Seb and Riker - Bodycheck - Part 3.1
#3 of Seb and Riker - Bodycheck
"He's one quick 'yote. Pretty cute too." I say. Ryan shrugs in response.
The next day I'm pretty tired but I manage to keep myself awake through class until I get home. I forgot everything that had happened last night and was hit by the heavy aroma of lube soaking into my bed when I step into my room, so I ball up my sheets and throw everything into the wash. Thankfully I don't have practice today so I hop on the couch and make up on lost sleep.
Wednesday practice rolls by, nothing special, but Thursday is brutal. Destin, our coach, is starting to gear us toward teams with larger species so we've do a lot of on-the-wall defense drills, one on one stuff, pairing the bigger guys on our team against the smaller. The only two big guys on our team are a bear and a stag so they basically got triple the workout as the rest of us.
Friday morning draws on till the universe is on the verge of heat death, but I eventually make it to my last class and we're doing some riveting stuff on the classification of poetry. I'm so focused on the idea of killing myself as we read yet another sample of an "Italian sonnet" that I let my phone buzz away in my pocket during the lecture, not bothering to sneak a look until the final bell rings and I see that it was Ryan trying to call me. I don't think I've talked to him since the last time we met up after a game and "fooled around" (as he likes to call it), so seeing his name gets me pretty excited. He hates texting with a passion so I hit redial and bring the phone up to my ear. I shoo away Kasey, one of my teammates who's trying to distract me by hitting me with his tail, which leaves me answering with a laugh.
"Hello?"
"Haha-hey Red." I shoot the pestering otter a glare and he backs off. "What's up?"
"Nothing much. How yah been?" he asks relatively happy.
I shift the phone to my other ear and walk out into the halls. "Good. Busy. Coach has been busting our asses at practice. I don't think I remember a time I was ever this sore."
"Sore is good. Playoffs?"
"That's the plan," I let out with a sigh. "Never too early to start preparing I guess."
"At least you guys have an actual chance. We fucking suck." Ryan's team isn't the best but he likes to go overboard on the self-hate. It's their coach's fault. They have good people on the ice but without much direction they don't get very far.
"Oh shush. I've seen you play; you're not bad at all."
"I think we're going to need more than just one player who isn't bad to get anywhere near the net, dontcha think? When's the last time we won a game? Three, four months ago?" He asks incredulously.
I speak quiet so no one else walking out onto the sidewalk can hear me respond to him. "This doesn't get marked on the point board, but I'm pretty sure I let you win afterwards in bed all the time." I say in a low, husky voice, hoping to distract him from the topic of hockey. If I was with him right now, this would usually be about the time I slip my paw down the front of his shorts and give his sheath a squeeze to put a stop to the talking and move onto other things.
He gets tongue-twisted like always. I can practically see his tail start to wag through the phone. "I-uuh, yes, yes you have." Ryan pauses for a moment and I hope he might keep with the dirty talk, but it doesn't bite. "It's just a little depressing, you know. I train pretty hard."
"Come on Ryan, you guys could make it to the finals too."
I think he catches a patronizing tone I didn't mean to put there and sarcastically laughs before answering. "Good one. We're not even sniffing the semifinals, Seb. I know where we are. I've really tried, really, but... I don't know, nevermind."
"What is it. Tell me," I blurt out rather demandingly.
"Err, I'll tell you later... in person. Are you free?"
Hearing that shoots a bolt of fervor through my tail. "You're in Timbershed?"
"Yup" the fox says plainly. "Well, I'm on my way there to pick up some car parts for my dad. Stopped to get gas and I realized I'm starving, thought you might want to grab something to eat later. Do you have practice today?"
"Err, yeah, let's make it around 4:30-5 ish."
"Usual place?"
"Usual place. I'll see you there, Red." I say into the phone, pretending to wink at him.
I tell my sister that I'm going to hang out with the guys after practice but she never responds to the text. If she still shows up at the school, then that's on her. I'm sure I'll get an angry phone call in an hour and have to listen to her blame it on me, because between us, everything is always my fault. That's one thing you can always rely on when you have an older sister. I already finished my homework in class so I leave all my stuff in the locker room and walk downtown to meet Ryan. Living in a small town sucks most of the time but everything is in walking distance from the rink so I don't have to have my sister cart me around all the time. It snowed again last night and the on the way my paws occasionally crunch through a half-inch pile of snow that had fallen off the trees that line the sidewalk. Its unusually bright out for Timbershed in February. The low sun gleaming off the pure white snow is so bright; it hurts to look into the woods for more than a moment. Even though it will be light out for a few more hours, the air is already starting to nip at my ears and nose. I'm pretty good with the cold but I toss a scarf around my neck for good measure and walk with my paws resting in the pockets of my hoodie.
Whenever we'd play a game against each other, we'd come here to this diner called the Angelus Oaks afterwards and scarf down a postgame meal, sometimes with other teammates, but usually just us. It's a quiet wooden edifice just a few blocks from the rink styled on the outside to look like a log cabin. The big sign outside has soft yellow lettering and comes with matching pastel-theme menus. The laminated paper is littered with cutesy pictures of some of the regular patrons, arm in arm with chefs decked out in white aprons. The aroma of buttery toast wafts continuously through the warm air which I usually end up ordering on the side, regardless of the time of day. Nailed to the wall by the entrance is a sizeable cork board that always has a bunch of event notices and posters for some local garage band. It gets busy on the weekend nights so afterwards, if my parents weren't home, we'd go straight to my place from Angelus Oaks and talk for a while about the game. What we could have done differently and who was doing well or poorly, things like that. He always had a lot of things on his mind other than the game and we ended up discussing life outside of hockey. Arguments with his team, class work, girl troubles, etcetera. He'd go on and on before I finally get him to shut up and let us screw our brains out. Most of the time that release was all he needed but sometimes all he actually wanted to do was sit down and talk. I like being able to sit on the bed and just empty out whatever is on your mind, but I still prefer my way of dealing with stress. Regardless, it was nice way to end the night after a lot of exercise. Afterwards we'd watch the highlights for whatever national game was on that week before he leaves.
Ryan is already at Angelus when I arrive. I smell his scent before I even walk in the door and find him sitting in a booth by the door, our usual spot. He's wearing a jersey for his favorite forward on the West Beach Sharks. It feels so long ago that we started seeing each other regularly, not as boyfriends but as something else, something we never really got around to openly classifying. I get excited all over seeing him sat there, peering over the menu with a slight smile as if he doesn't already know what he wants. I want to dive over the table and give his muzzle a big kiss.
I sit across from him and his ears turn toward me as he drops the yellow menu from his paws. "Hey Seb."
"Yo," I start, slipping off my scarf and setting it on the seat next to me. "How are things?"
"Same old, same old. Mostly. How are you liking being a junior now?"
"Great. I'm practically a real adult. They tried to have me take some class about working on cars but I switched to ceramics instead. I'm not going to change my teacher's oil when I don't even have my own car yet."
"You won't need to if the weather keeps the way it is. Took me near half an hour to chop through the ice block that was our driveway this morning." Ryan fiddles with a fork on the table, poking it into the cloth. "But people really should learn the basics of stuff like that."
"Of cars?"
"Sure. It's important to know how to change the oil and jumpstart a dead battery. But also other stuff you'll probably need know at some point, like finance and... soldering."
"Finance and soldering?"
He drops his brow. "You know what I mean, ass."
I've said that line about switching to ceramics about a jillion times to people asking me about school and I always thought it was clever. Ryan is exactly the type of person to make me feel immature. His dad is an engineer or something along those lines so he's pretty smart about everything machines. He could talk forever about cars he likes or what new thing is out on the market. Racing is a whole world to him. We had a big tiff over Formula 1 racing, namely because I invited him to my place when my parents were out for the night and we somehow ended up watching over an hour of suped up go-carts doing the same turns over and over and over again instead of jumping in bed. By lap fifty-something I had seen enough. None of them even crashed. He said something about how there's more to it than what I'm seeing and it led to a lame argument that more or less ruined the night. "I'll see if they offer Finance and Soldering 101 next year."
"I doubt it. They get so caught up in making sure we all know the trigonometry identities that they barely get us ready for life outside of being a mathematician. Even that car maintenance class was kind of stupid. They have it at Jacobs High too. Kessler, the teacher, he fucking forgot to put the drain plug back in before adding new oil and ended up dumping five quarts of it on the ground in the shop. Had no clue how to clean it up." He takes a drawn out sip of his coffee, getting a little smudge under his black nose and I just about go insane keeping myself from giving his dumb face a big smooch.
"Probably just throw sawdust on it like how they clean up puke. Hey did you catch the game last week against the Titans?" I say, motioning to his jersey to change the subject.
"What?" He wipes his muzzle with a napkin. "Oh, I caught the first half but I had to leave." There was a pause before the last word. Ryan looks back down at the menu again, avoiding my gaze. He's hiding something he doesn't want to talk about. Instead of elaborating, he comes back with more hockey. "How was it?"
"Solid win. I watched it with Ossian. Kerrigan hit two nets second period and then another during a power play third period. Titan crowd looked so pissed."
"Good. Kerrigan is really making waves. I'm starting to like him more." He says blankly.
"He's one quick 'yote. Pretty cute too." I say. Ryan shrugs in response.
The waitress, a squirrel in tan apron, comes by and recognizes us immediately. She's the one littered in photos behind the bar. "Hey boys." She's already scribbling on a pad before we order. "Welcome back to Angelus Oaks. The usual?"
We both nod. When she comes back she brings me a chocolate milkshake on the house and I throw two straws in it as a joke. Ryan doesn't think it's funny and just sips from his water. More for me.
It's obvious he set this up because he wanted to talk about something, but it's too damn pleasant just sitting in silence watching rusty trucks with plows softly crunch through the new snow out the window. Occasionally a sedan or minivan with snowboards strapped to the roof rolls by, the unmistakable sound of tire chains chug against the asphalt. I've always wanted to try snowboarding, or skiing, but I don't think I can justify the hefty price of a lift ticket to fall on my face for a couple hours. I hurt myself enough with hockey as it is. Besides, the only people that snowboard here are douchebags from down the mountain that clog the roads every time a single snowflake lands on the peak. The base of the peak is up the road only a mile so, mid-winter, Angelus is always packed with loudmouth pricks wearing creaky snowboard boots surrounding the single fireplace, . winter is starting to die down and soon Angelus won't be filled with loudmouth pricks wearing creaky snowboard boots indoors.
Thankfully, it's pretty empty right now so I'm pretty comfortable reaching under the table and resting my paw on his leg without anyone seeing. "So, how long are you going to be in town?"