Rooster: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (2 page)

Out on the streets of Manhattan, I feel like I’ve escaped a video game for a night. I fly home tomorrow, which means I’ve got less than twelve hours to find myself some decent, all-American pussy. There is no way I can go home with sowing my seed at least once, because fuck, what would the rest of the team say?

I’m not looking for love, I’m certainly not looking for the mother of my children, just someone who can cope with me for one incredible night of no strings pleasure that’ll keep me going until I get back home.

This is New York after all, and I’m hot fucking property. Surely it can’t be that difficult.

Izzy

“No chance. No fucking way. Not tonight.”

April is giving me her well-practised
if you were a decent friend you do it to help me out
eyes. I get them all the time from her as though I’m the one that expects the world and gives nothing back in return.

“Come on Izzy, he’s a nice guy, what else are you doing?” she says.

“Working.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it is. On a Friday night in New York, nobody works.”

“Why can’t you just go on your own?”

“Because he might be a rapist that’s why.”

“I thought you said he was a nice guy.”

April doesn’t answer that question. She’s been on the internet dating scene for the best part of the year, and I’ve been dragged onto a few of them as her wing girl. I’m not in the mood for any kind of casual hook up, which is usually what these guys are all looking for, and besides which, I’ve got the game to go through. If I want to smash this interview I’ve got to know absolutely everything about this team.

“Look, if he’s not a rapist and you’re seriously not into the other guy, you can either leave me or we’ll come home together”, April says.

I know that’s not going to happen.

“I’ve got a ton of footage to go through”, I say.

“Come on Iz, when was the last time you even got laid?”

“Not on one of your blind dates, that’s for sure.”

April puts her hands on my shoulders and turns me towards her.

“They’re not blind”, she says.

“They might as well be. That last one didn’t look anything like his photo. And people in New York are boring anyway, they’re either metrosexuals or hipsters, and I’m not sure which is worse”, I say.

“You can’t just expect a sports star to fall into your lap, the world doesn’t work like that.”

“It might do after my interview.”

April rolls her eyes. “Alright fine, I can see you’d rather rust away at home instead of coming out with me and having a good time like every other normal person in the world”, she says.

“April.”

She holds her hand up defiantly, palm flat out towards me. “No, no, I’ll be fine, the east side is perfectly safe at night time. Pretty girl like me, short skirt. Maybe I’ll just fuck them both.”

Fucking hell. I have an interview on Monday, a whole season of ice hockey footage to go through, of not only the Rangers but a selection of the other teams too, and April wants me to play chaperone to her latest fucking hook up. I’ve known her for a long time, but this is asking way too much. I’m struggling to pay the rent on this apartment as it is, and if I screw up this once in a lifetime opportunity, I’m going to have to move back home and forget all about my plans of making it big in the world of sports publicity. Hooking up with a sports star? Forget about it.

“Promise me we are not going to a cocktail bar”, I say.

April smiles. “Yes, Izzy! I knew you’d come round. Tonight I’m going to get you laid.”

I sigh and close my laptop. “You know what? Please don’t.”

***

Fucking hipsters, I knew it. Not only is this a cocktail bar, these two waifs of men have got their trousers on so tightly I bet that even if they wanted to they wouldn’t be able to procreate.

What the fuck has happened to men in this world? Where are the real men with muscles and testosterone and big dicks that would make even the most experienced of woman wince?

Where are the athletes and sports stars and mixed martial arts fighters who would do anything in the name of love? The kind of men that fuck with their shoes still on, their trousers barely lowered to let their balls escape, while they hold you up with one hand and fuck you into the wall at the back of a techno club.

Surely those men still exist, and if they do, why is it so impossible for me to find one? Every single date that April has dragged me on has been with men like
this
, and even though I know she’s got different tastes to mine, I can’t believe she keeps finding them.

Not my thing at all. How she thought they would be in the slightest bit rapey, as well, is absolutely crazy to me. I’ve got more chance of being raped by one of the pictures on the wall, which ironically seem to be the only thing in here that is anything approaching manly.

I know she only wanted me here for support, which is fine, but if she wants to go home with the guy she’s already giving her gooey eyes, that leaves me either with
short trousers and bow tie
, or going home alone, which is exactly what she asked me here to avoid.

It’s typical, and I knew this was going to happen anyway, but whatever, at least it gets me out of the house, I suppose. I’m not bothered about going home alone, either, which is bound to be what it comes to. I just have to wait for the right moment in which it’s polite for me to escape, hopefully way before anyone puts their moves on me.

Short trousers and bow tie
is called Martin, and he’s a photographer, which is basically hipster speak for someone that does fuck all while Mommy and Daddy top up the trust fund.

He’s not ugly either, just sort of put together without much care. If he dropped the whole fashion act and caught me off guard in the darkened corner of a sweaty club, I might even find myself interested, but here, in the artificially lit corner of a trendy bar, I’d rather be anywhere else.

I could be watching literally any sport at home, tough powerful men fighting hard to win at all costs, but no, instead I’m being a good friend, jeopardizing my future career and working hard to keep myself interested in what Martin has to say, none of which is in the least bit interesting.

At least April looks like she’s having a good time. I expect Cory will be the latest in a long line of notches before she gets bored and wants to try something else of exactly the same flavor at which point Cory will get tossed out, and I’ll be asked to fill my role again as wing girl. It kind of happens in monthly cycles when she hooks up with someone, even less when she doesn’t get lucky. Cory looks like he might be one of the
getting lucky
ones.

“You want another drink?” Martin shouts to me over the tinny repetitive music nodding down to the empty jam jar I’ve been jabbing at with a straw for the last five minutes.

Although delicious, twelve bucks seems like an extravagance I’m not keen to repeat just yet.

“I’m good actually, I was thinking of maybe just heading home”, I shout back.

“What?” April complains. “We’ve only just got here.”

“One more?” Martin suggests.

April gives me another set of eyes from her creative lock up. These ones are designed to make me feel guilty for even considering ducking out so soon. I call them her stabby eyes.

“I thought we could go dancing”, Cory says. “There’s a fucking cool new squat club just opened up in Flatbush we could check out.”

I’m not going across to Brooklyn, even if you got me a taxi. “Cool”, I say.

“Or, I don’t know, there’s plenty going on in the village”, Cory adds.

“Let’s have another one here and then we can decide”, I say. “But beer this time.”

“Yay, Izzy.”

Martin goes to the bar and comes back with another fucking cocktail for me. When I look at him with eyes I’ve borrowed from April that are so well formed he knows exactly what I mean without me actually having to say it, he quickly rushes to explain himself.

“I’ll get it if you’re worried about the money.”

“It’s not the money-”, I begin, but I can’t even be bothered to finish. It’s everything about this bullshit place.

Martin tells me about his work, a story that goes on for so long, that when he’s finally finished, and I still have no idea what the hell deep emotion he’s trying to capture with his latest project, April and Cory have already made out several times.

April moves fast when she’s a little buzzed, and right now, it looks like she’s ready to move on to the next stage.

“What?” she says when Cory and Martin go out to smoke and I give her a full on glance that can’t be interpreted in any other way.

“Having a good time?” I ask.

“He’s perfect.”

“That’s what you said about the last conveyer belt hipster.”

“How are you getting on with Martin?”

“I think I’m going to go home”, I say.

“Oh come on, Izzy. Stay just for a little bit longer.”

“Are you going home with him?” I ask.

“I might have to if you leave me.”

“I don’t know, it’s getting late, I don’t want to have to walk and these cocktails are way out of my budget.”

“Just get Martin to pay. I think he likes you”, she says.

That becomes all too clear when I agree to stay for one more drink if we change bar, and maybe sensing his time running out, Martin decides to put his moves on me. Moves in the form of reaching out to hold my hand. None of the textbook macho alpha-male shit that would have me swooning, but a graceful egalitarian, entirely respectful attempt to hold my hand while we are walking down the street that grosses me out and sends shivers up and down my spine. Seriously, if there is one thing I hate, it’s lovey-dovey, romantic bullshit, especially as a first pass. Give me direct, no bullshit, straight to the point, deep and dirty, back-alley-fuck any day over this soppy shit.

I snap my hand away as soon as I feel his there, perhaps a little bit too harshly and Martin immediately knows he’s overstepped the mark. Maybe this kind of approach usually work for him, but on me, it’s not going to wash at all. Cory may be getting balls-deep tonight, but Martin, I’m afraid, is going home alone.

“I’ve changed my mind”, I say.

“Iz”, April complains.

“You guys carry on, I’m not really feeling it.”

If April is still worried about getting raped, she shouldn’t be. Cory and Martin are probably just as likely a target.

I’ve done more than I needed to do, so there is no way I’m going to feel guilty about checking out early. This wasn’t even my thing anyway and it’s not like April hasn’t already done what she needed to do. If she’s already hooked up, my role as a wing girl is automatically redundant.

“Can I call you?” Martin asks and it almost makes me laugh.

He gives me the we’ve had a good connection bullshit talk, and it makes me feel unnecessarily uncomfortable. I tell him I’m not really into dating at the moment and it seems to do the job.

April gives me her sad
what’s Martin going to do now he’s a spare wheel
eyes, but right now it isn’t going to work. When she realizes that, she gives me a hug and then puts on her
get home without getting raped if you really can’t stay
eyes, and finally I’m given the all-clear to go home.

To be honest, I’m not all that sure I want to go home straight away. I can’t cope with any more insufferable bullshit from Martin, and April and Cory are too busy sucking face for me to want to stay with them, but now that I’m out and I’m not going to get any work done anyway, I figure I’ll walk towards the apartment and stop somewhere along the way if it appeals to me.

The truth is, and April’s right about this, I haven’t been laid for an embarrassingly long time, and ever since I got the call for the interview with the Rangers I’ve barely been out of the house for studying.

One beer isn’t going to hurt. You never know, I might even meet someone that wears the right sized jeans for once.

Rory

Three bars already and nothing. What is it with women here? You tell them they’re beautiful and they think you’re either crazy or some kind of dirty pervert. The kind of stuff I want to do to some of them is obviously filthy, but I’m a man, and that just runs in our blood. I’m hot-headed, red-blooded and masculine to the core, but I’m never disrespectful. I’d never treat a girl badly, and I wouldn’t do anything she didn’t want or agree to first. I just want to have a bit of fun, that’s all, but everyone here seems way too serious. To be honest, right now I’d even settle for a little bit of conversation with the right girl.

I’ve spent this whole week on my own, bar the odd few words exchanged here and there with people serving me drinks, or girls refusing my advances, and I’d kind of like just a bit of old fashioned banter before I have to fly back home, even if it doesn’t lead anywhere after.

There’s nothing wrong with a bit of flirting, but I think as soon as it’s clear I’m doing that people start to get offended and worried I’m going to grab them while they’re not looking. It’s crazy because I’m the kind of guys that always asks first.