Spoilers!
#42 of Hockey Hunk Season 4
Rory's worst nightmare seems true...but can it get even worse?
Hello, and welcome to the Hockey Hunk! How're you doing? Thankfully my earlier obstruction was cleared and I was able to post this chapter in time! Wow! I hope not too many people were deterred from reading by the earlier journal...but let's hope!
Hopefully you're in the mood for something fun to read once more, and I hope to be providing you with just that indeed! This season has been a blast, and it ain't over yet - so keep checking back for more fun :P
As always, your feedback rocks my world, and also remember that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories to enjoy as well.
Have a fun read!
*
I was just gonna put this book into the bag and this rat would be on his merry way, and he could finally get to building his birdhouses...or whatever he wanted to call them.
"Hello!" I was still engrossed in my work as I heard Marge chime to an unseen customer. "Can I help you?"
"I THINK YOU CAN INDEED!"
That...
My paws froze, feeling smooth, slippery plastic, and the shape of the book within the bag, as my ears and my eyes turned in the direction of the only possible source of that voice, which had incidentally just crashed through the front door and was approaching the sales counter with alarming speed not unlike a strange, brown-colored avalanche.
A very large, very goofy-looking, a very I *HEART* NYC T-shirt-wearing, plastic bag-carrying Cobb Holden was in the building.
And he was grinning.
And he was kinda looking at me, and not at Marge, standing there at her full attention which she provided for all the customers that fulfilled her criteria for studmuffins, and I suspected that the hunksome Doberman probably had what it took, but, no, he was not admiring Marge's charms, he was looking at me and smiling that same, usual mad grin he possible reserved especially for the purpose of fraying my nerves to the limits.
I could already see it...I could see it...hear it...feel it...oh God...it was coming...it had to be coming....oh yes...
"OH YES YOU CAN HELP ME WITH MY SHOPPING NEEDS I JUST HAD TO BUY SOME CUTE EDUCATIONAL BOOKS FOR MY NIECE OLIVIA SHE ONLY READS INTELLIGENT BOOKS BECAUSE SHES SUPERSMART LIKE HER MOTHER AND IF I MAY SAY HER UNCLE TOO AND THAT'S WHY I WANT TO BUY HER SOMETHING THAT WILL GET HER TO AN IVY LEAGUE UNIVERSITY AND MAYBE BECOME THE MAYOR OF CHICAGO OR SOMETHING BUT BEFORE THAT SHE MUST GET A NICE PRESENT FROM HER UNCLE COBB AND YES I KNOW THAT THERE ARE SEVERAL BOOKSTORES IN KIRK CITY BUT OF COURSE I DID COME TO THE ONE WHERE RORY GLIESE WORKS THAT IS R-O-U-R-I G-L-IZ-E-R THAT'S THE GUY I OF COURSE WANT TO SHOP HERE BECAUSE HE IS MY BROTHERS GAY BOYFRIEND AND I AM HIS SUPER-SUPPORTIVE BROTHER SO OF COURSE I WANT TO HELP MY BRAVE BROTHERS BRAVE OPENLY GAY BOYFRIEND WHO IS SO AWESOME FOR NOT HIDING WHO HE IS AND SIMPLY WORKING HERE PROUD AS A RAINBOW AND WHEN HE AND MY BROTHER ARE TOGETHER AS IN TOGETHER IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN TEHEHEH IT IS ALMOST BARELY EWWW ANYMORE BUT IT KINDA BECOMES TOLERABLE AT SOME POINT BUT I DUNNO IM JUST A DUMB HETEROSEXUAL MAN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THESE GAYS AND FAGS AND WHATEVER NOT THAT RORY IS A FAG BUT I HOPE I DID NOT OFFEND YOU YOU MUST BE REALLY OPENMINDED FURS HERE FOR LETTING AN OPENLY GAY LION WORK WITH YOU I SUPPOSE YOU CAN NEVER TAKE THAT FOR GRANTED IN THIS WORLD WITH SO MUCH DISCRIMINATION AND ALL THAT BUT NOT ME MY BUSINESS BECAUSE I OWN A BUSINESS IT HAS A NON-DISCRIMINATION POLICY THAT MEANS WE DON'T DISCRIMINATE AGAINST WOMEN SPECIES GAYS CHILDREN LESBIANS MUSLIMS OR COFFEE DRINKERS BECAUSE I CANT HAVE ANY CAFFEINE PRODUCTS I GO A BIT FUNNY IN THE HEAD IF I HAVE ANYTHING WITH CAFFEINE SO DO YOU HAPPEN TO STOCK ANY CHILDRENS BOOKS THAT TELL KIDS ABOUT SAME SEX PARENTING BECAUSE I THINK OLIVIA SHOULD READ SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO PREPARE FOR HAVING A VERY SPECIAL COUSIN BECAUSE IM SURE THAT EVENTUALLY HIS UNCLE VICTOR AND AUNT RORY WILL HAVE A VERY SPECIAL ADOPTED CHILD TOGETHER SHE CAN PLAY WITH BUT SHE MUST BE SHOWN THAT ITS NORMAL TO HAVE TWO DADDIES OR TWO MOMS BUT NOTHING TOO GAY OKAY?
"Is there anything particular you have in mind?" a voice spoke on my right.
"Uhm..."
The words hit my consciousness with a kind of a dull clang, the kind you'd imagine to hear from a church bell being struck somewhere nearby, and the vibrations travelled through me in a rush of strange, itching sensations, from my ears all the way to my tense tailtip.
I blinked, and I realized that the rat was staring my right in the eye, watching me stand there, stuck in a moment, paws clinging the bag so hard that my claws had actually extended and tore into the bag. At least I hadn't damaged the book, I noticed, with only a very minor sense of relief at not having destroyed shop property.
The rat blinked.
"Uhmm.....is there something wrong?" the dude asked.
"I would like to look at some children's books."
_ _
Oh damn...I had to act fast.
"Oh, nothing at all!" I forced myself to sound as normal as possible as I flexed my fingers to release the bag from the grasp of my claws, and even though I did notice the marks on the plastic, I decided that they weren't threatening the very structural integrity of the bag. It would hold.
Oh please let it hold...
"Here you go!"
"Oh, of course!"
_ _
"Thank you, and please come again!" I told the rat as I handed the bag over, which he finally took into one of his hands and then stepped away from the counter, seemingly happy with his purchases now because he pivoted on his footpaws and headed for the door without as much as an acknowledging nod in my direction.
"I'll just..."
_ _
"I put in a couple of new ones this morning!" I heard myself speak through some sort of a strange filter in my brain that made everything seem a bit dull. "Why don't I show you around?"
Marge gave me a sharpish glance, likely feeling slightly irked about me stealing a sale...or maybe it was stealing the perceived hunkiness... (NOT MY OPINION ON COBB, PLEASE, JUST NO!), so I knew that I had to hurry.
"I think I'll prefer to stretch my legs a little, Marge," I said, "not too good for me to stay stuck in one place for too long, since I'm still recuperating."
Oh Cobb, please don't say anything before I've got you out of Marge's earshot...please...please...
_ _
Her tail gave a broad flap from side to side, as she glanced over at the still very much eager-looking Cobb, then to me, before she finally nodded her assent.
"Of course," she said with politeness I hoped wasn't feigned, and that she wouldn't give me a talking afterwards. Not that I would have minded. Whatever damage control I could do now in regards to Cobb would probably be worth a bit of a nagging coming form the cougar. I just had to maneuver myself carefully and be off with this.
Not a big deal.
Just.
AAAAAAAAAAAARGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
I put on my happyhappy smile and waved a quick paw in the direction of the main shop floor.
"I'll just show you around, sir," I said as I passed Marge, rounded the counter, and then I was standing by the Doberman now, side by side, almost shoulder to shoulder...and my heart was probably going at 180 or something, it felt that quick.
Oh, shit.
"Thank you!" Cobb replied, loud and cheerful, and enough to make my ears jump.
"Just this way..." I said as I began my frisk walk towards the direction of the most cheerfully colored section of the bookstore, which you could also locate by afar by the sight of the Dora the Explorer and Babar the Elephant banners hanging from the ceiling.
"You're the boss, heheheh!" Cobb laughed openly, his voice rising another octave as he practically purred to himself with delight.
Jesus Christ, what the fuck was going on here? Hadn't Victor and I expressively told him, upon being asked whether I could show him around my shop that we didn't think it was a good idea, because I wasn't openly gay at work? Hadn't we told him that we thought that it'd be awkward and that even Victor hadn't visited the bookstore yet, and that it'd be weird that Cobb would have been there before Victor? That I didn't have anything to hide, but I still thought that it'd be better of I could just give him some general advice and he could buy the books somewhere else?
Hadn't we simply told him NO?
_ _
*giggle*
Oh, crap. We'd just passed a hyena browsing the GUNS AND KNIVES section, so we only would have to make a turn to the right and we'd be at the ENTHRALLING TALES section, well out of sound and sight of Marge, and maybe, just maybe everything would be fine...but now I could hear the sharp, snickering giggle belonging to one certain cod liver oil-sucking mottled fur, who, by the sounds of it, was still enjoying looking at beautiful pictures of dicks with Mason. That of course at least tripled the potential for embarrassment and outing...and...
"So, Rory!" Cobb barked.
I looked at the Dobie's beaming face, and his grin diminished none, by any means. Instead it seemed to get even wider.
"Uhm..." I mumbled, and probably sounded a bit like the rat from earlier, as my tail twitched.
"Well here we are!" Cobb clapped his paws together as he excitedly scanned the sight of all the books surrounding us. "Now what would you suggest for a girl who's about seven, who loves swings and trampolines and fairy tales and nature and princesses and chocolate!"
He looked at me passionately, the expectations running high, the smile unwavering, that dirty "I know your secret!" look fixed on me, as I had to spend a remarkable amount of resources even to the very act of simply standing there and not just running away with my tail between my legs.
"Well..."
"It doesn't obviously have to be all those topics in one book TEHEEHEEHEH!" he burst into laughter which I'm sure was heard throughout the shop, and my ears burrowed themselves onto my mane for safety, now that the true Cobb had been seemingly unleashed after the all too mellow introduction.
I hoped nobody was looking.
"Well, perhaps not," I mumbled, well aware that any attempts to sound professional would go down the drain here.
"She reads really well, so it doesn't have to be just pictures or anything simple, she reads anything, unlike her uncle at that age, only liking cartoons..."
Why wasn't I surprised by that at all?
"Well..." I lifted one of my slightly shaky-feeling paws and rubbed my chin.
Cobb's ears flicked, each in turn, which was something I knew that Victor sometimes did...non-simultaneous ear flicks, that was...so maybe it was a family trait...maybe...and a similarly familiar furrow appeared on his not-quite-like-Victor-but-definitely-similar brow. The expansive male's chest rumbled.
"No need to be shy..." the Dobie harrumphed, though still smiling, and he kept his low voice, and leaned down a bit, closer to my face, as he spoke.
"You weren't supposed to come!" the words slipped out of my muzzle in a husky whisper, as I tried to keep my face, my ears, my tail, and my paws, still.
Cobb's ears flicked again.
"But I was downtown and - "
"We both told you not to come!" I continued, desperate not to raise my voice, almost hoarse now, as I whispered still.
Cobb frowned again, and this time it persisted as he looked down to me.
"I don't see any problem if I'm just shopping...I've got my right to do that, you know..." he was whispering now too, and the effort caused a hot stream of aniseed-flavored air to flow against my face, from our close quarters.
"But we had a deal!" I gasped.
_ _
"Well I'm here now and I'm going to get that gift to Olivia, and if it's too weird for you to serve me just because I'm your boyfriend's brother, which is weird, I guess I'll have to ask that nice cougar lady to help me!" Cobb husked.
My face burned hot by now, both from the nervous tension and the warm puffing of the Dobie as he passionately made his plea to me. I could tell by the looks that Cobb wasn't too pleased by me, and that was something I simply couldn't bear...because if he got antsy, he might get LOUD, and if he got excited...all hell would be ready to break loose from its Cobb-sized vessel.
And in a way, it was embarrassing to admit that he was right, too. I really didn't have any valid reason not to serve him, or to turn him away, simply because had a slightly uneasy association with me. It was selfish of me to assume that his only purpose to come here would be to simply taunt and tease me, a rather paranoid thought, now that I considered it, now that my pulse had come down to something like 150, for now. It wasn't a good thought at all.
Maybe I wasn't such a good lion, either.
Screw it. Maybe, if I just dealt with it in the most professional manner, that'd mean that Cobb would be out of here in a few minutes, and I could breathe freely again. No complications. I might not even mention it to Victor and spare him a shouting match with his brother. Though probably Cobb would take the opportunity to brag to Victor how he'd been here before Victor...
Oh well. There probably weren't going to be any winners at this game, so I might as well go on.
"So are you thinking some fiction or maybe something with more factual content?" I spoke resolutely, raising my voice again to a polite level of conversation from the earlier husky whisper, and looking The Cobb in the eye, and not wavering...much.
"Well what do you suggest...Rory?" he said, pointing at my nametag with one huge finger.
So two furs could play this game...and Cobb was a willing player...bring it on!
"We have everything from simple children's encyclopedias to Doctor Seuss, so perhaps you'd either want to give me some more ideas, or just have a good browse and see what you'd like," I said. "We also stock all the classics of children's literature, if you would like to look at those for your niece."
Cobb folded his arms over his chest and gave me a firm look.
"Why not?" he stated.
I could hear another resonant feline giggle from the penis book section as I turned my back towards them and led Cobb to the shelf marked "QUAINT TOMES FOR NOSTALGIA AND FUN", which held our collection of the various never out of print kind of stuff that every bookstore had to have, I suspected.
"These range from very inexpensive paperbacks here..." I pointed at the stand containing the said books, "to these illustrated picture books and illustrated special gift editions of books such as Alice in Wonderland, The Treasure Island and the Narnia nooks."
"Well I know she reads a lot, and they have plenty of books at home, so maybe she might've read some of those..."
"Well...uhm...there's Roald Dahl books here..."I stepped closer to the right section, "James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Witches, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Fantastic Mr. Fox..."
_ _
"Isn't that the one where all the kids die horribly from those creepy experiments?" Cobb stated.
I glanced up at the suspicious-looking Dobie.
"You mean The Chocolate Factory?"
"I remember that I probably got nightmares from the movie," he shrugged. "Don't want Olivia to go through that...hell no..."
Hell no indeed...
"Well, all the Dahl books are very charming..." I tried.
"Nothing with nightmare potential for Olivia. Don't wanna be known as the Uncle Cobb who traumatized her..."
Really now?
"Well...uhmm...well there's Winnie the Pooh..."
"She has that, definitely."
Damn.
"Well here's also...well...ohhhmm...well, here's something a bit more rare..." I noted as I glimpsed the stylized cover, "it's...uhm....Tales from Moominvalley...it's...uhm...Swedish...I think..."
"Well Olivia doesn't know Swedish...I don't think she does..."
I grabbed the red book hopefully from the shelf.
"Oh, it's in English, of course...we don't really have many foreign language books here...perhaps we should have more but..."
"Well I need something in English now..."
"Well I think this one is quite nice," I said, without knowing nothing about the book, so I flipped it around to see the small print behind it, "it's all about...the invisible Ninny..."
_ _
Hmmm...
"So it's like magic and stuff? I'm sure Olivia would like that!"
"Well..." I frantically scanned the text for more clues. "It's..."
"MOM!"
My ears jumped. That voice could not belong to anyone except Marge...that same sharp tone that made me look up from the book and scan above the shelves, towards the service counter, where I could see Marge indeed, as well as someone clad in dark blue, holding a bag on wheels in one paw, and using the other to...molest...Marge across the counter...what...
"AND IT'S ALMOST SHOWING, MARGE!" a new voice rose, singing across the aisles of the shop and reaching every ear, surely. "OH MY GOODNESS! MY FIRST GRANDCHILD!"
Wait...
But that only could be...
"Bonnie," I gasped.
*
Thank you for reading my story! I hope you enjoyed the read, and I hope that you'll feel like dropping me a comment or two! Also remember that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories as well.
See you on Friday !