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So the thing is —
The thing is that Joey would kind of like to see Owen again. Maybe catch another dinner, this time with, you know. Teeth. Or go on a nice walk, though it’s frigid out. Just something friendly. It doesn’t have to be a date if Owen doesn’t want to be, it’d just be cool to actually know someone else in this city who’s gay, that’s all. Owen’s dimples have nothing to do with it.
Except Joey doesn’t have Owen’s number. And like, that makes sense. He shouldn’t. Because that wasn’t a date. And he doesn’t even know Owen’s last name — it could be Thomson, the same as Maggie’s, but it could also easily not be, so he can’t even be sure if he can look him up anywhere, since he didn’t even ask which college he was at — stupid, and also kind of rude, he probably would have liked to be asked — and even if he did know, it’d probably be super awkward to add him on social media or whatever, since he was doing it for his grandma in the same way Joey was taking one for the literal team. And Joey maybe shut down every single public social media account he had when people were using them to inundate him with homophobic B.S. Plus some support, admittedly, but the bullshit definitely had more of an impact on him.
Joey doesn’t know why he’s thinking about Owen. He needs to stop thinking about Owen. He had a nice dinner with a nice guy humoring his grandma, who, not being a hockey fan, probably sees Joey exactly as he is — a literally toothless yokel with one whole year of college — and only because he was playing on the hockey team — and —
The point is, it was surprisingly a good time, and Joey should be thankful for that, and let it go, not build it up in his head or make something out of it.
He’s having some problems doing that.
“Are you moping?” Scratch asks during pregame Saturday.
“No,” Joey says, but. Yes.
“Was the old lady’s grandson that bad?” Scratch asks.
“No,” Joey says. Unfortunately.
“Aww, do you like him?” Scratch says. “Are you moping because you were wrong?”
“No!” Joey says, more to the second than the first, and then, when Scratch won’t leave him alone about it, sets Trigger on him to shut him up, grateful when Scratch is too busy wrestling on the locker room floor to keep mocking Joey’s pain.
Scratch unfortunately doesn’t drop it, even though Trigger roughed him up but good. He’s got pink marks all over his neck from some attempted strangulation that went on. Scratch has always marked up like that — you poke him a little hard and he’ll wear that mark for an hour.
“Friends don’t sic the goalie on friends,” Scratch says sadly.
“Who said we’re friends?” Joey says, and Scratch rolls his eyes, which is probably fair, considering Joey probably spends more time with Scratch than he does alone.
“Bud,” Scratch says even more sadly. “You know you can tell me anything. I am here for you. I am your brother.”
It’s Joey’s turn to roll his eyes.
“Was the guy cute?” Scratch asks.
Joey isn’t going to break just because Scratch is pulling out the big brown eyes and the serious for once voice.
“He was so cute,” Joey moans.
“Did you get his number?” Scratch asks.
“No!” Joey says, and puts his face in his hands.
“You’re an idiot,” Scratch says. “Okay, here’s what you’re going to do instead of sulking—”
“I’m not sulking,” Joey sulks.
“Do you have the old lady’s number?” Scratch asks.
“Maggie,” Joey says.
“Do you have Maggie’s number?” Scratch asks.
“Yeah,” Joey says, “But—”
“Nu uh!” Scratch says. “You’re going to text her. Or…call her, I don’t know if she texts. And you are going to ask her for her grandson’s number.”
Joey considers.
“I’m a genius,” Scratch proclaims.
“That’s rude, though,” Joey says. “Because like, it wasn’t a date, it was just like — a fake date, and Owen didn’t even know it was happening, and he already mentioned that Maggie like, meddles in his love life, so it’s messed up for me to —”
“Joseph Munroe, you absolute fuckwit, give me your phone,” Scratch says.
“No,” Joey says, and this time — this time Trigger’s sicced on him.
*
Joey is an idiot. Joey is an idiot, because he thought a fingerprint lock on his phone would be safer than a PIN, and maybe it would be if he didn’t have a bunch of asshole teammates who were perfectly willing to sit on him and hold out his hand so Scratch could unlock his phone by literal force. Joey has been betrayed by his own fucking body.
When he finally gets gets his phone back the damage is done, a text sent with, Would it be possible to get your grandson’s number?, to one Maggie Thomson. It’s shockingly polite for a text from Scratch, who’s never learned manners in his miserable traitor life, but Joey guesses he was trying to impersonate Joey.
It’s not like Joey can go and text ‘sorry, my teammate did that’ without confusing the poor woman, so he’s sort of fucked now. God, it’s so inappropriate. He’s just waiting for Charity to storm into the locker room and tell him he’s not supposed to harass the poor donors or something.
“I genuinely hate you all,” Joey says, rubbing where Trigger had him by the shoulder — feels like it’s going to bruise, bunch of lunatics — and throws his checks extra hard during the scrimmage.
“I’m on your team!” Scratch says.
“You deserve it!” Joey says.
He feels like checking Trigger too, but it’s probably best to avoid an all-out brawl, which is what would happen if he dared touch the goalie. But he considers it. He considers it hard.
Maggie hasn’t texted anything back by the time they get out of practice, and Joey has hopeful thoughts that maybe the number’s a landline, or she doesn’t have a texting plan or something. It’s possible, considering her age. It isn’t doing much about the pit in his stomach, though. Joey showers, thinking about Maggie telling Owen to file a restraining order because that strange hockey player got the wrong idea.
“Lunch?” Scratch says as Joey, halfway through getting dressed, goes to check his phone again. Nothing.
“I don’t have lunch with Benedict Arnolds,” Joey says,
“Oh shit, wanna go to that place with the killer eggs benedicts?” Scratch asks.
“No,” Joey says, but also yes, now he does. “Traitors don’t get fed.”
Traitors do get fed, because Joey is a traitor to himself, and now he wants all-day breakfast. Scratch gets eggs benedict, like the Benedict he is, and Joey gets the farmer’s breakfast — farmers apparently need to eat almost as much as hockey players — and spends half the time eating, the other half of the time checking his phone to see if somehow missed a text from Maggie.
“It’s kind of adorable how pathetic you are right now,” Scratch says. Joey honestly has no idea how he understood a single word of that, because Scratch said it through a mouthful of Joey’s home fries. A traitor and a thief. Joey needs new friends, ones that don’t steal or mock, and who have appropriate table manners.
“You are literally a toothless yokel,” Scratch says, when Joey says so. “You don’t get to talk about table manners.”
“A toothless yokel who knows how to keep my mouth shut when eating,” Joey says. “And in general.”
“If you didn’t tell me you liked the dude, I wouldn’t have done it,” Scratch says. “So.”
“I didn’t!” Joey says. Mostly. Well, not until Scratch pressed. Unfortunately, Scratch always knows exactly when to press. It’s extremely annoying.
Joey’s phone buzzes, and he jumps a little.
“Are you…going to look at it?” Scratch says, when Joey stares down at his phone, making no move to reach for it.
“It’s probably not even from her,” Joey says.
“I will literally use your finger again if I have to,” Scratch threatens.
“You don’t have your goon squad,” Joey says, but honestly, Scratch could easily take him anyway. Dude’s a giant. And Joey’s saying that as someone who isn’t exactly small himself.
After a moment of hesitation, he thumbs — well, fingers, but that sounds bad — his phone on, and reads the text from Maggie.
I’m so glad you asked!!!!!!!!! Maggie’s sent back, and then like, nothing. No number. Not that — Joey shouldn’t have asked for the number, hell, it wasn’t even Joey who asked for the number, so he should obviously not be disappointed that she didn’t. Maybe she's looking it up to send to him right now.
Joey continues to stare down at his phone, swiping whenever it dims.
“Uh,” Scratch says. “Share with the class?”
“No,” Joey says. “I’m never telling you anything again.”
“Joey,” Scratch whines, but Joey has learned his lesson. Scratch isn’t getting told shit.
There’s still nothing when he checks his phone after his drive home, and Joey puts it down on the dining room table, resolves to forget about it until dinner.
It buzzes two minutes later, and Joey nearly sprains something vaulting over the couch. If it’s just something from Scratch, Joey is going to murder him.
It’s a text from a local number, Hey, it’s Owen from the other night., and almost before Joey’s finished reading it, it’s followed up by, My grandma gave me your number, hope that’s okay?
Now Joey’s wondering if that means Owen actually asked Maggie for Joey’s before Scratch, as Joey, asked her, or separately, and she didn’t mention that Joey asked for his. Alternately he’s just trying paper over the awkwardness of Joey asking for it, but then, why would he even text Joey if he wasn’t interested? It isn’t exactly hard to ghost someone you only met once and would otherwise never see again.
Joey’s overthinking this. He knows he’s overthinking this. He has absolutely no idea how to stop.
Hi, Joey texts, pressing send and then burying his face in his couch. Hi. How basic can you get?
His phone buzzes. He’s not going to check it, he’s not going to —
Hi, Owen’s texted back, along with a smiley.
Joey can’t just text back ‘Hi’ again, but he has no idea what to say now. There’s a reason he’s had all of one boyfriend in his life, and Zach was the one who initiated just about everything. Also he was a raging dickhole, so.
Are you busy Sat evening?, Owen texts.
Joey so, so badly wants to text that he isn't, but he’s pretty sure ‘a guy ridiculously out of my league just asked me out’ is not an acceptable excuse to miss a game.
I’m playing Sat, but I’m free Sunday, Joey texts back.
Cool., Owen says, followed by another smiley, and Joey beams down at his phone, sends a smiley right back.
“Did you talk to him?” Scratch asks the next morning.
“No,” Joey says, but obviously something in his face gives it away. It’s probably a smile. He feels like he is smiling right now. His face is as big a traitor as Scratch is.
“‘Thank you, Scratch, light of my life, bro of all bros’,” Scratch says, with the most irritatingly self-congratulatory grin on his face.
“You literally committed identity fraud,” Joey says.
“If you’d let me do it a little more you’d be sexting by now,” Scratch says, and infuriatingly ducks before Joey can smack him.