My Masturbation Recording Was Listened To 146 Times By The Ice Hockey Hunk Chapter 04
Back in my apartment that night, I kept replaying his line: When you get too close… I start thinking things I shouldn’t.
It tormented me, tossing and turning in bed.
What thoughts exactly?
Zach and I had grownup sidebyside. He had seen every messy, embarrassing version of me.
When we were little kids I climbed the tall oak tree in our front yard trying to pick honeysuckle blossoms. My footing slipped and I nearly crashed to the dirt. Zach scrambled halfway up the trunk and pulled me safely down.
When I was older I learned to ride a bicycle. I skidded straight into a muddy ditch and landed covered in filth. He jumped right in after me and dragged me out, ruining his own sneakers in the process.
In middle school my voice developed its naturally soft timbre. Classmates would snicker whenever I answered questions out loud.
Back at a highschool icehockey game, I stood packed in the noisy student stands clutching a towel printed with Zach’s jersey number. My eyes never left his tall figure gliding across the ice.
Zach was hunched low over his stick, shoulders tensed, locked in a brutal play against the opposing team, every spectator’s attention fixed on the flying puck.
Without hesitation I raised my voice over the roaring crowd and shouted his name at the top of my lungs.
“Zach! Go get it!”
My voice cut clean through the arena noise and carried down onto the ice.
A bulky forward on the rival team turned his head toward the stands. A cruel smirk spread across his face. He deliberately pitched his voice high, mocking my tone out loud for everyone on the rink to hear.
“Zach! Go get it!”
Several of his teammates burst out laughing. Hot shame flooded my face. I froze against the metal guardrail.
Zach had heard every word.
One second he was focused on the puck. The next his whole body went still.
He abandoned the gamewinning puck entirely. He dug his skates hard into the ice and surged forward like a caged predator, charging straight for the player who had mocked me.
Boom!
His shoulder crashed hard into the other man’s chest. The force sent the opponent stumbling and crashing onto the ice, shards of ice spraying everywhere.
Coaches screamed his name from the bench. The whole team bench descended into chaos.
But Zach paid no mind to anyone shouting around him. He stood towering over the fallen player, chest heaving, raw fury blazing in his eyes as he stared the guy down.
For so long I had only ever seen him as my most dependable best friend.
But everything felt different now.
I lay in bed, face buried in my pillow. Every time I recalled the way he had looked at me that evening my heart raced wildly.
If he really kept having those inappropriate thoughts…
All those years I had sprawled across his bed, dropped by his place late at night to watch horror movies, shown up at his door in nightwear.
I shot upright in bed, my ears burning hot.
Oh no. Maybe I was starting to have those same kinds of thoughts too.