“Oh! So, I ran into this really cool artist who said they could do renditions of our D&D characters for us!” Austin Rowe, the cousin of Tennant, Brady, and Jamie, whom I’d played with down in the Bay, announced. “Well, I didn’t run into her, I kind of commissioned her online. But she’s local and really good!”
“When did we say we were doing D&D?” Moral asked while ripping off the top of his fourth apple crumb muffin. He was a big, boisterous redhead from Montreal and incredibly likable. I glanced from Moral to Marquis, who was stirring a cup of tea while reading a book on his phone. He glanced up at the mention of role-playing, his dark eyes narrowing as he assessed us all over the top of his stylish eyeglasses.
“When did we agree to this? Was it when I was overseas during the summer?” Marquis asked, the winger’s spoon stalling in his tea.
“Austin said we talked about it,” Renco, the Rebels goalie, chimed in as he looked from me to the windows at the front of the coffee shop.
We all stared at Austin, who blushed red as a beet. He was a cute kid, filled with fire and that talent all the damn Rowes seemed to possess. I felt so out of place, and yet, oddly welcomed by this small group of men. Many, it seemed, were either allies or out, like Xander and Austin. That made the locker room a much more accepting and pleasant place to be for a bi newcomer.
“We’d talked about it that night in the bar in Aruba,” Austin stated, then smiled at his boyfriend, a barista, who winked back as he passed our table holding a tray filled with coffee and treats.
“How drunk were we all?” Marquis enquired as he resumed stirring his tea.
“Uhm, not super,” Austin answered, his gaze on his boyfriend as he spoke. Young love. How endearing. Perhaps someday I’d find someone to gaze at with open adoration like Austin did his Robbie. “I was sober.”
“I think I remember a conversation about a druid,” Moral said around his mouthful of muffin. Austin snapped back from admiring his boyfriend’s backside.
“Yes! See! You said you’d be a druid, Moral. And Marquis wanted to be a wizard of some sort and Xander said he wanted to be a dwarf with a big ax.”
“Is that a euphemism?” Marquis tossed out. We all chuckled.
“Renco is going to be a bard, and I’m going to be a monk,” Austin said with a grin.
“Not sure that fits you right now,” Moral teased, making Austin blush yet again.
“What are you going to be, Joachim?” Rowe enquired. My cherry tart stalled halfway to my mouth. My new teammates all stared at me openly.
“Oh, well… I, uhm, I’ve never played that game before. I’m not sure if I’ll have time with a new house and all the team systems I have to learn and—”
“You’ve got time. We’ll play on the plane and shit. You know what you’d be good as?” Moral pointed at me with half of a muffin, crumbs falling to the table from his baked good and his beard. “A paladin. That’s a holy warrior who is bound to an oath. You’ve got this new sobriety that you’ve sworn to, and you fight like a motherfucking warrior!”
I nodded. It was common knowledge that I’d spent the summer in rehab drying out. I wasn’t ashamed of my faults. We all had them. “Okay well, sure, I can see that the comparison fits, but the point still stands that I’ve never played this game before.”
“It’s really simple,” Austin said then scratched the soft little whiskers on his chin. “Well, not so much simple, but complicated in a simple way. We’ll walk you through it. Robbie is going to be an owl-bear!”
“Oh that’s… interesting.” I gave everyone a smile. I could make the effort because I really needed something to focus on right now. “Sure, I guess I’d love to be a…”
“Paladin,” Austin reminded me.
“Yeah. A paladin.”
Austin fist bumped me. “Yes! This will be awesome. These kinds of things are great for building team spirit. Tennant and the Railers play Pokémon, so I didn’t want to do that. This is awesome! Robbie and I will print out character creation forms!”
Austin left his seat to go chat with his boyfriend at the counter. That was when Xander arrived looking freshly scrubbed and tense. He flopped down beside Renco, then gave us all a nod.
“Sorry I’m late. I had to meet with Sinclair and the other coaches.” Everyone else looked at him expectantly and I wondered what I was missing.
“And?” Moral prompted.
Xander seemed shellshocked. “They’re definitely putting captain to a team vote and want me to put myself out there.” Moral clapped him on the back, Marquis and Renco congratulated him. “I haven’t been this nervous since I asked Tiffany Lankowski to the junior prom.”
“We’re voting for captain?” I couldn’t help sounding surprised—I’d never heard that happen before.
“Yep,” Moral stated, then dunked a muffin top into his coffee. “I’m going to vote for Xander.”
“You’re the natural choice now that Brady has retired,” Marquis said.
I didn’t know the team well enough to plant my flag, but the Rebels had strong leadership and I knew Xander. He was a strong voice in the room, and I respected him on the ice.
Austin re-joined us with his phone out and his eyes shiny and wet.
“Hey, guys, did you see this story coming out of Tampa?”
Everyone looked at me.
“I didn’t do it,” I quickly said as I lifted my hands up in innocence. “I was here in Boston.”
“No, it’s nothing bad like you’re used to,” Austin blurted out. Xander swatted him upside the head. The boy’s eyes bugged out, and his soft cheeks turned scarlet. “Oh! No, I didn’t mean you did bad stuff! Being drunk isn’t bad. Well, it's bad when you run off the road and hit a mailbox. It’s not bad in a bad way. It’s, uhm… well, it’s just an addiction right, and you’re not drinking anymore so it’s all okay. No, well, okay in that you’ve stopped drinking and are now—”
“It’s okay, Rowe, I know what you meant, and it’s fine. I did some pretty fucked up things when I was abusing alcohol.”
Austin wilted a bit. “Okay, thanks. I didn’t mean to imply that addictions are bad. I mean they are! No, not bad like bad but—”
“It’s okay, kid. Just move onto the news story.” I chuckled. Moral lobbed a chunk of apple at Austin. He ducked it and the glob smacked Renco in the cheek.
“Right, yeah, so there’s this guy down in Florida who’s looking for a bone marrow donor for his daughter. He showed up at a preseason hockey game to search for some mysterious fan called ‘Hockey Guy,’ who the dead mother named as the possible father.”
“Shit, so the guy is raising his daughter alone?” Moral asked, the sad news slowing his inhalation of muffins for a moment. “Wait…” He placed his muffin on its plate. “If he’s the father, then why is he looking for the father?”
“He’s the baby’s uncle but has been raising her as her father. It’s all super sad and everyone in the league is signing up to see if they’re a match for the little girl with leukemia. Look at her.” He showed us all an image of an adorable little girl of perhaps two or three and her uncle who was also cute as hell. “We should sign up.”