the hockey player: part three of three

by bois2men

We stopped at a local gas station for beer. Only the finest of course- Bud Light. We entered the hotel lobby to a stern, oversized, hick-ish security guard standing at the check in desk giving us an I-DON’T-THINK-SO look. What? There is absolutely nothing peculiar at all about five girls walking into a hotel after 10pm with two 12-packs of beer to visit some “friends”. New-to-the-group girl started to mouth off and almost blew our chances at getting up to their floor (they couldn’t come down and meet us because they weren’t allowed to have guests- coach rules). Luckily, she didn’t and we made it up. Hockey player and I had not discussed exactly what the plan would be for this night, so at this point it was wild card. We drank and drank, and laughed, and drank until most of the beers were gone. Some of the girls wanted to leave but new-to-the-group girl starting showing her true colors (which were not good) and though had originally planned on leaving that night, decided to stay and fucked over some of the other girls. (This later demoted her to- not-in-the-group-at-all girl, but that’s another story). So everyone stayed and hockey player and I got our own room (how sweet). The night was kind of surreal… this guy was semi-legit at what he did and there was something exciting about that. The next morning I woke up to his cell phone’s alarm (they had to go practice before their next game that night, in another town- sad face). Now, completely sober, I had that morning-after feeling of instantly analyzing the nights events and making sure that everything I had done was “okay”- it was, right? He got dressed and had to leave and it was basically like… “See you… never,” though it was not said. For some reason I hadn’t thought of what would happen after the game night/next day, you know… once he goes back to the state he lives in that isn’t the one I live in. Once the door shut and he was gone, I called my friends who had stayed down the hall. As discussed the night before, they were already halfway back to LA, they had left earlier that morning. I sat up in this fluffy white California king bed and stared out of the corner window- a room with a view. The room was huge but there was hardly anything in it, a lot of negative space. I had thought I wanted to sleep longer but suddenly I felt the urge to leave, it felt weird staying there. I made myself as presentable as possible, sunglasses included since it was just after 9am and bright out. I peeked out the door to make sure the coast was clear of fellow team members. Safe. Once in the elevator I saw the back of my hair in the mirror and it literally looked like a nest. The elevator reached ground level and I stepped out, still clear. As I came up to the door to exit, I saw one of hockey player’s teammates/good friend sitting on the bench right outside. Fuck, this was going to be the ultimate walk of shame. I passed him and kind of smiled and he looked up at me, happily, ugh.  The worst part was what he saw last as I walked away- the nest.

Hockey player and I texted back and forth a few times that week and that was pretty much it. I took a break from chat roulette after that. In fact, I never really went on. A few months later my same 2 friends that were there that “fateful” night were over and we decided to go on- for old times sake. Chat roulette was still exactly the same as when we left it. The clientele at its finest. We next-ed pretty quickly through them all until… we landed on a guy that looked just like hockey player. I said his name aloud to my friends as a joke since he was basically twin material. My gay male friend said “Wait!- that is _____!” he got up and walked closer to the computer simultaneously as I started to feel like I was dreaming. After more analyzation-

It was him.

I couldn’t believe it. Really? Of all the thousands of people- was this really happening? Yes it was. It took him a moment to realize what was happening as well but once he did, he seemed equally as shocked as me. It was almost embarrassing but at the same time not. We talked to him for a bit. Hockey player texted me that night a few times and now we communicate every once in a while through Facebook. I still can’t believe that we saw each other again, so randomly like that. It was just too weird not to mean anything, right? Maybe not right, but, something, I don’t know. If anything, it’s the perfect example of things coming “full circle.”