Face Offs & Cheap Shots (CU Hockey 2)

Unacceptable.

And so not worth a six-pack of beer.

All throughout my shower, I try to come up with other ways to get to dear old Topher, but I’m drawing a blank. It’s only when Jacobs and Rossi enter, I realize I’m the only one left and I’ve been in here for about twenty minutes.

I shut the water off and wrap my towel around me to go back to my cubby. I change into jeans and a T-shirt and then throw my CU hockey jacket over the top, but I’m stopped by Cohen on my way out.

I glance around the locker room. All the guys have wide smiles on their faces.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Cohen asks.

“It’s Friday. So … McIntyre’s?”

“Nuh-uh. Go sit your ass down.”

“O-okay.” I sit on the bench in my corner of the locker room. “What’s this about?”

Cohen and Martin roll the giant whiteboard from the corner and spin it around.

CUM CAPTAIN CHALLENGES, it reads across the top. Then it’s numbered down the sides with Post-it notes covering the actual challenges.

“Uhh … what the cum?”

Everyone snickers.

“Colchester U mountain lions,” Cohen says. “Duh.”

“Okay, but you do know mountain lions is two words, right? Otherwise I might have to question how you got accepted into this school.”

Cohen huffs. “Fine.” He grabs a marker and turns it into CUML. “Happy? Take all the fun out of it, why don’t you.”

“What’s going on?” Jacobs asks as he comes from the direction of the showers.

My gaze catches on the water dripping from his brown hair down his muscular torso. His muscles rival my own.

I’m bigger, maybe have a tiny bit more definition, but his arms are fucking veiny. Not, like a super-ripped bodybuilder, but there’s this one prominent vein from his shoulder to his elbow, and when did that happen?

Okay, that’s a weird thing to notice.

I avert my gaze to the stupid CUM board. Even with the L there now, it’s ruined forever.

The camp kids have to share the visitors’ locker room, while we have our domain to ourselves, so at least they’re not here to witness this humiliation.

“They’ve set our challenges,” I say and avoid looking in Jacobs’s direction as he dresses.

I’ve seen the guy naked a million times over the last three years. I don’t know why I have the sudden urge to compare his body to mine or why I’m fixated on that vein.

“All right. Let’s hear them.” Jacobs sits. I risk a glance in his direction, and thankfully he’s fully clothed now.

Cohen’s excitement is a little sad. He bounces around the locker room like a kid at Disneyland. “Okay, so there are five challenges, and each of them are worth between ten to thirty points depending on level of difficulty.”

Jacobs and I look at each other.

“Can’t we go one for one? Best out of five?” I ask.

“Agreed,” Jacobs says.

Wait, that seems too easy. I gasp. “We … see eye to eye on something? What … what is happening right now?”

“Points system it is.” Jacobs glares at me.

Yay! Finally! A typical Jacobs reaction. Took him long enough.

“I kind of agree with Beck,” Rossi says. “It says challenge number four and five are worth thirty points each. So, really, they’d only have to put in effort on those two to win.”

A few murmurs break out in agreement.

Cohen throws up his hands in defeat. “Fine. But I totally had a system.”

“You’re enjoying this way too much,” I say. He ignores me.

“Okay, first up.” Cohen rips off the first row of Post-its. “Drinking game.”

“Yeah, that won’t be happening,” Jacobs says.

“Scared I can drink you under the table?”

“Hmm, how about not wanting to be expelled for something that could be considered hazing seeing as there’s a no-tolerance policy for that shit on our campus? If one of us lands in the hospital with alcohol poisoning, half the hockey team will get kicked out of school. A captain should know that.”

Damn. He has a point.

Cohen grunts. “Why are you all determined to ruin my fun with this?”

I scoff. “Because this is all about you.”

“Duh.” Cohen folds his arms and rests the marker under his chin. “Okay, one pitcher of beer. Neither of you will die from, what, four drinks? We time it. The first to finish it wins.”

Jacobs’s lips flatten. “That works, but … what does drinking have to do with being captain?”

“Did we not just establish this isn’t about you guys?” Cohen asks.

Jacobs groans so loud I can hear him all the way over on my side of the locker room. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”

“To McIntyre’s!” Cohen yells and leads us out of the locker room.

The guys on high school duty split off as soon as we leave the arena, making Cohen promise to send videos of the shenanigans.

“No video,” Jacobs and I say at the same time.

I fold my arms. “We’re agreeing on way too much in a short period. We don’t want to mess with the space-time continuum.”