the trees.
I let go of Pope’s tie and step back. His fingers are tight around the stem of the champagne flute.
I walk away before I do something stupid. Halfway back to the poker table, it hits me that Pope won that round.
He can have it for tonight. He isn’t keeping it.