Page 13 of Line Change

My cock gives a slow, heavy throb behind my zipper. Fuck. I turn back to the woman.

She’s gone.

I spot her dark head disappearing into the crowd near the other end of the bar. I could follow her. Ten seconds ago, I wanted to take her upstairs. I stay where I am.

My beer arrives. I sink lower on the stool and take a drink while Bobby starts counting who is coming out.

Maybe I shouldn’t go anywhere tonight.

5

NOLAN

Ben Pope is going to drive me fucking insane.

Not tonight, though. This is the first night in more than a week that belongs to me. No game. No flight. No dinner with sponsors or video session that should’ve been an email. Practice tomorrow, but that is tomorrow’s problem.

Tonight I have beer, trivia, and two friends who don’t care whether I know how to enter the offensive zone as long as I know the capital of Slovenia. Tessa texted TRIVIA. NO EXCUSES. before I had even left the rink. Micah followed it with six question marks and a picture of the fries at Marlowe’s.

I was never going to say no.

“Ljubljana,” I say.

Tessa writes it on the paper answer sheet in the middle of our table without bothering to question me. Every team in the bar has the same sheet and the same cheap pen. At the front of Marlowe’s, the host finishes asking for Slovenia’s capital and starts the thirty-second timer.

Micah looks up from the basket of fries he’s been steadily emptying. “There’s something wrong with your brain.”

“Because I know things?”

“Because that’s one of the things you know.”

Tessa puts a hand over our answer sheet before either of us can touch it. Trivia brings out something ugly in her. “Shut up. Both of you.”

The host calls time and moves to the next question. Around us, two dozen teams are bent over their own paper sheets, arguing in voices loud enough for the tables beside them to steal answers.

Marlowe’s is narrow, loud, and dark enough that everybody looks good after nine. The booths have been repaired so many times none of the vinyl matches. Flyers for drag shows, rec leagues, and a queer book club cover the wall outside the bathrooms. The bartender had my usual beer open before I got my jacket off.

I’ve been coming here for years. So have Tessa and Micah. Micah started our three-person team and takes it more seriously than some guys take the playoffs. He tracks our scores, changes our team name whenever he thinks of a better one, and complains if either of us misses a week. Tessa gets the pen because her handwriting is the only one the host can read.

People know who I am. A few watch the Leviathans. A few more watch because I do. One guy told me good game when I walked in, then went back to arguing with his boyfriend about soup. The faded team photo somebody made me sign after my rookie season still hangs crooked behind the bar, but nobody has asked for a picture tonight.

I needed Marlowe’s tonight.

The host starts the next question. Micah steals another fry, so I steal one from his basket before he can stop me.

The next question is the chemical element represented by the letter W.

“Tungsten,” I say.

“Why isn’t it T?” Micah asks.

“Because chemistry hates you.”

Tessa writes TUNGSTEN in block letters. “He’s right.”

“I know he’s right. I want to know why.”

“Then look it up after the round.”