Chapter Seven
Dustin
He realized as he was getting ready that they needed a way to track this thing.
It was the Friday after he’d proposed the bet, and he was meeting Rodriguez for their first ‘wingmen’ outing.
Rodriguez didn’t seem to suspect there was any ulterior motive behind the bet.
He’d agreed to the game in classic Rodriguez style – toxic masculinity on full display.
Dustin kind of couldn’t wait to knock some sense into his big dumb head.
He hadn’t seen Elliot since that text exchange. He was careful not to run into him at Force that week, because watching helplessly from the sidelines while Rodriguez smoked his ladder PR would be a special kind of hell he didn’t think he could endure.
They’d texted back and forth to establish some rules. Rodriguez wanted a drink minimum for the girls. Dustin said absolutely not. Dustin wanted a curfew. Rodriguez called him grandpa.
They were going back to Bernie’s tonight, because Dustin felt like the place deserved a second chance after they got ditched by those girls at pool.
He put on his leather jacket and patted himself for phone, wallet, keys.
Then he went down to the curb to wait for his Uber.
He wasn’t gonna drive the rental he’d got for the summer if he’d be drinking to keep up with Rodriguez. He texted him while he waited.
Need to start a spreadsheet or something to track the numbers. Do you have Apple? I can share something.
He looked up the street for the car while he waited, and when he looked back, Rodriguez had sent, Bruh. Obviously there’s an app, and the eyeroll emoji.
An AppStore link came through. Dustin tapped it open. Body Count. Holy shit. It was literally an app for tracking your takedowns. Not all that weird, he supposed, considering what else you could do with your phone these days.
While he was looking at it, Rodriguez sent, you gonna need help figuring out how to use it abuelito?
Abuelito. That was a new one. Dustin sent back the middle finger, along with, See you there, and Googled it.
‘Little Grandad’. Right.
He read the AI summary about how ‘-ito’ and ‘-ita’ made things ‘little’ or ‘cute’ in Spanish, and remembered the visceral trauma of his high school French class.
He’d been reliving that trauma a lot looking up Rodriguez’s filthy, degrading slang.
If all he managed to teach this kid was not to call women ‘street dogs’ and ‘insects’, he’d consider that a win.
Elliot
Up close, Drew had windburn on her pale, freckled cheeks and her hair was frizzy from weather.
She’d been outside that day, somewhere brisk, and was still dressed in Gor-tex, cargo pants and hiking boots.
Her friend was sitting on the other side of her at the bar, with Bennet on the other side of that.
“What internship?” Elliot asked, putting his elbow next to Drew’s. She had gray-green eyes and very short hair like a dude – which Elliot usually didn’t like, but it kind of worked on her. And she had a body underneath all the manly clothes she was trying to hide it with.
“Pacific Coastal Ecology Grant,” she said. “I argue with people about clams. I’m getting into sustainability.”
He sipped his beer. “I’d watch that show.”
“About clams?” She laughed. “It would be a slow show.”
Elliot cocked his eyebrow. “I like a slow show.”
Drew gave him a look that said that was only almost funny, but that she was willing to play along.
Her friend, who was talking to Dustin, turned around and looked at Elliot, and he gave her a wave to say, Yes, hola, I’m friendly, don’t worry.
As the friend turned back to Dustin, Dustin glanced at Elliot.
Elliot’s face ignited and he looked away.
“So what’s the show about?” he asked, taking his beer off the coaster.
“The clam show?” Drew looked at the ceiling, thinking. “Two people race to eat as many clams as possible.”
“Sexy. For how long.”
“An hour.”
“That would take some endurance.”
“You here for it?”
“Absolutely. What’s it called?”
Grinning, she picked up her drink. “Clam Divers. It’s ladies-only. And nude.”
Elliot nearly choked on his beer as she waggled her eyebrows and turned around to talk to her friend.
Dustin
Fatima was pretty. Light brown skin, long lashes with nothing on them, a nose that tipped up at the end, and…
honestly, he couldn’t tell much else, because she had a long silk scarf draped around her shoulders and chest, and she was wearing those swishy elephant pants girls seemed to love.
He wasn’t complaining: he was also a fan.
She was Pakistani-American, doing a degree in economics at Willamette University, which meant she was honestly way too young for him.
Way too smart, too. When Dustin indicated the scarf and asked if she liked wearing the hijab, she said it was actually called a ‘dupatta’, and proceeded to give him a run-down on the various types of body coverings worn by South Asian women.
Which was unexpectedly fascinating, and didn’t make him feel like an asshole for getting it wrong, which he appreciated.
Apparently a dupatta was cultural, not religious, and didn’t have to cover the head, unless you were in a mosque.
All kinds of new words he was learning recently.
“So, do you have to wear it?” he asked, tapping the rim of his empty glass to ask for another. The bartender looked at Fatima, and Dustin said to put whatever she wanted on his tab.
She said, “Thank you,” and finished what was left of her soda-lime-and-bitters. “No, I don’t have to wear it. Actually, I’ve been thinking about that recently. I’m kind of going through a thing.”
“Oh yeah? Thanks—” he nodded as the bartender put a Deschutes on his coaster. “What kind of thing? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I don’t mind. I wouldn’t have said it if I did.” She picked up her new glass. “Just like…I don’t know. Thinking. About who I am, and why, and who I want to be…you know. College things.” She laughed a little and sipped her drink.
“Right.” College. He carefully sipped his too. “What…year are you doing?”
“You mean ‘how old am I?’” She looked like she’d been waiting for that. “Twenty-two. You?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Mm.” She plucked a new straw from the dispenser beside her. “I should probably let you know that you’re…a little above my usual paygrade.”
Dustin laughed. “Right. I should probably let you know that you’re a little below mine. Not – sorry, that was…why did mine sound mean?”
“I shouldn’t’ve said ‘paygrade’. All kinds of baggage there.” She laughed, sticking the straw in the middle of her glass, and he sipped his beer, wondering if Pakistani-American college students did things like sleep with guys they met in bars, and figuring that question was over the line.
“So yeah, anyway – my thing.” She stirred her ice with the straw.
“Basically, I grew up in LA, and my family is pretty liberal, so I mostly wore the dupatta for holidays and stuff. And then I got really into my heritage at the end of high school and started wearing it as an accessory. But I’m getting to a point where I’m like…
” She tilted her head back and forth. “I don’t know.
You know?” She laughed. “What am I saying, there’s no way you would know. ”
“No, I get it. Or – I don’t get it, but…
” Dustin had grown up in a hyper-masculine family, and had done his best to leave a lot of that stuff behind…
with varying degrees of success. Fatima’s thing certainly wasn’t the same, but he understood that it was difficult to know what to keep and what to let go of when you got out of the nest, and he said so to Fatima.
She looked surprised. “That was insightful for a hockey player. That’s your job?”
He nodded, tipping his chin at Rodriguez on the other side of her friend. “Both of us.”
She turned around to look at Elliot, who was chatting to her friend.
He noticed her looking and waved like, Yes?
Hello. Dustin caught his eye as Fatima turned back, and tried to telegraph, How’s it going?
but Elliot ignored him. A small disappointment sank through Dustin – the whole fun of the pool game night was chirping with Rodriguez.
“What is that like?”
Dustin was still looking at Elliot. That ball cap looked good on him. How come Dustin could never pull off a ball cap?
“Hm?” he said.
“Hockey,” said Fatima. “What is it like?”
“Oh.” He picked up his beer, taking his eyes off Rodriguez. “It’s good. I like it.”
She looked like she wanted more of an answer than that, but he never knew how to answer this question.
What did you say? It’s the only thing I ever want to do, it’s the only thing I know how to do, it’s the only thing I’ve ever done, I’m obsessed with it in a way most people would call ‘pathological’ and even though some parts of it are bad, I wouldn’t give it up for anything.
Oh, and it might be ending for me in like, five years, unless this knee takes me out first, and then I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do with myself.
“It’s a very enjoyable game,” he said, and was relieved when her friend tapped her on the shoulder.
Elliot
He put his fist to his sternum and muscled the last sip of his beer down, then set the glass on the bar and looked around for Dustin.
He was putting a coin in the popcorn machine.
Elliot hadn’t wanted to come back here, but one of the rules was that they got to take turns picking spots.
Dustin went first, because he had the home advantage.
Drew touched Elliot’s arm, and when he turned around, she said, “So what are you in town for?”
He frowned, smiling. “How do you know I’m in town? Maybe I live here.”
“You don’t.” She tipped her glass at his hat. “Unless you’re wearing that because you want to get hit by a Krakens fan.”
Elliot put a hand to his baseball cap. He’d forgotten he had it on. It was on backwards, but she must’ve seen the Tampa Lightning logo when he’d turned around to find Dustin. He smiled and turned the hat around. “I’m a hockey player. This is my team.”