Darkroom: A Moo U Hockey Romance

in the cafeteria.”
“Then you haven’t eaten yet! Perfect. Let’s grab some dinner. Is there a good steak house around?” my dad asked. “It’ll be my treat. I’m in the mood for a porterhouse with all the fixings.”
“Yeah,” AJ said enthusiastically. “The Blue Spruce has steaks.”
“Great,” my dad said. “Why don’t you ask some of your teammates if they want to join us? The more the merrier.”
“The whole team?” I asked. “I don’t think the Blue Spruce has a table big enough.”
While this was true, the main reason I said this was because my dad was a bit of a braggadocio with a wealth of anecdotes drawn from his career, and if my teammates came with us to dinner, it was sure to turn into the Dominic Forte Hour, starring Dominic Forte.
“I’m sure the restaurant will accommodate us. Money might not buy happiness, but it can usually get me a table.”
Resigned, I sent out a group text…
Hudson: Who’s up for dinner at the Blue Spruce? My dad’s paying. You have five minutes to reply or you’re out of luck.
It didn’t take long for the replies to start rolling in. No one likes a free steak dinner better than a college hockey player. We’re always hungry and usually broke. When the five minutes were up, I’d changed clothes and we had eight RSVPs.
“…this place fairly clean,” my dad was saying to AJ. “That must score you a lot of points with the ladies. You boys getting plenty of action?”
AJ coughed.
“Cut it out, Dad,” I said.
With a head tilt, Dom just held his hands up in mock surrender. “Hey, I’m just sayin’, hockey is king in this town and I know women appreciate little things like neatness, no matter how hot and bothered they are to nail a hockey player.”
“Dad.”
“Okay, okay, I get the message.”
Squeak squeak squeak.
My dad cocked his head. “What’s that noise?” he asked.
“That’s Deke, working out.”
“You got another roommate?” he asked, looking around.
“In a manner of speaking,” I said, gesturing toward Deke’s elaborate two-story wood veneer abode. The top floor was for food, drink and exercise. The bottom floor, accessible by a plastic cylinder, was filled with soft bedding material and the occasional paper towel tube. Below that was a storage cabinet. The whole thing looked more like a piece of furniture than a pet habitat.
“What the fuck?” My dad drew closer, bending at the waist to see inside. “What is that?”
“It’s a hamster.”
Deke was a golden, or Syrian, hamster. Larger than most pet store hamsters, he had soft fur the color of honey that lightened to blond on his stubby legs. He was currently running on his exercise wheel, something he did for a long time every evening.
My dad turned to me with a comically horrified expression and I just smiled back at him. This was a familiar point of contention between us. Dad was an old-school manly man who believed everything he owned, wore or ate should have the appearance of masculinity. I, on the other hand, always had a soft spot for cute animals, even stuffed toy animals. This bugged my dad like nothing else. When we went to the zoo, as a kid I gravitated toward animals like the koalas, red pandas and the baby version of anything. My dad, of course, encouraged me to look at the lions, the gorillas, the crocs—anything that could potentially maim you.
“Jesus H. Christ. I hope this is yours, AJ.”
AJ laughed. “Nope. Deke belongs to your son.”
My dad dragged a hand over his face with a muffled sound of pain.
“Hey, this is your fault, Dad. You wouldn’t let me get one when I was little, so here we are.”
“Surely your landlord has rules against pets.”
“Not hamsters. I checked.”
“What an idiot,” Dom muttered. Then louder, he said, “Well, just don’t…don’t post pictures of him on social media. Okay? Will you do that much? I don’t want it getting around that my son…” He shook his head dejectedly.
“No promises, Dad. I am who I am. No apologies.”
He gave a long-suffering sigh, which was more for show than it was from any true pain. As long as I was still on the pathway toward NHL greatness, that was all that mattered.
“We’d better get going,” AJ said. “Dom called the restaurant while you were changing and they’re going to have a table ready.”
“Great.”
“I’ll drive,” Dom said. “Unless you want to, AJ.”
AJ’s eyes went wide. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“You have a license?” Dom asked.
“Sure, I have a license.”
Dom handed him the keys to the Camaro and AJ looked happier than he had when we accidentally bumped into Billy Crystal in town last autumn. And he’d been pretty damned ecstatic because Billy Crystal was in AJ’s favorite movie of all time—The Princess Bride. He was such a fan, he bet me once he could recite the entire movie, word for word. I stupidly took that bet. I say stupidly because not only did he win, I had to watch the entire movie with him talking over it the entire time.

3
Indi
By the time I got back to Carter Hall, my embarrassment had faded away, replaced by hunger. In my haste to escape Hudson, the sexy good Samaritan, I’d left my pizza behind and now here I was, still without dinner. But as I approached the suite style apartment I shared with my roommate, Ruby Chang, I smelled something delicious wafting out into the hallway.
Ruby and I had only met yesterday and so far, we’d gotten along pretty well. We both had big collections of makeup. We were both very serious about school and we both despised love stories with tragic endings, like Me Before You and La La Land. But last night had been a marathon of getting to know you questions and I wasn’t ready yet for a repeat.
Holding my scarf up, I made a beeline for my room. “Hi.”
“Hey,” she said. “Are you hungry? I made authentic Hawaiian fried rice and by that I mean it’s made with yummy SPAM.”
Only steps away from