Hat Trick Overtime: Summer Camp by Jeff Adams-8
866 Words
“I’m going to miss this place,” Leo said as we piled into Alex’s car for the drive back to Ann Arbor. Leo planned to stay with us overnight and then drive back to Pittsburgh the next day before he started his summer job on Tuesday.
“It was a great time,” Alex said. “Well, most of it anyway. I can’t say I liked the whole Sergei thing.”
“He certainly made a run at you on the ice,” I said, grabbing Alex’s hand and kissing it. “I don’t think he expected you to evade him so well.”
After the farewell banquet, the coaches, staff and some of the high school senior campers put on an exhibition game for everyone. Alex, Leo and me were on the same team and formed a line with Alex as our center. Sergei played defense on the opposing team. He seemed determined to go after Alex, but could never get close to him. If Alex saw him coming, he’d deke Sergei, avoiding the hit while maintaining control of the puck. If Sergei tried to sneak up on him, one of our teammates would call it out so Alex could avoid it. As the game progressed, it was obvious Sergei was getting more annoyed because when he missed Alex he’d let go a string of Russian curse words.
“It got to the point where he was trying too hard,” Alex said. “That made it all the easier to avoid him. It was hysterical the way he kept coming after me. I mean you rejected him, too, Simon.”
“But, you turned him down first,” I said. “You must’ve had a special place in his heart. Despite me cleaning his wounds.”
“I’m surprised Ralph didn’t turn him in,” Leo said.
“Maybe there was more to it,” I said. “Probably just easier to let it go.”
We drove in silence for a while as soft music played on the radio. Alex tapped his fingers to the beat on the steering wheel with one hand while I held the other. Leo laid in the back seat, content, humming along to the music.
“I’m glad you got to come hang with us,” I said, looking back at Leo. “We don’t see you nearly enough.”
“This is what it means to be an adult, doesn’t it?” he asked. “Hell, I don’t even get to see Matt as much as I want to.”
“You guys are making it work though,” Alex said. “Four years this Christmas, right?”
“Yeah.” You could hear the happiness in his voice. “We know it’s just one more year until I’m out of school. We’ve already started having serious talks about where we want to live.”
“Those are fun,” Alex said, squeezing my hand as he said it. “I’m glad we’re able to do it so easily whenever there’s something important to talk about.”
“For us it gets complicated because it becomes time for a talk.” Leo dropped his voice a couple octaves for emphasis. “It rarely happens organically for us.”
“You’ve got a couple months with him before you have to head back to school, right?” Alex asked.
“Yeah,” Leo said excitedly as he sat up. “Matty snagged me an internship with the trainers at his gym. So I’ll get to shadow them and work with some clients. Plus it gives me some work study credit, just like I got for camp.”
“Nice!” I said.
“Yeah. I’m psyched, especially since it’ll be our first time actually living together, and not like the short bursts we’ve done in the past. Even during the summer we are apart most of the time, preparing resumes or trying to get ahead in school. This should be great, or doom us because we’re going to spend too much time together.”
I twisted in my seat. “You don’t really think that’ll happen do you?”
“We’ve talked about the possibility. This will be the most time we’ve spent in one place since we first hooked up. Who knows what’ll happen.”
I was torn about what to say. It would be okay. It had to be. I’d always felt like Matt and Leo were destined to be together just like Alex and me.
“You guys gonna have any time at home before school kicks in?” Leo asked, changing the topic. “It would be great to double date, or something.”
“We were talking about that last night,” Alex said. “We want to get back at least for a couple weekends to see family and anyone who’s around. A double date would be great. It’s been way too long since we’ve done that with you guys.”
“And we can do so much more now that we’re all over twenty-one,” I said.
“The last time we got together we saw that weird movie before we all left for college, right?” Leo asked. “The one we all hated, but for some reason didn’t walk out on.”
I thought a moment, trying to remember the name of it. “Yeah, it was. I know we can do better than that.”
“At least dinner after the movie was good,” Alex said.
“That it was,” Leo added. “It doesn’t get much better than Izzy’s Diner.”
“True,” I said. “Let’s get Matt on the phone before you drive out tomorrow and see if we can get something planned. That way it’s on everybody’s calendar.”
“Perfect,” Leo said. He sighed as he leaned back into the seat.
“What?” Alex asked.
“I miss the days we could just hang out for hours whenever we wanted,” Leo said.
“Me, too.” I said.
“Growing up sucks,” Leo responded.
“Yes and no. Just remember, it’s the grown up Leo that’s about to spend two months with Matt.”
“True.” I saw Leo smile in the rearview mirror.
A third of the summer had already passed us by, which was crazy. I had no doubt though that Alex and I were going to have an awesome, if busy summer, and that in no time we’d launch into an epic senior year.
THE END
- Writer
