#but if you do not think he is a player most GMs would kill to have at the table you're straight up bad at TTRPGs and media analysis
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It's a very small thing, but from a sometimes DM's perspective, Chetney asking for the list of Novos's items is just...one of those things that separates the best D&D players from the rest of the pack. The DM creates the world, and often has a general storyline in mind, but the players are, ideally, driving the action. Railroading is a bit like murderhoboing, in that while you can have people who do it in bad faith, a lot of the time it happens because the players aren't invested enough in the world (or are too tied to a single outcome that cannot be guaranteed in a game of improv and chance), and so having players who are always looking for ways to expand the world and seek out the hooks themselves and connect with NPCs is truly what every GM wishes for.
Anyway, Travis is incredibly good at opening up these little optional avenues that he, other cast members, or Matt can pick up later and use in-game to guide the story. Maybe Bells Hells will decide they've got other priorities and the list will only serve to give us a tiny glimpse into who Novos once was, but that's still a small piece of the world we wouldn't otherwise have! Maybe it will be a fun moment of Bells Hells coming across an item down the road and make space for another interaction with the crew of the Crimson Abyss; maybe it will allow Matt to guide them towards some other important things they need to know for the Solstice plot. But because he asked for this silly list in earnest, those doors are all open in a way that feels organic and player driven.
#this is a whole massive discussion but like...there are some truly earthshatteringly good actual players#and i think that while many of them also make big flashy swings little stuff like this gets overlooked#anyway it really is like. look you do not need to like Travis's characters. i do obviously but you're entitled to dislike them#but if you do not think he is a player most GMs would kill to have at the table you're straight up bad at TTRPGs and media analysis#this is the player agency of which the prophets (twitter unfortunately) foretold in action#critical role#critical role spoilers
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Blades LI Alignments
It struck me today that the TTRPG pages don't list alignments. Why? Because a lot of players and DMs/GMs see them as outdated and unnecessarily limiting?
...I'm gonna do it anyway.
Here's are the alignments, via the newest addition of Dungeons and Dragons (5e). Basically, how much you follow rules? And how much do you help people/how selfish are you?
Tyril- Lawful Good
Tyril is, to me, extremely Lawful Good most of the time. He's on a (according to him and society) righteous quest to stop evil with no room for nuance. Remember that time he decapitated a corrupted mayor in the middle of the street? He nudges a bit less lawful right at the end, but that's a big moment for him.
Nia- Neutral Good
Nia was raised in the strict rules of the Temple of Light, but she abandons those pretty quickly. She's not seeking out heists, but she kind of likes them. And Nia is undoubtably motivated to protect literally everyone. Textbook Neutral Good!
Mal- Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Good
Mal has never once cared what the law told him to do and he's not about to start! Our boy is Chaotic, as rouges tend to be. Mal starts pretty focused on his own survival and nothing else (Neutral), but pretty openly acknowledges that MC made him focus on helping others (Good). Stealing from the rich to finance an orphanage you run where you refer to all of the kids as 'yours' is the most Chaotic Good thing to ever happen.
Imtura- Chaotic Neutral
Imtura is a pirate. And she doesn't seem to have any regard for even Flotilla law. Classic Chaotic. And she does lots of good things, but she seems more motivated by protecting the people shares cares about, rather than any more abstract sense of Right. I call that Chaotic Neutral.
Valax- Lawful Neutral
Valax doesn't even have a TTRPG page, but she should! She does things that are both traditionally Evil (kidnapping, blood draining) and Good (owl bear protecting, not killing her friend). But Valax does almost all of them due to a code of conduct- initially set by the Ash Empress, but eventually set by Valax herself. To Valax, it's not about right or wrong. To me, that's Lawful Neutral.
Aerin- Book 1 Neutral Evil, Book 2 True Neutral?
Aerin is a case where the cracks in alignment kind of show. To me, he's best embodied by this gif:
I went by process of elimination for him. And didn't give much weight to what Aerin says when he's fully corrupted, because that's a whole different thing.
Lawful/Chaotic: Aerin knows how to play along with what's expected of him, but clearly doesn't have much loyalty to the letter of the law. And at no point is he spontaneous. So he's in the middle Neutral column in both books.
Good/Evil: Aerin thought he was doing the right thing in Book 1. And he seemed to genuinely like the party and want to look out for them. But I think we can agree that bringing everyone together with the intention of summoning the Dreadlord and kidnapping Nia are both Evil.
Book 2, Aerin helps save the world, but only if you're not a dick to him. To me, that puts him more in the Neutral category. I feel like a fully Good character would still by out there trying to save the world no matter what.
Any agreements or disagreements? I'd love to hear about them!
#I would love to see where the authors think these characters fall#I literally said “Cool motive- still murder” out loud when Aerin explained himself in Book 2#choices bolas#blades of light and shadow#blades of light and shadow 2#tyril starfury#nia ellarious#mal volari#imtura tal kaelen#valax#princess valax#aerin valleros#dnd#alignment chart
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Ideal Hypothetical Saw Film Reroll episode(s)
(This is something I’ve been thinking about as I’ve watched through the movies and @afoxnamedmulder also formally asked about it so I took that as full permission from him to just start spewing my every thought about these two things together. This post is hyper niche and for literally like 3 people but idec lets gooooo)
So the first thought is if the Film Reroll crew were to ever reroll Saw it would obviously be the first one. It’s the most culturally relevant one and the one that most fits with what I can see the show doing. In the case of rerolling Saw I, ideally the players would not have seen the movie. Like I said, since this is the most culturally significant one this might be hard but I’m gonna go off of both vibes and play style for this one and just hope that it works
For the GM it’s gonna be Paulo. I just feel he could do the cramped space of the bathroom justice and bring in new “challenges”/obstacles to keep things moving.
Playing Lawrence Gordon, and this is gonna sound crazy please bear with me, I think we get Carolyn Faye Kramer. My reasoning for this is that the Lawrence of Saw I is someone who, despite his task being to kill Adam and cut off his foot, does not actually have the ability to do it until the very end when his family is threatened. If we put Jon or Scott here, Gordon is shooting Adam within the first 15 minutes of the movie. Carolyn I feel can play someone very conflicted about the choice and also won’t immediately jump to trusting whatever Jigsaw is saying on the tape. She’s willing to cooperate with her fellow player and only if she’s pushed to take things into her own hands will she start trying to make moves, which I feel is fitting. (Also she’s the only cast member I feel like we can say 100% has never seen these movies lmao lest we forget the infamous Friday the 13th “I know who the killer is” fiasco” happening because she doesn’t like scary movies)
My first choice playing Adam Faulkner-Stanheight would be none other than Joz Vammer themself! I think they could really get the tone of the character down full stop. The mixture of outbursts and jokes, but then also throwing things at the wall to see what sticks in getting them out of there. I feel like Joz also would not accept the zero sum game presented by Jigsaw and would work to find a way for both Adam and Lawrence to get out together, which is really what you need for this movie. In my heart I feel like Joz has seen the movie, but for this scenario I would hope not because…
The twist in this reroll would be there has been a 3rd PC the whole time: Zep Hindle. I would LOVE for Tim to play Zep. He could 100% play this quiet, envious guy given instructions to carry out his part of the game. My imagining for this would be he and Paulo had a session before the main game that was all about how Zep handled the set up stuff with Alison and Diana.
And then I’m envisioning the bathroom game sessions are happening on a Zoom call or the like, and Tim is sitting with Paulo in his apartment, letting him know what Zep is doing if/when phone calls to the outside world are happening and stuff. Also Paulo could totally call for “breaks” in recording where he’s actually conferring and rolling with Tim on what Zep is doing. The knowledge Zep gets is basically the equivalent of him getting to know stuff because of the camera set up in the movie. This would probably be a logistical nightmare to actually record, but I like to think that the payoff would be awesome. Like it gets revealed there was a secret third player in the episode, Joz and Carolyn are shocked, and then the edit goes back in time to show key tidbits of Tim’s turns and such. They could even release the full audio of it then on Patreon lol
The reveal at Zep being a PC rather than an NPC also kinda parallels/coincides with him not actually being Jigsaw from the original movie too. He’s not the one actually making things happen, he’s all a pawn in the game as well
HOWEVER I also had the thought - if the crew does Saw they don’t HAVE to do the first one. They didn’t do the first Friday the 13th and hell, their first episode is literally Back to the Future 2, not the first movie. If the crew just wanted to do a Saw episode to focus on the trap aspect when they’re playing, I think they could play as the Fatal 5 from Saw V (blatant Saw V bias showing here, don’t look at me, but also I genuinely think this is the group game most conducive to being rerolled). It’s also very likely that none of them have seen Saw V, so the “twist” with the traps being all survivable wouldn’t be known to them
It was between Saw V and Saw II because those are the two group games where all of the participants are free to work together and it’s not reliant on one person. I like Saw V better because I feel it can be self contained more than II. With II you have to deal with the fact Amanda is in on all of it and idk I feel like that just doesn’t work as well for a ttrpg setting. Casting for this one is a lot more vibes based and I have less concrete answers, so I’m open to suggestions
GM - Paulo once again. King of making this all work
Ashley Kazon - Carolyn (don’t know too much about Ashley but I want Carolyn in this movie and feel she could work this)
Charles Salomon - Scott (he could do it. He could bring the smarmy vibes and even though he wouldn’t know the line “I’m an Investigative Journalist for 👆The Herald👆” he would know it in spirit)
Luba Gibbs - Jon (first of all, we don’t get Jon to play women enough on this show. I love him playing Annabelle in Jumanji. Secondly, I think he can play Luba’s cut throat nature well. However I also wouldn’t mind Lisa in this role. I think she could play it well also)
Mallick Scott - Andy (he might be a bit too sedate for this, but also he’s the one I trust the most to play into the inevitable guilt complex that would be put on his sheet so)
Brit Stevenson - Kara (she could 100% do corporate woman who cares only for her own survival until she realizes that she doesn’t HAVE to care only for her own survival. I believe in her)
No twist in how the gameplay happens here, the only fun thing would be to see if the cast would be able to figure out Jigsaw’s message in that they can all actually work together to get through the traps.
FINALLY the most self indulgent thing and the thing they would never actually do because it technically wouldn’t be the movie itself is they would give us an apprentice campaign with the mainline apprentices working together before the start of Saw III/Saw IV, each of them with their own specific, secret objectives they’re hoping to achieve:
GM/John Kramer would be Paulo
Amanda would be Joz (Fairly self explanatory I feel. They have the range to play her. They would GET her)
Lawrence would be Andy (I feel Andy could pull off apprentice Lawrence. Lawrence strikes me as someone in the shadows during his apprentice work, biding his time, and I can see Andy bringing that sort of thing to Lawrence. At the same time there’s some room to develop apprentice Lawrence’s motivations and character so I would be interested in seeing what he’d do for him)
Hoffman would be Scott (Hoffman was the hardest for me to pin down in this line up but I think I like Scott as my pick for now. Open to more thoughts about this one though.)
In every scenario there would be will rolls up the wazoo. I feel like will stats in this would be fairly normal, it would just be the penalties that would make the rolls hard. So I like to imagine that cutting your own foot off is probably a -5 penalty or something, but if you’re in immediate, imminent danger or you have credible reason to think your family is in danger you’d get some bonuses back to make it a less tricky roll. Also numerous fright checks would also be on the table I’m sure, as well as senses of duty or different traits people will have to resist. I think building the character sheets for this would be fun, though it would be interesting to see how it would get balanced out by Paulo when actually playing
#can you tell I’ve thought about this question before? lmao#film reroll#saw franchise#(not gonna use all the saw tags since this is more film reroll related but also. still gotta tag it)#I’ll read back through for grammar and typos later hopefully there’s nothing too glaring in this#white weasel talks#long post
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I think one of the most important things you can do as a GM is make sure that when your players accomplish something amazing in your game that you make sure they feel celebrated and accomplished both in and out of character.
In my current VTM campaign the coterie just finished an arc they have been working on since July. It has been six real life months that translated into less than a week of in game time but they managed to kill an important enemy and to rescue someone who by all means I had been open about the fact that he would not be easy to save and maybe couldn’t be.
And you better believe they when they pulled it off i was cheering louder than any of them about it. Your players give you months of their real time and hours of genuine thought and care to the plot points and struggles that they are facing in game. They are willing to invest genuine emotional stake into the game. And when it pays off it should be rewarded and it should be celebrated.
My players haven’t saved the world. Hell, they haven’t even saved the city. But they did something that they have spent months working up to that meant so much to them. And I want them to know in the game and out of it that what they’ve done is damn impressive and makes me as their GM so fucking proud.
Celebrate your players. Give them silly achievements in a discord server. Give them downtime. Cheer for them.
(Also totally reblog this and add on about your players)
#vampire: stake city#vtm#vampire the masquerade#vampire: the masquerade#Ttrpg#gm tips#dnd5e#dnd#ttrpg community#from the sheriffs desk
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I guess this would be a modern-day AU where Assassin's Creed Protagonists play Blades in the Dark?
(EDIT 12/10: Now with Part 2 )
GM: Haytham (he regrets it sooo much)
Altaïr: Lurk
Haytham: "Altaïr, I'm begging you, please stop trying to do an American accent"
Ezio: Slide
Haytham: "Are you saying that you slept with this 70 year old woman?"
Ezio: "Yes."
Haytham: "I will not ask you to explain how for the sake of my sanity. Just take your extra dice."
Connor: Cutter
Connor: "My character loves his mother."
Haytham: "..."
Connor: "And is searching for his father so he may kill him."
Haytham: "... Thank you for that interesting backstory... son."
Desmond: Whisper
Desmond: "I guess I'll compel the ghost to possess him and get the ghost to make him jump off the tower."
Haytham: "You want to compel the ghost... to possess the head of the Blue Coats and jump to his death?"
Desmond: "Yup."
Haytham: "(sigh) Roll for attune. I'm telling you now that you are in a desperate posi-"
Desmond: (rolls 2 sixes and grins at Haytham)
Haytham: "......... (siiiggghhh) you attuned perfectly and the ghost is more than happy to possess the head of the Blue Coats and jump off the tower for you."
(these two sometimes join them)
Leonardo: Leech
Haytham: "Just a reminder, Leo, you still have a long-term project that you may want to continue?"
Leonardo: "Oh, yes, please!"
Desmond: "What was your long-term project again?"
Leonardo: "Creating a moving corpse using spark-craft."
Desmond: "Ohhhh, is that where all our corpses go?"
Malik: Spider
Malik: "I will assist Altaïr in this prowl and use my special skill Foresight to not take any stress."
Haytham: "Alright, how are you going to assist him?"
Malik: "I will tell him the exact timing and route to take."
Altaïr: "I ignore all of his instructions."
Haytham: "....... Alright, Altaïr, roll with only 2 dice. Malik, take 1 stress for having to watch Altaïr ignore everything you've just said."
Malik: "I'll take 2."
Desmond: "Oh my god. Guys, stop sabotaging each other."
Actual Player sheets and Crew Sheet (Assassin Playbook below)
Altaïr's Player sheet (starting)
Ezio's Player sheet (starting)
Connor's Player sheet (starting)
Desmond's Player sheet (starting)
Their Crew Sheet: Assassin Brotherhood
Bonus:
Leonardo's Player sheet (starting)
Malik's Player sheet (starting)
Other notes:
After their first session, Haytham wonders if his son should be friends with these three
Altaïr tries to be stealthy af, his dice have a 50/50 chance of agreeing with him
Most of the time if Altaïr fails, the consequence is that someone will start chasing him or their target will start running and he'll have to chase them (this is now a reoccurring joke and they're thinking Altaïr is cursed)
Ezio uses the Flashback mechanics the most to use his special skill (3 sessions in and everyone has agreed that Ezio has slept with everyone)
Connor doesn't hate his father, he thinks it'll be funny though to act like he does ingame
Desmond has played before, his dad is a longtime TTRPG player and he taught Desmond everything he knows (but he doesn't tell anyone that)
Haytham knows though and he rubs it in Bill's face that his own son prefers Haytham to be his GM
Malik made his character sheet for the sole purpose of helping everyone, he regrets it 10 minutes into his first score
Nowadays, whenever he joins, Malik just acts like an allied freelancer who only comes in when he has no other choice
Leonardo can't play regularly because he's usually busy but Haytham keeps a note that will tell him how many cooldowns Leonardo has so he can keep working on his long-term projects
Everyone agrees to take as many corpses as they can (if possible) for Leonardo's projects
#i had too much fun doing this#absolutely inspired by oxventure blades in the dark#i'll do the others later after work#after i sleep#this is what happens when i can't sleep#assassin's creed#blades in the dark#fic idea: assassin's creed#modern au#altaïr ibn la'ahad#ezio auditore#connor kenway#ratonhnhaké:ton#desmond miles#haytham kenway#malik al sayf#leonardo da vinci
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The ending to BG3 is sloppy, rushed, and underwhelming. if burnout on this game hadn't already lead me to decide not to replay it again anytime soon, that nonsense ending would have been the nail in the coffin. instead, it just convinced me I have no interest in replaying this again ever
BG3 is a fun game to play, but not a fun game to finish. I like finishing games
thoughts on the nonsense ending (major spoilers):
I chose to free Orpheus because I was romancing Lae'zel, and even without that I really like the Githyanki and was pleased to participate in any action leading to Vlaakith finally dying (she's overdo). On the other hand, I didn't outright disobey The Emperor until that moment (I even did his sex scene, which is hindsight was such an obvious manipulation)
Consequently, The Emperor seemed like a suspicious and untrustworthy ally for the entire game right up until he decided to ditch me and... fight for the Netherbrain?? You know, the thing we were working together to fight this whole time??
there's no attempt to rationalize his actions. the game needed to punish me/pay off for me discovering this 'ally' is actually not one, but his actions in that moment don't make any sense. the most logical thing would have been to say 'since you're freeing Orpheus, who will want me killed, my only options now are to die, run away, or be subjugated by the hive mind again' but he doesn't say that!! he seems to be saying that he's joining the Netherbrain cause of his own volition, and during the fight (which also includes a subjugated red dragon... for some reason?) The Emperor does not indicate that he's subjugated or that he's joined the hive mind. he's just here to be petty!! i guess!!
Once free Orpheus says the netherstones can only be wielded by a mindflayer...........? for some reason? for plot railroading reasons. Not like Netheril or Karsus were mindflayers, or even abberations at all. not like the Dread Three weren't wielding the netherstones separately just fine (for a time)
so sure, I'll allow that it has more to do with the brain itself having 'evolved' (thats not what that means) and trying to wield all three stones against it at once. but why a mindflayer?? why specifically the one type of being most vulnerable to an Elder Brain's influence??? why can't Orpheus, the one being in the world that we know is naturally immune to mindflayer and Elder Brain manipulation, wield the stones as-is??
plot reasons. because.
because I need to be made to make a Difficult Choice here in the eleventh hour; either Orpheus dies or I do. because, sorry, being turned into a mindflayer is not a 'transformation' its a death. I love mindflayers I think they're a cool enemy, but The Emperor was not Baldur. he was a mindflayer whose first victim, whose first memories he obtained, was Baldur. maybe this is a fault in me being a GM and knowing too much about the mechanics of this world
except that Withers himself literally appears out of nowhere to make sure you know that mindflayers don't have souls! way back at the end of Act 2! there was no point to that other than to make sure the players knows how this bit of the world works: a mindflayer is like a robot made from a dead person's brains. it might act and think like the dead person, but the person is dead.
I actually saved, and had Orpheus transform, and saved that as one branch, then reloaded and took the transformation myself, and played through the rest of the ending on that branch. I transformed, we saved the city (mostly), my girlfriend told me she thought I was ugly but she loved me anyways and would overlook it, then I told her to go save her people and after she left I killed myself
I'm glad I at least got the chance to kill myself because otherwise there were almost no narrative consequences for letting my brain get eaten and my corpse transformed into a monster. allies were like 'its weird, but youre awesome! huzzah!' even Orpheus says 'you'll be remembered fondly as the mindflayer who withstood the hivemind' until I specifically told him not to remember me that way (I'm only a mindflayer because you told me I had to be one!)
there were like 7 options for that final choice on what to do about yourself. options 1-5 were variations of 'sure I'm a mindflayer now but that's not a big deal! not all mindflayers are evil!' option 6 was 'they probably shouldn't trust me, i should be in prison.' option 7 was 'the narrator is literally telling me I can already feel my sense of self slipping away. I know what Baldur turned into. I know what mindflayers do. I need to be dead, for everyones safety'
I wish someone else could have killed me. it would have been so heartwrenching to have Lae'zel kill me but I would have loved her for it!
then Karlach burned to death and I got no other scene for literally any other companion and roll credits
nothing. for anybody. poor Karlach is dead right now, we gotta rush and get this product out for shipment, we're spending more money on the overloaded graphical effects and textures than we are paying the line-writers and voice actors
like, you didn't play this game for the ending, dear customer, did you??
I truly think Larian did an amazing job for what they were asked to do, and I'm very curious about their other work. but it feels sometimes like game devs spend so much time making satisfying middle-game experience that they really drop the ball on end-game experience. I dont know if they fell into this trap because they were working with a major IP with not enough creative control, or time, or resources, or if even with better circumstances they still wouldn't have put much effort into trying to stick the landing
#bg3#bg3 spoilers#bg3 negativity#im not readmore-ing bc tumblr truncates long posts nowadays anyways#and i dont wanna be super negative about something people are having fun with#but like. for this game to be SO fun to play and to have SO many routes through the first act#for the ending to just be. so cut and dry railroaded and flavorless?#like it wouldn't have stood out so badly if the first act hadnt been so VIBRANT. what happened#oh also. i refuse to understand how NOT freeing orpheus is a 'good' ending#you can't bring lae'zel with you to the end if you do that right?#maybe for all the players who hate her and bought into the lie that all gith are evil and not all mindflayers are monsters#the ending where you have to kill orpheus?? for some reason?? makes a sort of sense#but. idk. buying into the lie that vlaakith is good and shar is good and astarion deserves to ascend#doesn't make those endings 'good' either!!
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look, i need to say this somewhere or i'll explode. candela obscura spoilers kinda.
to say that i disagree with spenser's game decisions would be an understatement. in this essay i will,
(first off, don't read this if you liked the guy's style! i'm not about needless pettiness, i just need to get this off my chest so i can go to sleep tonight. i see you, and i respect you, and i'm genuinely glad you enjoyed something i wasn't able to!)
but anyway
two main things i disagree with:
he doesn't honor player choices, choosing his own narrative over the top of their actions every time
he doesn't honor player successes. even on a six (full success) he still deals out a frankly preposterous amount of damage. invariably, on a mixed success they also will ALWAYS take damage. this fucks up the statistics.
there's a bunch more little things (dodging player questions, refusing to allow clever tactics - general hallmarks of the frustrating gm) but these are getting into nitpicky territory so i won't go on.
my analysis of the issue boils down to this: spenser is a good horror storyteller. but he is a bad horror game master.
let's break that down. the point of a game is to be an experience. and the point of horror, as a genre, is to be scared in a safe environment. to have an outlet for rage, and fear, and all ugly emotions.
all games are concerned, at their core, with a simple question: what does this game choose to punish or reward? sometimes it's in the rules, e.g. 'killing monsters gives you loot'. sometimes it's an unspoken question, e.g. 'my gm likes when we think our way around things rather than fighting all the time'.
the way spenser runs his game - always punishing mixed successes, and sometimes even punishing full successes - he destroys the core of a punishment/reward system by reducing it entirely to a system of punishment.
this might sound fine for a horror game. (for some people, i bet it is). but as a person who enjoys playing punishing games (pathalogic cough) a great deal of the appeal is that your struggle has meaning beyond your own survival. when the struggle is simply futile no matter what, well... why bother at all?
in other words, when you punish everything your players attempt to do, you encourage them to do nothing. in real life, this is when people walk away from the table, or develop suicidal characters
so much for game design. here is how he fails on a storytelling level. his goal, in most scenes, is to kill his characters. so there's no wider stakes. oh, he creates tension, and frustration - sure. man knows how to ramp up a scene. good storyteller, remember? but it's not his story that matters to us. it's the characters.
spenser refuses to honor player choices in a meaningful, narrative way.
in fact, that is the exact cause of our frustration!
and as far as spenser would have it, the characters will die, or remain helpless, and so our frustration has no outlet.
still, having laid all that out, i wonder. maybe there is catharsis in this kind of hopelessness. to become so deadened by tension and rage that you slip into a darker mental space, and you begin to long for any escape at all... you long to utilise the only agency you possess: that is, where exactly you choose to die. is there agency in that? you have to believe it, right? otherwise, what's the point? yes - why bother at all?
and maybe the story could be something. if spenser engaged with this idea. if he let go of the need to punish. but when his characters die, i have no expectation it will be anything other than inglorious, and possibly even accidental. and we will have lost a valuable story in what they might have done, if he'd let them. what answers they might have found to that age-old question: why should we bother?
to reiterate: the point of a game is to be an experience. and the point of horror, as a genre, is to be scared in a safe environment. to have an outlet for rage, and fear, and all ugly emotions.
when the goal of the game is survival, and you create an environment so punishingly tense that your characters are no longer scared of dying, they lose interest in the goal. games kinda need goals, you know? anyway, this is the experience spenser fails to deliver
to quote marisha, s2 e2. 'throw the whole quickstart guide out! throw it all away!' or at least, get a better dm to try and sell it! because i've read the guide front to back, and it's not a hopeless game system. but having a hopeless dm... yeah, you couldn't pay me to play at his table lol
rant over, keep scrolling. if you're one of the people who liked his style, that's okay and i respect it! i wish i had half the masochistic streak you do ^^
#candela obscura spoilers#i have a great deal of empathy for his position#its not easy#i get that#this is a great deal of pettiness that i hope he never sees#and you know what? i found his incompetence useful#in learnign what i don't want to do#and the kind of gm i never want to be
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Literally one of the first things we hear Claude say is that he can't wait to talk Byleth's head off. Unless Byleth has EX-charm and warped Claude's personality the very moment they had eye contact, or that there's something in the water around GM that cures stupidity, Claude was ALWAYS curious and asked questions regardless of the subject. So Claude never questioning the true intent of Edelgard/the Empire or Rhea/the Church is just absolutely bonkers. I'm sorry for those that think "this is a natural part of Claude's character, as it shows the tragedy of what happens if he doesn't meet Byleth or stay in GM", but we have clear evidence to prove that theory just ain't hittin'!
YES!!
And the kicker? Claude didn't trust Byleth either! AT ALL! He constantly thought that they were lying throughout a lot of the time they're with him in GD! And ya know what he does in response to his distrust of them?
He keeps digging! He keeps searching! He keeps trying to sus out Byleth's intentions! He doesn't immediately think that they're Oki Doki and totally telling the truth like with Edelgard (wrt Church Bad), and he doesn't try to fuckin' kill them either like with Rhea; he takes his time and looks into his suspicions to see if they hold water, which from his first interaction with Byleth you can see is ALWAYS true for him. Which, like you said, couldn't have been Byleth's influence on him making him be like that; that is one of the first impressions you the player ever get from Claude.
And, like, "[this] shows the tragedy of what happens if he doesn't meet Byleth or stay in Garreg Mach" is such a strange belief to me? At least with the idea that this is what would actually happen. Because you know what his time in Garreg Mach does do? It... it gives him any reason to distrust Rhea or the Church. Solon's influence, Rhea's actions from the outside throughout WC, all of the secrets Claude otherwise finds out about only during WC - that is all what attributes him distrusting Rhea to the extent his does in 3H. All of those things which still leaves him wanting to hear from Rhea anyway. And none of those things which he could possibly gain from his maximum month-long stay in 3Hopes. He has far less reason to ever distrust Rhea in 3Hopes, and yet it's in this game and only this game that he ever tries to outright kill her because of his distrust? The most he does in 3H, in comparison, is saying that he wonders what a world without Rhea would look like... which is built upon his experiences in Garreg Mach, and which is still followed up by him saying that he wants to hear from Rhea regardless. Because he's extremely curious as a person and always wants to know the truth. That thing that's inexplicably missing in 3Hopes.
You know what staying in Garreg Mach could've done? Made him closer with the Golden Deer... which isn't shown off in Hopes at all. Claude's secretive with them in 3H like he is in 3Hopes, and if anything 3Hopes has him eventually become less secretive to them than 3H does. Their dynamic doesn't show off this possibility whatsoever.
And 3Hopes takes the time to show off that even without much time at Garreg Mach, and even without Byleth, Claude is still an active person with his plans and is still extremely competent in tactics, especially for someone his age and with his (lack of) experience; we see this as early as Chapter 4, where he handled Shahid's invasion flawlessly, and had discussed financial plans with Margrave Edmund regarding the Locket's repair before he'd even set out to fight the invasion. Him suddenly losing this acumen in GW, if nothing else, definitely isn't a result of having no time in Garreg Mach or no influence from Byleth, because otherwise he'd never have it in the first place.
And you know what Byleth's influence could've done? Made Claude think that killing Rhea isn't the only option he has, as he has Byleth around to assure that the Church can be run by someone he trusts (more). Except that that... is disproven... in 3H. I think I've mentioned it before, but Byleth's influence would encourage Claude to kill Rhea in CF, to side with Edelgard on CF, you can even have Byleth literally ask Claude to join them on CF, and Claude will LITERALLY LAUGH AT THAT IDEA. He still stands up against Edelgard, he still doesn't attack the Church, he still never directly helps the Empire in any way, because Byleth's influence has nothing to do with Claude's core morals. Core morals which obviously clash with the idea of helping Edelgard, seeing as Byleth genuinely can't convince him to help them should they side with Edelgard. As opposed to AM and SS, where Claude helps directly in the player's army's efforts in taking down Edelgard.
The idea that No Byleth/Garreg Mach = 3Hopes!Claude fails on multiple levels, because basically nothing shows any connection between what happens in the two games. 3Hopes!Claude is just way too inconsistent a character, both in 3Hopes and when comparing him to his 3H counterpart, to try and make any genuine attempt at making him congruent with 3H, which as you've pointed out can be seen as early as literally his first appearance in 3H
#ask#anon#fire emblem warriors three hopes spoilers#fire emblem warrior: three hopes spoilers#you have two options with Claude:#a copy+pasted route that barely pertains to his personal growth as a character#or a Copied Homework route that actively goes against what's established for his character#just TRAGIC#clyde discourse
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i have a lot of Thoughts about the chicago situation and im going to put them under the cut cause i know no one cares but i have no one to talk to so they're going here anyway
tw: sexual assault, r*pe, hazing ?
okay so like... what happened?? i watched that press conference (yay being unemployed, we love it here and we are NOT going insane) and i am now convinced that perry probably didnt have sex with bedards mom but actually did something really, really, very much so worse.
im not convinced nothing happened between perry and any bedard though. its such a specific rumor. and the gm and all these reporters being like iTS DISGUSTING TO EVEN SUGGEST- okay so where did it come from then?? can you show me the tweet from rangersfan420 who hates the hawks and started a rumor for fun?? can you find the source to PROVE its just a stupid internet lie?? i know its hard but if im chicago, im putting someone on it. if im a reporter (i know its a hard job, its a lot of work, etc but i have very little sympathy for most hockey reporters specifically because of, well- name any incident) im SCOURING the web for the source of that rumor to either ask how they know, or embed the link in my pay-wall blocked article for clicks!! you KNOW it would work, at least a few times. theyve had two days, has anyone even attempted this? (someone who's job it is, who's getting paid literally to either create news or to kill the rumor more effectively than whatever the hell the hawks are trying right now)
i might believe something sexual assult-y happened between perry and a player's family or player even except we KNOW for a FACT that the nhl and the hawks specifically do not care about that. they can "we're committed to change" all they want (clearly that's not working) but what motive would they have for kicking perry off the team? when has the NHL, or NHL fans (the loud, obnoxious majority, anyway) cared when a player has assaulted anyone?? we have seen sex crime after sex crime against women (and men!) committed by these players who are STILL PLAYING. no consequences enforced by their team, by the league, or by the media or fans (generally. there are good fans and there are some media outlets that care). so really, the hawks have no reason to kick perry off the team, or address the media, or make this into A Thing at all if that were the case. I know its hard to quash a rumor once it starts, but i honestly think if they had just been like "perry did *insert sex crime here* and thats bad, sooweee" people would be like BUT HES A GREAT PLAYER and people would be liek THAT SUCKS KICK HIM OFF THE TEAM and then in 30 hours there would be something new to yell about. (because being the moral police for this FUCKING LEAGUE is exhausting. where my red wings girlies who are dead inside at?? let me hear you scream into the void!)
so let's take a sexual encounter/assault off the table. what the hell was it?? probably not a racist thing. the chicago hockey team for sure doesn't care about that (See: their logo). its probably not a straight up and down illegal thing because the cops aren't involved as far as we know. (not that that really matters to this league either. remember the val nichushkin thing?? or the lucic thing?? {im assuming he'll be playing again soon} or like a million other things?? god this league is exhausting)
i saw someone say a hazing thing and that i might believe, esp bc of how their gm looked on the brink of tears. but then... say that?? or then why say no one else in the locker room knows about it?? are we keeping them in the dark or are we covering their asses legally??
this league is so fucked up, that there's honestly not much i can imagine that a hockey player could do that would warrant THIS from his team and the NHL.
(unless of course he's claimed off waivers or signed in like three months, then it's probably your garden variety assault/hazing/drunk/racist incident)
UGH i hate it here sometimes
#corey perry#chicago blackhawks#idk if anyone has any thoughts... i mean i dont expect anyone to read this but is anyone else kind of going insane??#like hockey was supposed to be my fun escape and then this happens over and over and over and over and over#really i make jokes#mostly on twitter#but about bedard's mom because... before that press conference it was funny!#and now i feel sick!!#i wish whoever was a victim of this incident#i assume there is at least one#is okay and not deeply re-truamatized by idiots like me speculating#and i wish bedard didnt go there because this sucks for him hes just a kid#i bet he could laugh off the jokes but if its something worse...#and i wish the chicago blackhawks orginzation a very fuck you die
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The Isles getting Horvat could push the Pens to finally do something huh?
The pens are almost certainly doing something as we speak. I wouldn’t be surprised if GMRH has been working on a trade or several for a while. They likely have people they have their eye on and people they’re talking to. He’s almost certainly up to something but he’s not going to say what and the beat reporters have admitted they no longer have the access they once did so there’s not even rumors for them to speculate on.
Trades can’t be made overnight. Logistically they’ve gotta m a nightmare. On the Pens end of things, where do they have the cap space for a new boy? Do they even have worthwhile prospects to give up? Do they instead sell off all of their draft picks in a panic to shore up a team that everyone thinks is going to lose in the first round again, if we even make it to the playoffs (we’re making it to the playoffs).
So. Let’s look at the logistics. If we’re gonna armchair gm let’s do it right. Money in money out. We know pens don’t have cap space for a new player without sending someone back, maybe 2 people. Who do we trade? Petry would make the most sense with the second highest cap hit on our team at 6.5 mil and 3 years left in his contract. We can’t. He’s got a modified no trade clause (m-ntc) and a 15-team no trade list. Should we trade Dumo the way people have been calling for for months? He’s in the last year of his contract and costs 4.1 mil so it makes sense. We could probably get someone good for that money and if he doesn’t bounce back he’s gone from his new team in free agency. Except, oh yeah, he also has a m-ntc and a 10-team no trade list. Goodbye Arizona and dreams of Chych (presumably). That is, of course, if Arizona wanted to take him off our hands, which he’s played some of his worst hockey this season, I wouldn’t put it past teams to straight up not be interested. Back to the drawing board, who do we trade? Do we move our defensive futures in POJ or Ty Smith? Do we trade our cheap 7th D in Frieds and Chad? Rutta is cheap, on ltir, and here for 3 years so there’s no point in speculating about him. Petterson gets a pass bc he has 3 years left and is our best D. Tanger can’t be traded.
It doesn’t look good about trading a defenseman so let’s look to forwards instead. Everyone who has been complaining about Dumo is also talking about Big Jeff Carter, but oh look, another no movement clause, this one a full no movement. He’s not going anywhere unless he decides to and at that point he might as well retire instead. Next on the list of names people like to bring up is Kappy, but he’s currently injured. The main question is has he improved enough that other teams want him? That’s for the GMs of other teams to decide. We can’t sell what other people aren’t buying. Heino? He’s making league minimum, so you could throw him into a package but he’s not freeing up enough cap space on his own. Same with DOC and Poehling. Brockstar is on a cold streak but he’s 2.75 mil, signed for another three years, and versatile enough to play on any line. I think he’s worth keeping. I guess there’s Teddy. Third line has looked bad and moving him up didn’t fix it. There was at least 3 separate scoring chances last game that should have gone in for them and didn’t. Teddy’s only 2.2 mil and in need of a new contract so he’s definitely movable, but he’s also 80% of our penalty kill. We traded off ZAR and Simon last year because they were extraneous defensive forwards who couldn’t score and then we spent the month after the trade deadline unable to keep the puck out of the back of our net. I’m currently living in fear that he’s trade bait and hoping and praying that I’m wrong.
Trade a goalie you say? Desm*th may suck but he’s cheap. Where else are we going to get a league average backup goalie for 1.8 mil. And yes Desm*th is league average he’s maybe a little worse at goals expected but for what we’re paying him we are getting our money’s worth. Keep Dusty up and trade him you say? Well Dusty is cheaper and one of the best goalies in the AHL but that would require us to trust Dusty enough to let him start and for him to do good enough to earn the spot. That isn’t going to happen unless Desm*th gets injured again and with our injury luck on goalies going into the post season these last couple years, I’d rather we have depth at goal than selling off parts we don’t think we need for little return. I don’t like Desm*th but unless he gets a lot worse, he’s not going anywhere.
So that’s my main problem, but not the only one. What return do we get? Who is on the market? Who can magically fix everything wrong with the pens and is cheap enough to fit under the cap. You, me, and everyone on social media want Hexy to make a move. I’m certain he’s working on it. What move is he making? Who are we giving up? Who are we getting back? Are we selling just sell? Are we buying just to buy. I don’t think this team as it currently is makes it out of the first round of the playoffs. However I’ve seen trades for the sake of trades and we moved Hagelin for no reason and did not get noticeably better. Trades for the sake of trades can sometimes work out but most of the time they don’t. GMRH knows what he’s doing and keeps his cards close to his chest. He’ll make a move when he’s good and ready, and not a minute sooner.
#asks answered#anonymous#did you know that 10 players on our roster have some form of no movement clause#that’s 10 players out a 22 player roster#there’s the obvious Sid Geno Tanger Jake Rusty#and then also Zucker Rak BJC Petry and Dumo#if you wondered why I didn’t mention first or second line it’s cause the only place they’re going is free agency#and the only one headed that way is (hopefully not) Zucker#the real question is when are we going to resign him#I did not speculate on what people we could trade for because I have no idea what the rest of the league looks like#if you told me yesterday horvat was a Canuck I would have smiled and nodded#the only player I know is on the market is chych and that’s cause Yotes are my donks-in-law
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I do find it funny how few, very very few, people ever truly understood Zenthus. Maybe players back in the original campaigns circa early 2000s until about 2007, that watched him as he became who he was, but the following 15 years was a mix of people just not finding the right answers, or making the right builds, or looking for the right things, or just goddamn not listening.
I ironically ran into it with of all things another GM, because he plays "god" but got ultimately fucking rickrolled without even trying, no spells ever fired, nothing. And then I got "uwuwuuwuwuw Zento was such a manipulator"
I mean, dude, he already turned down one object you offered him you shouldn't. Whether that was pure goodness of intent or paranoia of getting bound by another ring is up to interpretation, but he didn't have to sit there playing shinto priest giving God some fucking therapy on how not to be a shitty person while clarifying the exact nature of his entrapment. You knew he has internal issues of being compelled, you know what he deals with. You brought him in even when he directly disadvised it to your face, and then quite literally handed your supposed "friend's" entire blueprint to the orphic egg they're surviving in, in chaos, with a casual question just because you felt the most moderate pressure from his kid attacking you. That, or you were a lot more put out and scared than letting on of those attacks, cuz, "The blueprints, do you have them?" HERE YOU GO, AND YOUR GIFTED WORLDS WORST DAD MUG
Continued conversation. He is LITERALLY advising god, entirely truthfully, on how to fight his son. Like yes, we raised Kion, this is how he thinks, because this is what we would do, stop impulse reacting, he is doing everything he can to make you react. We literally thrive on making you impulse react and start slipping up. Stop being so confident he's acting from incompetence either, three times in the last two minutes you declared something only to get hit remotely in the godly face to the point of verbal surprise or impress. Stop it. He's targeting your creation because you're hiding, not because he thinks you're there. And he will continue to target your creation until you do something about it.
But the further he got advised on the situation the more freaked god* got and deadass like killed himself to remove himself from the cycle to stop perpetuating this bullshit that set Kion off to begin with and Zento just walks out with everything.
Like. that wasn't even manipulation dude, he was entirely honest with you top to bottom, and even stopped you from the suicide route earlier but when you decided to do it again it's like, fine whatever, okay, genuinely makes my life easier, do you, and he did.
Zento is *dangerous* but he is not, actually, actively manipulative. *Zenthus* is even extremely honest, though that personality IS manipulative. But Zenthus can jack Zento, and you said you understood when the change happened so like. no dude that's just loose lips sink cosmic ships. Zenthus crawling out to yoink the map should be none surprise, Zento even warned you three times three different ways.
That doesn't mean Shea had the right idea either to like, love him better. That also doesn't work, Zenthus still has too much unadulterated control when he wants. Or trying to force my hand into some easy slay arrangement of the bad half for reasons like, no. No we aint doin this.
God's player often talked about God's Cry For Help but would rather be uwu Zento is manipulator because i did a bad than realize, Zenthus' entire existence is Zento's 20+ RL year cry for help nobody's ever card enough about to figure out how to answer, and everyone gets too pissed at Zenthus to address, and everyone loses their shit and doesn't know how to fix it. These folks now aren't even pulling punches, fuck breaking his phyllactery, they're facing his full true self and all his parts and memories and forms and sublords like Zom and Ex head on and tactically, flushing out the pain and insanity driving not just him but compelling men beneath the surface for ages.
And damn has Noiz observed a lot. Like. Khyla actually sat and talked with Zento while everyone talked of him as the irredeemable asshat, which isn't true unto itself. Just like morning tea with a quiet sage with a strange sense of humor before realizing, "oh my god, this guy is playing cat and mouse with his own knowledge and himself".
Len has sat in the serpent's lair more than once now, and even gotten Zento's attention in strange ways, even if mostly through Zenthus masque. Sesh has absolutely broken down what's screwing his kid up so bad to keep everyone straight.
like noiz even learned the speech patterns for them with a QUICKNESS. Like. Nono Zento is the weeb part because he's an eastern dragon, but also has strange leaks of genuine habits, like "Ehhhh" in thought, and other drawls. Zenthus does not allow that staggering, and retains VERY little of Zento's far east influence beyond sort of kidnapping a reflection of him for figure. A few of the speech ticks like "ne/yes?" remain, mostly because elvish mimics that and was recent history. And sometimes they really are in concert together, and that itself has an identifiable tone, as does the Void compelling him at times, or at least the behaviors that rise from him. Noiz broke that shit DOWN. But does not understand how RARE that is.
The GM had even missed it and he knew me for almost the whole damn time. "Oh Zenthus hides Zento well" no the fuck he doesn't, he changes between voice, dialect, tone, has even told you "I have a gnat of my own (in my head)", has switched between addressing his own takes like "It's funny you would say mortals would think that. He DID." about--himself? Bro he aint hiding shit. He tells you again and again and nobody listens to how he communicates even when he literally sits down and has a 2 hour talk advising god, god just. ok i'm die now. He is literally walking around holding a stick with his two halves in front of everyone all the goddamn time what the fuck are you talking about hides Zento well. Noiz had a character talk to him for like 5 minutes and fucking picked it up, why do normal people suck at this
No. he needs to be let go, but he needs to be replaced first. But people need to make sure when he's replaced, Zenthus doesn't hitch a ride on the new vessel. Mythology reasons make it Real Fuckin Bad to delete Zento without a backup plan so it's time to think. and damn noiz been thinking
bro, mads buddy, I love you, but I don't want to hear about God's Unheard Cry For Help While He Openly Insults The People Reaching To Him Or Even Makes Their Lives Worse The Three Times Anyone Tried, in a new plot thread, when this guy has been wearing his shit on his sleeve for ages and nobody listens. He told YOU and you did jack schitt, and even failed to inform your supposed friend you sold out the blueprints of about the fact that you know, you need to have something to replace Zenthus' function if you want reality to be able to observe itself. Do they have one? Yes. It would have been nice for god to tell them that before seppuku, but whatever. Zento's been begging to be heard for almost a quarter century in real life and finally one motherfucker got set on fixing it hell or high water because the player fell in love with Zenthus' son as their favorite blorbo and He Must Be Saved. But not like my ex wife's hackass romance, no. I'm talking busting ass, complex character sheets, math, large scale tactics on orders of operations to neuter him and so on. Your super great god had every chance to listen to someone ELSE'S cry for help and save his own friend but you deuced out under moderate pressure and embarrassment. So yeah I don't wanna hear about babygod's cry for help of his own self entrapment lmaoooo
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Notes to myself after my fourth DnD session as a DM:
- Ask your players for feedback, in general of course, but also for more specific things you think need work. Because I learned that the two things I thought of as my biggest failures so far were actually seen as successes or 'kinda enjoyable' by my players.
- Running combat with more than one intelligent villain/monster is a lot more difficult, since you do not have time to strategise, but you really want to because it's what they would do.
- Running combat with a spellcaster villain is difficult, because you have no time to think about which spells to use and have to decide in the moment. Be kind to yourself if you make suboptimal choices.
- When experienced GMs tell you to make combat more difficult than the challenge rating suggests if you want your villains to survive, do it. My players should have died in this fight, at least a few of them, but they did not. They defeated two of the three enemies, and the third could only flee because he was playing rear guard from the start. I managed to down one player repeatedly, and most of them were out of spellslots and special stuff after the fight, but it was intended as a warning shot from people way above them, which it very much was not.
- Having a party that doesn't like killing enemies in a fight is great, because you can give them interesting dilemmas like 'This criminal mage knows stuff about you that would put you in immediate danger from the crime syndicate they work for. What do you do with him after you captured him?' or 'This guy was one of the henchmen that torched your home, but he didn't kill your mentor and was just doing his job. What do you do with him after you captured him?' How do I reward non-violent choices in this context, though?
- I never intended for my starlet-in-a-nightclub NPC to become a damsel my players would like to rescue from the crime syndicate she works for, but they interpreted her that way immediately, and now I have to decide what to do with it. I think I'll let them rescue her, and hopefully come up with a backstory that ties her into the main plot somehow. I think that's the point of collaborative storytelling, and it's both really fun and rewarding, and a lot of work.
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I have been GMing various tabletop rpgs for ten years now. I’ve had players make some incredibly clever decisions. Ive had players make some incredibly bad decisions. But this one. This one was a… choice? A Thing One Could Do.
Gather round children, this is the story of the single most confusing decision I have ever had a player make.
We’re playing Shadowrun 4e. This is not my first Shadowrun campaign. This is not the players first campaign. We’re going to call him Charlie, as that was the characters name. Now Charlie has been one of my players for as long as I’ve been a GM, and he has been a dumb ass the entire time. This is not his first ttrg. This is not even his first Shadowrun campaign.
The campaign is set in Las Vegas. He decides to play Charlie Delcoix, pick pocket, con man, failed stage magician. A character whos backstory is so problematic, we really don’t have time to unpack it. He’s 30 years old, yet remembers the Awakeneing? Which in Shadowrun 5e happened over 60 yrs ago. He thinks actual magic has replaced the market for stage magic, despite the fact that it clearly very much has not, and resents mages, despite being an adept himself? He’s a recovering drug addict? Something something self hate? We dont have time to unpack any of this.
The team had been tasked with recovering data sticks, that, through a series of fuck ups, ended up in the food fed to exotic vulture griffins housed in a rich woman’s private zoo. The run is going ok, but a series of minor alarms has accumulated and put the guards on alert.
The team has almost finished recovering all the data sticks when one of the guards notices the team infiltrator, who is on the other side of the compound, planting bombs to cover their escape. The alarm is raised. The rest of the team attempts to bail with what data sticks they already have.
They run into a group of guards. The team mage put up an illusion to make the team look like they are also guards. Charlie, the teams social infiltrator, proceeds to lie poorly. The guards surround the team and tell them to come back to the command center.
The team is surrounded, but its not an un winnable fight. Now Charlie is primarily a social infiltrator, but he’s still an adept. He’s no primary combatant, but he’s decent in a fight, and in this one, the team is gonna need him.
Charlie palms a tranq patch, intending to slap one of the guards with it. The guard notices him. I tell him this. And then:
Charlie: I slap myself with the patch.
Me: You do what?
Charlie: I slap myself with the patch.
Me: Are you sure?
Charlie: Yeah, they won’t be expecting that.
Me: oookay, well you dont need to roll to hit yourself, so you slap yourself. Would you like to roll to resist the tranq.
Charlie: Nah.
Me: ??? Ok, well then you take stun damage equal to the rating of the patch, so 6.
Charlie: I slap myself and fall to the ground.
The ensuing fight didn’t go well for the team. They were captured, and Charlie was killed when instead of surrendering as the guards ordered he yelled “bing bong, fuck ya life” and was promptly shot in the head.
I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised, this is the same player nearly got the whole party eaten by vampires.
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Lost the question prompts but heres a thing:
1.) Game Master, Player or both? Why?
I play both, but I'm willing to GM, so I GM pretty often
2.) When did you start role playing? How old were you?
I started roleplaying when I was yet able to read playing 3.x
3.) What was the first role playing book you ever owned?
Something in the 3.x range of Dnd
4.) Describe the first game you ever ran or played in.
I dont think I literally could, but one of the earliest I *can* I was playing a Drow Sorcerer in 4e who would eventually develop into one of my main player characters a Drow Ranger/Cleric multiclass called Eilthaea Waeglyl. It was a very rotate in and out sort of game because it was mostly an excuse to go over a friend's house in high school and smoke weed. The game itself was secondary or even tertiary to just hanging out
5.) Which system did you grow up with?
I grew up with DnD 3.x. We had a couple of 2e books we used with no distinction. But it was just my siblings and I playing action figures with a little bit of random chance and basic math thrown in.
6.) Which system do you play now?
I am currently playing Pathfinder 2e and Vampire the Masquerade as well as a couple very loosely ruled play by post rps
7.) Longest campaign you’ve run or played in?
A nonsense descriptor. I bring aspects of old stories into new ones at any time. Tommy Baker/McDonnell has a huge story across multiple game systems and genres. But most of my games are generally pretty short
8.) Where did you meet your current gaming group?
Vamplr. Both my current Pathfinder and VtM games are with the same general group of people
9.) Strategic combat or dramatic plotlines?
I like both. When I DM, I often leave the drama to the players because my DM style is basically to have fun playing a war game but when I'm a player I often prefer to do dramatic plotlines
10.) Favorite RPG genre?
I like some fantasy/horror. I would really like to play a gaslight fantasy game in Pathfinder with maybe some cosmic horror elements, but I dont think I could DM that. If anyone wants to run something like that, hmu
11.) Your first character.
A human rogue who always wanted to talk the monsters down. It never worked
12.) Your favorite character.
Hard choice... I think in a lot of ways I've outgrown Tommy, but he has been a lot of fun to play. I also really like a Half-Drow Oracle I made for PF1 who didn't port very cleanly to PF2, but I don't think I ever actually got to play her in a game so I don't know if she counts.
13.) Your most ridiculous character.
Gohma Waeglyl. Eilthaea's Spider Animal Companion blessed by Eilistraee and transformed into a Drider Paladin who picked up where Eilthaea left off when he got killed in a den of Vampires. She has a 6 intelligence (which is fucking genius for a spider, by the way) and she's a lesbian (does spider have puspuss?)
14.) The best in-character line you’ve ever had.
I don't know, but I remember bringing my brothers to tears a couple of times.
15.) Your most epic death.
Eilthaea holding off a group of Vampires in a cave during a TPK allowing his animal companion and an NPC (who became the new party) to escape and continue the mission (after some time where the NPC awakens as an Oracle and the spider animal companion goes into a cocoon and metamorphoses into a Drider
16.) Your most disappointing death.
Probably generic human rogue #84 dying yet again because he tried to talk to a goblin
17.) Something that shouldn’t have worked, but did.
Oh, probably something from the Tampa by Night Chronicle... instance after instance of "we shouldn't have survived" exacerbated by a failed homebrew merit that just kept making bad shit happen
18.) Something that went hilariously awry.
When we tried to have a pool party with the Lasombra Primogen and our coterie's Lasombra frenzied and tried to deathroll the chap
19.) Your most memorable in-character moment.
Plenty of memorable moments between Tommy and Hazel... but honestly Eilthaea's death has to take the cake
20.) The coolest item you ever got and how you came to possess it.
My games never have a huge focus on items and gear.
21.) Your favorite NPC and how the party reacted to him/her
MEEPO and adopting him (oh actually I did get to play Ghuanerel once. But she was a little nerfed. Unable to be deaf as she should be)
22.) A game you wish you could run or want to run someday.
That Gaslight Fantasy Cosmic Horror game lbr
23.) Something you made up on the spot.
I made up an on the spot consequence for getting multiple crits taking down the cursed tree at the end of Sunless Citadel (when I ran it) where the tree and its roots completely disintegrate taking the entire citadel down around them (they had all recently earned a boon from Pharasma so they had a 1up in the bank.)
24.) Your most successful game.
Probably the PF2 game currently (ish) going on. I need to get that back up and running (one of my player characters got a small dose of brain cancer and we had to go on hiatus for a bit)
25.) Your least successful game.
When I tried to be a PC in sunless citadel
26.) The craziest thing your players have ever done, and how it affected your plans.
I ran a chronicle where my players fled the city and went to England to avoid the BBEG of the chronicle and I had no idea what to next and had to end the game
27.) Your favorite setting or game location.
I really like Golarion/the Pathfinder setting and I want to play some games in Absalom
28.) Your creative process when you plan a game.
Right now, I'm kind of playtesting the Pathfinder 2e rules a bit so I took existing modules and strung them together using player backstory as hooks.
29.) The best / worst character concept you’ve ever heard.
Vegan Carnist (House Carna Tremere with the Farmer predator style. That's the whole concept)
30.) What makes GMing fun for you.
Seeing my players excited to find out what's happening next
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Private Server It! Classes From The Oscars
Nonetheless the number 1 WoW server is the WoWscape network. WoWscape is good for the gamer who needs to have a server with lots of people. I've already talked about getting a girlfriend/spouse to play WoW, so this is for couples who already each play WoW. Need competition then here are WoW Basic realm listing of servers with PvP on. All the extent 60s had the choice to vote through an online form for officers and officers would then elect the GM. That level 83 paladin thinks 150,000 is way too much to pay for a Spectral Tiger? But they take things too far leaving you with no strikes. The second WoW server is Ani-wow, Ani wow has four servers, but i feel the database manager went to far out of his computers operating system. As long as you're a member, you'll have access to a private server that helps up to eight players. WoW Atlantic does weekly polls about what players wish to see being added to the game and the store.
WoW Atlantic is a wow private server built on the stable WotLK 3.3.5a patch. WoW Atlantic regularly seems for Staff and Moderators for both discord and in-game assist exercise. We support all versions, vanilla, tbc, wotlk, cataclysm and mop. Most of them are good quality and supply their gamers with round the clock help and help type of like blizzard. As it turns out, they had good reason to be involved. The one good thing about grinding in Burning crusade is that Blizzard carried out code that may increase the spawn charge of enemies primarily based mostly upon the number of people in the realm. To at the present time, I still have not matched the exhilaration felt when i finally downed the Lich King after an untold number of wipes. In the end, it’s possible that there are still a few private server diehards who will swap over, and it’s a equally open query what number of private servers will stay viable in the wake of the diminishing population. Don't be concerned, it still works once you've got windowed mode on!
I bought confused. Modified my password. So Blogging Is Good For Your to keep away from that is to create your individual personal World of War craft server. It was created as a union between Dekadence private wow server and Czone's Zion. So, who figured that the people enjoying World of Warcraft emulators would all leap ship in order to play on the official model of WoW Basic? Some gamers who have been lucky sufficient to get into the server would do everything of their energy by no means to log out, whether or not they had been actively playing or not. A program like Arc Emu is one such internet hosting program who people who don’t should re program the entire recreation. Other than visual skins, there are not any store objects that may please players who don’t like pay-to-win servers. Bring up a menu of who else in the guild must kill that dragon. This server says no lag or anything, 24/7 uptime, however really each 5 minutes a server crashes leaving the gamers with enormous roll-again, and sometimes making them kill the same boss twice hoping that he will drop the identical items. What is a WoW Basic server?
You can find wow Wotlk (world of warcraft wotlk servers) servers, wow Vanilla classic servers, battle for azeroth (bfa servers) heck yow will discover almost each wow patch server here even TBC (The Burning Crusade servers) ! Create your individual wow private server are positively something which might be each rising and changing on a regular basis. Freedom to Advance - Following the discharge of the first ‘Classic’ enlargement with Burning Crusade Traditional, players can now decide whether to advance into the expansion or stay in Vanilla WoW. The peak of search interest just after Cataclysm launch just barely scratches the bottom point during the Burning Campaign. And in that case, what the heck was the point of making it? The highest precedence is also making sure it presents one thing distinctive with the gameplay, therefor players are able to take part in the choice what being updated and developed for the server. Think of it as a standard gaming arcade - even if in case you have biggest and the most effective arcade, if there are not any customers walking via your doors you is not going to be making money. The family’s house sustained major flood damage, and the money might be used to “purchase short-term housing,” in accordance with their GoFundMe, created on Sept.
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Stitches and Pucks
i swear i tried writing the whole fic from the 3rd and 2nd pov in the beginning but hockey harry is so dang loud he’s like hang on honey this is MY story so let me tell this one ☠️ so here we are. i had loads of fun getting inside his head though, i hope you like it!
massive thank you to my biggest cheerleader @smokeinherperfume 🥺💛 and ken i’m so sorry for making you read an LA Kings fic 😂 @emotionally-imbruised
warning: smut. there’s no actual bow chicka wow wow stuff though but there’s some thigh riding 👀
[17k]
Harry
I swear I’m gonna kill Zayn.
That fucker just slammed my face into the boards, and as I’m trying to push back while flexing my jaw because that’s the right thing to do when you’ve got your face smashed into the boards, he tries to push me back again. Well, not a fucking chance. I give a particularly hard push back to get him off my back and I’m able to free my stick from the boards and put the blade to ice.
Because we’re playing on home ice here at Staples Center and I know its speed and consistency like the back of my hand, it takes nothing but a short tap on the puck and it shoots back between both of our legs. We scrabble, throwing elbows and shoulders and even kicking at it with our skates to expel it out. It’s a hard-fought battle, probably not lasting more than a few seconds, but it’s starting to wind me up because fuck if I’m gonna let them score. We’re up 4-2 against The Sharks, and with only under six minutes left to play in the game, I’d like to keep it that way.
I really don’t see it coming. And as much as we hate each other’s guts, it probably wasn’t even intentional, but it still hurts like a mother when Zayn’s stick pops upward, the end catching me just above my left eyebrow. I don’t feel any pain at first, but red, blurred vision definitely lets me know I’ve got blood streaming down my face. The ref blows the whistle and the play stops as the penalty is called.
The pain hits me next, and I bend over at the waist, my clear eye watching as a stream of blood hits the ice and freezes. In just about a few seconds, I feel a towel covering the cut and I hear the new team doctor say, “alright… let’s get you off the ice.”
Her hand stays steady at my back as I lift up straight, taking the towel in my own hand to hold it in place. The doctor walks alongside me while I skate to the bench, which has an exit door on one end that will lead back to the locker room. A few of my teammates slap me on the shoulder as I walk past. Harvey, who plays the same position as me but on the second-line yells out, “get stitched up so you can come back out and kick his pansy ass.”
I can’t help but chuckle, because that’s exactly what I plan to do.
“Up on the table,” the doctor says briskly and I watch with my one good eye as she quickly starts preparing the necessary supplies. I hop up onto the table, and in just under four minutes, my very own Doctor McSteamy has my injury evaluated, lidocaine injected, and is now closing the cut with stitches.
Good grief, she’s a fucking vision. Has a slammin’ body too, which no doubt would feel fucking fantastic underneath me. She probably doesn’t even realise it, but she’s got her little tongue sticking out the side of her mouth and I bet that’s something she does when she’s trying to concentrate on what she’s doing. I can feel my dick starting to twitch, so I close my eyes and get my mind out of the gutter before I get a hard-on. Fucking embarrassing.
When I’m sure I’ve got my downstairs head situation under control, I open my eyes again. She’s placing what I’m guessing the last suture on the cut and I make sure I put on my most dazzling smile as I look at her because I can be devastatingly charming when I want to be.
“Hey Doc,” I lean a bit closer to her when she’s done and murmur, “you should let me cook you dinner at my place tonight. You know, as a thank you.”
“No, thank you,” she replies without even looking towards me, preferring to busy herself with putting away the supplies that she used to tend to my cut. “I was just doing my job.”
“Alright then, no dinner at my place tonight,” I say with a sly smile. “But how about giving me your number so I can take you out sometime?”
She snorts in reply. “I’m not one of your puck bunnies.”
“No, you’re not,” I smirk at her. My tone is matter-of-fact when I add, “you’re one hot doctor.”
Not sure what I’m expecting, but this is definitely not it. Most women would blush and drop their knickers in an instant when I give them the tiniest bit of my attention, let alone a compliment, and let’s just say that’s why my bed is rarely empty. But it seems like my charms don’t work on this doctor since all I get is a fucking eye-roll.
“Are you always this forward?” She asks, still not looking at me.
“I’m a simple man, Doc,” I tell her with a shrug. “I see something I like, I go and get it.”
“Good for you,” she says dismissively, but I don’t miss the hint of amusement in her tone.
“Does that mean I get your number?”
She lets out a chuckle and finally turns to look at me. “That means I like your way of thinking.”
“So, no number?” I pout like a damn child, and apparently, the sight is hilarious to her. She throws her head back and laughs, and when she looks back to me, I get a wink.
“Sorry sunshine,” she smirks at me and I can’t help but ogle at her lips.
Perfect fucking lips.
“I don’t shit where I eat,” she adds.
Now, this is funny, so this time I’m the one tipping my head back laughing before I bring my gaze back to her. “You know our General Manager, Sloane Knightley?”
“Of course,” she replies, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“She’s with Alex, right-winger,” I tell her with a grin. “Now, Brynne Adams, have you met her yet?”
“The Athletic Trainer?”
“That’s the one, and she’s dating Matt, left-winger.”
“What?” Her jaw drops and it’s the cutest fucking sight. I’ve always thought of myself as a tits-man, but apparently now I’m a jaws-man too.
“Oh I’m not done yet,” I smirk at her. “Sarah Jones, Head of Equipment Manager, do you know her?”
She nods. “I’ve met her twice.”
“She’s with Mitch, right defenseman. Now, you probably haven’t met this one yet, but our goalie, Adam, is the only one married between us first-line players. His wife, Rachel, is the head of our in-house legal team. So look around Doc, everyone’s bloody shitting and eating around here,” I finish with a grin.
“Yeah, that doesn’t change a thing,” she insists. “That won’t be me.”
I give her one last glance as I hop off the table before I walk towards the door, pretty sure my eyes glitter with mischief as I say, “yeah, we’ll see, sunshine.”
—
The Owner’s Box is a local sports bar in El Segundo. Located only a stone’s throw away from the team’s practice facility at Toyota Sports Center, it has become the go-to hangout for a lot of the players ever since the facility opened in 2000. I like this place because it carries 140 types of beer and I like beer, and honestly the food is great as well.
As much as we like to mix and mingle with the fans, which is super fucking cool in my opinion, the manager always ropes off an area on the second floor for the players so we can drink and chill out without fans swamping us. Usually when we arrive, we’ll hang around the first-floor bar area for a bit to give the fans an opportunity to take pictures and ask for autographs before we head upstairs.
It’s always crowded after the game because everyone knows they can find us here, but it always gets extra busy whenever we win. Tonight, there’s an actual line of people waiting to get inside.
I nod at a bouncer and enter, and it takes me a good half an hour to make it to the second floor where I find several of my teammates sitting at some of the tables or standing around talking.
Winding around tables, teammates, and hot women since several puck bunnies have been allowed to go up the second floor and are doing their best to get noticed by the players wearing outfits that fit them like a second skin, I make my way over to Alex and Matt who are already sitting at one of the tables nursing their beers. Those two are my best friends since we’re linemates, but normally I’d go stand over with the single guys and start my selection process for whatever woman who’d warm my bed for the night.
Not tonight though. Never thought this day would come but I’m not here for a hookup tonight.
Alex gives me a knowing grin as I sit down since I told him in the locker room after the game about my exchange with the hot doctor earlier when she tended to my cut and how she turned me down. Well, he and several other of my teammates since there were a few there in the locker room with us and they had ears to listen. I’m pretty sure I could even hear Mitch chuckle, which is honestly one of the world’s seven wonders since the guy barely talks let alone laughs.
“How’s that cut feeling?” Matt asks as I take a seat in front of him.
“Feels like a butterfly kissed me there,” I tell him, which gets a deep belly laugh from both him and Alex. We hockey players would never admit to being hurt in a fight. Ever.
The voices in the second floor immediately go silent and I see all eyes swing towards the stairs, and when I look there I see our General Manager walks in alongside Coach Higgins, followed by some staff of the team. Cheers start ringing as she walks towards our table, no doubt to sit next to her man, and then I hear a low chant, “Sloane! Sloane! Sloane! Sloane!”
Matt and I do the same since not only Sloane is more of a close friend rather than a boss who signs our paycheck once she steps outside of the GM office, but as the only female GM in the league, she managed to turn our team into champions. We won the Stanley Cup last season and no doubt she’s going to push us to victory again this season. Alex has a shit-eating grin plastered across his face as his gaze focuses on his girl, looking so damn proud of her. Man, my best friend is fucking whipped.
Sloane blushes, slides a grin to Alex, and when the sound dissipates and the guys all start sitting back down, she says, “shut up you big jerks, do you want me to cry?”
We all bark in laughter.
I stand up to give her access to the booth so she can sit between Alex and I, and Alex immediately wraps his arm around her shoulders when she’s within his reach to pull her closer to him and proceeds to give her a searing kiss. I whip my head at Matt and we both make a fake gagging noise.
“God, I think I’m going to be sick,” Matt says and Alex flips him off, still giving his woman a hell of a kiss and without even looking at us.
“I know, right? Not used to you being so fucking mushy mate,” I add. “Gives me the willies.”
Sloane laughs as she breaks the kiss. She leans over and playfully punches me in the arm. “You’ll have a good woman one day, Harry.”
“Yeah,” I drawl, then I give a faux shudder to make sure they understand I like being single. “No thanks.”
“You sure?” Matt cocks an eyebrow, but before I can reply, something behind me catches his attention. “Ooh, isn’t that the new doctor?”
I whip around so fast I fucking knock a bottle of ketchup off the table and it goes flying across the floor. Matt is laughing so damn hard he almost falls off from the booth, Alex is leaning over as he laughs, pressing one palm down on the sofa with the other to his ribs as if they hurt from laughing and Sloane is dabbing at her eyes as she laughs hysterically.
But yes, holy shit, that’s the doctor stepping off the stairs and onto the second floor with Brynne and Sarah. Now, I know Brynne will most definitely walk towards our table since Matt is here, but Sarah will most definitely walk towards the bar where Mitch is talking with some other guys.
Come here. Come here. Come here.
Fuck, she goes with Sarah to the bar.
“Oh no,” Alex says low and in warning. “I know that look.”
I don’t bother to give him my attention, keeping my eyes pinned on my girl. But I do ask him, “what look?”
“Your gaze just became predatory,” he says with a laugh.
“God, you have it bad for her,” Sloane teases but I ignore her as I stand up. Brynne gives me a wink when I walk past her and now I have a suspicion that my teammates blabbed to their women about what happened earlier tonight and now they’re trying to set me and the hot doctor up. Otherwise, why would she even be here? Fucking crazy, I know, but they’re all nuts.
“Go get her, tiger!” Matt quips as I walk towards the bar without looking back at their table.
The doctor has ditched the white lab coat that she wore earlier tonight at the arena, and I’m glad she has her back to me since I don’t make a secret of my ogling. My eyes are pinned to her ass in those skinny jeans and fucks sake I need to get a grip.
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine,” I say with a smile as I stand next to her, trying to get her attention. That was lame, I know, and I feel like I want to punch myself for not being cool.
She laughs and fuck if that’s not the best sound in the world. It’s warm, rich, and husky, which warms my blood and speaks to my dick for some reason. Not sure if she’s laughing because she genuinely thinks I’m funny or is that just a pity laugh, but honestly I could listen to her laughing all day. Wouldn’t be opposed to hearing her moan one day, preferably with her underneath me, but if her laugh is all I can get at this moment then I’ll take it.
“Can I get you a drink?” I ask her and I mentally prepare myself for her to decline since she turned me down earlier in the arena, so it totally takes me by surprise when she only shrugs and says, “eh, why not.”
I’m sure my smile is ten times wider and she sees it. “What’s your poison?”
“I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
“What if I want the hard stuff?” I raise a single brow. “Sure you want that?”
“What?” She smirks at me and my inner caveman is screaming for me at the sight to just throw her over my shoulder and take her home right this instant. But obviously I won’t do that, since I’m pretty sure that’s called kidnapping and I know I won’t look good in prison stripes. “You don’t think I can take it?”
“Oh honey, I know you can take it,” I laugh as I lift my finger to the bartender. “I’m only wondering how you’ll handle it.”
“Well, you’re gonna have to wait and see.”
—
It’s three hours and many beers later, well for her anyway since I limit myself at two because I’m driving, and we’re stumbling out of the bar, laughing our asses off.
She’s telling me about the funniest thing that happened at the hospital a few months ago. At the beginning they thought they had a domestic situation because the couple came separately; one via ambulance and one via police car. But when they finally got the whole story, it turned out to be an anniversary celebration gone wrong since the wife had a seizure when she was going down on her husband and bit down on him.
“Are you joking?!” I stare at her, mouth gaping in astonishment before I burst out laughing hysterically.
She shakes her head and laughs with me. “I wish.”
“Did you manage to save his manhood?” I ask with a half-grin and half grimace.
“My colleague did,” she replies. “I was busy with the wife, she had rather extensive head trauma.”
“From the seizure?”
“Well, in panic and pain, her husband didn’t think much and just grabbed the closest thing he could find to try to get her to loosen her bite, which sadly was an old rotary style telephone and hit her in the head with it. She was okay in the end, though.”
“That’s one hell of an anniversary to remember for sure,” I chuckle, and the giggle she emits pretty much confirms she’s bladdered. Well, not the kind of drunk where she wouldn’t remember tonight I’m sure, but I bet she’ll wake up with a massive headache.
“I sure hope you’re not driving,” I say as I steady her by the elbow when she wobbles as we step down the stairs.
“Sarah, Brynne and I took an Uber here from the arena earlier,” she mutters as she pulls out her phone from her handbag.
“Let me drive you home,” I quickly say before she gets the chance to order a ride. Not sure why I did that because I certainly have never offered women a ride home without the promise of getting in their knickers, and I can assure you that I won’t be getting anywhere near hers tonight, but maybe I just don’t want this night to end yet.
We’ve been glued at the hip from the moment I bought her first drink, and three hours purely just talking with the same woman? That’s a record in my book. While I’m not ashamed to admit that I also like looking at her, honestly, to me that’s just an added bonus. I think it’s safe to say that I have never met anyone like her before. Granted, with most women usually there wasn’t much talking, but from what I learnt in just the span of three hours is that this doctor of mine is a hell of a lot of fun.
I swear she’s just a pure fucking joy to be around. Conversation with her is like a never-ending merry-go-round and she makes me laugh a lot. She’s bright and witty and she’s one of those people that knows no strangers. She can easily talk about anything from politics to sports even to crude jokes, and add on to that, she’s just so kind and inclusive that several times tonight I actually had to drag her away to one of the back tables so we could have a proper chat without the crowd around us.
“You don’t have to,” she gives me a hesitantly sweet smile.
“But I want to,” I gallantly insist as I turn and offer my arm to her. “Come on, I just want to make sure you get home safe.”
“Well, alright then,” she smirks, her hand easily slides into the crook of my elbow. “I could save a few bucks.”
I roll my eyes and tease her, “didn’t take you to be such a skinflint.”
“Hey!” She playfully slaps my arm with her other hand as she laughs and I’m glad I amuse her.
No, seriously... I like her laugh.
There’s no doubt that she wants me, just as there’s no doubt that I totally want her. We’ve got this really heavy flirting going on all night, and plenty of innuendo, but I won’t be surprised nor disappointed if she doesn’t invite me inside when we get to her home and nothing happens tonight.
We’ll get there, I’m sure.
Until then, I’m completely fine drinking beer, being her personal chauffeur, and getting to know her a little better.
—
We always finish team practice with battle drills. From the end zone face-off spot to either the left or right of the goalie, we pair up and battle for a goal. One on offense, the other on defense, we shoulder, bump, and juke our way across the short distance to the net. It’s a four to five second drill that will make us sweat, and then it’s over. We skate to the end of the line, where we wait to do it again.
“Saw you left with the new doctor last night,” says Matt, my battle partner today, with a shit-eating grin as he taps his stick against my leg. “How was she?”
I ignore his question not only because I don’t have the answer that he’s looking for because nothing really happened after I dropped her in front of her house, but also because this feels different. She is different. Had it been just another one night stand, I wouldn’t think twice before I blab all about the dirty details with my teammates. Great lays, lousy lays, I honestly have no filter and I tell them all.
But this is YN, and fuck if I know why and what this really means. All I know for sure is that I want more than to just tap that. The thing is, my teammates will probably not understand because they can’t really see past the fact that the new doctor is a gorgeous woman who I’ve been lusting after for about a week.
“Dude,” Matt says to get a reaction from me, smacking me a little bit harder with his stick. “How many times did you score her last night?”
“Don’t talk about her like that,” I growl.
“Whoa, dude,” he apologises and I swear his grin gets even wider. “Sorry. I guess you’re serious about her?”
“Serious about what?” Alex pipes up from in front of us. He’s paired with Adam, our goalie. There are four pairs of skaters in front of Matt and me, but there’s an equal number on the other side. We’re alternating.
“None of your fucking business,” I mutter, willing the line we’re in to go faster so I can escape from my nosy teammates and head to the doctor’s office.
Alex and Adam take off, Alex with the puck. They ram their shoulders into each other, legs braced and skates digging hard all the way to the net.
“Did you at least kiss her?” Matt nudges me with a sly grin, still trying. Man, he’s not a quitter.
“No,” I answer shortly, hoping that will satisfy him. “Just dropped her at her house and left after I made sure she got inside safely.”
“No. Fucking. Way,” he quips dramatically. “Who are you and what have you done to my teammate?”
Play continues, the next set of skaters in our line taking off and I ignore Matt but apparently he’s not done poking his nose in my business. “Oh, we’re not done yet buddy. Let’s go out tonight so we can squeeze some more gos out of you. Just you, Alex and I, how does that sound? Brynne said the girls are going to have a girls night out so I know he’ll be game.”
The girls means my teammates’ better halves, and honestly, hanging out with just my bros does sound good. Don’t get me wrong, those girls are cool—yes, my boss, Sloane, included—and they’re fun to hang out with. My teammates sure hit the jackpots with their women. But before Sloane and Brynne came along, the three of us were thick as thieves. There was a time where we went out almost every night and that’s why we’re more like brothers than teammates. Sometimes I miss that since we don’t get the chance to do it as often now that they act like old married couples, so yes, this does sound nice.
However, as tempting as it sounds, I want to hang out with my hot doctor more than my mates. That is if she’ll have me though.
“I can’t,” I say, clearing my throat. I lean in towards him and whisper, “I want to take YN out to dinner tonight.”
“Seriously,” he drawls dramatically. “Who are you and what have you done to my best friend?”
Again, I ignore his comment.
“Alright, I guess that’s a definite no to dinner with me and Alex then, huh?” Matt says in an exaggeratedly glum tone.
“The doctor is way prettier than you,” I reply blandly.
“Fine, go on your date,” he says with a slap on my back. “But I want to book some time with my best friend in the near future if it’s not too much trouble.”
“We’re going on a four day road trip in two weeks,” I mutter as I roll my eyes at him. “I’ll snuggle you then.”
Matt sidles up to me, lays his head on my shoulder, and bats his eyelashes. “Oooh, I can’t wait.”
I shove him off with a chuckle. That bastard.
—
“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope,” I say after two knocks on her office door. I can hear her chuckle as she tells me to come in.
God, I have turned into such a dork. But I like hearing her laugh and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to hear that sound again and again.
“Hey,” she smiles at me as she looks up from her computer. “What’s wrong?”
“Knee’s a little sore,” I tell her, not feeling the slightest bit of guilt for my lie just so I can have a few moments to talk to her. “Thought you could take a look at it.”
Her brows draw inward with concern and she motions towards a table. “Did something happen?”
“Nah,” I shake my head as I hop onto the table with my legs hanging over the edge and kick off my slides. “Just came off the ice and noticed it.”
“Alright, go ahead and lie back,” she says as she turns to the sink and washes her hands. “I’m going to do some range-of-motion tests.”
I stay silent as she maneuvers my leg, trying not to focus too much on the feel of her soft hands against me or the smell of her perfume. Fuck, she smells good. Fruity and flowery. Like berries and the heart of rose and bitter wormwood, and the scent is fucking delicious.
“Do you feel any pain when I do this?” She asks with one hand on my calf, the other on my thigh as she rotates my knee.
“Not really,” I shake my head. What happens here today will go in my chart and I don’t want to call any attention to my knee.
“How about this?” She asks, rotating the opposite way.
I shake my head again. “Nope.”
The hand on my calf slides down, grasping the bottom of my foot firmly. With the other hand still holding onto my thigh, she pushes hard into my foot. “This cause any pain?”
“Nope,” I say quickly, and then add, “I think it’s nothing more than my muscles getting back in shape. But I figure some ice can’t hurt, right?”
She slowly lowers my leg and gives me a sweet smile. “Well, I don’t think anything’s loose or torn, but if you’re worried about it, I can schedule an appointment with Dr Green.”
She is the team’s orthopaedic surgeon, and hell I’m not about to do that. Talk about an unnecessary red flag. “I think it’s just a lack of conditioning. Got lazy this summer.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” I nod firmly. “I just need some ice and I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Well, alright then,” she says as she turns back to wash her hands again at the sink. “I’ll let Brynne know and have her prepare you an ice bath.”
“Oh hell no,” I quickly shake my head and grimace. “That bloody thing is pure torture and my balls will go into hibernation until next summer. Just an ice pack will do, Doc.”
She laughs again. “Okay, just an ice pack. I’ll be right back.”
She turns and heads through the door to the treatment room and I take a moment to admire her gracefulness as she moves. She looks delectable today in her scrubs, which are the typical light blue you see in the hospitals, and they hang on her tiny frame loosely. I’d actually never seen her in them before since she usually just wears normal clothes underneath her white lab coat in the arena, but I swear this might possibly be the sexiest outfit I’ve ever seen her in. I’m sure that has to do with the fact that I respect her so much as a doctor that it just heightens my attraction to her, and I can’t help but wonder if she’ll play dress-up games with me in the bedroom when the time comes. Because, well… I certainly wouldn’t mind getting a thorough exam from her.
“Here you go,” she says when she comes back. “Scoot back on the table and stretch your leg out. Keep this on for twenty minutes, then you can go.”
She places a towel over my knee, then lays the bag of ice on top.
“Thanks, Doc,” I tell her.
“Just doing my job,” she quips, and then walks back over to the box of supplies she had been unloading.
“Well, you’re very good at it,” I add and I can hear her chuckle. But I got nothing in response, so I add, “speaking about good things… I had a good time last night.”
“Did you?” She quips, still not looking at me but I can hear from her tone that she’s smiling.
“Well, yeah,” I say with a confident nod. “Didn’t you?”
“Eh, it was alright,” she smirks at me over her shoulder as she walks towards her desk.
“I want to do that again,” I tell her nonchalantly before I ask with a lopsided grin that I hope she finds charming, “will you let me take you to dinner tonight?”
“I can’t,” she shakes her head as she turns to look at me.
“Why? Got a hot date already?”
“Nah,” she chuckles. “Sarah invited me to a girls night at her place. I wasn’t gonna go because they seem like a tight-knit group and I don’t want to intrude, but Sloane came by here earlier to ask me again and she’s bribing me with tacos and margaritas, and well… I can’t say no to both.”
“Fair enough,” I laugh. “But have fun then. They’re all really nice, you’ll fit right in.”
“Thanks,” she gives me an easy smile, and I hope it’s subtle enough that she doesn’t realise this, but my breath actually hitch a little while I stare at her lips.
“How about tomorrow night then?”
“Well-” she begins, but she’s cut short when she hears her pager beeping. “Oh shit, I need to go back to the hospital. You think you’re okay there? Go to Brynne if you need something else.”
“Okay, don’t worry,” I tell her with an encouraging smile. “You go and save some lives, Doc.”
—
The arena is packed, the fans are at a fever pitch, and we’re in the midst of a fierce battle with the Anaheim Ducks. We’d taken them on in the first round of the playoffs last season, and while we swept them, they’re still a formidable opponent. Not to mention there’s a long-standing rivalry between the two teams, and add on to that, we’re in the regular season now so every win counts. The pressure is on.
As a center, I’m a shooter, not a fighter. That means I’m relied on to score, not to play defense or get tough with other players. My body is too valuable to mess it up in a slugfest, so I’m rarely enticed into a fight. Sometimes it takes everything in me to keep my cool, but I know I’ve got to trust Mitch and Marcel, our defensemen.
Just like right now. We’re late in the second period tonight, and one of the Ducks players, Jeff Azoff, is being a dick. He cross-checked me in the back, not strong enough to slam me into the boards, but it was enough to alert Mitch who’s skating right behind us.
“Do that again and I’m going to kick your ass,” I hear Mitch tell him. That guy doesn’t really talk, but he wouldn’t think twice before beating the hell out of someone if they mess with our team. He takes his job as a defenseman seriously. When he’s on the ice, nobody dares to touch his guys.
The fucker did it again, still not forceful enough for a penalty to be called, but Mitch was quick to drop his gloves and took on that Azoff guy. He kicked his ass good.
Man, I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side. Mitch is a badass. Unfortunately though, the fucker did land a lucky hit to his temple and his skin split just to the side of his eyebrow. Knowing Mitch, that will be nothing but a ten-minute trip to the treatment room where YN will stitch him up. I’m sure as hell he wouldn’t let her give him anaesthetic so he can get back on the ice as soon as possible. As I watch him skate towards the exit, I make a mental note in my head to buy him a beer tonight as a thank you.
The play resumed, and there are about forty seconds left on the clock before intermission. The Ducks are down 3-0, and they pull their goalie once they gain possession of the puck since they have nothing to lose. Luckily our stamina is stellar, so our legs are still fresh as we defend.
They pass the puck back and forth, looking for the long shot or a quick dump inside for a goal. My back is to Adam, our goalie, as I keep myself facing the action, letting my stick play loose.
The crowd’s screams escalate in tune to the clock ticking closer to zero. With a sharp flick of the wrist, the puck makes it past Alex, our right-winger, to the inside. Players crash the net, Marcel poke checks, and the biscuit shoots out towards me.
It’s a full-on breakaway as I shoot down the ice, one on one against the goalie.
Tap, tap, tap… back and forth… puck to blade of stick.
I close in on the goalie and juke left.
He goes left and I juke right.
He keeps going left, so I keep going right and flip the puck up and over his shoulder into the back of the net. The red light burns bright behind the net and the fans go wild. That was my third goal tonight, and it’s the perfect timing for intermission since there’s no way we can play with all the hats being thrown onto the ice.
It takes merely a second before I’ve got my teammates surrounding me. Alex, Matt, Marcel, Adam and Niall, one of the defensemen from the second line who’s filling in for Mitch. Pats of their gloved hands on my helmet, stick blades gently against my calves.
We skate to the gate that would lead us to our locker room. We all trudge there, taking up spots around the open space as we wait for Coach Higgins to address us. It’s what he does at the end of every period. If we play poorly, we get our asses handed to us. If we play stellar though, like tonight, he’d be effusive in his praise.
But as much as I’d love to hear nice things from the Coach, there’s nobody I want to see more than my very own Doctor McSteamy. And yes, just to put it out here since I’ve been calling the hot doctor by that nickname, I’ve got to admit that I did watch too much Grey’s Anatomy in the summer because there’s not much I could do during the off-season. My sister didn’t let me watch past season 10 though, because she said it’s not worth it.
“Need to get my knee taped,” I tell Alex on my right as I stand up. We have 17 minutes before we start the third period and I figure that should be enough time to see the Doctor and secure a date in the near future. “I’ll be right back.”
“Bullshit,” he grins and there’s a clear amusement in his eyes. “You want to see your girlfriend.”
“Shut up,” I growl.
“What’s this?” Matt asks curiously as he takes a seat next to Alex.
“Our buddy here wants to see his girlfriend,” Alex’s grin doesn’t lessen as he tilts his head at me. “Needs to get his knee taped, he said.”
“Conjugal visit in-between periods? Classy,” Matt says with a salacious grin and I glare at him. When his laughter dies down, he points out, “okay, jokes aside, that’s a shit excuse. If you really need your knee taped, you’d see Brynne and not YN.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got nothing else here,” I grumble like a stroppy child. “Can’t hit my own head just to get a cut, can I?”
“That would be outright dumb,” Alex laughs. “But come on, I’ll go to Brynne and make up something so at least you can tell the doctor that she’s busy.”
The treatment room is just down the hall from the locker, and when I get there, I notice the door is half open. I see her sitting on the little desk with her computer, so I knock lightly on the door to get her attention.
“Hey, you got a minute?” Her head swings up when she hears my voice and it takes everything in me not to just march there and kiss the fuck out of her when she offers me the sweetest smile. Crazy how much effect this woman has on me. “I need my knee taped but Brynne’s busy.”
“Sure, I was just reading the players’ medical chart,” she replies. “You were on fire out there by the way.”
“Thanks, Doc,” I smile at her.
“Skates, socks, shin pads and pants off,” she says as she walks towards the supply cabinet.
“Jock strap too?” I can’t help but smirk.
“No,” she rolls her eyes playfully as she grabs a towel and hands it to me. “Put this over your lap.”
“Do I have to?”
“Well, yeah, unless you want me to get a peek of your dick.”
“You know I wouldn’t be averse to that, Doc,” I say with a waggle of my eyebrows.
She gives me a school teacher, disapproving-type look but the slight twitch of amusement in the corner of her mouth is hard to miss. “You’re so bad.”
“You have no idea,” I grin, but she doesn’t see it because she has her back to me. She’s pulling another cabinet open to get adhesive, gauze and tape before knocking it close with her shoulder.
This is ridiculous but I’m actually a bit self-conscious of getting practically half naked in front of the hot doctor. I have absolutely no clue why and this had certainly never happened before.
I shed my gear from the waist down and she keeps her back to me until I get on the therapy table and the towel is covering my lap. She lays out her supplies on the table beside us, her slender fingers using a pair of scissors to open a new package of tape.
I take a moment to admire her as she cuts off uniform lengths of tape and attaches them to the table. She’s not in the scrubs I saw her in last week, but if you think I’d be disappointed, even just slightly, then you’d be wrong because you could put her in a burlap sack and to me she would still absolutely look edible.
Tonight, she’s rocking a mustard-yellow trouser suit with wide legs and a cross-over pleated blouse underneath her white lab coat. The crisscross swath of silk that wraps around her upper body does lovely things to her tits, and I realise I’m quite the pig to be thinking about her this way.
“Left knee?” She asks. “I’ve just finished reading your medical chart when you came in. Arthroscopic medical meniscus repair two years ago.”
“Yeah,” I nod. “Sometimes it feels a little loose. A good taping is all it needs.”
“Any soreness?” She asks as she steps up in between my legs that dangle over the table.
I shake my head and say, “nope.”
“Clicking or popping?”
“Nope.”
“Locking?” She inquires as she lifts her face up to mine.
She’s fucking close enough I can smell her minty breath. I could easily kiss her, but I’d probably get kneed in the nuts, so I just shake my head and say, “nah, just feels a little loose.”
“Okay,” she says, laying a soft pat on my thigh. It’s nothing but a move of reassurance, but fuck if I don’t feel it all the way through my gut.
She grabs her supplies and I can’t keep my eyes off her as she gets to work taping my knee. It takes merely a few minutes, and then she finishes the wrap, holding the end while taping it with the precut pieces. “There you go,” she says, stepping back.
“I’ve got something to confess. My knee was absolutely fine,” I blurt out, the words popping out of my mouth so suddenly, I’ve got no clue where they came from. Clearly my subconscious decided to overtake my sensibility and make itself known. “I came here because I wanted to see you. Thought I’d try to get your phone number and a date one last time before I give up.”
She gives a tinkling laugh. “You’re not a quitter, are you?”
“Well, no,” I reply with a grin. “So, tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up at seven. How does that sound?”
“Listen,” she smiles at me sweetly as she begins, but I don’t like the sound of it. Nothing good ever comes after ‘listen’. “You’re a nice guy-”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I cut her as I hold my hands up. “Don’t go with the ‘nice guy’ brush off. Clearly I’m not if you won’t give me the time of day.”
“I just don’t think we’re looking for the same thing-”
“What?” I ask incredulously.
“Look, please don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem more like the bang ‘em and leave ‘em type to me.”
“Is that really how people see me?” I ask her curiously, without an ounce of defense in my voice because there’s no point in denying that. I really don’t care what people think, but I’d like to hear her opinion.
“You’re a player, Harry,” she says with a chuckle. “And there’s nothing wrong with that. You’re young and in your prime. You should totally be sowing all your wild oats. It’s just… I’m at the point in my life where I realise that meaningless sex without something deeper isn’t very fulfilling. I don’t want that anymore.”
I feel a metaphorical light bulb goes off in my head.
I know she doesn’t mean to, but fuck, she hits me right where it hurts. She’s called that exactly right. This is something that I’ve actually realised and known for a while, especially after seeing my best mates being the happiest they’ve ever been after they found their women. There’s not an ounce of regret in what I did though, because just like my girl right here said, there’s nothing wrong with that. There was a time when burning my way through all the hot women in LA and having them take turns warming my bed had its appeal, but not anymore.
Maybe this is why I’ve been feeling unfulfilled lately. I know I’ve got a great career, more money than I could ever need in a lifetime and endless selection of gorgeous women to warm my bed every night. What more could a man possibly ask for, right? But at the end of the day, it’s just me in a monstrosity of a house that I call home.
Maybe deep down I know I don’t want it to be just me anymore.
“I think I’ve actually known that for a while, but the way you point that out, I think it’s drilled home now,” I admit as I face her.
“What do you mean?”
“That casual, meaningless sex without something deeper isn’t very fulfilling,” I say with a smile. “I mean, yes what I did was fun, but then I look at my best mates and see how happy they are with their women. Of course I rib them good because hey, that’s my job as their best mate…”
She laughs.
“...but that doesn’t mean I never look at them and think, fuck, I want that one day. Maybe the idea didn’t really appeal to me because I had never found the right person, who knows. But I swear I don’t want just sex with you. I want more. Do I know what I’m doing? Fuck, no. I haven’t even been on a proper date in years. But I do know that I genuinely want to get to know you better, Doc, that is if you give me the chance.”
She gives me a dopey smile when she asks, “you mean all that?”
“I really do,” I nod solemnly. “Now let me prove it to you. Go on a date with me.”
“Tell you what,” she begins, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “If you go back on the ice and win the game, we can go to The Owner’s Box when you’re done to celebrate just like the other night. And if you behave, I’ll give you my number this time.”
“Want me to behave, huh?” I say teasingly with a waggle of my eyebrows. “Don’t fancy a bad boy?”
“Oh I actually have it bad for bad boys,” she smirks. “My favourite character in Harry Potter is Draco Malfoy.”
“Okay, I’ve got a counter offer,” I say as my laughter dies down. “If I get MVP tonight, which I’m pretty sure I will since you said it yourself that I’m on fire tonight, you give me your number straight away after the game and let me take you out to dinner. I’m thinking seven tomorrow night.”
Another roll of those gorgeous eyes that twinkle slightly at me. “Pushy, aren’t ya?”
“Only when I want something,” I tell her with a grin. “And I want you.”
“So do you want me or do you want to go out with me?” She asks slyly, tilting her head to the side.
“You gonna kick my balls if I say both?”
“I admire honesty,” she murmurs softly in that sexy, husky voice that seems to flow through my body and straight down to my dick.
“Hey boyfriend and girlfriend,” I hear Matt chirps from the doorway and my spine stiffens involuntarily. His shit-eating grin doesn’t lessen a bit even when I give him a glare. “Hate to steal your man, Doc, but the game is starting again soon and we kinda need our favourite asshole right here.”
“You two break a leg,” she chuckles. And then as an afterthought, she adds, “just so we’re clear, I don’t mean that literally.”
—
Manhattan Beach’s high-end strip of boutiques and restaurants are hugged by the beach on one side and some of California’s most expensive real estate on the other. It’s southern end blends seamlessly into smaller Hermosa Beach, which is similarly quiet but has a tight concentration of bars and restaurants near the town’s pier that attract bar-hoppers at night and sun-bleached dropouts during the day.
The Kings players’ houses are scattered evenly across the two towns. Some of us are clustered within a block or two of several teammates; others sprinkled little more than a mile or two away. All but one of the first-line players live in Manhattan Beach though, and we can easily walk or ride a beach cruiser to everyone else’s house.
YN lives in Silver Lake, and the drive to pick her up takes me about forty minutes. I know she must make a pretty good bank being an ER doctor, not to mention that she works at two places, but her house doesn’t scream that. It’s rather tiny, I’m betting not more than seven or eight hundred square feet max, and there’s not much of a porch but on the outer edge is a hanging basket of flowers.
There’s no doorbell so I rap my knuckles on the door. Flecks of peeling paint get knocked loose and fall to the concrete porch.
“Coming,” I hear her yell from inside and I can imagine her plopping in an earring, grabbing her handbag, and wondering if she turned the curling iron off. She sounds frazzled and rushed and I can’t wait to fucking see what she looks like when she opens the door.
And there she is.
She has a black dress on, and it’s not little but it’s spectacular. The neckline of the dress skims just below her collarbone so no skin or cleavage is exposed, but it doesn’t matter because the narrow waist and flared hips, all cocooned in black is sexy as shit. The hem of her dress comes down below her knees and the dress is so well fitted that I know there has to be a slit up the back so she can walk.
“Good grief you’re a sight for sore eyes,” I mutter as I let my eyes roam down and then back up again to find her smirking at me.
She’s got an off-white clutch bag tucked under an arm, and her head is leaning to the side so she can put her last earring in, exactly as I’d imagined.
“You’re not too bad yourself,” she says, still smirking at me. I’d worn my best suit tonight in black with black shirt underneath and no tie. Glad she likes what she sees.
I step back so she can lock her door, and she turns to me as she tosses her keys in her clutch. I hold my arm out to her and ask, “ready?”
She nods and smiles as she curls her fingers in just below my biceps, then I escort her to my car.
I’m taking her to this new restaurant that both Alex and Matt recommended when I asked them last night for the finest restaurant in LA. It had been so long since the last time I took a woman out for a proper date, so I knew I needed to ask my mates and that they would have the answer. They both swore by this place called Apron, but then told me it took at least two weeks to get a reservation. Luckily though Alex had booked a table for him and Sloane tonight, and they gladly gave me the reservation. Sure I had to take a good deal of ribbing from my teammates and their women last night at the bar where we celebrated our win, but I knew it would be worth it.
The drive to the restaurant is short, only about ten minutes. And we lapse into the same easy conversation right away, just like we did the other night at The Owner’s Box. Today was my day off and I did absolutely nothing so I’ve got nothing interesting to tell, but she had plenty of exciting cases at the emergency room today, which included a toddler swallowing a penny.
“Holy shit, how did you get the coin out?” I ask her.
She laughs. “You don’t take it out. You’ve got to let the kid pass it naturally.”
“He can do that?”
“Well,” she begins. “I did take an X-ray first to make sure that it was small and could pass safely.”
“Okay, okay, okay… what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever had to remove from a patient?” I ask her with childish curiosity.
“Honestly, I think I’ve removed everything on the surface of the earth,” she snickers. “Coke bottle, tapeworms, coins, candles, but the strangest has got to be a stuffed animal. It was a Curious George doll, and… let’s just say that he’s no longer curious.”
“You’re joking right?” I bark in laughter as I park my car. We’ve arrived and I swear that was the shortest ten minutes of my life. “I mean… who does that?!”
“I wish,” she says with a wrinkle of her nose. “You’d be surprised if you know how many weirdos out there.”
I’m still chuckling as I exit my car, then I walk over to the passenger side to get her. I hold my arm out to her, and her hand so very easily slides into the crook of my elbow.
“You don’t think I’m one of them, right?”
She gives me a playful shrug. “Well, I don’t know, you might be a weirdo... I mean, I don’t know you well enough yet.”
I give her a smart-ass smirk. “Let’s remedy that then.”
—
“How’s that one?” I ask her as I finish a mouthful of this chocolate thingy. It was a chocolate ball concoction the waiter had poured more hot chocolate over, which then melted the ball to reveal a raspberry chocolate torte inside. She had a bite, but it was too rich for her. I agree though, it was a lot of damn chocolate.
“You’ve got to try this,” she says, spearing the lemon meringue pie with her fork, top it with a little bit of pine nut ice cream and holding it over the table to me.
It’s a completely intimate move and one that I didn’t expect from her tonight. I mean, she was reluctant to go out with me in the beginning and needed some convincing, so I expected her to be reserved and cautious. But hell I’m not complaining.
I lean in and let her feed me the dessert. The flavours explode on my tongue and I think that’s the best we’ve had tonight.
I don’t normally indulge in dessert, but they all sound good so I told her we should order all the ones we like the sound of. Which was most of them except that cucumber mousse and pickle ice cream because those sound like disasters on a plate.
“Good, huh?” She asks with a smile.
“Really good,” I tell her. “I think I like that one best.”
“Finish it then,” she says as she pushes the plate towards me. “I can’t possibly take another bite. I’m stuffed to the brim.”
“Alright,” I say with a chuckle as I pull the plate closer to me. “So, when are you free again so I can take you out to another date?”
She chuckles. “We’re not even finished with this one.”
I roll my eyes at her, then I ask, “are you having a good time?”
Her smile turns dopey and I know she’s just as smitten with me as I am with her. “This is definitely the best first date I’ve ever been on.”
“If we were finished, considering how things have gone, would you go out with me again?”
“I would.”
“Good,” I say with an emphatic nod. “So, weekend or weekdays? When will it work best for you?”
—
I slow the speed on the treadmill, taking me down from a brisk run to a slow walk so I can cool down. Normally I like to run outside in the morning, but I woke up late this morning and we had a team skate scheduled at ten, so I figured I’d just do my workout afterwards at the arena.
Only a few of us actually have a gym membership outside. Most of us prefer to work out at the arena because not only is the equipment better, but we also have an abundance of teammates to work out with and that’s always nice.
I walk for about five minutes to cool down, then I turn the machine off and wipe my face with a towel. I grab my phone and water bottle and turn for the barbells, as today I’m working my chest and shoulders. Mitch and Marcel are already lifting, both defensemen who tend to focus on brute strength versus speed and stamina, so I’m not surprised they didn’t go for the treadmill. I also see Matt there, and I bet Alex will join us too after he’s done cooling down.
“Have a nice run, princess?” Marcel asks dryly as I set my stuff down near the bench press.
“I’m not the one who has to prove my manhood by how much weight I can lift,” I return with a sly grin.
“Yeah, well, your manhood is in a dry spell,” he says as he loads some weight onto the bar. Pre the hot doctor, both Marcel and I were the only single guys in the first line. He’s just as much as a player—on and off the ice—as I was, but now I gladly pass the title to him.
“Not true,” Matt quips with a grin. “He went on a date last night.”
“No shit,” Marcel turns to me in astonishment. “With who?”
Before I can even answer Alex throws a quick glance at us, flashes a shit-eating grin, and yells from the treadmill, “the new doctor.”
“But I saw you two got pretty cosy at The Owner’s Box last week,” Marcel says, as if he’s still confused as hell.
“Well yeah, she was cool, so I took her out again,” I say firmly.
“Dude, what’s wrong with you?” He blinks at me. Eyes all round and not comprehending. “You never look at the same woman twice.”
“So?” I ask, playing dumb.
“Ooh, I get it,” he says with a smirk. “Pussy that good, huh?”
“Hey,” I cut in with a warning. “I’m not there yet.”
They all suddenly stop whatever they’re doing and turn to me with raised eyebrows. Yes, Mitch included, which I’m actually quite surprised.
“Whoa, hang on,” Marcel says. “You haven’t tapped that yet?”
“You’re serious?” Matt looks at me in disbelief. “Not even last night?”
“Dude, I gave you that reservation last night to give you the opportunity,” Alex says as he walks towards us. “I was genuinely worried about your balls.”
They’re still looking at me confused, but Adam howls with laughter. “Don’t listen to these pigs. Rachel and I took it real slow at the beginning of our relationship too, and I got to tell you, the anticipation was half the fun.”
It’s true. I’m in no rush with YN because I know we’ll get there sooner or later. I can be patient when I want to be, and right now I honestly want to. I want to prove to her that when I said I wanted to get to know her, I meant her as a person and not just carnally.
I could tell that I confused her last night when I dropped her off at her doorstep after our date. I gave her nothing but a soft, brief kiss to her cheek, then told her to get inside, lock up and get some rest. Sure, she was confused for a few seconds, but the smile that I got after she realised that I really did want to take things slow was so much more than worth it.
“So you think this thing with the hot doctor is going to go the distance?” Matt asks me.
“I do,” I say confidently. I’m not dumb enough not to realise that she hasn’t fully let her guard down yet for whatever reason. Maybe she’d been badly hurt in the past, maybe it’s my past that causes her to be a little bit sceptical, I mean... let’s be honest, I was a player through and through. But that doesn’t scare me though, because I know I’m in it for the long haul. So yes, I can say it with confidence that this thing between us is going to go the distance.
“Well, if you fuck it up, I’ve got the first crack at her,” Marcel says with a salacious grin. I don’t think twice before I grab my wet towel and throw it at him. It hits him right in the face, and my teammates howl with laughter.
All this talk about her makes me want to see her again. I’ve secured a second date last night for next Wednesday since that’s when both of us will be free, but that’s still four days away and I can’t wait that long. So I pull up my phone and type out a quick text to her.
Hey, what are you doing today?
I grab my water bottle and take a slug. Before I put my water bottle down, I already got a response. I need to go and get a new bed frame. Really can’t stand this old thing anymore.
I can’t help but chuckle. She did tell me last night about her bedroom set which was apparently really old, but she couldn’t get rid of it since it’d been in the family for a few generations and her grandmother gave it to her when she bought her house.
Want some company? I quickly type.
She’s just as fast in her response. You want to go with me buy a bed frame?
Well, yeah. I’ve finished the team skate this morning and will be done with my workout soon. I’ve got nothing to do after and I want to see you. I reply.
Alright then. She texts me back within a minute. But I’m on-call though so I can be called to the hospital any time.
Doesn’t matter, I still want to see you. I text her back. When can I pick you up?
Give me half an hour.
Perfect.
—
I’ve bought three houses in my twenty-seven years of life; the one I currently live in, one in Toronto when I was still with the Leafs before I got traded to the Kings and one for my mum back in London. And yet not once have I ever gone on a furniture shopping.
Until today.
That was something I never in a million years would have dreamed to do, simply because I hated shopping with a burning passion. Hell, I didn’t even buy things for my own house because I paid the previous owner to leave everything behind. That kind of thing was honestly just something that I would have never taken the time for.
And yet, in shuffling through my memories, I really can’t remember having such a great time before. All I know is that I don’t want the day to end, and I also know that it has everything to do with the company.
I know we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, and technically we’ve only been on one date even though we saw each other quite often at the arena. But there was nothing odd when my hand would find its way to her thigh, or when she’d drape her arm across my shoulders so her fingers could play with my hair as we cruised along from one furniture shop to another. I love that we’re at ease with each other as if we’d known each other forever, not to mention that she’s also one of the easiest women I’ve had the pleasure of talking to in a long time.
Sadly though, it had to end when she was called to the hospital. Luckily, it was just in time after she chose a particular bed frame that she liked. It’s a classic canopy bed in live-edge oakwood with a brushed brass iron base, and I felt like a pig because even as we were still at the shop, I was already thinking about which ties from my collection would work best.
They offered same-day delivery since they had it in the storage, and since she was needed at the hospital, I offered to wait for the delivery at her home for her. She agreed, so she gave me her key after I dropped her at the hospital.
And here I am. Sitting on her bedroom floor trying to build this bloody nightmare because apparently they didn’t offer assembly service. I’ve been at it for an hour and a half now. Okay, no, more like an hour and ten minutes because I spent about twenty minutes fixing the sink in her en suite. I noticed the faucet was leaking, and I needed to step away from that bloody bed for a little anyway.
Now I don’t have another excuse, so I’m back on hammering one of the bazillion nails into the wood. I’m so focused on the task that I didn’t realise YN is home until I hear her chuckling as she walks into her bedroom and say, “you know, that is the kind of pounding that’s supposed to happen after you’re in the bed.”
I can’t help it. I fucking throw my head back and bust out laughing. “Sod off.”
“You don’t have to do it, that looks complicated. I’ll just hire someone to put it together tomorrow,” she says with a sweet smile. “Just get up and go sit on the couch. I just need to go to the bathroom real quick and then I’ll join you.”
“Yeah, that won’t do, Doc,” I say firmly. “I’ll still finish this bloody thing even if it kills me.”
“Stubborn,” she quips affectionately with a roll of her eyes as she heads towards her en suite.
“Smart-ass,” I reply with my eyes pinned to one of the million pieces of her bed frame, also with affection.
“Harry?” She calls out from her en suite.
“Yeah?” I answer, when I look up, she’s leaning against the doorframe and looking at me confused.
“Am I crazy or did you actually fix my sink?” She asks with an arched eyebrow. “Because I swear the faucet still leaks a little this morning.”
“Yeah, I did,” I say with a wave of my hand. “I needed to walk away from this for a minute and when I went to your en suite, I noticed it leaked. Not a big deal though, took me only about fifteen minutes.”
“Well, good to know that if you ever quit your day job, you have a career in plumbing,” she snickers. “But seriously, you didn’t have to do that, and you certainly don’t have to finish that.”
“It’s what any boyfriend would do, Doc,” I say with a nonchalant shrug.
“You’re not my boyfriend.”
“Yes I am,” I roll my eyes. “I took you on a date last night and I’m taking you out again on Wednesday. I’m not seeing anyone else, so that means we’re dating. And technically that makes me your boyfriend.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she sputters but I can see the amusement twinkling in her eyes. “Besides… I might be seeing someone else.”
“You’re not,” I say with relative certainty.
“How did you change just like that is beyond me,” she murmurs, the appreciation in her voice evident.
I let out a chuckle. “Just get your butt in there and go chill on the couch after. I’m pretty sure I’ll be done in about half an hour, then we can order something for dinner.”
“Yes sir,” she says with a mock salute, which makes me snort.
—
An hour later, her bed is finally built and as I walk into her kitchen I see her putting the plates on the table. It smells phenomenal here, and I’m surprised when I look at the table because how the hell did she manage to cook all that in an hour?
I take advantage of her back facing me by putting my hands at her hips and pressing my chest onto her back. I nuzzle my face into the crook of her neck and it takes everything in me not to kiss her there. The combination of her perfume and the faint smell of antiseptic is sexy to me. So I can’t help but hum and mumble, “smells delicious.”
“The chicken?” She murmurs.
“Among other things,” I reply softly.
She chuckles. “Come on, let’s dig in while it’s still hot.”
I take a seat in front of her before I select a drumstick from a plate of fried, spicy goodness and put it on my plate. There’s something about the fact that YN made it that makes me believe it will be the best chicken I’ve ever had. Today will no doubt go down as one of the best days ever, which I seem to think a lot when I’m around this woman.
As she dishes me some salad, I honestly can’t wait anymore and take a bite of the chicken. Her eyes snap to me when I let out a groan.
“Good?” She asks with a grin.
I can’t help but let out another groan of approval as I take another bite. “Damn, Colonel, you never told me you make a mean fried chicken.”
“I’m not just a pretty face,” she shrugs smugly.
“Or a fine ass,” I tease. “If you want to quit your day job you can totally open up a fast food chain. Your fried chicken puts KFC to shame.”
She laughs as she cuts some cornbread and puts it on my plate. “Now try this, I make a mean cornbread too.”
“Mmm,” I say in pleasure as I take the first bite.
“Okay, you need to stop with the sexy moaning,” she grumbles with a tiny smirk before she turns back to her dinner. “You’re so bad. I think you’re trying to take advantage of me.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” I laugh. “And besides, you’re just as bad.”
“True,” she replies with a sly smile. “I can be bad too.”
“But just how bad are we talking here?” I ask with a smirk.
“Not bad enough to sleep with you tonight,” she says before she takes a sip of water. After she swallows, she adds, “but totally bad enough I might get frisky with you.”
I give her a mock groan and look up to the ceiling. “A tease. I’ve saddled myself with a tease tonight.”
She laughs.
We talk about what she did at the hospital today as we eat, and her job in general, and it never fails to thrill me the things that she can do. She’s a jack of all trades when it comes to medicine, needing to be able to diagnose and stabilise, often in pressure-filled situations where time is of the essence. I can’t even imagine having the responsibility of someone’s life in my hands like that, and yet she seems to be able to leave it all behind. She talks openly and often with humour about her work, but she also admits that sometimes she can’t help but bear the burden of death too when her skills just don’t make a difference.
I admire her so fucking much. Never admired a woman before, but in fairness… I never looked too deeply at them.
I’m seeing YN through unfiltered eyes and I like everything that I’m seeing.
—
Something is squirming in my arms and it wakes me up.
I tighten my arm around it in response to the movement and pull it back slightly against my body.
Wait? What?
Sleep.
Couch.
We fell asleep on her couch while watching a film.
It all comes back in a rush. Our totally awesome conversation over equally awesome food she cooked that I couldn’t stop raving about all night. I had three pieces of chicken by the way. We talked more about our backgrounds, me growing up in Cheshire and her childhood in South Carolina. We had a few beers, and when she asked me if I wanted to stay a bit and watch a film or something, of course I said hell yes.
The fact that she asked made me smile, because it meant that she was having a good time too with me. So we ended up on her couch watching Jaws, and I liked that she didn’t even hesitate when I lay down on her couch, pressed my back against the cushions and patted the area in front of my hips. I’m pretty sure she can see the devilish gleam in my eyes when I said, “come on… let’s cuddle.”
“Wow… Harry Styles, big bad hockey player, shameless flirt, total panty dropper. Didn’t peg you as a cuddler.”
“I’m a big teddy bear, honey,” I said with a grin and open arms.
She fell asleep first, and I know I should’ve left but the slightest movement from me would definitely wake her up. I know she must be tired so I decided against it and closed my eyes instead.
“Morning,” she says in a husky, raspy, ‘I just woke up’ voice and it’s sexy as fuck.
“Morning,” I reply, my own voice is still rough with sleep. I wonder if she thinks that’s sexy too. “You slept good?”
“Mhmm,” she hums softly, but then immediately groans as she glances at the clock above the telly. “Ugh, I have to be in the hospital in about an hour.”
She then tries to extricate herself from my arms, but I pull her back in close and nuzzle her neck as I point out, “you work a lot.”
“Ha, tell me about it,” she says with a dry laugh. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my job. It’s just I wish I could sleep for three days straight sometimes.”
“Do you even have a day off in the week?” I ask curiously.
“I do,” she answers with a nod. “It was actually my day off yesterday, but I was filling in for a colleague.”
I loosen my hold and let her sit up in front of me. “Go get in the shower, I’ll make us both a quick breakfast.”
“You can cook?”
“Well, if I give you food poisoning you’re heading to the hospital anyway,” I chuckle.
In the kitchen, I grab some eggs and a pack of English muffins from her fridge. A quick breakfast sandwich sounds good, and portable just in case she needs to eat on her way to the hospital. I crack open a couple of eggs, scramble them with a fork and add salt and pepper while my skillet heats up. I put a bit of olive oil in the pan before I toss the English muffins into her toaster to crisp, then set coffee to brew in her Keurig. I’m moving around her kitchen as if I was born here.
By the time I pour the eggs into the pan, she walks out of her bedroom in her scrubs. I smile and nod at the Keurig as I say, “coffee’s ready.”
“And damn, you’re hot in those scrubs,” I add with a grin, giving the eggs a last scramble before pulling them off the heat.
“You’re joking right?” She says, wrinkling her nose as she grabs the milk from the fridge and turns my way, letting the door swing shut on its own.
“I’m serious, Doc,” I say with a smirk. “I wouldn’t mind getting a thorough exam from you. Preferably in your new canopy bed though so I can tie you up after for a payback.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter. It’s eight in the morning,” she laughs and I snort in return.
She then pours some milk in her coffee, pulls the cup to her mouth, and blows across the steaming surface. Her eyes meet mine over the edge of the cup as she takes a tentative sip. “Are we still on for Wednesday?”
“Of course,” I say with a confident smile.
“What have you got planned?”
“Well, you’ll have to wait and see,” I tease her. “Just to warn you though, I may or may not gonna put my hands all over you.”
I don’t tell her that by putting my hands all over her, I mean on the ice to keep her from falling since I plan to take her ice-skating on the team’s practice rink. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, and besides, I’d be lying if I said I never thought of other ways too. The way she’s looking at me right now assures me that she does too, and well, that’s good.
We can compare notes on that later when we get there.
—
Blinking at me with a sleepy smile on her face, YN stands up from my couch. I walk up to her and she pushes me down into her seat, and then crawls onto my lap.
This is nice.
Our date on Wednesday was amazing, and as we walked inside, she turned to me and asked, “so this was your big plan to put your hands on me?”
I just laughed in response, and I did have to put my hands on her quite a lot in the end since she didn’t know how to ice-skate. Fuck if I’m complaining though.
Now we’re snuggled up on the couch at my house with full bellies. Last weekend she cooked me amazing food, so today, I wanted to impress her by cooking a roast dinner and introduced her to Yorkshire pudding. Sure, I was on the phone with my mum the entire time so she could give me directions, but I only almost burnt down my kitchen once so I’d call that a success.
I lean forward, which pushes her slightly to the edge of the couch, then I reach an arm over her and grab a packet of KitKat from the coffee table. I’m glad when I learnt that it is actually her favourite chocolate too, because KitKat is elite and it’s good to know we’re on the same page.
“Want another?” I ask her.
“No,” she groans. “I’m so full.”
I chuckle and awkwardly unwrap the chocolate. Awkward because I have to open it in front of her face since I have my arms around her, and once I got it opened, I hold the naked little chocolate bars in front of her mouth and tease, “want a bite?”
She shakes her head.
I wave it under her nose and I guess the smell of the chocolate changes her mind because then she says, “okay, a little bite.”
I break the bars and feed one of it to her, letting her take a bite and then chucks the rest in my mouth. We chew silently as we watch Marlin looking for Nemo, and I sigh in contentment when she tucks her face into my neck and drapes one arm across my chest.
It takes no more than ten minutes before I notice her breathing has slowed down and she’s fallen asleep. I rest my cheek on the top of her head and continue watching these fishies. I’m a little drowsy from all the food, but I resist the urge to fall under. For now, I just want to savour my existence at this moment because as Dory says to Marlin, “I look at you and I’m home”, I truly realise that’s how she makes me feel.
I’m sitting in my house, but for once, it doesn’t feel empty anymore. I just had a wonderful meal where we talked and joked and flirted, and now I have a gorgeous woman who I’m crazy about curled up on my lap.
There is absolutely no other place I’d rather be right now.
—
“Dude, you’re so fucking whipped,” Alex says as he punches me on the shoulder. I jerk slightly and reluctantly take my gaze off YN to look his way.
“What do you mean?” I ask as I take a swig of my beer and promptly look back at my girl. She’s standing just ten feet away, sipping on her own beer and talking animatedly with Sloane and Brynne. We’re at The Owner’s Box tonight having our first triple date, and I’m having a brilliant time. The only thing better would be if YN would quit chatting with the girls and get her sweet ass over here to sit next to me.
“Fucking hopeless,” Matt mutters and Alex snickers.
I blink and turn to look at them. “What? Why am I hopeless?”
“Because you can’t fucking take your eyes off of your girl for more than two seconds,” Alex jeers at me. Then he leans in towards me and murmurs with a mocking sneer, “pussy.”
“Bollocks that,” I say haughtily. “I can take my eyes off of her longer than that.”
“Good,” Matt says, handing me an empty beer bottle. “Go get us some more beer.”
“Assholes,” I say with good nature and head towards the bar. Stopping beside my girl, I kiss her on the temple. “You girls want anything else to drink?”
Sloane and Brynne shake their heads, smiling coyly at me as they watch my uncharacteristic display of affection. I’m immensely pleased when YN smiles at me and rests her hand on my chest. “I’m good, but thank you.”
“Be right back,” I tell the girls, and then I set out to prove Alex and Matt wrong.
I swivel my gaze back to Matt and Alex, and I give a sheepish grin when Matt mouths the word pussy at me. I flip him off and head towards the bar, intent on not looking back at my girl for at least the next few minutes it takes me to get the beers.
“Excuse me,” I hear and feel a tap on my shoulder. “Harry, can we get an autograph and a picture?”
As I turn around with a warm smile in my place, the word sure is out of my mouth before I even see who’s asking. I’m met by a vision of holy hotness as two women stand there with tight-as-hell t-shirts cut obscenely low and with plenty of silicone boobs pouring out.
Just a mere month ago, I would have whispered a prayer of thanks to the big man upstairs for sending these two my way, knowing well that I’d be banging the hell out of one of them before the night was finished. Instead, my stomach tightens and I glance past them to see YN still deep in conversation with Sloane and Brynne.
I bring my gaze back to the women… a brunette and a blonde, both looking at me with promise in their eyes.
“Do you mind taking your picture with us?” The blonde asks with a bat of her eyelashes.
I give her a quick smile and say, “sure, no problem.”
She steps up to me as she hands her phone to the brunette. I lift my arm to sling it companionably around her shoulders, but she uses that opportunity to press intimately into my side, bringing both arms around my waist and mashing her breasts against my ribs.
“Thanks so much,” the blonde says in a seductive voice. “Can we buy you a drink?”
“No, thanks,” I decline with a smile. “I’ve got some friends waiting for me.”
“An autograph, then?” She asks.
“Sure.”
The blonde digs in her handbag and pulls out a sharpie. She then hands it to me and says, “can you make mine out to Kourtney with a K?”
“You got it,” I say, eager to get this over with because it feels awkward to me to have this woman coming onto me with my girl standing just a few feet away.
“Just sign here,” she says and my jaw drops as she pulls the edge of her t-shirt down her chest, practically exposing her entire right breast to me.
“Uh, you got a piece of paper instead?” I ask her. “I don’t think my girlfriend would like that.”
“You bet your ass she won’t,” I hear my girl quips from behind me and I’m trying my best not to laugh. I like that she immediately snuggles into my side so those women now would have no doubt that I’m totally hers, “wanna go play some pool, baby? Loser buys the drinks.”
“You’re on,” I tell her, Kourtney with a K and her friend are long forgotten. “But just to warn you, I’m really good.”
“Honey, I was practically born on one of these tables with a beer in my hand,” she says smugly, “you’re going down.”
—
“Do you want to come in?” YN asks as she pulls out her keys from her handbag. We’ve just got back from The Owner’s Box and as usual, I walk her to the door.
My tone is low, soft, and barely audible when I say, “Doc, if I come inside tonight, I don’t think I can promise you to keep my hands to myself.”
“I don’t want you to promise me anything,” she replies firmly. “Whatever happens, happens. Now, let’s not dawdle on my porch and get inside. Want some more beers?”
“Whoa, don’t hand me ammunition,” I joke and she laughs. “I’ll take some water though.”
“There’s some water bottles in the fridge,” she says, pointing to the tiny kitchen that sits at the rear of the house, past the living room. “I’ll be right back.”
I get two bottles of water out of the fridge and head back into her living room. I take a seat on the couch and pull out my phone, scrolling mindlessly as I wait for my girl.
When she reappears, she’s wearing a pair of sleep shorts and a white t-shirt. Her hair is pulled into a ponytail and her makeup has been washed off. Her in a t-shirt and tiny shorts is a hundred times sexier than her in literally anything else—yes, including her scrubs—and there’s no stopping my downstairs head from waking up.
“Come here.”
Her eyebrows rise, but I don’t miss the clear interest in her eyes. “Come there?”
I tap my thigh, “right here.”
Her cheeks flush and a little puff of breath blows out of her. With absolutely no hesitation, she crawls onto my lap. Our gazes are locked tight and her eyes darken with intensity. When her chest comes level with mine, and her knees are pressed into the cushion just inches from my crotch, she asks me softly, “you going to finally kiss me?”
“I’m thinking about it,” I tease her as my hands come around her lower back, pressing her onto me.
Fuck, she feels good against me. Just her soft curves and warmth and I’m already starting to get hard before I even lay my mouth on hers.
She looks at me with sizzling eyes as we stare at each other, knowing that once we take this step, our relationship is going to another level.
Leaving one hand on her lower back, I slide the other up and over the shoulder, letting my palm glide up her neck so my fingers can tangle in her hair. She shivers when my thumb strokes her jaw before I cup my hand around the back of her head.
Her hands reach out and circle behind my neck. Then she whispers as she licks her lower lip, “so this is it?”
“This is it,” I tell her, and because I absolutely cannot wait one second longer, I put pressure on the back of her head to lock our mouths together. The first touch of her lips against mine causes pleasure to punch straight through my groin, and the world just absolutely melts away.
There’s nothing else but her.
Lips so fucking soft, tongue tentative and sweet. Her hair silky to the touch and her skin warm as my hand snakes up just under the edge of her t-shirt.
She tilts her head, opens her mouth more and kisses me deeper. I groan and pull her tighter to me. My hand fists tighter into her hair, hampered by the hair tie somewhat but not giving a fuck. Her hips start to rotate slightly, rubbing herself along the top of my thigh. My dick gets achingly hard as she starts to make tiny sounds of need in the back of her throat.
My other hand slips down her back and palms her backside, then I give a tentative squeeze. I think she likes that, because her hips shift forward and she starts to grind her crotch on my leg. I press against her ass, encouraging her to keep moving against me. She does it again and shudders in my arms, so I know it’s hitting her in the right spot.
Pulling on her hair, I break the kiss just enough so I can growl at her, “get yourself off, darling. Right here. On my leg.”
Her eyes fly open and they’re full of fire and sexual need as they stare back at me. Her lips curve up in a wicked smile of acquiescence and I pull her back down to my mouth for a hard kiss.
She rotates her hips in circles, then alternates flexing back and forth. I clench my thigh muscle, wanting to give her as hard a surface as possible to stimulate herself. I slip my hand down the back of her shorts, finding bare skin. I squeeze and push her down on me, helping her to move faster on my leg.
She pants and moans softly as she works herself up. I have to force myself not to push my hand down further between her legs. I’m bound and determined not to go there yet, and besides, this is hot as fuck and completely satisfying to me.
She moves faster and faster, making tiny cries of yearning into my mouth as we kiss. Then she punches her pelvis down hard onto my thigh, going still for a moment before her entire body starts quaking in silent orgasm. I hear nothing but a soft sigh of pleasure escape her lips and slither over my tongue.
Her body goes limp in my arms. She lifts her head, our lips parting, and looks down at me with glazed eyes. I press my lips to her briefly just once more, before I pull my hand out of the back of her shorts and roll her body off me. As I stand up and hover over her for a minute, I see her cheeks flushed rosy and her nipples pebbled hard, even through her t-shirt.
Placing a hand on the couch cushion, I lower myself to her and brush my lips across her forehead. “Get a good night’s sleep.”
“Wait- you’re leaving?” She asks, confusion coating her expression.
“Yes,” is all I say.
“But-”
“I’ll take a cold shower when I get home, no worries,” I assure her with a smile. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“I had a great time tonight, Harry,” she tells me, still looking like a wet noodle on the couch so I don’t think she’ll be getting up anytime soon.
“I did too,” I smile at her over my shoulder as I reach for her door.
It’s in this moment that I’m pretty sure I’m a goner for her.
—
I see the hottest, sexiest, most adorable doctor walking across the darkened parking lot towards me. Well, towards her car. Her head is tucked down and she looks tired. When she finally looks up and locks her eyes on me, the exhaustion melts away and I’m rewarded with a happy, welcoming smile from her.
“You really have to stop stalking me in parking lots,” she quips as she walks closer.
Then closer still until the tips of her shoes touch the tips of mine and she’s offering her mouth to me for a kiss. Obviously, I take it, because who wouldn’t? Her lips are perfect. She tastes like mint gum and smells faintly of antiseptic, and that right there is my favourite combo.
When she pulls back, she tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear and asks, “seriously, what are you doing here?”
“I wanna take you somewhere,” I tell her as I grab her hand and take her towards my car that’s parked the next row over.
“Where?”
“Just get in the car, Doc.”
“You’re being vague,” she says with an arched eyebrow. “Is this where you kidnap me, take my kidney and sell it on eBay?”
“This is where I’ll find a way to occupy that beautiful mouth of yours if you keep asking questions and ruin the surprise,” I tell her and she gives a tinkling laugh.
“Promises, promises,” she singsongs and I just roll my eyes.
It only takes about fifteen minutes from Cedars-Sinai Hospital where she works to the closest beach where I plan to take her for an impromptu picnic date night. We only had to stop by to get some pizza because I already have a cooler with a six-pack of beers loaded in the back of my car. It’s a little too late for sunset, but the purplish black of twilight is lush.
“The beach, huh,” she deadpans. “You brought me out here to seduce me?”
“You naughty girl,” I clutch a hand to my chest and make an exaggerated gasp of disbelief. “That’s indecent exposure that is.”
She laughs as she opens the door of the car and hops out. I do the same, then I open the back door to pull out the pizza, blanket and the cooler with beers inside before letting her help by taking the blanket.
Somehow we have the beach to ourselves tonight, and she points out a nice spot for us to sit. I agree, so I let her spread out the blanket. After both of us have our butts firmly planted, side by side, facing the ocean, I take two beers out and hand one to her.
“Ooh, we’re going fancy tonight,” she says when she sees that I brought microbrews instead of cheap beer.
I chuckle as I open the pizza box and grab a slice of the cheesy goodness that will probably clog my artery, then we talk about our day as we eat. I tell her the funny things that happened at practice today, including a joke that Marcel told us in the locker room which most would probably find insulting, but I know my girl is used to locker room talk and would find it hilarious, and she tells me what she did in the hospital. Apparently, they were so busy today that her lunch break lasted less than ten minutes.
“You never cease to amaze me, Doc,” I tell her honestly. “It’s so cool what you do for a living. Impressive as hell.”
“Thanks, Harry,” she says softly. “That means a lot.”
It’s completely dark by the time we finish our pizza, but the view is still lush since the moon is bright, causing the water to look like it’s covered in floating, crushed diamonds.
We’re silent as we sip our beers, and I love that we can sit in comfortable silence as well as talk for hours. It’s crazy to think that it’s only been a few weeks that we’ve known each other yet I just feel such a strong connection with her. I love that we’re so in tune with each other that sometimes we say the same things and steal lines from one another. We have a similar sense of humour and we can even exchange an inside joke with just a glance.
I loosen my hold of her when she pulls away from my side embrace. Her head swivels to me, and I can see the moon glittering in her eyes. “I owe you an apology.”
“What?” I look at her in confusion.
“I misjudged you, Harry,” she says with a tender smile. “When you asked me out, I outright told you that you’re a player without even giving you a chance to explain yourself. I made an assumption, and that was wrong of me. I’m sorry.”
“And your assumption was right,” I tell her honestly with a light chuckle. “There is nothing to apologise for. It was common knowledge, I was a manwhore.”
She snorts. “Shut up, I’m serious.”
“Me too,” I squeeze her hand. “You didn’t misjudge me, Doc, you knew exactly the type of guy I used to be.”
She has a dreamy smile on her face when she says, “kiss me.”
“No, you come here and kiss me,” I say, and I’m pretty sure she can see my eyes sparkling with mischief.
She rolls her eyes and mutters “fine” under her breath as she plants her knees on the sides of my legs, but I don’t miss the light in her eyes which tells me that she likes the idea.
Closing her eyes, she dips her mouth to mine and now I’m wondering if the two years of jail time and a fine for indecent exposure is worth it if I were to take her right here right now.
—
We’re in New York for two away games in a row, tonight against the Rangers which we won 3-1, and tomorrow night against the Devils. I’m chuffed not only because we won and I played great, but I also had a great day today before the game with my girl. We didn’t do much since she wanted me to save my energy for the game tonight, but we did walk around our hotel and ended up napping on the couch in the room that I share with Marcel.
We all ride on the team bus that takes us from the hotel to the arena and back to the hotel after we finish the game. I wanted her to sit next to me, but for both trips, to the arena and back, she gave me a slight shake of her head and sat with the girls along with the rest of the staff in the front.
When I hop off the bus though, I see her waiting for me with a grin on her face. I kiss the fuck out of her, not caring about my teammates who whistle and yell, “get a room.”
“Which floor are you on again?” I ask her as we enter the lift. I want to walk her to her room just to spend a few minutes more with her.
Yeah, laugh all you want. I know I’m fucking whipped.
“Tenth,” she says, pulling her room key out of her handbag and hands it to me so I can scan it then tap the button on number ten.
“Wanna catch an early breakfast with me tomorrow?” I ask her as we approach her room that she shares with the team’s orthopaedic surgeon, Callie.
“Sure. What time?”
“We’re leaving for light skate practice at 9:30, so we should have plenty of time if we meet down there at 8:30.”
“Sounds good,” she nods as we reach her door.
There’s a handwritten note stuck in between the door and the jamb. She puts her key in the card slot, opens the door slightly, and snag the piece of paper. She opens it up and I look over her shoulder at the note as we read it silently together.
YN,
Marcel and Joslynn are hooking up and they’re in his room which means Harry has been kicked out. I’m going to sleep with Macy instead, so you and Harry can have this room. Unless you want Harry to go sleep with Macy?
No? Didn’t think so.
Have fun you two.
Callie
“This is Alex, Matt and Marcel’s doing,” I tell her with absolute certainty as she twists her neck to look at me. “I’ll just get an extra room for tonight.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she chuckles. “You can sleep here. We’ve spent the night together before.”
“Yeah, but that was different. We fell asleep on the couch, it wasn’t intentional,” I point out. “I don’t trust myself sleeping in the same bed with you, Doc. I’m not going to be able to help myself.”
“Well, good,” she says, smiling mischievously. “Cause I’m done wait-”
That’s as far as she gets before I push her through the door, backing her into the room. My mouth hits her only moments before her legs hit the edge of the bed and we both go tumbling onto it.
This is when we realise there’s a huge box of condoms with 144 packs inside it in the middle of the bed. On the top, there’s another note and I recognise Matt’s handwriting on it.
You’re welcome by the way
“I freaking love your teammates,” she says with a laugh.
I guess I owe those fuckers some beers.
#hockey!harry#harry styles au#harry styles#harry styles fic#harry styles fics#harry styles ff#harry styles one shot#harry styles smut#harry styles fluff#boyfriend!harry#harry styles x reader#harry styles x y/n#harry styles blurbs#harry styles drabbles
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