YETI 

Between game four and game ten, nothing much happens. Nothing comes of Fen's evil grin, or so I thought. Because around game 10, he announces to our friend group the first little ping pong night. 

It's tonight. 

Fen and Nico, are obviously coming; they've been inseparable since finals last year, Steph, Rocket, I don't know if they'll bring anyone along, probably not. Greenie is bringing Jackie, and Finnican might come if he feels like it. He probably won't, though. Things have been tough with his family recently. What started gently as just his sister's passing has spiraled into what he says might end up being a full-fledged divorce, maybe even a lawsuit. That's all he's really told me. I'm the only one that knows about that on the team. He's not a public guy. He packs all his emotions in and tries to forget about it. It's fascinating for me to talk him through some of it, I hate that he's going through that, but I'm always stunned by the volume of emotion he can feel. Not at all envious, but curious. 

"Yeti's here!" Fen slaps my back the second I'm in the door of the breakroom. I fight off a smile.

"What's up?" I snort.

He wiggles his eyebrows at me. "The second everyone gets here we're doing a full fledged ping pong tourney, scores and playoffs, just to start the season right."

"If I wasn't so fucking sore, I might win," Greenie casts a low glare at Nico. "But noooooo, my body just has to hurt everywhere for no reason."

Jackie smiles from the distant corner. "Language, firecracker."

"Oh zip it," he grins. "I've heard how you talk with the DnD club."

"That's because it's characters," She ruffles his hair. "You have to re-meet my parents in two weeks, you have no time for cussing. They're already not impressed with the five foot five deal." 

Greenie looks rather aghast. "It's not like I chose to be five foot five. Trust me, I'd look like Yeti if I could. The dude is basically captain Sweden."

I roll my eyes at him. "Keep it down, shorty, you can still ride long commercial flights without hurting all over."

The door opens again. "Sorry I'm late, guys, I had to drop Jills off with Helen and get this lazy ass outta bed, again." Steph points behind him at a rather disheveled Rocket.

He's rubbing his eye, his shirt is half tucked in, half twisted. He's wearing jeans and high-top black converse. It's like the room gets brighter when he pulls down his hand and gives us a grin. I don't know how he does it, how he manages to show up and make everyone happier.  Suddenly everyone in the room is talking louder and laughing harder just because he's here, it's been happening for two weeks now. I can't tell if I'm jealous because somehow I don't think it's working on me, or frustrated because I don't know why he's able to do that. 

So I decide to sit back and watch, trying to figure out how he's able to make anyone laugh no matter what they're doing. How he's able to pull off the Rocket Effect. 

I think Nico notices that I got distant about twenty minutes into pingpong. She starts to drift into the kitchen area where I am.

"You sealed right back up again the second the new guys get here. What's up?" She's blunt, I'll give her that one. 

I open my mouth to talk but shut it again when I see Rocket give me a glance. I catch his eye for just a moment and am utterly taken aback by how ridiculously green they are. I shake it off. "No, I just," I can't quite shake it.

"You got it, come on," Nico gives me a smile.

I roll my eyes at her for that little inspirational coaxing she's doing. "I can't figure them out." 

"What about them? They're boys, they're easy. Rocket's a comedian and Steph's painfully fucking nice. Just go be nice with them too." 

"You kiss my captain with that mouth?" I lean on the counter and joke with her. It takes me ten seconds to realize that I just gave her too much attitude, these guys aren't used to it. She stares at me for a concerning amount of time, her strong gaze on mine. 

Then she tips her head back and challenges me right back. "I feel like you've got a hell of a lot of personality stuffed down in there."

I clear my throat and stop my urge to crawl into a cabinet and not come out. "Maybe," I lift an eyebrow at her. Rocket lets out a burst of laughter from across the room that makes my heart flutter in a way I definitely don't appreciate. 

She lifts one right back. "So why don't you just go and be nice? You're sulking in the kitchen drinking only water. It's probably freaking the new guys out."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." 

I catch Rocket's eye for a second time in one night. He gets a flush to his cheeks this time and I take a minute to pause and rethink that one. There's no way in hell but the opportunity is making my insides start to twist in what I think is excitement. Maybe nausea.

I look back at him, my eyes on the nape of his neck as he's facing Steph, watching the collar on the back of his shirt lift up off his neck when he moves his arms, then settle again. He talks with his hands, aggressively. His head turns to the side again, giving me a full view of his jaw and the edge on his nose. 

When I first learned that he was from the Czech Republic, I didn't really believe it. See, normally when people say that I think, based off exposure, blond. It wasn't until I met him and heard the way he talks that it really stuck. I know it's close-minded to assume everyone from one region of the world has to look a certain way, but if you lined up my entire high school graduating class, only two of us had different hair colors and those were the twin boys with red hair. The rest of us all looked just like me. Granted, my class had maybe only 50 people in it, but that's a pretty decent amount to all look similar. 

Rocket's hair is dark, darker brown than Fen's, it curls when it's wet but normally it's just tossed up like he just got out of bed. It's also long, not nearly long enough to put into a tie like Finnican and Jorgen, but long enough to curl out the bottom of his helmet and give him the 'goalie halo' around the backplate of his helmet. Paxton, our starter, loves making fun of him for it. It's a shaggy chocolate brown mess, normally I'd hate the length, but he kinda pulls it off. 

His nose is sharp, only a few soft edges on it, just like his jaw. And god does he tan. I'm almost a little envious of it, my violently Scandinavian skin can't handle light coming in a window, at some points I'm pretty sure I've gotten sunburnt from LEDs, so there's no way I could even start to look anything near his. I've seen it in the locker room here and there, his almost model-like bronze. 

Then there it is again. 

He scans the room, and his eyes stop on me for just a moment longer. 

"You look like you've just seen a ghost. If there was anyone I didn't expect to get more pale, it's you." Nico is leaning on the counter watching me. I snap back to reality.

"Shush," I snort. "I just, I-" I stop talking. If I keep talking something might come out that I don't want to.

"What?" she presses on.

Oh someone save my sorry ass. 

Fen! Fen, good, you're coming over. "Not flirting, are we?" He slips an arm around Nico's shoulders, but then gets to the point. "You're drinking. What's wrong." He doesn't really phrase it like a question. Fen, team captain, has hair just a shade lighter than Rocket's. It's also more of a professional look. Longer, because hey, it's hockey, but tame. 

"Stressed."

"For now or for later?" Fen kisses the top of her head all soft and cute, which is unlike both of their personalities. But I guess they get soft when they're with each other, because they sure as hell don't get soft anywhere else.

Nico rolls her eyes, "later." 

"M'kay," He sighs and sets his head on hers. "Yets, I keep blanking on this because you missed my captains breif on them and it's not come up again, but I figure I need to tell you. You know about those two boys by chance?"

I shake my head, "nothing out of the ordinary, why?" 

Fen scans the room to make sure we're not being heard or watched with any suspicion. "Steph spent a little time in a psychiatric hospital about a season ago."

I gape a little at him. "Oh, oh jeez." 

Fen nods. "And I don't think they liked the two of them much in Boston, the Boston guys I know were really quick to give me information that I don't think they should've had or should've wanted to share." 

"Makes sense, Boston after the Marchand/Pasternak/Bergeron era got toxic." I nod for him to keep going. 

"Yeah, I got a couple little things but he was in for alcohol rehab, and I think depression." 

"Wow," I mumble. "He got the short straw, huh?" 

Nico is processing everything she hears, logging it into her head. "No, no, that season, two years ago? Not last season but the season before. He got scratched about every other game. When asked about it the coaches never said anything other than wanting the best for their players. It must've been that to have him out of so many games in one season. I mean, that almost knocked him out of the pros." 

Fen nods. "They were eager to give me shit on anyone I wanted. There wasn't anything important enough to make management meetings like with Steph, but the guys gave me stuff on Rocks too." 

"Rocket seems normal, though." I glance back at him, he's running his hands through his hair, making me want to put my fingers in it, making it look soft. 

Fen shakes his head. "Dad disowned him. Unknown reason. Stojanovič is his mom's name I assume."

"Disowned?" I set down my glass on the side of the sink. "Disowned and a mental facility. Reminds me of stuff I've heard from Fielding Drake, a guy that played with them in Major Juniors, friend of mine from the IIHF. He said that they were weird on that team. Never left each other's sides. Didn't do much with the team." I take a breath. "Sounds like they found someone in the world that understood them. Someone that really got it."

"What do you think the deal is with Steph's sister?" Nico sighs. "I feel like we should be helping with the sister more."

"I've overheard snippets," Fen offers. "She's nine and a half years younger than him, parents are split, have been for a while, so she chose him over them."

"Yikes." Nico cringes. "He's not even home all that often. That's a bad bargain."

"A little cruel," I sigh. "He's into her ballet teacher."

"Right," Nico holds up a finger. "That's what I had forgotten about. The ballet teacher."

Fen gets that evil little glint in his eyes and I watch his extroverted brain act up. "Saggy!" Steph looks away from the Jackie and Greenie ping-pong game that's going full speed. "How's it going with that ballet teacher?"

"August?" He smiles. "Great, actually. I didn't think she'd actually date me at first, now we're here."

"She still thinks he's an engineer." Rocket gives us a bit of a playful smile. I catch myself smiling back at it.

Steph sighs. "That was an accident! I didn't think she'd be into me so I made it up to avoid her dating me just because I play professional sports."

"Accident, huh." Nico's trying to pry a little.

"Yeah, accident," He snorts. "The girl is beautiful. Look at me. I'm average on a good day and she's mad pretty. She could do better than just this."

"Nah, see, girls dig the pro hockey body," Fen tips his chin at Steph. "Don't they." He tickles Nico's stomach and she squirms.

"Asshole." But she's blushing violently and leaning back into him. 

Jackie clears her throat. "Nah, girls dig the homemade burritos. That's why I keep this thing around." She gestures at Greenbean.

"What about you, Yets, why do girls keep you around?" Fen tips his chin at me.

I take a sip of water and pretend like I'm half-assing this. I'm not, this is practiced. "Keep me around? Nah. Girls only like to get my pants off to see if I'm white all over." I finish off the water and let everyone react to that one. Boys keep me around because I'm six six, built like a tank, and have little to no emotional range.

Nobody really reacts, they just kind of go silent. I set down the glass and turn back around. They're all trying desperately not to laugh. It looks like they're all waiting to get the 'okay' to laugh. Like I should whip out a conductor's baton and wave my arms. 'De-capo!' and then they'll start laughing.

Even Rocket's eyes are a little wide, only a slight grin creeping onto his face, green eyes blazing from across the room. 

"Well are you?" Nico is the first and only one that manages to get something out.

I scoff a little, trying to act like I'm not sweating because of the staring. "Yup."

That's when they start laughing. Funny how I can go from wallpaper to room-conductor in about four lines.

"Yeah, wait, Yeti," Nico glances at me. "I feel like you've never dated."

This is no-no territory. "Yeah, you didn't date anyone before this over-glorified fuckboy came along." Deflection tactics.

"Hey-" Fen gets a little worked up at this, for comedic relief. "She had a pigeon once too."

"We do not make fun of Fitzwilliam."

The two new guys look confused. "For Saggy and Rocks," I clear my throat. "Because you weren't there." I look to Greenie to finish it off. He catches my queue.

"She's got this bird boyfriend, which, in my opinion, is way hotter than Fen, with or without the scarring thing. But Fen had his balls all in a knot over Nico all of last year, still does, but he thought that the bird was another guy, and then basically freaked out about it for a day, and then he met Fitz and it was just a bird so he got his tummy all tied up over nothing."

Fen mocks offense. "Okay, it's not like there was any way for me to know that the bird was a bird. Plus! We have a feud."

"He's literally Nico's husband."

"Not my husband." Nico laughs. "He just really likes to piss off Fen for some reason."

"God, made my whole season to watch Fen get chased around by a fucking bird." Greenie snorts.

"Language, Firecracker."

"Jackie-" Greenbean starts to whine a little. He's getting buzzed.

I clear my throat. "Jackie, keep an eye on Ben and make sure he doesn't drink anything else."

"Yeah," Jackie squints at him. "I caught onto that one too."

"You guys like the drunk sleuths or something? Am I not allowed to have even one drink?" He sighs. "Because my alcohol tolerance is-"

"Shit. It's shit." Fen snorts. "You and Nico are massive lightweights."

"That's just because I don't drink," Nico snorts. "Out of everyone here, honestly, I would expect Yets can handle the most."

I roll my eyes. "I don't drink, Nico, I've got no tolerance."

"Right, right," She rolls her eyes. "You don't drink. I don't, Jackie doesn't. What about you two?" She looks at Steph and Rocket.

"Ah," Rocket tips his head. "A couple, I don't know, it's been a minute."

"I don't." Steph bites the inside of his cheek. It's a touchy subject for him.

About an hour later, we're all sitting on the couches in the room, waiting for the Xbox to load so we can mess around playing video games.

Fen and Nico, Greenie, and Jackie managed to snag the smaller seats, so I'm wedged on the end of a couch, Rocket's shoulder against mine.

It's honestly flustering me a little. It's the stupid eyes. Every time he looks at me I try to take any excuse to look at his stupid eyes and wonder how he's photoshopped them in real life. Nobody has green eyes like that. Nobody. 

***

Darling, I was searching for the light within,

When you came on in placed my world in a spin.

I was aching when you came around,

funny how things work, how my world was upside down.

fresh roses - juke ross

***

alright, yeah, it's three minutes late, but I got caught up editing chapter 22 so it's here now

anyway

-rabid