Wingmen (The League of Extraordinarily Gay Gentlemen #2)

Chapter One

Dustin

Elliot Rodriguez looked up from his phone. “Excuse me?”

“I said you’re in my seat.” Dustin pointed at the folded card next to Rodriguez’s water glass:

Dustin Bennet - Denver Avalanche

Rodriguez’s eyes passed over the card and went back to the phone. “Oh. Weird.”

Dustin watched his thumbs moving. “So are you gonna move?”

Rodriguez’s shoulder lifted, eyes on the phone. He snapped his gum. “Just take my seat. It’s probably better.”

Dick.

Dustin took a deep breath, counted to three, and let it go. It wasn’t worth getting into an argument at a swanky off-season charity event. This kid was only twenty-one, and all twenty-one-year-olds were shitheads. He scanned the table for Rodriguez’s name card.

It was right next to his.

Sighing, he pulled out the chair beside Rodriguez and sat. Rodriguez glanced up with a questioning look, and Dustin gestured at the card. “Weird that they put you next to me.”

“Huh.” Rodriguez took in the two name cards and snapped his gum. “Yeah.”

He returned to the phone. Dustin poured himself a water from the sweating carafe between them and took stock of the room.

The charity gala occupied the entire third floor of the hotel: white tablecloths, ambient jazz, a stage where someone would eventually make a speech.

The event was for a program called Portland’s Rising Stars, and Dustin’s agent had called it a ‘visibility opportunity’, which was agent-speak for, “Go smile at people who might give you money later.” Dustin had put on a jacket. He’d drawn the line at a tie.

The room was full of off-season players wondering how long they had to stay to make it look like they cared.

Some guys were better at this than others.

The air conditioning was up so high it was like attending a buffet in the arctic circle, but Portland in early July was already hot, so it was better than the alternative.

He turned his attention back to Rodriguez.

The last time Dustin had seen Elliot Rodriguez, he was watching from the press box as the kid skated away from his teammate with the puck.

Ten seconds later, the regular season was over.

Sudden death. A steal so fast Dustin barely saw it happen.

He was three months post-op and could do nothing but watch helplessly as this child undressed his team in front of the world. The headline that ran the next day?

Elliot Rodriguez is the New Dustin Bennet

Which made sense. The kid was fast as hell and had Dustin’s same number on his jersey.

And now he was sitting there in a flashy suit that fit too well for someone his age, scrolling through his phone like The Great Dustin Bennet’s arrival was approximately as interesting as wet paint.

He smelled like a cologne ad, and had a tattoo below his ear of the Puerto Rican flag in the shape of a rooster.

His black curls, which Dustin had only ever seen soaked in sweat, were crispy with gel.

Up close, he was smaller than Dustin remembered.

Wide across the shoulders, though. Probably why the suit fit so well.

Dustin sipped his water. “You here for the cause or the optics?” he asked.

“The cause.”

Dustin chuckled. The kid may have been fast as hell and dressed to the nines, but he was still too young to realize he didn’t have to lie about that kind of thing. “Yeah. Right,” he said.

Rodriguez looked up. “I came up through a program like this in Tampa. Joined my first inner-city charity league when I was eight. So yeah. Right.”

That was unexpected. And it left Dustin without a comeback, which almost never happened. He set down the glass. “Fair enough.”

“What about you? Here for cause or optics?”

“Optics.”

Rodriguez grinned, which was equally unexpected, and went back to his phone. “At least you’re honest,” he said, as he swiped open the camera and took a selfie with Dustin behind him.

The table filled up. Two Kraken defensemen, a Sharks goalie, and Reef Okafor, who arrived like a hurricane and dropped into the seat next to Rodriguez like he believed everyone there had been waiting for him.

Dustin wasn’t friendly with Reef – he played for the Tampa Lightning with Rodriguez – but he’d heard enough stories to know that an off-season night with him tended to end in a dumpster, or jail, or, on one occasion, Spain.

“Gentlemen!” Reef spread his arms. His smile was very white in his dark brown face, and he held a shot glass in one hand and a bottle of whatever was in the glass in the other. “Y’all ready to raise some money for the kids?”

“You look more like you’re ready to raise hell,” said Dustin.

“We can do both.” Reef clapped Rodriguez’s hand in his and the two began a complicated handshake. “My man! I didn’t know you were in Portland.”

“Got in yesterday.”

“Training?”

“Nah, I came for this.”

Reef turned to Dustin. The smile like a Colgate commercial. “Bennet. The old man himself. I feel like I should kneel or something.”

“I’m twenty-nine,” said Dustin. “You can just say ‘the man himself’.”

“In hockey years, bro, that’s like sixty.” Reef flagged down a waiter. “Shots. We need glasses. This is a charity event and I am feeling charitable.”

“It’s an open bar,” Dustin pointed out, “it’s not like you paid for that bottle.” Reef wasn’t listening.

Dustin set his glass down and massaged his knee under the table. He’d been on his feet too long at the cocktail hour.

“Shattered your kneecap, right?” said Rodriguez. Dustin looked up. Rodriguez was watching his hand under the table.

“Oh snap,” said Reef. “That’s right. Man, Prescott stapled you to the fucking boards.”

“I watched that game,” said Rodriguez. “Brutal, dog.” His brow knit. “You got surgery, huh?”

The lights dimmed for the speeches before Dustin could reply.

Someone from the foundation talked about rink access in North Portland neighborhoods, and about how exciting it was to see a growing junior hockey scene in Oregon.

Dustin half-listened and sipped his water.

When he glanced at Rodriguez, he was surprised to see the kid was actually listening: elbows on the table, chin on one fist. When the program director mentioned Tampa’s youth charity league, Rodriguez whooped.

He was the only person in the room who did, and he seemed totally unembarrassed about that.

More shots arrived as the speeches were wrapping up, and Reef solemnly distributed them. “To the kids,” he said, raising his glass.

By the third round, the table was getting loud.

Reef was telling a story about a night in Tampa that involved a pop tart and a plastic fishing trophy, and the Sharks goalie was laughing so hard he’d gone silent.

Rodriguez had shifted round the table to sit next to Reef, and his eye snagged on Dustin’s as Dustin leaned back in his chair.

His eyes were almost black in this light, and his cheeks were flushed from the alcohol.

Rodriguez lowered his gaze quickly and turned his attention back to Reef. Dustin scanned the crowd.

Five minutes later, Rodriguez dropped into the chair beside him, smelling like tequila and expensive cologne. “You’re quiet,” he said.

Dustin lifted one shoulder. “Running your mouth is a surefire way to get your ass in trouble.”

Rodriguez laughed, which surprised him. “Claro. My mom says the same thing.” He leaned across the table to swipe the nearly empty tequila bottle. “So,” he said, sloshing it out of his glass as he poured, “you gonna bring up that headline, or should I?”

“Nothing to bring up.”

“Rodriguez is the new Bennet? Really, cabrón, nothing to bring up?”

“It was a good shift. You were fast and I was out with an injury.”

“‘Good shift’?” Rodriguez set the bottle down, looking astounded. “Winning the regular season with a sudden death steal in your second year?” He scoffed, sipping tequila. “Yeah, okay. It was a good shift.”

Dustin kept his mouth shut and fixed his gaze on the stage. If he’d been on the ice, instead of up in the box in a suit and tie, that game would have ended differently.

At least, that’s what he’d been telling himself.

“I think it’s cute you believe your own hype,” he said, sipping from his water glass.

Rodriguez’s eyes narrowed. “I think it’s cute you stayed out past seven tonight, Abuelo.”

The night deteriorated: the formal portion ended, the music got loud.

Reef Okafor migrated to a cluster of players near the back and arm-wrestled a Kraken forward while a woman from the foundation filmed it on her phone.

It wasn’t great behavior from an NHL player.

Dustin could hear Reef’s voice from across the room.

He suspected he could have heard Reef’s voice from the hotel lobby across the street.

He picked up his empty shot glass and moved to the bar. Rodriguez was there, watching the bartender pour some horrendous-looking blue cocktail into a glass the size of a fishbowl.

“The fuck is that?” said Dustin.

Rodriguez looked over his shoulder. “Electric Lemonade. Plus Red Bull. You want one?”

“Jesus. No. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything less.”

Rodriguez scooped up the glass and turned to prop his elbows on the bar behind him. He didn’t lean on the bar so much as pose there, tipping his chin up and pulling the corners of his mouth down like he was being extra-manly to counter the cocktail’s fruity little umbrella.

“Okafor’s going to get himself traded if he keeps up that behavior,” Dustin said, setting his empty shot glass on the bar and waving off the bartender.

Rodriguez swigged from his fishbowl. “Nah. He scores too much.”

“Scoring doesn’t protect you forever.”

“Spoken like a man who peaked at twenty-five.”

Dustin turned to lean on the bar too. “Pretty good handle you have on my stats.”

“I’ve watched you a lot.”

“Got a bit of a crush?”

Rodriguez sniffed, shrugging, and plucked a toothpick out of the dispenser on the bar beside him. “I study hockey. You’re in a lot of videos.”

“I bet I am.”

He checked his watch while Rodriguez picked his teeth with the toothpick – ten forty-five. Probably acceptable to leave at this point. When he looked up, Rodriguez was grinning with the toothpick hanging out the corner of his mouth. “Time for bed?”

Dustin pulled his jacket sleeve back over the watch, took another deep breath, counted to three, and told himself he didn’t care what some shithead twenty-one-year-old thought about what time he went to bed.

Then he turned to the bartender and ordered a double.

“You’re sticking around Portland for the summer?” he said, as the bartender poured.

Rodriguez tongued the toothpick around in his mouth and shrugged. “I don’t think so. You?”

“I’m here every off-season. Have a loft in the Pearl District. The city’s nice in the summer, and it’s not really a hockey town, so you don’t get hassled. And the facility out here has elite rehab.”

“Right.” Rodriguez glanced at his knee. “How long has it been since that happened?”

“Four months.” Dustin scooped up the shot glass and sipped as Elliot turned his gaze back to the room.

“So what do you do around here?” said Elliot. “They got bingo and early bird specials for you old folks?”

Dustin squared his jaw. “They have a farmer’s market and a lot of good local beer.”

Rodriguez nodded absently, his eyes on an ass jiggling by in a skin-tight miniskirt. He pulled the face guys like him always pulled when an ass of that caliber was in the vicinity, and called, “?Hey Mami! Si cocinas como caminas, me como hasta el pegao.”

The girl sent an unimpressed look over her shoulder and kept walking.

“Smooth,” said Dustin.

Rodriguez scoffed and fiddled with his toothpick. “I’ll get her on the next pass.”

Two hours later, Rodriguez still hadn’t won over the girl, and Dustin still hadn’t gone home.

He blamed this lapse of judgment on Reef Okafor, who kept coaxing him and Rodriguez into little competitions.

Who can spit an ice cube the furthest? Who can burp more of the alphabet?

Who can get the girl in the miniskirt’s number?

Dustin refused to take part in the alphabet burping competition, which may have been what gave him the edge when it came to getting the girl’s number.

She looked repulsed when Rodriguez sauntered up to her after burping all the way through ‘Q’, and sent him away empty-handed.

Dustin returned to the bar a few minutes later with a sly smile and the number written on the inside of his wrist.

Rodriguez rolled his eyes. “So she’s got a thing for old men.”

“Yeah, she’s like a–” Reef swayed, hiccuping. “What’s the opposite of a cougar?”

“I think she was just relieved to be talking to a grownup,” said Dustin, flagging down the barman for another glass of water.

Rodriguez pointed to a blonde on the other side of the room. “Bet you can’t get that one.”

“I bet I could.” Dustin picked up the glass the barman slid over the counter. “But I’m gonna quit while I’m ahead.”

Rodriguez grinned and jostled the toothpick with his tongue, which was blue from the antifreeze or whatever he was drinking. “Okay Abuelo, tell Abuelita I said hello! Don’t forget to put your dentures in the–” He waved a woozy hand, frowning. “What is that stuff they call it? The blue stuff?”

“Pretty sure you’re drinking it,” said Dustin.

To his surprise, Rodriguez laughed. His arm landed heavily around Dustin’s shoulders as he made a bid for the exit.

“Aw, come on Papi, don’t leave! We’re just getting started!

What’s next? How about her?” He leveled his gaze at another girl across the room, but he was so drunk his eyes kept roaming together.

Dustin removed the arm from his shoulders. “You got a ride home? Where are you staying?”

“Some hotel in downtown. I don’t have a car, I’ll get an Uber.” Rodriguez waved the fishbowl, patting down his pockets. “Shit, man, where the fuck is my… Yo, what time is it?”

Dustin checked his watch. “Ten minutes to one. Are you at The Nines? There’s a little brewery called Pineapple near there if you need a lunch spot tomorrow.”

“Nah, man, I gotta catch my flight.” Rodriguez paused. “What time’d you say? One? Shit, it’s early, man.” He slung his arm back around Dustin’s shoulders and gestured with the half-empty glass of Windex. “You don’t wanna leave now. What about her? Or her? Or that one by the buffet?”

Dustin firmly removed the arm and stepped back. “Next time. Don’t forget that Uber, little man.”