Power Plays & Straight A's Read online

  The crowd is dwindling now. People don’t realize how slow and boring practices are compared to real games, but there are a few people hanging back. Mainly puck bunnies or middle-aged people I really hope are the parents of some of the freshmen on the team.

  My parents were in the stands whenever they could be my freshman year, including away games. Now they come to my home games or games close by, but that’s it.

  When Coach Hogan finally wraps up the practice and our audience starts filing out, I have no hope Zach will still be waiting by the time I’m showered and dressed.

  That doesn’t stop me from rushing through it.

  I’m out the door before any of my teammates, and as I leave the arena I pull out my phone to text him. I got his number from the class info sheet.

  I’m typing away when he steps out in front of me.

  I startle. “Fuck. Uh, hi.”

  He averts his gaze. “Hey. Umm … So …”

  “So? Did any of that help?” I gesture behind me.

  “Are you kidding? If anything, I’m more confused. I have no idea what”—he waves his hand in the direction of the arena—“that was.”

  “That was hockey.”

  “Duh, but—”

  “You hungry?”

  Zach’s green eyes meet mine. His eyes are almost cat-like now that I’m actually letting myself notice. They’re kinda pretty and hypnotic. “What?” he asks.

  Yeah, what? What was I saying?

  My stomach rumbles. Right. Food. “I didn’t have dinner, and I’m starving. Want to share a pizza?”

  His lips flatten. “Pizza?”

  “My dorm or yours?”

  “Pizza?” He seems confused.

  “You know, dough, sauce, pepperoni, cheese. Pizza. For a genius, I’m starting to wonder how smart you really are.”

  “You’re inviting me to have dinner? In your dorm?”

  Ah. I break into a smile and step closer. “Scared to be alone with me?”

  He blinks and backs up a few steps. “What? No! Uh, no. It’s just … we’re not friends, so—”

  I roll my eyes. “I’ve known you for three years now. We’re friends. Or at least friends by association. And you need help. I need food. Two birds and whatnot. Albany Hall is closer, but if you’re not comfortable with me in your space, we can go to—”

  “Mine’s good. That’s … umm good.”

  “Awesome. I’ll order the pizza on the walk over there. What do you like?” We walk in the direction of his place.

  “Pepperoni’s fine.” He keeps his head down.

  “I didn’t ask what was fine. I asked what you like.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  I pause. “Do you know you do that all the time at home?”

  “Do what?”

  “Whenever anyone asks what you want, you go along with whatever Seth says.”

  Zach shrugs. “We have the same taste.”

  “Okay. Seth likes mushrooms, so do you want mushrooms?”

  There’s a pause.

  “Peppers,” he mutters.

  “What?”

  “Peppers. Please. No mushrooms.”

  “Was that so hard?”

  Zach doesn’t answer me, and I have to wonder if that really was hard for him.

  I order the pizza so by the time we get back to his dorm we won’t have to wait long for it.

  He opens the door to his room, and I drop my gear bag on the floor. I sit on his bed, but he stands awkwardly, kinda shuffling his feet before he decides to take a seat at his desk.

  It might be the first time I’ve been in someone else’s dorm room where they seem scared of their own bed. Or maybe he’s scared of me being on it.

  It’s hard to figure this guy out.

  I’ve known Zach for three years, but I really don’t know anything about him.

  He pulls out a notebook. “So, what I really don’t understand is how individual goals affect the group mentality of a team.”

  “Straight to it, huh?”

  “Out on the ice tonight, you were slamming your teammates into the wall—”

  “Boards. They’re called boards.”

  “Those things. You were violent with the people you have to play with next month when the season starts. How is that good for team morale?”

  “You know when the season starts? Impressive.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “Okay, I might have been a bit hard on one of the new guys tonight, but he deserved it. Besides, in an actual game, he’ll get hit a lot harder than that.”

  “I’m starting to wonder if I should make my thesis about a jock’s mind and the need to be all grunty and violent, risking concussions and permanent injury so they can chase a ball.”

  I blink at him. Then blink again. “A … ball. A ball?”

  “Uh, a disc?”

  “It’s a puck! How are you friends with my brother and you don’t even know what a puck is?”

  “Funnily enough, when Seth and I hang out, your name doesn’t generally come up.”

  I smirk. “But it does sometimes.”

  “You’re mocking me.” He sighs in exasperation. “Are you going to help me with this or not?”

  There’s a knock at the door, and I jump up to tip the delivery dude. “After pizza.”

  6

  Zach

  As Foster gets up to pay for the pizza, I can’t draw my stare away from the Foster-shaped imprint on my bed. My tiny bed. My bed that was made to look even tinier with Foster’s large body draped over it.

  There is no way I’ll be sleeping tonight.

  The door clicks closed, and I force my attention to the pizza and not the guy carrying it. The guy currently filling up more of my room than he has any right to. The smell makes my head swim which is a dangerous concept considering the current thump of my pulse in my ears.

  “Pepperoni and peppers,” he announces like I wasn’t there when he ordered it.

  Foster sprawls across the floor, and I’m grateful he didn’t try to eat in my bed, except now he’s closer, with only the pizza box between us. It’s not until Foster starts to devour a slice like he’s on a timer that I realize I can’t remember a time when it was ever us one-on-one, other than brief passes in the hall, or if Seth ducked out to use the bathroom. I’m far too nervous to consume a bite.

  Instead, I get back to psychology. The reason we’re here. The thing that is going to move my focus away from how Foster’s wide jaw works around the slice to something that doesn’t make me want to drop from my desk chair and move closer to him.

  “Tell me.” The words come out wrong, so I clear my throat and try again. “When you hurt each other, doesn’t that cause resentment within the team?”

  Foster groans. “No school talk while we eat.” He nudges the box toward me, and I reluctantly reach down for a slice while managing to stay balanced on my chair.

  “What do you do for fun?” he asks around a mouthful.

  “I read.”

  “If you say psychology books, I’m gonna have to leave.”

  My lips buckle under a smile—is that all he thinks I am? “I have other interests.”

  “Well, don’t list them all at once.”

  “I read mystery novels, color to destress, and debate my mom on the concept of fortune tellers since she insists on seeing one every other month. I’m undefeated against Seth at chess, and I, um …” I stall, but power on because what’s the harm at this point? “Like to ride.”

  His eyebrows jump up. “Ride?”

  “Yes. Biking is relaxing.”

  He laughs as he starts on slice number two, and I’m struggling to work out what he finds so funny.

  “I assume you think because I like books, I can’t possibly be interested in anything physical.”

  “Not at all.” He lifts his hands in surrender. “That was, ah, enlightening.”

  He’s making fun of me. I hold back my sigh and take a bite of the oily pizza for no other reason than to
occupy my mouth. Anything to stop another torrent of ridiculous information. In fact, did he really not want me to list it all? I’d interpreted that as sarcasm, but now I’m not so sure.

  This was a terrible idea. How did I think I could sufficiently function while there was a cute guy in my room?

  Cute?

  I mentally scoff at the ridiculous descriptor. I’m ashamed of my body’s reaction at seeing him dominate during his training this evening. Even though conceptually I understand it was nothing more than being drawn to the alpha male who was exhibiting extreme competency in his chosen field, it didn’t stop excitement from twisting in my veins.

  That same excitement that always lingers when he’s around.

  He polishes off a third slice, so I figure now is as good a time as ever to return to the reason he’s here. At least if we’re focused on examining theory, he’ll be distracted from examining me.

  “One thing I did note tonight was the relationship between personality and performance—”

  “I hope you don’t take offense to this, but you don’t really seem to get people, so how the hell were you a psych major?”

  “I like psych because I don’t understand people. I don’t understand their motivations and how seemingly similar people can react in completely different ways to the same stimulus. So I study. A lot. I had some units from neuroscience that cross listed, and—”

  “Neuroscience? Why did you give that up?” He smirks. “Too hard?”

  I scowl. “Too easy. It’s systematic. When it comes to understanding people, I really have to try. And the most fascinating thing about it is you can have a very stereotypical subject in front of you who doesn’t meet any of the basic criteria that stereotype portrays. They’re the ones I find most confusing. Because how can someone embody a perfect image but think differently than how all the textbooks say they’re supposed to?”

  Foster averts his gaze. “Interesting. So, what? You wanna become a psychologist or something?”

  “God no. I’d be terrible. I want to get my doctorate then go into social psychology which is all focused on research.”

  “Huh.” He looks around. “Why is your room so empty?”

  I blink at the sudden subject change. “What?”

  Foster looks around, his normally disarming brown eyes studying the bare walls. “Your room at UVM was the same.”

  “How do you know—”

  “Met Seth there a handful of times.” He turns his attention back to me and the second our eyes meet, I hurry to look away. “You don’t have anything personal?”

  I shift a photo of me and Seth from behind my laptop. “I have this.”

  He stares at it for a moment, and nothing about his expression gives him away, but it makes me wish I’d kept the photo to myself. “Why do I get the feeling you didn’t have that printed yourself?”

  “Seth did it.”

  “Thought so. Is that all you have? Where are your books?”

  I tap my phone screen.

  “One photo. Well, at least I know you’re not a hoarder.”

  “Do you have any other questions, or can we return to sports psychology now?” My cheeks are starting to become uncomfortably hot, so I place my pizza on a napkin and quickly turn to my desk so he can’t see.

  “I think you’re approaching it the wrong way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you understand the team, right? There’s one goal—to win. But you’re then trying to work out each person as a whole when we’re all different. Yeah, we all want to win, but maybe one teammate wants to win so their parents will get off their back, but another teammate wants the glory.”

  “Why do you want to win?”

  “To earn my place in the NHL.”

  My eyebrows jump up. “You think you’re good enough?”

  “Should I be offended?” he shoots back.

  “I … what?”

  “You don’t think I’m good enough.”

  I twist back to face him. “What … no. I didn’t say that.”

  “The disbelief in your voice did.”

  Disbelief? Once again, I’m completely confused about how I’ve ended up in a conversation with an annoyed jock, and considering how it ended up the last time … I hurry to shake my head. “Not disbelief, curiosity. Most people underestimate their skills. It was interesting to me that you sounded self-assured.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “It’s not that you shouldn’t …” Oh sweet Jesus, I need to abort this conversation. “So, if each person has their own motivations for reaching the common goal, how do those motivations impact the team?” My voice is getting louder. “The zone of optimal functioning theory seems the most appropriate in light of your—”

  “Zach.”

  “Which would mean each person functions best at an individualized state of stress and arousal, but if that’s the case, how do you get those separate entities to work cohesively?”

  “Zach.”

  “What do you think your optimal state of stress and arousal is?”

  Foster’s eyes are wide, and he looks torn between laughing and … well, something that’s not laughing but seems equally offensive. “I think I might have just found it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Never mind. Look, I think we should put a pin in it tonight. Think about practice, but try to narrow it down to how each person behaved out there, rather than looking at the team as a whole.”

  I scowl. “Well, that’s not going to work.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was only paying attention to you.”

  That shuts him up—for approximately a second—before he smirks, and the sharp tug that cocky smile creates deep in my gut cannot be healthy. “Maybe that’s why you got nothing from practice?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were too distracted by my awesomeness.”

  That’s … actually a fair theory. Because while I might not have learned anything about hockey or team mentality, I did learn something about myself.

  I am certainly not immune to the alpha male effect.

  The primitive aggression, the smooth athleticism, the peacocking attitude …

  I’d never understood how those could be prized behaviors until I discovered how incredibly, well, hot they were to observe.

  And it so happened to have been Foster exhibiting those behaviors.

  Foster, who is in my room. Alone. Watching me with the kind of shrewdness I’d never appreciated.

  “I agree that maybe we should take a, umm … a rain check. Yes. Let’s do that.”

  “Couldn’t agree more.” He shoots to his feet and holds the pizza box out to me. “Want any more?”

  “No, thank you.”

  I’m frozen as he hurries to grab his hockey gear. Watching him loop the bag around his shoulder, his arm muscles working under the weight of it, is far more erotic than I could have imagined. I force myself to look away. To forget the image.

  He’s already hurrying to get away, and who can blame him with how the conversation has gone tonight? This was supposed to be strictly academic, and now I’m objectifying him. I can only imagine how appalled he’d be if he knew.

  He gets the door open, and I force myself to speak. “I really appreciate your time.” I’m being sincere, but it comes out stiff and formal.

  Still, it makes him hesitate.

  “Yeah, no problem …” He turns back to me, catching me incredibly red-faced, I’m sure. “Hey, about your first day here …”

  Oh no. Which part of that god-awful day?

  “I’m sorry for laughing.”

  “Huh?”

  “At the …” He points to his face. “I shouldn’t have laughed.”

  It’s so completely unexpected, I’m speechless.

  “Right. Okay.” He reaches for the door, and I shoot out of my chair.

  The movement is sudden and jerky, but thankfully, he doesn’t call me on it.

  �
��It was, umm …” I hover by him. “It was funny. I suppose. Thinking back on it.”

  The tense line of his jaw softens a little. “Yeah, but I’m still sorry.”

  It’s not until I’ve heard those words that I realize I don’t need them. If Seth had found me like that, he would have taken the shirt from his back to clean me up and hurried me away from where anyone could see.

  Maybe that’s how I should wish Foster reacted, but …

  “I liked that you laughed.”

  Apparently, he’s not expecting that. “What?”

  “It was honest. How you would have been with anyone, I think.”

  “Well yeah, but—”

  “Then apology not accepted.”

  “I’m so confused.”

  I laugh but quickly swallow it. “You didn’t treat me like—” I shake my head, unwilling to launch any further into it. “Never mind. Okay, well, good night.”

  I hurry to close the door before I reveal anything else he might interpret as strange. And even with nerves flooding my system, I can’t stop a small laugh from breaking free. That was … possibly one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. Foster, the jockiest of all jocks came to my dorm to help me with coursework. Which he didn’t seem interested in at all. I’m overwhelmingly confused, but I … liked it.

  The Foster-shaped imprint in my comforter taunts me all through my nightly routine, and when I finally mess it up enough to crawl between the sheets, I immediately regret it. It would be my luck that the first and only man I’ve had in my bed would be my best friend’s straight, jock twin brother.

  And … oh no. I’m his TA. His TA who will be grading his papers and possibly lecturing his classes in the future. Was this grossly inappropriate? What would Professor Lawrence say about him being in my room? My high crashes. The only way I’m able to calm down enough to fall asleep is by reassuring myself it won’t be happening again.

  Even if I wanted it to.

  7

  Foster

  I might’ve run out of Zach’s room before I did something my brother would never forgive me for.

  I liked it when he got flustered.

  I liked it when he kept rambling and wouldn’t look me in the eye.