Plié and Clout

Chapter 6: Soggy

hah, doUBLE post

music: 3 nights - Dominic fike

-rabid

***

STEPHAN:

"So, Saggy, any cute ballerinas?" Rocket runs up next to me.

I open my mouth and immediately let out a pant. "Uh-huh."

"Figured, you've been spacey all morning." Rocket turns around. "Some girl has got Saggy in a knot." He hollers.

"Who is it?" Fenrir yells from the front of the pack. I know Fen from a couple of All-Star weeks we've spent together. From that tiny connection, Rocket knows him enough.

"It's some ballerina girl!" Rocket calls. Fen turns around, laughing.

"What's her name?"

"I dunno?" Rocket looks at me.

I roll my eyes. "August," I growl.

"AUGUST!" Rocket hollers.

"Niiice," Fen yells.

"I don't even like, know her," I say. The team is paying silent attention. "All we know about each other is our names."

"Even better." Fen hollers. "No clout, you keep that down? Hell yeah."

"Precisely," I mumble. Rocket laughs.

"Calm down, lover boy."

"You guys took a bit longer than yesterday, something up?"

Rocket snorts. "Saggy met a ballerina."

"Saggy met a ballerina," she repeats, accentuating each word to embarrass me. Rocket nods enthusiastically.

"It's not that big a deal, it's, we don't even know each other," I say, again.

"Well, Sags, you're going to need to be in better shape to attract a ballerina, keep working." Fen groans next to her.

"Nico please?" He looks at her and she smirks back. "This year has been harder than last year and it's been three days."

"Well, suck it up, Sauerkraut."

"Nicooo," he gives her a look and then mumbles something indecipherable in German. She says something right back. Nico and Fen have had a weird history. Fen told me about it just recently, basically, she's an olympian but didn't make it to the games, spent time homeless, then started coaching here last year. She and Fen met at the crack of dawn his first morning back in Canada, and basically started mutually pining. They couldn't necessarily date because, well, she's a coach and he's a captain and that's a mess. Around Christmas last year they went for teamwork training and spent time together then, told each other about the crushes thing and like, almost kissed. Mind you, Fenrir is a bleeding heart romantic, so he might have accentuated this. Then a week later the team went drinking and they hooked up accidentally, step one to base 100 in 30 minutes is how he explained it. They ghosted each other and then he got injured and during his incompetent period after that, they started dating. So now they have a horrible coach-player-but-I'm-also-dating-you dynamic.

"C'mon Nico, please can we do something fun?" Greenie chimes in. She snorts and then smiles.

"Hell to it." She snatches Fenrir's hat and then Pikachu's yellow bandana. She nicknamed the team last year and they've mostly all stuck, including Fen's Sauerkraut. I just fumble around with it more than normal because we're friends-ish and I like to call him Fen. "Capture the flag." She holds the headwear away from herself. "These are disgusting."

"Well, yeah." Fen grew out his hair over his summer back home in Germany and is donating it sometime this week, so he looks horribly shaggy and it's tied off at the base of his neck.

"Retie that mop." Nico rolls her eyes at Fen and he just sticks out his tongue. "Okay okay!" She calls attention. "Defense to my left, offense to my right, we adjust from there." Pax and Rocket and some guy named Paikkala stand completely still. Paikkala feels unstable. "Goalies you're defense, please, use your one combined brain cell."

"Hey," Pax looks mildly offended but laughs it off. I wander left with Rocket, Yeti, Pikachu and the rest of the defense. Sauerkraut, Keegan, Douglass, Greenbean and the offense stare us down. Thank god that Ireland guy got traded.

"God, hat-head, get over here," Fen turns around to look at Nico. "Yeah, you, Fenrir."

"Why?"

"Kneel for a second." He drops and she pulls out his hair tie. The whole team watches the two of them struggle for a moment.

"It was fine,"

"If it sits on your neck, it gets grosser," She wrestles with him, running her hands through his sweaty hair and tying it back higher up, on the back of his head, not his neck.

Nico ties it all off and he stands up. "See, now you look like a put-together sweaty millenial man, not a homeless guy," she wipes her hands off on her shorts. "Jesus you're disgusting,"

"I sweat for a living,"

"I know that," She wipes her hands more, then wipes on the sides of his shirt. "Better,"

"Alright, so are we going to play or are you going to keep fussing with my hair,"

"I'll keep fussing with your hair until you finally cut it, for now, we're playing,"

"Mhmm, maybe you can finally show me how conditioner is supposed to work later."

Nico snorts, realizes what he just said, gives him the evil eye, which, of course, makes Fen smile, and then waves at us. "Alright, Soggy, I expect to see some twirling."

AUGUST:

I can't keep my mind off that Steph kid, and since working at the studio isn't full time, I stare off into space at my desk instead.

"Aug, please try to do something." Saffie in the cube next to me leans over. I let out a sigh and pick up the pen again, staring at the sheets of statistics. "Also, the first Wolves game of the pre-season in a week, you watching?" Is that the hockey team? That has to be the hockey team. We only have hockey here. They won last year, didn't they?

"They're hockey, yeah?" I lean out to whisper-talk with her.

"Duh? First championship last year? Von Albrecht with the winning goal? Paxton was on fire the whole time? Didn't you watch? I thought the whole city did."

"No, I'm not a hockey person." I try to keep the resentment out of my tone.

"God, you should check them out, supposedly top-ranked this year, I mean, trading Boston for Sagamore to replace Osling? Great decision."

"I thought Sagamore was a bridge," I mumble. "Getting to the Cape?"

"The what?" Saffie asks.

"You know, Cape Cod, Massachusetts? Truro? That's where my family lives," I shake my head.

"Oh, sure." She says. "Whatever, the more important Sagamore, defenseman, wicked good, wicked young, fast as hell."

"Okay," I try to nod and smile like I'll start watching now because of some grace of something. I won't. The sport is too rough and it barely makes sense to me. All sorts of commotion for nothing much. Plus, I've had some shitty experiences with hockey guys, I don't want to repeat that anytime soon.

"You're not going to watch, are you." She laughs.

"Nope."