Penalty Shot

1

The boys all chatter around him, congratulating each other on the win. George slowly takes off his jersey and pads as his teammates begin to exit the locker room, probably to go to some bar down the street, George could care less about hanging out with his team.

Soon George was alone in the locker room, left to bathe in the scent of sweaty men. George quickly gets dressed in his casual clothes, grabs his bag, and heads out to the lobby alone.

The lobby is crowded with people of all sort of moods, whether good or bad from heir favorite teams performance at the game.

It's the first game of the season. It doesn't mean that much anyways. He thinks to himself as he slips out the back entrance, away from the crowd.

The sun is just beginning to dip below the horizon as George walks back to his apartment. His shoes crunch in the light layer of November snow. He looks around at the houses he passes. Christmas decorations in November? How tacky. George stops in front of the mailbox at the end of the driveway.

Bills, bills, junk ads, a letter for Karl from his "platonic pen pal". That's a lie, everyone knows they are secret lovers. George rolls his eyes and starts up the long unpaved driveway.

The front door opens and George walks inside, setting his hockey bag on the bench in the front landing. As he was taking his shoes off he heard the sound of running.

"Gogy!" Karl yelled from the top of the stairs. He had a bright smile on his face. "I made us some spaghetti."

"Thanks, I'll be up soon," George calls back, grabbing his bag and heading down to his room in the basement. George sets his bag to the side of his room and walks himself over to the bathroom for a quick shower.

To nobody's surprise Alex was is the den playing Call of Duty on the xbox. He waves a quick hello to George, George quickly waved back and walked in to the bathroom.

He turns the shower onto hot, letting the water drip down his face and body. I could have done so much better. They needed a better performance from me. I messed up one to many times. George thought to himself as his tears intermixed with the water.

A bang was heard on the bathroom door. "Stop wasting water!" George sighed and finished washing himself off. He turned off the water, stepped out, dried himself off, and dressed himself in a pair of basketball shorts and a graphic tee.

George walked over to where Alex was sitting in the den, opting to look at his phone instead of playing on the console in front of him.

"Karl probably wants us to eat the food that he made," Alex looks up and nods, standing up and walking over to George. The two walk up to the upper floor where Karl is serving spaghetti into bowls for the three of them. They all sit at the dining room table and start eating in silence.

"Good job in the game Gogy," Karl says between bites. George quietly thanks Karl, offhandedly making a comment to himself about how much he sucked.

"Yeah I watched it," Alex says with a mouthful of spaghetti, some pieces falling out.

"Oh my god ew," George says

"Don't speak with your mouth open Alex, what is wrong with you!" Everybody laughed, filling the deep silence between the the three of them.  "So who's up for a movie night."

"But Karl," George groaned.  "I want to sleep."  Karl rolled his eyes.

"Please," he whined, giving George his best attempt at puppy dog eyes.

"Fine," George finally agreed, pushing his chair away from the table to put his bowl in the sink. "Who's doing dishes?"

Silence enveloped the room as the three looked back and forth at one another. Then chaos broke loose.

"I did them last night!"

"No I did!"

"But I never do dishes on Thursday!"

"You are just lazy."

"Fine I'll do them," George says, grabbing everyone else's bowls and cups, bringing them over to the sink and filling it with warm soapy water. "Are you just going to stand there and watch?"

With that Karl and Alex walked out to the living room to argue about what movie to watch while George finished washing the dinner dishes.

"Did you decide on something?" George says, walking into the living room where Karl and Alex are hunched over the DVD case.

"Fast and Furious three,"

"Again? Seriously?"

"What?" Alex and Karl said at the same time in an exasperated voice. George only rolled his eyes and sat on the unoccupied section of the couch.

Soon the credits rolled around and George let's out a wide yawn, drawing the attention from Alex and Karl.

"I'm going to head to bed," George said as he stands up to head down to his room in the basement. "Have fun making out."

A loud shout of "What the fuck George" was heard as he made us way down the stairs and flopped himself down onto his bed, limbs immediately going limp.

The vibration of his phone in his pocket startled him from his comfortable phase between awake and slumber. He picks it up and stares at the message.

Wilbur
Have you seen the eagles new center?
This bitch way too op man
*image attached*

The attached image seemed to be a screenshot from a web article detailing this team's new center. A blonde man by the name of Clay, played hockey in middle and high school, made it to the state championships, blah blah blah.

"RANKED NUMBER ONE IN THE STATE!" George screamed out throwing his phone down onto the bed. No way. He thought. There is no way I can be up against him.

The Eagles were his school's biggest rival school, going back and forth between winning championships against them. Every year AA state was between these two schools. But with a person like Clay on their team, did they really have a chance?

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