We do this little ritual all the time. He opens my door without knocking, starts talking, and I listen, even if it looks like I’m asleep.
In my defense, I worked outside in the heat all day before heading to the gym for weight and flexibility training. Sleep sounds pretty good right now. So does staring blankly at the wall until my muscles stop screaming.
Whatever Ollie has cooked up that’s due to start in thirty minutes—which could be anything from getting matching tattoos to building a mud-wrestling pit in the backyard—does not sound good.
I’ll get roped into it; I almost always do. As the team’s goalie, it’s in my nature to keep to myself and do my own thing. I’m part of the team, no doubt, but I’m content to do my part on my own.
No one else subscribes to my philosophy. Not my captains or the rest of my teammates. And especially not Ollie.
He’s a born joiner and he won’t stop until he’s got us alldoing some group activity. You’d think he’d give up after he dragged us all to goat yoga last spring—and we got kicked out less than half an hour in.
But Ollie Jablonski’s as stubborn as they come.
He’s not giving up—not on assigning us all nicknames we don’t want or on being the social director for the team.
So, no matter how much I’m looking forward to taking a nap, fueling up with some carbs, and binge-watching reruns until I fall back asleep, I’m probably going along on whatever adventure Ollie’s hatched. Unless I can get out of it. My five-a.m. alarm will start blaring before I know it.
“Dude. Where are your swim trunks?”
I turn over to find Ollie rooting through my drawers. Before I can answer or tell him to get his damn hands off my clothes, Mickey walks in holding a bag of popcorn.
Fan-fucking-tastic. I love the guy, but any downtime I was hoping to get tonight is officially off the agenda.
“He doesn’t own board shorts,” Mickey says, tossing a few kernels in the air and catching them in his mouth.
“I call bullshit.” Ollie narrows his gaze at me. “You’re at the pool three times a week. You make the whole damn locker room smell like chlorine.”
“Yeah, he swims, but he doesn’t wear board shorts.”
Since I obviously don’t need to contribute to this conversation, I take the opportunity to pop my fist in the air, knocking the paper popcorn bag loose from Mickey’s grip. I help myself to a handful before he realizes it’s missing and swipes it back. Two pieces go flying, so I swing my neck out and turn to catch them before they fall to the floor.
We don’t own a vacuum. What else am I supposed to do?
Ollie spins to face us. “You’re telling me he skinny-dips in the pool three times a week, and nobody says shit? Because that’s crap. I got in so much fucking trouble for that freshman year. And it was only once. And I wasn’t even naked. I was wearing a jockstrap.”
“Yeah, but it was on your head. That doesn’t count.” Van says, poking his head in the doorway because my room is now Grand Central Station. “What time are we leaving?”
“Twenty minutes. Tell Santos to get his hairy ass moving.”
Van tilts his head back into the hallway about three inches. “Pete,” he yells. “Ollie said to get your hairy ass moving!”
His mission accomplished, he salutes us and moves down to his room to get ready. The guy lives in a glorified closet—it doesn’t even have windows. As a senior, he totally could have commandeered my room or the one on the other side of his. But he said he wasn’t gonna make me move and that the new guy could have the big room at the end of the hall.
He’s a good guy. All my roommates are.
I just don’t feel like being social tonight.
“Holy shit,” Ollie croons, punctuating his statement with a wolf whistle. I don’t have to turn toward my closet to know he’s found my swim bag.
“Put them back,” I say. “Tomorrow’s a pool day.”
Ollie ignores me, holding my jammers up like a trophy before tossing them at me. “I wondered if you’d be a banana hammock guy, but I think the skintight bike shorts are even sexier. Get naked, then put those on. We ride in ten.”
I shake my head. “First of all, I don’t need instructions on how to get dressed. And second, hell no. I’m not going swimming with you guys. I’d drown.”
Mickey looks up from where he’s buried his face in the popcorn bag. “You’re a certified lifeguard.”
“Yes. And I’d drown myself before taking a swim with all of you.”
