Tuesday Tales – Icy

It`s time for Tuesday Tales.

Today we have an excerpt from Reading the Play, Watkins Glen Gladiators #5.

Please do bear in mind that these snippets are unedited so please be kind if you find any mistakes.

This story may have gay erotic scenes, strong social issues addressed and mature language. If those things offend now is the time to move onto another Tuesday Tales blog. Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

I worked the ice with my skates, scraping it up into small mounds. I patted the pipes. I touched my water bottle. I looked up at the rafters then down at the blue under my blades. Then, and only then, did I let my sight wander over the crisp new ice. Down at the other end, two hundred feet away, stood Marcus Newley in his blue and yellow gear, a glowing comet on the front of his sweater, his butterfly stance tight. Yeah, he was ready but so was I.

Or I thought I had been. A lot of the game for a goalie is mental. I know that, Liam knows that, and our goalie coach August Miles knows that. When you allow something – or someone to jam up your happy brain radio waves then you can’t…well, I don’t know what people do with radios because I don’t think I’ve listened to one since I was a little boy in Jakarta being bounced on my grandfather’s knee but whatever a jammed radio wave did it had to be bad.

Marcus was jamming my waves. Maybe hacking into the mainframe of my brain was more my generation. Ten minutes into the first period I’d let two goals past me on four shots.

“Hey, you feeling okay?” Deandre asked after a puck went over the glass and play had been called while the refs conferred if it was on purpose or not. Greck and Bean were jabbering at the refs backs while I tried to find my game. My sight locked on Newley at the other end of the ice, taking a drink of water, his long throat bared, his mask resting atop his net. “Hey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I replied shortly. DJ gave me a concerned look. “Sorry, no need to snap at you man. I’m just rattled.”

“It happens. First game back on the ice after a long summer off. I’m just making sure you’re okay. Coach Miles is studying you like a drop of alien goo on a slide.” I glanced around my teammate and yep, sure enough, Coach Miles was looking at me with that confused expression. I gave the goalie coach a short wave to indicate I was good, but that was a lie because I wasn’t good at all. I was screwing this up. “Hey, man, if you need something?”

“Nope, I’m good.” I took a moment to redo the small topknot I wore to keep my hair out of my face. My scalp was soaking wet with sweat. Once the mass was pulled back I gave DJ a jerk of my chin. “All good. Just had to fix the hair.”

“You and your hair,” he teased, gave me a rap on the shoulder, and then skated off.

 

Tuesday Tales

 

 

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