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We’d had the summer to recover from losing to the Knights, heal mentally and physically, and return with renewed hope. Training camp was pretty competitive too. Guys were competing for a spot on the roster, prospects and current players alike. Sure, some of us had contracts, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t be sent down if we didn’t play well. Our goal here in the AHL was to go up and not down, obviously. I’d never been called up, which sucked, but I’d learned to accept it for what it was. I was small in stature. Coaches in the pros liked my grit, but they shied away from my size. Whatever. Their loss. I’d never admit that it stung just a bit. Just like I would never confess to the knowledge that Henri was right. Three times bottoming within twenty-four hours was insane. ?Course so was my attraction to the man…
Still, I had a long day ahead of me. The coaching staff was intent on putting us through our paces. There were tests to run to gauge our fitness with on-ice and off-ice sessions. Sprints, runs, push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and my personal least favorite the Wingate test, which was an all-out 30-second sprint with maximum tension on a cycle ergometer. While your teammates stood around and cheered you on as the team physicians clocked and monitored your performance.
Normally, it was hell on earth. Today, it would be the lower depths of hell. My ass on a bike seat. What the hell had I been thinking?
I snapped back to the current poor bastard on the bike. Bean was cranking it out, sweat dripping from his brow as he struggled through the final ten seconds.
“You got this, Bean! Pound those pedals!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. Liam was standing on my right, doused with sweat, having just completed his go after Basky. Both the young goalies had smoked the bike. Us older players were having to push a little harder. Fossie was yelling encouragements to our captain, but I noted he was letting everyone push him back in the line.
I tried to get Fossie’s attention, but Bean finished his sprint with an exhausted hoot and then lowered his ass to the seat, his legs slowing, his shoulders and face slick with sweat.
“Holy shit,” Bean gasped, easing off the bike. “I’m way…too old…for this shit.”
The guys laughed as the trainers gave the handles and seat a quick cleaning with disinfecting wipes, reset their computers and stopwatches, and then looked at me.
“Greck?” Matt Whittier, our head trainer, called from his seat in front of the bicycle from Hades.
“You talking to me?” I asked in my best DeNiro imitation. Everyone chortled. Anything to delay this torture was fine with me. ?Course you could only do the bit from Taxi Driver for so long. Matt looked at his watch after my fifth round of impressions. Yeah, that was the signal to stop being a mook. Sorry, not a mook. Henri had been firm about not using that word for myself. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, keep your shirt on,” I said as I peeled my already damp Gladiator T-shirt off and chucked it to Fossie, who was hiding in the corner. “I’m coming. I’m here. I got this test beat already. I’m a machine!”
I slapped my bare chest and then climbed on the bike. The moment my ass touched that hard seat, I mentally called myself things far worse than mook. By the time I was done, I was done. Thank the sweet Virgin and her tiny sandals that this was the last test of the morning. I eased down to my feet, grimacing at the state of my poor butthole. To make it look less like I’d let a sexy French man fuck me raw, I reached down to rub my right calf.
“Tight,” I groaned, limping oddly to the far corner to grab a cold bottle of water and a clean towel. Liam gave me a high five. Basky smiled at me like the kid had just taken a walk in the park, and Bean nodded as he tried to walk off a cramp in his lower back.
“Okay, Fossie, you’re up,” Matt called as things were reset. The room reeked of sweaty men. I downed my water, passed up the offer of a chair from DJ, who had raced through the test like he was Greg Minnaar, and leaned against a cool cinderblock wall. How did a guy who spent his whole summer playing frisbee with a kid, singing hymns in Bible summer camp, and eating his mom’s cooking when he and his new family unit had gone home to Chicago for weeks come into camp in such good shape?
“Youth,” Fossie grunted as he stalked to the bike with purpose. Oh shit, I hadn’t realized I’d said that out loud. Point still stood, though. Maybe it was love that had whipped him into shape. Probably not. Probably it was all the hours he’d spent at Williams Wellness getting Key to work with him every day for an hour at a time. Guess I should have done the same but lying in bed eating French ass and/or French pastries had been so much more enjoyable. That’s on me.
Fossie looked like he was going to rip the cycle apart limb from limb or gear from gear, I guess as he approached it. The man was huge, hairy, and not at all in the best of moods.
His day had been a struggle. He was the oldest player on the team at thirty-eight now, and his knees were on their last legs. Ha. Knees. Legs. I could have made a quip, but I didn’t because my buddy was tense. We all cheered him on with vigor when his time started. He petered out with a few seconds to go, but he had given it his all.
“You tore that shit up!” DJ crowed after his defensive partner climbed off the bike, soaked with sweat and red in the face from exertion. “Dynamic duo is ready to win the Calder this year!”
We all cheered that thought, but I couldn’t help but wonder how Fossie was going to fare with the testing. I’d do my best to keep his spirits up when we broke for lunch. I made the rounds of the locker room while the team showered. Visited with everyone, checked on their kids and wives, teased a few of the new faces, and then slipped into the showers when the stalls were empty. Just me, my soap/shampoo combo bottle, and a tube of anorectal cream.
Thankfully, I got out of the shower without any interruptions. With a towel around my waist and my pink flip-flops on my feet, I flipped and flopped to my cubicle, eager to turn on my phone to tell Henri all about my morning.
I tenderly lowered my backside to the bench, pulled out my Android, and fired it up. There were the usual social media notifications that I swiped away, and one text from Henri asking me to come home for lunch.
I smirked. Ah, so he was feeling a little left out of the anal loving and wanted to sneak some in before he had to spend the night picking grapes.
I’ll be home in thirty. Get prepped. ~ Phil
Just thinking about sinking into his sweet, pale ass got me hard. “Hey, guys,” I called, glancing up from the fourteen question marks Henri had replied with. How could the man be confused? Get prepped seemed pretty straightforward to me. Maybe he was being coy to crank my handle. Like he had to be anything but his sexy self to get me hard. “I can’t make it to Cactus Toad for lunch.” The guys all stopped dressing to bitch at me. “Whoa, whoa, hey, I know no social outing is the same without the Greck but…uhm, I got something to tend to that come up sudden like.” I shifted to hide the boner inside my towel. “Sunny, don’t eat too much of that cabbage salad. We got to skate with you when we come back.”
Sunny blushed a deep red. The guys all started teasing the kid about his gassy episode after eating a pound of coleslaw at our last team lunch. That got them all focused on Liam and not me ditching them for something lame. No one knew about me and Henri yet because…well, because we didn’t even have a grasp of what we were yet. I knew what I wanted, but Henri was a skittish French saddle pony. I dressed with speed, slipped out of the Schaffer Salt Arena rear entrance, and dove into my car with a grin as wide as Seneca Lake.
***
There was a possibility that I might have broken a few speed limits on the way to the chalet, but I arrived safe, sound, and without any tickets from the fine Watkins Glen Police Department.
Knowing what delicacy awaited me, I barreled into the mansion, tripping over my own feet as I yanked my T-shirt over my head. I called it that, but Henri refused to, citing that calling it that was pretentious. I insisted because the place had five bedrooms, several baths, and had to be eight thousand square feet, which made it a mansion in my mind and so I stuck to that because I was a bullhead.
I skidded to a halt, sneakers squeaking on the imported marble floor of the foyer, when I spied Bridgette giggling at me.
“Oh. Hey,” I said nonchalantly, balling up my gray Gladiators tee to cover the bulge in my shorts. “Just ran home for something.”
“Mr. Gaudion is awaiting your presence on the veranda. If you’ll follow me?” she said in her very best Barnaby imitation.
