All the Bold Moves (All The Right Moves 2)

This is fun.

I have work to do tonight for the team to prepare for tomorrow’s game and shouldn’t be wasting time playing around on my phone.

My sisters’ boyfriend Weston (who’s sleeping in the hotel bed next to mine) sounds like goddamn chainsaw that’s having a seizure when he snores. In fact, I want to suffocate him with a freaking pillow. I wonder if Molly knows how loud he is - but then this thought immediately reminds me that he is probably “sleeping” with my little sister, which doesn’t just make me want to smother him, it makes me want to beat the shit out of him, too.

Speaking of Weston, I glance over to where he’s sleeping, and curl my lip. It’s dark, and he’s sleeping, but the sight of him irritates me nonetheless. How do I always get stuck rooming with this guy?

You might be wondering at this point how I even ended up in a room with him to begin with. Well that one is easy: I play professional hockey for the Anaheim Ducks, but in the off season I come home to Wisconsin, where I keep a condo near my folks place.

Just so happens that when my first season hiatus with the NHL began, it seemed like a natural progression to begin working as one of the Development Coaches for my Alma Mater, the University of Wisconsin Madison Badger Hockey team - you know, in my “free time.”

Whoa. That was a mouthful.

Basically, my job in the off season is to coach certain collegiate players; train with them in the fitness room, make sure they’re keeping their grades up – working with them on and off the ice. Which means I occasionally travel with the team (not always, but sometimes) and when I do, for some ungodly reason the team’s travel agent insists on sticking me in the same room as McGrath. Probably as some sick joke to torture me.

The guy is a pain in my ass.

You think girls are high maintenance in the bathroom? This guy takes the prize: he brings his own shampoos and after shave lotions, changes into special flip flops for the shower, and travels with his own pillow.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that as soon as he walks into the hotel room, he yanks all the covers off the bed so they’re on the floor so he doesn’t have to touch any semen infested linens (his words, not mine).

What was that? You don’t think that sounds so bad because you do all those things too? Well trust me. It’s really annoying and against Mother Nature for a guy to act like that – girls yes, guys no.

Plus – he brings food but won’t share it.

I glance over and eyeball a bag of his Sun Chips, letting out a loud sigh. If I take it, he’ll hear the crinkle from the bag and wake up, and that’s the last thing I want.

Company.

Adjusting myself on the bed to get comfortable, I click off the bedside table lamp and relax against the head board before opening the new message, laughing when I read the subject line of Cecelia’s email, and laughing again when I read the content.

I am not a bitch. And I guess now I owe you a hundred bucks. So… Good luck with that. - C

Not a bitch? Bullshit.

That chick is too a bitch, and I’ve witnessed it first-hand. Not only that, judging from the way she looked the first – and only – time I’ve met her, she is probably totally sitting around right now in some kind of sweat or yoga pants. Trust me, I know girls, and that’s totally what she’s doing: pacing around that shitty apartment of theirs in a complete tizzy.

I click reply.

This is too easy. I think for a bit about what might piss her off, knowing already that it doesn’t take much.

TO: Cecelia Carter

DATE: September 13, 2014 at 8:47:24 PM CST

FROM: Matthew Wakefield

Subject: BUT IM USUALLY ALWAYS RIGHT

If you don’t have the cash, I can collect it in other ways… IF you know what I mean.

PS: What was your name again?

MSW

Sent from my iPhone.

I chuckle at my own wittiness, and toss the phone onto the shitty hotel bedspread that’s folded down at my feet, hoping that later when I hold the phone up to my ear it doesn’t give me an STD (or something) because it landed in something gross. You know, like a bodily fluid, since it’s been on this bed since 1982.

Okay. So maybe Wes has a point about ripping off the bed spread… I make a mental note to rub my phone down with hand sanitizer.

Crossing my arms behind my head and flipping through the sparse cable channels this hotel has to offer, I finally settle on a rerun of The Breakfast Club, and briefly close my eyes. Maybe if I try hard enough, I can conjure up a mental picture of my sister’s roommate Cecelia (yes, I know her name), which isn’t easy because we’d only ever met once a few weeks back. However memorable the encounter was I can honestly only remember a few things about what she looks like – mostly a pile of messy hair and smudged makeup.