Puck Off

Two hours! My sister’s plane was two hours late and my ass was feeling as sore as if I’d taken an eight hour drive due to the uncomfortable seats in the waiting area near baggage claim. I’d almost dozed off several times before the annoyingly loud claxons would start up, announcing the arrival of another mountain of bags coming around the conveyor belts. I couldn’t complain too much though, she was worth it. Considering that Ella was almost ten years younger than I was, she was still my best friend, and it would be awesome to see her again. She was pretty much the only person I would do this for on a Thursday night after a full day of work.

I was living and working in Boston, which was good as they have a great mass transit system and I detest driving. I know, I’ll turn in my man card, but I didn’t need the anxiety of traffic or commuting. Just let me ride the subway everywhere I needed to go please and thank you! But Boston also had several colleges that provided exactly what my kid sister, the athlete in the family, was looking for.

A women’s ice hockey team.

I was surprised she was going to school in Boston, since our parents’ house out in Michigan was a stone’s throw from several powerhouse women’s college teams, but I guess she wanted to come hang with me. I didn’t mind at all, she could even live at my apartment if she went to school here, since I had a good amount of space, and it let me see the kid sister that I had seen all too infrequently since I went off to college myself. Her trip was to check out the last two colleges that were recruiting her, Boston College and Boston University, and see if she liked either of them enough to commit to playing.

But first her plane had to arrive.

At long last, my phone buzzed with an incoming text, and I was gratified to see that it was Ella, having landed and taxiing to the gate. With a sigh of relief, I stood up and stretched, my body creaking in protest. I know, I’m only 27, and I shouldn’t be creaking, but you try sitting in those chairs for a few hours!

Ella wasn’t hard to find. While she wasn’t huge, not too many people are as energetic as she is, and she was almost running into the baggage claim area when I caught a glimpse of her behind what looked like a family reunion. I headed her way and was almost tackled as she grabbed me into a ferocious bear hug, picking me up like I was a feather.

To her, that might be true. Full disclosure, I’m not a big guy. I’m only 5′8" tall and weigh a mere 130 pounds. My sister is the same height as me but has another ten pounds of muscle on her frame. She got the athlete gene, and I got the school nerd gene. But we’d both made it work, though it took me till the end of my schooling to get there. She blossomed a lot earlier.

“Hey Logan!” she screamed into my ear. “I missed you so much!”

I squirmed a bit to be let down, but she refused to budge, and just grinned at me instead. Damnit, I hated that she was so much stronger than me. “Hey Ella. Welcome to Boston!”

“Oh man, it’s so good to be here. You have no idea how much mom and dad are driving me crazy!”

“Now you know why I went away for college,” I pointed out. “They can’t help it though; they just want you to make a good choice.”

“I know, I know. But asking me every day if I made it, when they knew I wanted this trip to help make up my mind, was a bit much,” she complained before finally putting me down.

“Do you have any idea which school is in the lead?” I wondered.

She cocked her head a little while pursing her lips. “I really hope I like the Boston College tour. They have the best package, the best team, and they really went all out when they did the Zoom call. They had the whole team come on there and say hi, and they really seemed friendly. Besides, if they give me a full ride, and can stay with you, I can have money leftover to use on other things.”

“How are the academics?” I had a vague sense that BC was a good school, but I’d never looked into it since I already completed all my college studies.

“They have a good Biology program, which is right up my alley. They’re really perfect if I get a good feel for them.” Ella wandered closer to the conveyor belt, which was now happily chugging along with suitcase after suitcase.

“That sounds like a good match. Does Boston University compare?”

“They’re okay,” she admitted. “But they’d be a backup. Honestly, if BC isn’t what I want, I’ll probably end up at Ohio State. But that would kill dad, because you know how much he hates them!”

I did. My dad went to the University of Michigan, which is the biggest rival to Ohio State, and every year we would have to hear the screaming whenever one of their sports teams squared off. “He’d disown you!”

“I know!” she whined. “So, this better work! Besides, I really want to live with you.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll have rules though. I’m not having parties at my place!”

She just scoffed. “Yeah, I hear that. I think most parties would be on campus, so I’m not worried about that.”

“And if you have dates over, keep them quiet, and be careful. I don’t need to be kept up all night!” I nudged her in the ribs just to make her blush. Ella was bisexual but had already had several noise issues back home with the parents because of noisy partners. I didn’t care if she had someone over, as long as they were safe and quiet. My sleep was too valuable.

“Ha! That hasn’t happened in months! I’ve been so good!” she promised. “Besides, you have to keep it down too!”

I’d never had anyone over, and I didn’t see that changing. I didn’t get along well with dating. “You’ll have no issues on my end. Nobody to bring over.”

“Still?” she asked softly. “Logan, hasn’t it been long enough?”

I just looked at her out of the corner of my eye and didn’t answer. It was my issue, not hers, and I’d be ready when I was ready. Some day. Right now, it was the last thing I needed to worry about. Luckily, the silence was broken by the arrival of her suitcase, and she quickly grabbed it. She extended the handle, and then dragged her bag behind us as we left the airport, stepping into the frigid air of a January in Boston.

“Damn, nice weather!” Ella grumbled.

“Come on, like its any better at home!” I pointed out.

“True. But the slush looks like shit.” She nodded at a pile of snow that had been thrown up by a snowplow and was almost all black and grey from a mixture of dirt and exhaust fumes.

I grunted in reply, since I couldn’t deny her statement. “You get used to it. Not that it makes it better.”

I led the way over to the shuttle bus waiting area, and then we took that up to the nearest subway station. She was thrilled by that, as our little town back home had nothing that was even close to Boston’s well organized subway system. It was color coded and easy to get around once you got used to it. The subway at the airport was on the Blue line, and we took that inbound where we switched over to the Green line which would take us up to my apartment. That made it handy, since both colleges that Ella wanted to visit were also on the green line.

The clickety clack of the little subway cars were charming to my sister, and she was looking all about, entranced by the experience. I had been the same way when I first came to the city, but over the years I’d gotten used to it. But it was still fun to watch the expression on Ella’s face every time something new happened, or the brakes squealed as we stopped.

When we got off the subway, she was almost disappointed. I was starving, having not had a snack while waiting on her, so I was hoping she would like some of the food options under my apartment. “You up for some dinner?” I asked as we walked down the sidewalk.

“Hell yeah! What are my options?”

I pointed at the building ahead of us. Three restaurants stood side by side on the first floor, with two floors of apartments right above them. “Thai, pizza or burgers.”

“Are they good burgers?” she asked skeptically.

“All three are some of the best of their kind in Boston. They all have the same owner, and their chefs are top notch.”

“Then I need a burger!” she groaned. “Mom and dad never want anything but Italian food anymore!”

I opened the door to the burger place, and let her in, then quickly followed to get out of the cold. “Hey Mr. Vargas!” called out one of the servers.

“Hey Rico!” I replied. “Think we can get two bacon cheeseburgers? Just run them upstairs when they’re done?”

“You got it boss!”

“Thanks! I’ll see you in a bit!”

“Boss?” Ella asked as I opened the door back outside and then over to the keypad access to the apartments upstairs.

“Yep. Like I said, all of them are owned by the same person,” I replied. “That would be me.”

“What the fuck?”