Chapter 1 | Jacks
The ice bucket weighed four thousand pounds.
Okay, maybe not four thousand, but my arms were screaming as I hoisted it onto the bar, biceps straining, sweat beading at my temples. The bucket was overfilled, which was my own fault for trying to save a trip. Chunks were already escaping over the rim, skittering across the floor like frozen refugees.
“Little help here?” I grunted.
Finn didn’t even look up from the drink he was mixing. “You’re the barback. That’s your job, to back the bar.”
“That’s not—that doesn’t even make sense as a sentence—”
“GENTLEMEN!” Benji’s voice rang out with the gravitas of a circus ringmaster. “And that one lady in the corner—hi, Doris!—I present to you my most daring drink mix act ever!”
I froze, the ice bucket still clutched to my chest. “Benji, what are you—”
“Oh, shit,” Finn muttered.
I turned in time to see Benji standing on the rubber mat behind the bar, three bottles clutched in his hands, a shaker balanced on his head, and—oh God—a container of craft glitter tucked under his arm.
“For my next trick,” Benji announced to the crowd of regulars who’d gathered to watch, “I will create the Lightning Strike Sparkler—a drink so magnificent, so bedazzling, that it will make the heavens themselves weep with envy!”
“Benji,” Finn said slowly, finally looking up, “why do you have glitter behind my bar?”
“For pizzaz, Finn! The Lightning are playing tonight. We need PIZZAZZ!”
The crowd roared on cue. One old guy at the end of the bar chanted, “Pizzaz! Pizzaz! Pizzaz!” while banging his palm on the wood.
Finn leaned toward Benji and growled, “We need health code compliance—”
“WITNESS ME!” Benji ignored him.
What happened next would be debated in Barbacks lore for years to come.
Benji attempted to flip all three bottles while somehow incorporating the shaker from his head and—for reasons that would never be explained—opening the glitter container with his teeth.
The bottles went up.
The shaker went sideways.
And . . .
The glitter went everywhere.
The container’s lid popped off mid-flip, and what could only be described as a nuclear plume of sparkly goodness erupted into the air. It was like a glitter bomb had detonated at ground zero. The stuff fountained upward, caught the air conditioning current, scattered to the four corners of the bar, then descended upon everyone like the world’s most fabulous snowfall.
I was still holding the ice bucket, arms extended, unable to shield myself as ten thousand pieces of glitter rained down on my head, face, shoulders, and into the ice bucket I’d spent five minutes filling and schlepping across the bar.
Finn got blasted from the side, glitter coating one entire half of his body, including a spectacular concentration in his hair that made him look like a punk rock experiment gone wrong.
And Benji—
Benji stood in the epicenter, bottles miraculously caught (the bastard actually caught them), covered head to toe in sparkle, grinning like he’d been blessed by an ancient pigmy stripper angel.
“MAGNIFICENT!” Benji crowed.
The bar goers cheered.
Regulars were dying, absolutely dying. They had their phones out and recording as they howled with laughter and pointed at Benji, then me, then a red-faced—and glittered—Finn.
Someone started a slow clap.
Doris in the corner was wiping tears from her eyes.
“ENCORE!” someone yelled.
“There will be NO encore!” Finn sputtered, spitting glitter. “There will be—” He ran a hand through his hair and a cascade of sparkle drifted down. “Oh my God, it’s everywhere. I think there’s glitter in my crack.”
Doris snort-laughed at that.
I looked down at the ice bucket. The ice was now partially melted and roughly forty percent glitter. “I have to dump this entire bucket.”
“It was so worth it,” Benji said, still holding his bottles like trophies. “Art requires sacrifice.”
“This isn’t art; this is a biohazard,” Finn snarled.
“A beautiful, sparkly, perfectly executed biohazard.”
Finn tried to brush glitter off his shirt, which only succeeded in spreading it around more. “I’m going to be picking glitter out of my ass for a week.”
Benji’s face lit up with unholy glee. “That’s why you have a resident lawyer boyfriend, boss, to clean your crack.”
That’s when I lost it.
The laugh came from somewhere deep in my belly, completely beyond my control. I doubled over, ice bucket forgotten, as tears streamed down my glitter-stained face.
Finn’s expression of mortified outrage only made it worse.
I was making sounds that weren’t even human anymore—wheezing, honking, hooting.
“I hate everyone in this building,” Finn said, his accent deepening to almost unintelligible, as he bit back a smile.
“Don’t worry, Finny Boy,” Benji said, patting his shoulder and leaving a glitter handprint. “Chase likes a little sparkle. Trust me.”
“How would you know what Chase—you know what, never mind. I don’t want to know.” Finn turned to the next customer with aggressive professionalism. “What can I get you?”
I was still wheezing as I staggered toward the kitchen, sparkly ice bucket clutched to my chest, leaving a trail of glitter in my wake like the world’s most festive slug.
By the time I’d dumped the corrupted ice, rinsed, dried, and refilled the bucket, and returned to the bar, the chaos had settled into general merriment. Benji had somehow talked his way out of trouble—as he always did—and was now serving his “Lightning Strike Sparkler” to adventurous customers who didn’t mind a little golden glee in their cocktails.
“It adds texture,” I heard one guy say.
“It adds a lawsuit,” Finn muttered, though he didn’t stop Benji.
And that was the thing about Barbacks.
It was constant chaos, but it was our chaos.
A year ago, I answered an ad for a barback position at a new place opening up in Ybor. I’d been aimless, bouncing between odd jobs, trying to figure out what came next, while trying not to think too hard about the life I’d planned that hadn’t worked out.
Then I met Finn and Mark, the owners of Barbacks. They hired me on the spot. When I showed up on opening night, I realized I’d somehow stumbled into a family.
Now I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
Even covered in glitter.
Even with Benji as a coworker.
Even when the chaos felt like it might kill me.
Barbacks was home.
From a booth in the corner, Mark looked up from his laptop, took in my glitter-encrusted appearance, and sighed. “Do I want to know?”
“Benji.”
“Say no more.” Mark returned to his spreadsheet. “I’m adding ‘glitter incident’ to my insurance claim research, just in case.”
Chase, who sat across from Mark reviewing some legal documents, glanced up. “That’s not a real category.”
“It should be. We should make it a category.” Mark squinted at his screen. “Is ‘aggravated sparkle’ a thing? Can I sue?”
“You can’t sue your own employee for being enthusiastic.” Chase rolled his eyes.
“What about ‘glitter with intent’? There’s got to be a crime in here somewhere.”
“Mark.”
I had to get in on this action. “What if there was a secret organization called The Glitterati? They could be a group of mysterious gays who walk the city at night tossing glitter everywhere. They could have a secret handshake and everything. Would that give Mark his case?”
Mark pointed up at me, nodding, then looked toward Chase without so much as cracking a grin.
“Why did I go into law?” Chase groaned and rubbed his temples. “Seriously. It was not for this.”
Bored with the business talk, I returned to the bar, grabbed a clean rag, and started wiping down the section that had caught the worst of the fallout. Sparkly shit clung to everything—the wood, the glasses, my own arms. I was going to be finding this stuff for weeks.
“Hey, Jacks!” Benji bounded over, shimmering like a disco ball. “You have to admit that was impressive, right? The bottle catches? The drama?”
“You turned the ice bin into a craft project.”
“A beautiful craft project.”
“I have glitter in my eyebrows, Benji.”
“It brings out your eyes!”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed again. Benji was impossible to stay mad at. He could be annoying as hell but was impossible to stay angry with.
The Lightning game started, and the bar shifted into game-night mode. Regulars cheered, drinks flowed, and Benji led increasingly creative (and suggestive) chants every time Tampa scored. Finn and I worked in practiced rhythm, anticipating each other’s movements, keeping the drinks coming and the customers happy.
At some point, I caught sight of Finn and Chase in a quiet moment. Chase had come up to the bar, and they were leaning close, arguing about something with fond exasperation.
“Chocolate fountain, Finn. One chocolate fountain. That’s all I’m asking.”
“It’s tacky.”
“It’s delicious,” Chase countered.
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“Exactly! It can be tacky and delicious. That’s the whole point of a wedding.”
I smiled and kept working.
Finn and Chase had gotten engaged a few months ago—a whole dramatic proposal that I’d heard about seventeen times from Benji despite us both being present to witness the scene. They were disgustingly in love, the kind of love that made single people want to throw things. It was also the kind of love I tried not to think about too hard.
Why worry over the unattainable, right?
An hour and a half later, the Lightning won.
The bar rattled with cheers and applause.
Benji’s glitter sign—oh God, he’d made a sign somewhere between the second and third periods—got held aloft like a championship trophy, shedding sparkle onto everyone within range.
“LET’S GO, BOLTS!” the crowd screamed.
“LET’S GO, BOLTS!” Benji screamed back, louder than everyone.
I was laughing, freshly covered in even more glitter, surrounded by people cheering when—
The TV zoomed in to capture three Lightning players as they slammed into each other, gloves tapping helmets and smiles parting lips.
And for a moment, my mind drifted.
Six weeks ago, three hockey players had walked through our door. The tall Swedish one, the chirpy shorter one, and—
Skyler Shaw.
They were the same three players now congratulating each other on the screen.
Skyler had looked at me like I was some kind of college football stud, like I’d won the Heisman despite my career ending before it could take off. He even knew my college jersey number and remembered games I’d played years ago. I stretched my fingers, recalling how the unfairly sexy player had shaken my hand and held on a beat too long.
It had been six weeks.
Despite his promise to return, Skyler hadn’t come back.
Of course he hadn’t—he was an NHL captain with a schedule packed tighter than an altar boy’s ass. That night had been a fluke, a weird, wonderful, singular moment.
Skyler was the most eligible bachelor in Tampa.
The most eligible straight bachelor.
The papers and news shows made sure everyone knew that, showing him on dates with one bombshell bunny after another. He’d fanboyed over my football days, but sadly, that was all our shared moment had been, football passion but not attraction.
I shook it off. There was no point dwelling on some silly hockey player fantasy.
I had a bar to clean.
A glitter apocalypse to recover from.
And a life I loved, right here, with these ridiculous people.
Chapter 2 | Skyler
I still wasn’t used to the private jet thing.
Every time I walked up those steps and ducked through that door, some part of my brain short-circuited. But this was my life now. Sure, I’d been in the league for a few years, and I should’ve been numb to the glitzy side of turning pro, but I couldn’t help myself. This was how we got to games—in a whole-ass private plane with leather seats and actual legroom and a flight attendant who knew my name and how I liked my coffee.
The first time I’d stepped onto the team plane, fresh off my entry-level contract, I’d stopped in the doorway and gawked like a kid on his first visit to Disney. Murph had shoved me from behind and told me to “move my ass before he moved it for me,” which—okay, fair.
But still. A private jet. For hockey. For me.
Sometimes I had to remind myself that this was real life and not some fever dream I’d wake up from back in Tallahassee, where I would still be working in my uncle’s bait shop while dreaming of the wider world.
“Shaw. Yo. Earth to Shaw.”
I blinked.
Murph was waving a hand in front of my face, grinning like the unhinged gremlin he was.
“You’re doing the thing again,” he said. “The ‘I can’t believe this is my life’ thing. It’s embarrassing.”
“Shut up.”
“Seriously, bro, you look like a golden retriever seeing snow for the first time. Every. Single. Flight.”
“I said shut up.”
Kevin Murphy, Murph to everyone who’d known him longer than five minutes, was the Lightning’s starting left winger, the team’s unofficial chaos agent, and somehow, inexplicably, one of my best friends. He was five-foot-ten, built like a fire hydrant, and had the energy of a caffeinated squirrel with impulse control issues.
He was also a menace.
An absolute, unrepentant, prank-pulling, shenanigan-loving master of mayhem.
On our last road trip, he replaced all of my underwear with thongs—and not just any thongs, bedazzled thongs. I still don’t know where he found them or when he made the switch, but I had to play a full game in what amounted to a glittery dental floss nightmare because it was either that or go commando—and cups were far less forgiving than sequins.
The trip before that, he somehow convinced the hotel staff that I was deathly allergic to the color blue. I spent three days in a room where every blue item had been replaced with beige alternatives, including the toilet seat.
The man was a lunatic, and for some inexplicable reason, I loved him like a brother.
“Window or aisle?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“Window. Always window.”
“Cool, I’ll take aisle so I can trip people as they walk by.”
“Please don’t.”
“No promises.”
We settled into our usual seats near the back of the plane, far enough from the coaches to talk shit, while close enough to the snack station to make regular raids. The rest of the team filtered in, clumps of twos and threes. Sounds I’d learned to love bounded off the metal tube’s interior: good-natured chirps, laughter, and someone’s terrible taste in music that bled from headphones that were cranked up way too loud.
Thankfully, the flight to Columbus was smooth. Murph slept most of the way.
Our hotel was decent, and practice the next morning was exactly what I needed—hard skating, crisp passes, and the kind of focused work that cleared my head and reminded me why I loved this sport.
Murph, naturally, spent the entire practice trying to pants Erik during drills.
He succeeded twice.
Coach made him do bag skates while the rest of us tried not to laugh.
“That was so worth it,” Murph wheezed afterward, bent over and dripping sweat. “Did you see his face?”
“You’re going to die young,” Erik told him flatly, his accent making even those words droll. “And I am going to be the one who kills you.”
“You know I love it when you talk dirty to me, Daddy.” Murph blew him a winded kiss.
After practice, I hit the hotel gym while Murph “recovered” in our room, which meant he was setting up some elaborate trap to surprise me on my return. I’d learned to check every surface, every drawer, every inch of any space we shared. The man had once rigged a confetti cannon to my suitcase. I had to pick tiny bits of paper out of my equipment bag for weeks.
By the time I got back to the room, exhausted from a serious leg day routine, I was ready to collapse. I pushed through the door and scanned for tripwires or suspicious objects.
“Relax, dude,” Murph called from his bed. He lay sprawled like an overly muscled starfish watching something on his phone. “I’m too tired for shenanigans tonight.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said, continuing my scan before stepping through the doorway.
“Smart, but it’s true. I’m saving my energy for tomorrow.” His round, boyish face might’ve been his greatest weapon. How could anyone not trust that face? And yet, no one ever should. We’d all learned that the hard way.
“That’s not comforting.”
“It’s not supposed to be.”
I grabbed the remote and collapsed onto my bed, flipping through channels while the last of the adrenaline from my workout faded. ESPN, ESPN2, some cooking competition where they made edible shit out of dirt or some other nonsense, then a documentary about sharks that looked cool but also way too intense for my current energy level. Frustrated by the lack of options when there were too many choices, I returned to Old Faithful, ESPN.
SportsCenter played as background noise while I pulled out my phone and began my usual death scroll—Instagram highlights, a few texts from my mom asking if I was eating enough vegetables (no, Mom, I’m a grown adult), and a group chat that had devolved into an argument about whether a hot dog was a sandwich (it wasn’t, and I would die on that hill).
On the TV, SportsCenter transitioned into one of their special segments, the homemade stuff they played when there was nothing competitive to air but they still needed to fill the time slot.
Dramatic music swelled.
“—the hidden cost of college athletics. Tonight, we examine career-ending injuries and the players left behind when the spotlight moves on.”
I glanced up.
It was standard ESPN stuff. They loved these segments—slow motion footage, sad music that reminded me of fundraising drives for starving puppies, and a serious narrator voice that made James Earl Jones sound like Big Bird had sucked on a helium balloon. These shows were usually about football because the sport was basically a human demolition derby with occasional touchdowns and tales of gruesome injuries were easily found.
Only mildly interested, my thumb kept scrolling through images on my phone.
Tyler had posted a photo of his dog wearing sunglasses. I double-tapped and moved on.
“—Florida State linebacker Jackson Armstrong was projected to be a first-round draft pick in 2023. Scouts called him ‘a once-in-a-generation talent’ with ‘NFL-ready instincts.’ Then, in a routine practice three weeks before the draft, everything changed.”
My scrolling slowed.
Jackson Armstrong.
The Jackson Armstrong?
I looked up at the TV.
They were showing college footage now. A guy in a garnet-and-gold jersey was destroying offensive linemen. He wore number 52.
“Damn, that guy had quick feet,” I muttered to myself.
Armstrong made everyone around him look like they were moving through syrup.
“. . . recorded 127 tackles in his senior season,” the narrator continued, “including fourteen tackles for loss and six sacks. He was a team captain, a fan favorite, and by all accounts, destined for professional greatness.”
The footage shifted to show the same player, same jersey, but now he was down. Trainers sprinted onto the field. The screen shifted to a slow-motion replay of his knee buckling in a way that made my own joints hurt.
I sat up straighter, tossing my phone aside.
“The injury—a complete tear of the ACL combined with significant meniscus damage—required immediate surgery. Complications during recovery led to additional procedures. By the time Armstrong was cleared to play again, the NFL had moved on.”
Again, the scene shifted.
It was the same guy, but different. He looked thinner, tired, and now wore street clothes instead of a uniform. He looked like someone who’d had the rug pulled out from under him and was still trying to figure out how to stand.
“I always knew football could end at any time,” Armstrong said on screen. “I didn’t think it would end like this, especially not in practice three weeks before my whole life was supposed to start.”
My professional athlete heart ached for the guy.
I knew this story.
But I didn’t just know of it; I knew it.
I’d followed Jackson Armstrong’s career since high school. I’d watched his highlights religiously. I’d—
The footage cut to B-roll.
It showed a sports bar with brick walls, TVs everywhere, and rainbow flags hanging from the ceiling. Behind the bar, carrying a bucket of ice, laughing at something off-camera—
Messy brown hair that curled at the ends.
A beefy frame.
That same easy smile.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
I was on my feet before I realized I’d moved, pointing at the TV like a crazy person.
“Murph. Murph!”
“What? Bro, what’s happening? Are you having a stroke?”
“That’s Jacks!” I jabbed my finger at the screen. “The guy from Barbacks, the barback—his name is Jacks—Jackson—that’s Jackson Armstrong!”
Murph sat up, squinting at the TV. “The gay bar? The place with the sick sliders?”
“Yes! Look—that’s him—that’s the guy—”
But the segment was already transitioning, the narrator saying something about resilience and second chances as Jacks’s face disappeared and a commercial for truck insurance took over.
“Bro.” Murph was looking at me with a mix of confusion and amusement. “You good? You’re kinda freaking out here.”
“I’m not freaking out. I’m—” I ran a hand through my hair, pacing the small space between our beds. “Okay, I’m a little freaking out, but dude, that guy—Jackson Armstrong—he was my favorite player growing up. He played linebacker for FSU and was supposed to go pro. Everyone said he was a lock for the draft, and then he blew out his knee and disappeared.”
“And now he works at a gay bar in Tampa.”
“Yeah, at the bar Erik, Tyler, and I went to after they blew up on the local news. He’s the barback, the one who—” I stopped, trying to organize my thoughts. “It was so cool seeing him in person, shaking his hand, ya know? And now—”
“You’re having another fanboy moment, aren’t you?” Murph observed. “That’s what’s happening. You’re full-on fanboying right now, right here in our hotel room. Please, for the love of God, don’t make a mess. I’m not cleaning up your splooge.”
“Murph! I’m not—” I caught his grin and sighed. “Okay, maybe a little, but bro, you don’t understand. This guy was incredible. The way he read plays, the way he moved—I used to watch his game films for fun. It’s weird how football vision and hockey vision are the same. I learned a lot by watching his eyes during plays. I even had his jersey.”
“You had his jersey? Seriously?”
“Yep. Number 52. I might still have it somewhere at my parents’ place.” I stopped pacing and sat back down on my bed, staring at the TV like Jacks might reappear if I wished hard enough. “And he’s working at a bar now, serving drinks, after everything he was supposed to be.”
Murph was quiet for a moment, which was alarming.
“That’s rough,” he said. Career-ending accidents were at the top of every pro athlete’s terror list. “Injuries are a bitch. One bad hit, one wrong plant, and it’s all over.” He shrugged. “We both know guys it’s happened to.”
And we did. Too many. Pro sports weren’t designed to extend life or health. In fact, most of them sucked the years from a body the way a leech drank blood. We all knew it when we stepped onto the ice or field or whatever we played on; but money and fame and love of the damn game were too strong to keep us away. It was a gravitational pull greater than any risk of life-altering injury.
Jacks proved that.
And he’d paid the price without ever enjoying the payoff.
Not even for a day.
“We should go back,” I said.
Murph raised an eyebrow. “To the bar?”
“Yeah. When we’re back in Tampa.” I was already pulling out my phone, like I could make it happen faster through sheer force of will. “I want to talk to him for real this time, ask him about FSU, about what happened, about—I don’t know, just talk to the guy.”
Murph’s whole head cocked. “Hang on. Let me get this straight. You want to go back to the gay bar in Ybor to fanboy over the barback’s college football career?”
“It’s not fanboying; it’s—” I heard myself and stopped. “Okay, fine, but the bar’s cool, the sliders are fire, and Jacks seems like a good dude. What’s the harm?”
Murph studied me for a second, something flickering in his expression that I couldn’t quite read.
“Sure, Cap,” he said. “Whatever you say. I’m always down for good sliders and supporting the locals, especially if they’re all about backing the team.”
“Sick. I’ll let Tyler and Erik know. We can make it a whole thing.”
“A whole thing,” Murph repeated. “At the gay bar . . . to meet the barback.”
“To meet my favorite college football player who happens to be a barback. Context matters, asshole. The local news might even want to cover this, show us doing our do-gooding, support the community, diversity-loving-team thing, ya know?”
“Uh-huh.” Murph was grinning now, that specific grin that preceded chaos. “Sure, dude. Context. Do-gooding. Sounds great.”
I ignored the suddenly weird vibe in our hotel room and grabbed the remote to flip channels, but my brain was already somewhere else. It was thinking about FSU football and career-ending injuries.
I wanted to know more.
I wanted to know him.
But this was fan stuff.
Totally normal bro things.
Just one dude liking what another dude did . . . or does . . . or didn’t do. Shit. Whatever.
I fell asleep that night thinking about what I’d say when I got the chance to talk to my football icon.
There was nothing weird about that.
Nothing weird at all.
Chapter 3 | Jacks
Tuesdays at Barbacks were dead. Not dead dead—we had our regulars, the guys who showed up rain or shine because this place had become their living room and we’d become their weird, dysfunctional family; but compared to the chaos of weekends or watch party nights or Lightning game days, Tuesdays were practically meditative, which meant I had time to restock the bar without someone screaming at me for another round.
Small victories.
“—and then, I swear to God, Jacks, he asked if I wanted to see his collection.”
Benji was perched on a barstool, supposedly on break but really following me around and narrating his dating disasters while I tried to work. This was our routine. I didn’t hate it, but I’d heard so many of Benji’s stories that I could’ve predicted the bitter ending before he even began.
“His collection of what?” I asked, sliding a case of beer into the cooler.
“That’s what I said! I was like, ‘Collection? Sure, what do you collect?’ Thinking, you know, maybe it’s something normal like coins or stamps or vintage porn.”
“Vintage porn is normal to you?”
“Compared to what he actually said? Yes. Absolutely. Vintage porn would have been a gift.”
I straightened, wiping my hands on my jeans. “Okay, I’ll bite. What did he collect?”
Benji leaned forward, his eyes wide with the particular glee he got when sharing truly horrifying information.
“Toenail clippings.”
I stared.
And blinked.
“His own,” Benji clarified, like that made it better. “He was clear about that. It wasn’t a serial killer situation. He kept his own personal toenails . . . in jars . . . plural. He has jars, Jacks, labeled and organized by year.”
“That’s . . .”
“Horrifying? Revolting? Vile beyond reckoning?”
“I was going to say ‘creative,’ but yeah, all of those work, too.”
“Which means he’s been doing this for years. This was a long-term commitment to being disgusting. This was a lifestyle.”
I couldn’t help it—I laughed.
Benji’s dating life was a constant source of entertainment, mostly because he had no filter and would swipe right on anyone with a pulse just to see what happened.
“So I’m guessing you didn’t go see the collection.”
“I told him I was allergic to keratin and then blocked him so fast my phone almost caught fire.” Benji took a sip of his water. “Manhole is a wasteland, Jacks. A barren, toenail-infested wasteland.”
“It’s called Manhole, Benj. It’s not Christian Mingle. What do you expect? You’d have better luck calling some of the numbers you collect from this place every night. At least you’ve met these guys in person and have some sort of creeper vibe check already.”
“Drunk creeper vibe is more like it.”
I grunted. He wasn’t wrong about that. I liked the guys who came into the bar. Mostly, they were nice, regular dudes who liked sports—or were at least sports-adjacent, which in our world was sometimes as close as we could get.
“I’m going to die alone,” Benji slumped over the bar, burying his head in crossed arms.
“You’re not going to die alone.”
“I’m going to die alone, and they’re going to find my body surrounded by cats who have eaten my face.”
“You don’t have any cats.”
“I’ll get cats! Specifically for the face-eating. It’s the only future I can see for myself now.”
I was about to respond—something about how he was being dramatic, which was both true and normal for Benji on a day ending in “y”—when the front door opened.
I glanced up, ready to call out a greeting across the nearly empty bar.
But my brain stopped working.
Four guys walked in.
Really big guys.
Deliciously athletic guys.
Guys wearing clothes that cost more than my monthly rent but somehow still looked casual.
I recognized them immediately:
Tyler Chen.
Erik Lindqvist.
Some shorter guy I didn’t know but who looked like Yosemite Sam had mated with Popeye and turned to hockey.
And Skyler Shaw.
All four were looking at me.
The case of beer I’d picked up slipped in my suddenly sweaty grip. I fumbled it, caught it, fumbled it again, and somehow managed to not drop it on my foot through what could only be described as divine intervention.
“Oh shit,” Benji whispered, sitting up straighter. “Oh shit, shit, shit! It’s the hockey players. The hot hockey players. And they brought a friend.”
“Benji—”
“Finn!” Benji’s voice rang out across the bar. “The Bolts are back . . . and they’re still hot as fuck!”
I was going to kill Benji.
I was going to kill him and hide the body and claim I knew nothing when the police came asking questions.
From somewhere in the back, I heard Finn’s muffled response: “What?”
“Hockey players! CODE RED!” He looked up at me. “That should’ve been blue. They wear blue, right?”
“Blue? Yeah, right. Blue,” I stammered.
“CODE BLUE, FINN!” Benji yelled his correction.
“Benji, I swear to God—” I started.
But it was too late.
The players were already approaching the bar. Skyler and Erik were grinning as though Benji’s complete lack of chill was the funniest thing they’d ever witnessed. The short one looked slightly maniacal. I briefly worried he might try to pull a bank heist or a card trick, though I wasn’t sure which.
“Hey!” Skyler said, sliding onto a barstool beside Benji with the easy confidence of someone who’d never second-guessed a social interaction in his life. His left arm rose to drape around a stunned Benji’s shoulders as he grinned at me. “Jacks, right? We met a few weeks ago.”
Six weeks. It had been six weeks. Not that I was counting.
“Yeah, I remember. You’re still single? Skyler. Shit. You’re still Skyler?” I set down the beer case, trying to act like my heart wasn’t doing something stupid in my chest.
“Yeah, shithead’s still Skyler.” The fireplug laughed, deep and booming. “Can’t change that no matter how much we try.”
Erik and Tyler elbowed each other and laughed.
Skyler didn’t so much as flinch. “So, I told the boys we had to come check this place out again. Murph hadn’t been yet.” He gestured to the shorter guy, who was already eyeing the menu with predatory interest. “Murph, this is Jacks. Jacks, Murph. He’s annoying but mostly harmless.”
“I am neither of those things,” Murph said, not looking up from the menu. “I’m both delightful and dangerous, like an asp in a necktie. Ask anyone.”
“And this is Benji, the cleverest bartender in Tampa.” Skyler squeezed poor Benji until his face turned white, though the pride blooming in his features hid any discomfort.
Murph, ignoring his teammate, asked, “Do you guys have mozzarella sticks?”
“We do,” I said.
“Sick. I’ll take like four orders of those.”
“He’s not joking,” Tyler said, settling onto the stool next to Skyler. “He will eat four orders of mozzarella sticks and then complain about being bloated for three days.”
“It’s called living, Tyler. You should try it sometime.”
I grabbed menus and distributed them, hyper-aware of Skyler’s eyes following my every movement. When I handed him his menu, our fingers brushed.
Barely.
Only the lightest touch.
I doubt he noticed.
But my entire arm tingled. Hell, my toes tingled, too.
“So,” Skyler said, leaning forward on his elbows, making his biceps bulge in an obscene way, “I gotta tell you, man—we were out of town the other night and I got stuck watching this ESPN thing about college football injuries. You were on it.”
My stomach dropped.
“Oh. Yeah. That.” I busied myself wiping down a section of bar that was already clean. “They reached out a while back, said they wanted to do a ‘where are they now’ thing. I almost said no, but . . .” I shrugged. “It was free publicity for the bar, right?”
“Dude, you were incredible at FSU.” Skyler’s enthusiasm was almost overwhelming. “That fourth-quarter stop against Miami—you know the one I’m talking about?—where you read the screen pass before they even threw it? I must’ve watched that play fifty times.”
I blinked at him.
“You watched my film?”
“Bro, I’m from Tallahassee. FSU football was my whole childhood, and you were my favorite player.” He said it like it was obvious, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “I told you last time I was here, I have your jersey.”
I didn’t know what to do with any of that, so I began filling four pint glasses to keep myself from falling over. Skyler Shaw, NHL captain, professional athlete, a real-life famous person, owned my jersey, had watched my film, and had been my fan while I was busy being nobody special at a state school.
“That’s . . .” I cleared my throat. “That’s cool, man. I didn’t realize anyone remembered me.”
“Are you kidding? The way you moved? Your instincts? You were gonna be special. Shit, you were special.” His expression shifted into something more somber. “What happened to your knee—that was brutal. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” Murph tossed the menu down and planted his elbows on the bar. “Injuries suck. We all know it’s part of the game, but still . . .”
I tensed, the way I always did when people brought up the incident, waiting for the pity, the awkward condolences, the “everything happens for a reason” bullshit that made me want to throw things.
But the guys didn’t do any of that. They looked at me—really looked at me—with something that felt more like respect than sympathy.
“Injuries are a bitch,” Skyler said. “Every athlete knows it, but that doesn’t make it suck less. We get it.”
“Yeah.” I let out a breath as Erik said, “We get it.”
The moment stretched. Skyler’s gaze never wavered from mine. Something passed between us—some kind of understanding that I couldn’t quite name.
Then Murph said, “Okay, this is touching, but I need to know more about these mozzarella sticks. Are they, like, fresh? Or frozen? Because I have opinions about frozen mozzarella sticks.”
Thank God, the tension broke.
The guys stayed for three hours and ate ninety dollars’ worth of appetizers (Murph alone accounted for half of that), drank moderately, and treated every single person who approached them with genuine warmth.
They took photos with fans. They signed napkins. They asked about people’s lives and actually listened to the answers. And Skyler . . .
Skyler kept finding reasons to talk to me.
Every time I passed his end of the bar, he’d pull me into conversation, asking questions about the bar or Tampa or what I thought of this season’s Lightning roster. He asked about FSU—and not just my career, but about the program, the culture, and whether I still followed college football. He remembered details from plays I’d half forgotten and brought them up like they were yesterday’s history.
It was flattering, but it was also . . . a lot to take in.
“Your number one fan is working overtime tonight,” Benji murmured, sliding up next to me while I poured a beer.
“He’s not my fan; he’s—”
“The dude literally has your jersey and poster.” Benji’s grin was insufferable. “Erik told me. He framed the poster. It’s on his wall in his apartment, like, where he lives now, as a grown-ass adult.”
“That’s . . .” I didn’t have words. “That’s not . . .”
“Not what? Not weird? Because it’s a little weird, Jacks. Actually, it’s not a little weird. It’s weird as shit. It might be the good kind of weird, but still . . .”
“It’s just stuff. He’s a football fan from Tallahassee. It makes sense. Everybody’s a little crazy when it comes to football in that town. It’s our thing.”
“Uh-huh.” Benji was giving me that sideways look, the one that said he saw right through my bullshit. “And the way he keeps staring at you when you’re not looking? Is that stuff, too?”
“He’s not—”
“He is. Trust me. I have excellent gaydar.”
“He’s straight.”
“Is he?”
“Benji.” I turned to face him. “He’s an NHL captain who’s been photographed with women he’s dated or banged or whatever. He’s straight. This is one athlete connecting with another former athlete who played in a different sport. That’s all.”
Benji held up his hands in surrender. “Fine. Whatever you say, but if I’m right, you owe me twenty bucks and another glitter night.”
“You’re not right.”
“We’ll see.”
***
As the evening wound down, the players closed out their tab—tipping outrageously because that was what professional athletes did—and gathered their things to leave. Skyler was the last one off his stool.
“Hey,” he said, lingering while his teammates headed for the door. “This was cool, getting to meet you again, I mean, for real this time.”
“Yeah.” My voice sounded foreign to my own ears. “Yeah, it was cool.”
“We should—” He stopped, ran a hand through his hair. “I mean, I’m sure we’ll be back. The guys love this place. So, I’ll see you around?”
“I’ll be here.” I raised a hand, forgetting there was a towel in it.
He smiled that same easy, warm smile from six weeks ago, the one that made his whole face light up.
“Sick. Cool. Okay.” He was backing toward the door now, almost bumping into a table. “Later, Jacks.”
“Later.”
He waved, and then he was gone, disappearing through the door with his teammates.
I stared for way too long.
“Jacks.”
I turned.
Finn was standing at the end of the bar, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
“Can I talk to you for a sec?”
I followed him to the quieter end of the bar, away from the few remaining customers and Benji’s infallible hearing.
“What’s up?”
Finn studied me for a moment. “I like those guys. They’re good for business and good for the community. And Skyler seems nice.”
“But?”
“But I’m your friend before I’m your boss. You know that, right?” He waited for me to nod. “As your friend . . .” Finn’s expression softened. “Be careful, okay? I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“C’mon, Finn, there’s nothing to get hurt about. He’s just a dude who likes football.”
“Really? That’s what that was?”
“Finn, he’s straight. He’s had girlfriends, probably has a girl lined up in every town they play in. There are photos of him with women all over the internet.” I forced a laugh. “This is just a famous guy who remembers my football career. That’s all, nothing more.”
Finn nodded slowly, still staring. “Okay,” he said. “Please . . . keep your guard up, okay? Celebrity attention can feel like something it isn’t, and I don’t want you reading more into this than what’s there.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I promise.”
He patted my shoulder, then headed back toward the office, leaving me alone with my mind filled with bright eyes and a wide smile.