4. The Games Begin

CHAPTER 4

THE GAMES BEGIN

STORM

Fall - the start of the hockey season

My first two months at my new apartment building turn out to be quite eventful. It seems when a place is advertised as a mature building, what they really mean is to expect the majority of residents to be retired older people. Or, in the case of the Serenity Tower Apartments, mostly white-haired women with a growing infatuation over me.

It all started so innocently. Returning from my jog one evening, a couple of the women asked if I'd help them hang a shower curtain that fell down. Of course, me being the nice guy to women who remind me of my grandmother, who I once adored, I say yes.

Well, one installed shower curtain, one home made meal of pot roast, an incredible slice of blueberry pie, and twenty questions about me, led to three hours lapsing. By the time I left their apartment, I had a stack of new recipes to try, a dozen cookies in a bag, and the phone numbers of their granddaughters shoved into my hands.

The day after that, I swear the old lady phone tree must have been burning up the lines. When I returned from practice, half a dozen women waited to pounce on me in the lobby with their own honey-do lists and promises of a good meal. One sweet lady held up photos of her female offspring in front of my eyes as if it were the pipe and she the piper, hoping to lure me to her apartment.

While all the mature female attention has been flattering, it's getting downright creepy, the way the women stare at me like they're judging me…or undressing me. They must have my schedule down now because today I couldn't enter the lobby of the building without them beckoning me to the common room, a glass-walled lounge where a group of them often sit and play pinochle. They were having a potluck, and as starving, sweaty, and hot as I was after my run, I couldn't turn them down.

That's what led to the trouble I'm in now.

I pop my head out of the stairwell, scoping down the hall of the tenth floor after sprinting up the stairs. My chest is on fire, heaving for oxygen, as I make sure no one is around to see me do this weird naked-ass walk of shame.

Not that this is a walk of shame. I simply have been robbed of my running shorts and muscle t-shirt and need to get back to my apartment pronto.

There's nothing wrong with the human body, of course. Especially my six foot four, two hundred and twenty pounds of solid muscle. I work fucking hard between hockey and the gym to keep up this physique.

Besides, as an adult-only apartment building, I'm sure anyone over the age of eighteen has probably seen a naked guy at least once in their life.

I'd wager these women of a certain age have probably seen more than their share of asses and cocks. And I give them full credit today for their best efforts to get a view of mine.

How I ended up with no clothes on at the potluck is a long story I don't want to recount anytime soon. Let's just say I learned my lesson this afternoon and will steer clear of their potlucks for the foreseeable future.

Right now, I need to get from this stairwell down to my door at the opposite end of the hall wearing nothing but a—book. Thankfully, it's the largest book I could grab off the common room shelves. War and Peace.Of course, I've read it before. I love reading. Opened to the middle, secured in place with my left hand, it almost covers my junk.

I have to get this over with. I step onto the cold tile floor, closing the door behind me with a soft click. Take a deep breath in. Hold the book tighter against my cock. And run.

It's all going great, brilliant in fact. I sprint like hell, thanks to hockey conditioning, and I countdown the door numbers. Two, four, six… All the way to my door, reaching number twenty on the left at the end.

The doors have a unique feature of an alternate key code to punch in. Which comes in handy just in case your keys are in the pocket of the shorts you were wearing before the grannies playing cards in the common room stole them.

But again, how they managed to get them off of me is a story for another day.

I lightly pant to catch my breath, punching through the six-digit code. But it doesn't work. And who the hell decided we needed six of them? When suddenly, door number nineteen directly behind me opens.

A woman gasps. I crank my neck, expecting to see and apologize to Edith, my sweet old neighbor who seems to have a knack for offering me warm baked cookies every time I return home.

She must bake every day, filling the hall with the fragrant sugary scent. We've established a routine now. When she hears me at my door, she's quick to open hers with a plate of cookies for me and a smile like a warm hug. How can I be an asshole at that point? Of course, I always stay and talk with her for a few minutes, and eat at least half a dozen. My favorite is her iced oatmeal raisin, although her chocolate chunk comes in a close second.

I'm way too nice to these women in this building. I've paid the price, getting a little pudgy in the waistline, and now I'm naked.

Only out of the corner of my eye, behind me, I realize it's not Edith, but a woman with strawberry blonde hair, probably about my age, and glaring at me. If only I could die on the spot.

"Uh…" That's all I got.

I'm assuming this chick isn't expecting the view of my ass to greet her, especially the first time we meet. Neither was I.

"Sebastian? That you? Oh, my." There's the precious voice of Edith, clearly shocked at the sight before her. I'm assuming her hand is clutching her pearls; I wouldn't know since I return my face forward to my door and try my code for the tenth time.

"What kind of sick man must you be to wander the halls like this?" Okay, and that's the voice of the young woman. I kind of like it, even irritated as she may be.

"Look, I can explain. Some ladies here tricked me?—"

"Into taking off your clothes and roaming the halls? I cannot believe you'd blame these sweet women here."

Sweet, my ass. I'm getting to know the maniacal manipulations of the mature woman really well.

"Oh I can, dear. You should hear the things they say about him in the common room." Thank you, Edith, for sticking up for me. "Especially about his muscles and his co?—"

"Nana!"

Nana? So they're related.

"What? When you get to be my age, dear, we have no filters. Of course there's the bet, too," she says, and my ears per up.

"What bet?" I try the code on my door for the twentieth time.

"Who will fix you up with a date with their granddaughter first? I think the pot is up to ten dollars now."

I squeeze my eyes shut. Ten bucks is all I'm worth? I guess as a semi-pro hockey player, that's the highest I can get.

"Look, ladies, as much as I'd love to chat, my code won't work and I don't have my phone to call the building management and ask for a reset. Is there any way you could make the call for me?"

"You can't very well stand there with nothing on. You'll catch yourself a cold. Misty invite him in. I'll get a pair of Rupert's old sweats out for him and fix him a tea while we wait for the code to fix."

Misty? Nice name. And there's no way in hell I'm turning around wearing nothing but a book. Not at this first meeting, anyway.

"But Nana, I'm late for the funeral. I have to go or I'll be stuck in L.A. traffic," she retorts. I crank my neck again and spot her dressed in black from head to toe.

"Now dear, we wouldn't want to be the reason he catches a chill. Believe me, I don't need that kind of karma at my age."

"There's no way I'll let your creepy naked neighbor come into your apartment like this, Nana."

Fuck. She's calling me creepy? Seriously? Okay, I admit this is bad. Really bad. I send a prayer up to the big guy in the sky and hit the code one more time, and surprise, it miraculously works.

I open the door and shove inside, quickly hiding behind it, and I promptly drop the heavy book on my foot. Ignoring the pain, I bite my lips against the impulse to shout obscenities. I open the door just a crack, enough to peek out, and I beg them, "Listen, it was all just a prank the ladies downstairs played on me. Can we forget this entire incident happened?"

"That'll be hard to do. With an ass like you have, it's a vision I don't think I'll likely forget for some time," Edith says.

"Nana!" Misty declares, sounding about as exasperated as I am.

"What, dear? You can't tell me he doesn't have a nice one. Oh, don't forget your cookies." Suddenly, Nana steps across the hall holding out a plate filled with my favorite, delivering it with a genteel smile. I take it and I want to hug her, and I'll bet she hugs just like my grandmother did. But I don't, of course. Because that would definitely be creepy right now.

I widen my door enough to take the cookies and I get a good look at Misty, a short woman standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and shooting fire at me from her scowling eyes behind a pair of black glasses. Otherwise, I think she's pretty, at first glance. Her long hair hanging loose around her shoulders down to her waist makes me think of spun gold. Her curvy body appeals to me in every way a woman possibly can, given this awkward situation.

"Oh, Sebastian, meet my granddaughter, Misty." Edith gestures to the young woman glaring at me.

"I'd like to greet you properly. But er, yeah. Thanks for these, Edith. Goodnight, ladies." I promptly shut the door and race to the kitchen. In my own place, I don't bother with clothes yet. Not when I have a plate of warm cookies to help swallow down my anxiety over the whole situation, chased by a huge glass of milk.