A Bad, Bad Decision

 

Aubrey likes all the things I do to her with her green toy. But not before I make certain the switch to keep that weird green glow feature is indeed turned off. The last thing I need is for my neighbors to think I’m conducting bizarre experiments over here. I think the team would be more freaked out over that—imagine the press!—than if they found out about Aubrey and me.

Then again, maybe not.

The day after our drive out to the desert, I have one more home game. And then the team goes on the road. I decide to drive to the arena separate from Aubrey to maintain appearances. And though I don’t blatantly look for her in the stands, I know she’s there, cheering me on.

Damn, I can’t wait for December to get here.

Fueled by feelings I’ve never felt before, like an intense sort of joy, I come out flying on the ice. Three minutes in and our goaltender, a Russian guy named Ruslan Brezzenov—we call him Breeze—sends the puck to my stick when he’s clearing his net and sees there’s no defensemen around me.

The other team is in the midst of a personnel change so I skate down the ice mostly unimpeded. One of their defensemen finally notices me and comes in for a hard check.

I outmaneuver him and shoot the puck at the net.

Their goalie never sees it coming, and the light behind the net goes on. Sirens erupt and the crowd goes crazy. Our team is doing so well, in large part because of me. I’m playing better than I ever have in my career, and it’s all due to Aubrey.

I realize right then and there, on the ice, as my teammates are congratulating me on my goal, I’m in love with her.

Shit, I’ve never been in love. Not like this.

I go on to score another goal and two assists. It’s a great game and we end up leading 6-2 with only two minutes left to play. But then Benny gets hurt. After he goes down hard against the boards on a wicked check, he has to leave the ice.

We still win, and word from the team doctor is Benny will be okay.

That night, after interviews conclude in the locker room, and after I take a quick shower, I join the guys for a late dinner. I text Aubrey that I’ll be home in a bit, and she messages me back to have fun.

We go to a fancy steakhouse in downtown Las Vegas. The food is great, but I’m not too thrilled that there’s a strip club next door. I have a feeling the guys will want to stop in after we eat. If Benny were here with us, I could take off with him. He avoids all drinking situations. Unfortunately, he had to stay behind for X-rays.

Sure enough, dinner ends and Nolan suggests we stop in at the strip joint.

“Come on, Oliver,” he says when I attempt to decline. “You haven’t been out with us in ages.”

“Yes,” Breeze, the goaltender, chimes in with his choppy accent. “I owe you drink from last season when we go out. Hell,” he goes on, “with all the booze you bought me, I probably owe you twenty drinks.”

“One is good,” I assure him with a clap on the back. It’s not like I’ve been keeping count, but I do recall buying multiple rounds for everyone after we were knocked out of the playoffs in early May. I guess that’s what he’s referring to.

“Does that mean you’re actually going to hang with us tonight?” Nolan raises a brow.

“Yeah, sure.” I shrug. “What can it hurt?”

I regret those words when I walk into the strip club and see how out of control things are. This could end up badly. There are three bachelor parties going on…and now us.

Breeze buys me the drink he owes me. I try to nurse the watered-down vodka and tonic, but various players keep buying rounds for everyone. Before I know it, I’m fucking hammered.

“So much for three months of sobriety,” I say to Nolan.

“You’re not an alcoholic, Brent,” he says. “I don’t know why you talk like that.” He pauses for a few seconds, then says, “Oh, wait. I actually do know why you say shit like that. It’s because of Aubrey and her mouth.”

Lifting my fifth vodka and tonic of the night, I murmur, “Yeah, okay, but she has a point. My downward descent always seems to start out this way.”

He makes a scoffing noise. “That also sounds like something Aubrey would say.”

Leaning back, I ask him, “Dude, what is your fucking problem with her?”

He blows out a breath. “I like her just fine. It’s just that I see the way you look at her. And the way she looks at you.”

“So?”

“You’ve slept with her, haven’t you?”

I shrug. “Maybe.”

“More than once, I presume?”

I nod, and he says, “Damn it, Brent. What are you two doing? She’s an employee of the team, same as you. Nothing good can come of you and her together in any way.”

I don’t like what he’s saying, especially since it’s true. So when a skimpily clad cocktail waitress comes along, I order yet another drink.

“Man, you are such a downer,” I mutter. “Just because you had a bad experience with love—” I shut the hell up when I realize what I’ve just blurted out.

Nolan’s head jerks up. “What did you just say?”

I wave him off. “Nothing, I was just thinking out loud.”

He’s not alarmed that I brought up his past. Well, maybe he is, seeing as it’s a closely guarded secret that not only was Nolan once madly in love, but he married the girl. Both of them were still teenagers. He was just out of juniors and thought she was the love of his life.

Too bad she loved nothing but dick.

She cheated on him with half the team he was on at the time, as well as many other random men. When he found out about all her flings, he filed for divorce and everything was swept under the rug. No one really remembers since he was a “nobody” at the time. But he sure remembers. He told Benny and me all about it, in confidence, this past summer. He even admitted that he’s never been the same since, not when it comes to love. He just doesn’t believe in it—at all.

Narrowing his eyes at me, and probably more pissed than I thought that I mentioned his past, he says, “I told you to fuck Aubrey one time and get it out of your system. You weren’t supposed to fucking fall in love with the bitch.”

“Hey.” I shoot him a warning glare. I will throw down, even with a friend, for her. “Aubrey’s not a bitch, Nolan.”

“Okay, okay.” He puts up his hands. “This is me backing the fuck off. But let me put it out there that I think you’re both dumb to be playing with fire.”

I toss back my drink. “Let me get burned, then. I don’t care what the team says or does to me, as long as Aubrey doesn’t get hurt.”

Nolan rolls his eyes. “Yeah, good luck with that.” He only has my best interests at heart, but while drinking at a strip club is not the best time to discuss this in any rational manner.

Just then a bunch of the guys bring over a tall, blonde stripper. She has on nothing but a G-string and an open short robe. When she starts dancing seductively in front of me, I realize they’ve bought me a lap dance.

This is so not good.

I keep my hands to myself, like a good boy, but there are a lot of cameras flashing. Big fake tits in my face are not going to fly with Aubrey. Nor is the vodka and tonic in my hand destined to bring a smile to her face. Management will be pissed too. I should stop this right now.

But I let it go on.

After the dance, I tip the blonde so she’ll take off. I then get all the guys to erase the pics and videos they captured. I hope I didn’t miss any, because I know if I did it’ll end up on social media. And if that happens, the pic—or worse yet, a video—will show up on a site like Deadspin. I know Aubrey and the team monitor that site and the knock-off ones closely. Everything will be out about this night if something goes viral. And though nothing happened with the dancer, images of her writhing all over my junk wouldn’t look good.

Speaking of junk, I’m horny as hell now thanks to the lap dance. “Hey, I’m taking off,” I say to Nolan. I’m anxious to get home to Aubrey.

Luckily, he sees how drunk I am and makes arrangements with Breeze to follow us out to my place so he can drive me home in my car, and then have a ride back.

Nolan may be a dick at times, but he always has my back.

I also learn he has a video of me with the stripper. I don’t ask him to erase it. He’d never do anything with it.