Page 100 of Secrets and Lies
I don’t even know for sure what his sexuality is. There was a bit of a scandal back in freshman year when he hooked up with a female TA, so I assume he’s into women, but I have no idea if he’sonlyinto women.
It would also probably help if I were better at reading social cues. I can’t even count how many times I’ve thought someone was being friendly when they were actually flirting, or I thought they were flirting when they were only being friendly. Now I just assume that everyone is being friendly unless they make it obvious that they’re into me, and Anthony has never really crossed that line.
He teases and flirts and says suggestive things, but that doesn’t mean he’s into me. And this isn’t the first time I’ve gotten obsessed over someone like this.
The same thing happened when I first met Damon. He was so different and interesting compared to literally every other person I knew, and I’ve always had a thing for people with dark hair and light eyes, so put the fact that I found him insanelyattractive together with him being so interesting, and I was obsessed.
Thankfully, he didn’t seem to realize that my obsession with him came from misplaced attraction, and he indulged my endless questions and never made me feel unwelcome or like I was too much.
That’s something I’ve heard from people my entire life. I’m always “too much” for them. I get too excited or too focused or too intense, and I have a bad habit of smothering people with attention because I just like being around them so much, and not a lot of people can put up with it once the novelty wears off.
Damon was one of the first people who didn’t disappear after a few months, or even years, of friendship, and we’re still best friends after almost six years. I thought McKenna was another one who wouldn’t get sick of me, but even she tapped out after less than two years together.
I have no idea if Anthony and I are becoming friends, or if he even wants to be friends. For all I know, this is a duty thing, and he’s being nice to me because I’m a frat brother in need. Or maybe he just finds the mess that is my life entertaining and enjoys his front-row seat to the drama.
Either way, I like hanging out with him, and I don’t want to ruin things by creeping on him or by making him uncomfortable because I can’t stop eye-fucking him whenever we’re in the same room.
I just need to get over this stupid crush like I did with Damon. And hopefully I can do that before I fuck this up too.
A loud buzzer, a mix between an air horn and a sports buzzer, goes off, and I blink a few times as the room around me comes back into focus.
I look at the screen of my laptop, and instead of the countdown clock and the camera showing the teams doing theirwarm-ups, there’s no timer on the screen, and the teams are in their pregame huddles with the coaches.
Another buzzer goes off, and all the players do that thing where they tap their helmets against the goalie’s, like little “good luck” head taps, then skate into their positions to get ready for the face-off.
From what I can tell, Anthony is playing center, one of the twins is playing both left and right wing, and Rath is in the net. The rest of the players are guys I recognize, but they’re not the ones I’m paying attention to as the ref skates up to the two centers. He does that thing where he holds the puck over the little circle, and Ant and the other center do a little stick battle for a few seconds, then the ref finally drops the puck.
Anthony is so fast I can barely see his stick move as he wins the face-off, and he and the twins take off, passing the puck back and forth between the three of them as they fly down the ice.
The Keepers are wearing black jerseys, and the Serpents are in green, so it’s easy to follow what’s going on and who has the puck, and I find myself holding my breath in excited anticipation as Ant and the twins literally skate circles around the other team for a solid minute in a sort of humiliation ritual before Ant takes the first shot on goal, and the red light on the back of the net lights up as he scores.
The players all have clear face shields on their helmets instead of cages like they wear in regular college hockey, and something deep in my stomach clenches when the camera zooms in on Anthony and his smirky smile as he does a little victory lap around the net and blows a kiss at the pissed-off goalie.
Just as the twins come up to presumably congratulate Ant on his goal, the broadcast team switches the feed and shows a playback of his goal.
“Jesus Christ,” I say as they slow it down even more and play it a third time.
The goal was impressive as hell, but Anthony moved so fast that I couldn’t see just how complex it was until it was slowed down in the replay. More of those tingles fill my chest as the teams go back to the center line for another face-off.
I already knew I have a competence kink, and now I also know that watching Anthony play hockey like he was born on skates is a part of that kink.
Just. Fucking. Awesome.
The rest of the first period goes a lot like the first few minutes of it did, and the Keepers are up 4-0 by the time the clock runs out, with Hazen and Connor each scoring one goal, and Anthony scoring two. And if that wasn’t enough, Rath managed to block all of the dozen shots on goal and made each save look easy.
I knew the four of them had to be good, considering the school they went to and the caliber of athletes it produces, but I had no idea they werethisgood.
Surprisingly, there’s a fuck ton of sports talent at Silvercrest, but that probably has a lot to do with students here having the ability to train at world-class sports establishments and hire the best coaches money can buy, even if they have no plans or even the desire to do anything with their training and talent.
The house leagues are full of elite-level athletes, and that includes the hockey teams, but it almost seems unfair for Anthony and his friends to all be on the same team because of how much better they are than everyone else.
There’s a fifteen-minute break between periods, and I pull up the Keepers’ team stats while I wait for things to start again.
“Holy shit.” The numbers are impressive.
Not only are Anthony and the twins the top scorers in the league by a mile, but the Keepers team is way ahead of the others in every single metric. And based on the historical data,the Keepers have been dominating the league for the last three years.
I’m reaching for the rest of the packed lunch Anthony had sent up for me when my phone rings, and my heart drops into my stomach when I glance at the screen.
