I pause and recognize that I’m internet-stalking my massage therapist. And I’m considering how I’d like her to be more than that, except I’m not sure that’s even possible since I screwed her friend last year. But that was a long time ago. Maybe it’s fine now. She keeps saying it’s fine, though it doesn’t seem that way. I don’t know the statute of limitations on screwing one chick before you can get down with one of her friends.
Well, if they’re bunnies it doesn’t matter, but Poppy isn’t a bunny.
I could ask Miller and Randy about it, but I get the feeling Miller would be pissed, so I decide to leave it alone for now.
The next morning we have a pre-game skate, followed by a team meal and a meeting. Once it’s over, we’ve got several hours before we have to suit up for the game. I want some down time with Miller and Randy before I get out there so I can mentally prepare. But Smart pulls me aside on the way out.
“I lined up a massage for you,” he says.
“What?” For a second I imagine that he flew Poppy out to treat me. Then I realize how fucking stupid that is. But it would be awesome if she could come work her magic on me before I hit the ice.
“I need you on point tonight, Romero. Butterson’s off his game.”
“He’s got a baby dropping soon; he’s distracted.”
“You don’t need to tell me. I know what the issue is. But I need you to be focused on the game, so I set up an appointment with one of the therapists here at the arena. It’s not negotiable.”
I can’t argue. He has a point. As much as Miller would like to be able to focus on the game, it’s got to be tough. Beyond that, maybe it’s not a bad idea to see whether my reaction to Poppy is isolated. Maybe it’s massages in general that actually work for me, not Poppy.
“Fine. When and where?”
“Now. Follow me.”
The massage therapist Smart hooks me up with is a woman in her thirties whose shoulders are nearly as broad as mine.
Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but she’s substantial.
It takes all of thirty seconds for me to come to the conclusion that my reaction to Poppy is completely unique. I try to relax; I really do. But these hands are so different. Having this woman touch me for an hour is a horrible kind of torture.
After the torture-massage, I head back to my room. I’m in a shitty mood, and I’m not excited to hang out with Rookie—not because I don’t like him, but because now that I’ve partied with him, he has the same expectations of me that everyone else does. And that’s my fault.
When I get there, I find him hanging out with a chick. She looks like she’s about ready to take her clothes off, and I’m not interested in dealing with that kind of bullshit. Especially in the middle of the afternoon.
“I just need to grab a couple of things, and I’ll leave you two to it.” I point across the room to my bag.
I don’t like that there’s some bunny I can’t keep an eye on in my room with my stuff, but I grab the most important things: identification, wallet, phone, and iPad. I stuff them in my duffle, which still has my workout gear in it, and throw it over my shoulder.
“Text me when you’re good,” I call as I close the door and walk down the hall, heading for one place I know no bunnies will be.
I send Randy a text to make sure he’s in his room. I get a reply as I knock on his door. It swings open a few seconds later.
He eyes the duffle as I drop it on the chair. “You get kicked out of your own room?”
“Rookie found himself a bunny.”
“The game isn’t even until tonight. Where the hell’d he find her?”
“Who knows? Maybe she’s a friend and not just a bunny. I didn’t stop to ask. I figured I’d let him expend some energy. He’s still got some time before we have to suit up for the game.”
“That’s a bad idea before a game.”
“He’ll have to figure that out on his own, ’cause I’m not having that conversation.”
“And if she’s there when you go back?”
“She’ll have to bail, or I’ll help her find the door.”
Randy cocks a brow. “You all right, man?”
“Yeah. Why?” I drop down on the couch and look around the room. “Where’s Miller?”
“On the balcony. He’s talking to Sunny.”
“Is everything okay there?”
“I don’t know. She’s having some cramps. She thinks it’s some kind of hiccups or something, and Miller wants her to call the midwife.”
I shake my head. “You know, a year ago if you’d told me he’d be talking babies, I woulda laughed.”
“A lot can change in a short span of time.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” I think about how things went down with Tash. How at the end of last summer it went from nothing to sex to me wanting just her to her not wanting the same. One minute we were whatever we were, and then we weren’t anything. “When you and Lily started hooking up, it was just for the fucking, right?”
Randy sits at the other end of the couch and runs his palm over his beard. “We were just—”
“—having fun. You used to say that a lot.”
Randy nods. “Yeah. I was a fucking idiot.”
“So it wasn’t just about the fun?”
“I mean, yeah, at first that was the whole point, but then things started to change.”
“Change how?”
“I wanted more.”
“I’m glad that worked out for you.” I mean it, though it might sound like I don’t.
Randy regards me for a few seconds, maybe judging my sincerity. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why do you keep letting Tash screw you over?”
I tap on the arm of the chair. “I’m not gonna let her do that anymore.”
“What happened this last time?”
“I had enough. Like, every fucking time she makes me believe it’s just gonna be me and her, and that we’re gonna work things out or whatever. But then there’s always someone else involved, and it’s never what I think it’s going to be.”
“That’s kinda your thing, though, right?”
It sucks that even one of my closest friends believes this about me. Although, I’ve never given him a reason to think otherwise, because then I’d have to explain more than I want to.
“Not like you think. And when Tash and I started hanging out, it wasn’t like that. Not at first. And it wasn’t supposed to be anything, but then suddenly it was.”
“When did it change?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe it was when you and Miller went to that camp up in Canada last summer that it started to be…something real, I guess. Or I thought it was real. Nothing really happened between us until just before Waters’ engagement party, though. Tash likes to play games.”
“Miller thought something was going on between you two before that.”
“Before the camp thing?”
“Yeah.” Randy tips back his water and takes a long drink. “Think back to the night you and that chick drew a dick on Miller’s forehead. You were weird about Tash even then.”
I give him a look. I know now that was also the night Poppy came to my house. Mostly I remember seeing the dick pictures on my social media feed the next day. They’d gone viral, and gotten Miller in a world of shit with Sunny.
“That chick you were with? She’s the friend of Poppy’s you fucked.”
I try again to piece together the events of that night, but last season I spent about as much time drunk as sober, and it only got worse as I got into things with Tash. “You’re sure about that?”
“Yeah. Poppy was the one who removed the dick from his forehead. You don’t remember that at all?”
I’d probably been focused on the fact that Tash was coming over and there were still bunnies in the house.
I pull up my Instagram, but then I remember I deleted all the pictures because of the shitstorm the dick on Miller’s forehead caused. Well, it wasn’t the dick so much as the presence of the girl in the bed with him. I get now why it wasn’t the best move on my part, but at the time I hadn’t thought past how funny it would be.
I flip to my photo stream and scroll back through the pictures until I get to the ones from last summer. It takes me a while to find the dick forehead pics, but when I finally do, I have a hazy recollection of the girl in them.
“I don’t think I screwed that chick.”
“Dude, you don’t even remember meeting Poppy that night. How can you be sure about anything?”