Page 22 of Delay of Game
Zach was looking at him expectantly, then sympathetically. “Dude.”
“Last season, okay? Before—”you broke up with Alison“—the playoffs.”
“Oh my fucking god, bro. Dude!Dude?Dude. Like—what?Bro.” Nate’s face must have reflected some of the horror he felt, because Zach’s expression turned immediately solicitous. Instead of berating Nate further, he crossed the locker room to grab Nate’s arm, fingers tightening around the bicep. “We’re going out, and I’mgoingto get you laid, and we’regonnabreak this losing streak, okay?”
“I don’t think—”
“Don’t argue with me, bro. Like, just don’t.”
When it came to Zach, Nate sometimes felt like the man was a tsunami in the actual sense of what tsunamis were like. Not a sudden huge and rising wave, but the slow and inexorable crush of the water rising steadily and bearing away everything in its path, ripping it from its moorings and carrying it away. Nate was helpless in the face of it.
And that was how he found himself bullied into going home, brushing his teeth and getting changed into clothes that Zach deemed acceptable for a night out (“I’m not gonna be your wingman if you look like a fuckin’ slob, bro”) and dragged back out again, feeling like he was a million feet tall and completely out of place at the trendy rooftop bar Zach had chosen.
Nate was the sort of person who hadn’t dated so much as he had been acquired by his first and only girlfriend. She’d decided that she wanted to date him, and she did. Before her, he’d been a greasy, chubby virgin who spent more time in the basement of his parents’ house trying to Febreze away the smell of weed than he had going on dates. And after her, he’d been too depressed to try meeting anyone new on his own. Even if he had made a legitimate effort to rebound, that was his entire young adult dating life gone. Where most people developed skills by trial and error, Nate had nothing.
He’d tried to convey some of this to Zach, but Zach had only looked at him in confusion and said, “Bro, you don’t have totalkto them. Just look hot and I’ll do the rest, okay?”
“But I’mnothot?”
“Shh, shh, Nathaniel. What did I tell you about talking?”
Nate had shut his mouth, face burning, and let Zach bully him into the bar. It was a crisp December night. All Nate needed was a sweater and a light coat, and the city sparkled below them.
Zach bought them shots, and when Nate looked at him questioningly, said, “Liquid courage, bro,” and so Nate did the shot. Zach bought another round and nudged the glass across the bar to him. “See, your problem is that you just think too much.”
“I...can’t really help it.”
“But that’s the thing, dude, right? Like what’s the big deal if you embarrass yourself in front of some chick at a bar? You’re never gonna see her again, probably, and you’re the captain of aprofessional hockey team.”
I don’t deserve to be, he thought, but what he said was, “I don’t see how they’re connected—”
“ThepointI’m trying to make is like. Who cares if you embarrass yourself a little, because in the end, dude, you’re like—you’re doing pretty fucking good, right? One person’s opinion don’t mean shit.”
Nate caught himself licking his lower lip, nervously. It bore the sharp sting of vodka. “I mean...when you put it that way...it makes sense? But like...my brain just... Iknowit’s not a big deal, but it’s like I can’t stop thinking about it, and when I do I just feel sick, and...”
“See,” Zach said fondly, “you just gotta listen to me instead of your brain.”
The laugh escaped him like he’d been punched in the ribs—shocked out of him. “God, Zach,” he said, helpless.
Zach patted him on the arm. He was smiling at Nate in the way that made his eyes crinkle up, made Nate smile back whether he felt like it or not. Zach’s mouth tipped up at the corner and the dimple deepened the way it always did when they got caught up in the hall of mirrors of grinning at each other. “You keep drinking until your brain shuts up, and I’m gonna go find your first opportunity.”
Nate took his advice, because there was no way he was going to get through the night if he didn’t. He was a little buzzed by the time Zach brought the first girl over. She was pretty in a very girl-next-door kind of way, with curly brown hair, melting brown eyes, and a mischievous smile. He smiled awkwardly at her, and she smiled back, like she was amused at his incompetence.
“Eva, this is Nate,” Zach was saying, “he’s having a pretty shitty night tonight, but I’m like 99% sure your smile could cheeranyoneup.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Only 99%?”
“He, uh, means I’m—uh—”
“Now, buddy, what’d we say about being down on yourself?”
The girl was laughing at them now. “You guys are cute.”
In the end she didn’t end up hanging out that long; Nate couldn’t make himself open his goddamn mouth. It wasn’t just that he was nervous, because he was, but he didn’t—the more they talked and the more they drank, the more he knew he didn’t want to go home with her even ifshewanted to go home with him. He knew Zach was trying valiantly to keep the conversation going, kept elbowing him in the side when he gave monosyllable answers or couldn’t quite look her in the eyes, but he just—he didn’t want to do it.
Eventually, Eva smiled, bid them a cheerful good-night, and strolled away, hips swaying.
Zach looked at him, reproachful. “Okay, so you weren’t into her, but there are a fuck-ton of girls here. I’m gonna find yousomeone.”