Page 5 of Bro Code

The game hadn’t been going well for Riley. Louis wasn’t tuned into the players well enough yet to catch subtleties like Holly did, but even a casual fan could see that Riley Webb wasn’t having a great night. Louis felt a tiny tug of sympathy. He’d been under a lot of pressure and the summer had probably been rough on him.

Then again, the summer had been rough on Louis, too, starting this new job. At least Riley was doing a job he knew how to do. He wasn’t doing it very well tonight, but that was probably just a fluke. First game jitters. He’d played well enough last year to make the Olympic team, and done well enough there to come home with a gold medal. A gold medal, a piece in Vanity Fair, and a modeling deal with Calvin Klein that meant his rippling abs, meaty thighs, and substantial package were now plastered all over the internet in a pair of tighty-whities. Not that Louis had been looking. Not that he’d been looking every day. Not that he’d been looking so much he’d accidentally trained his algorithm to show him underwear models and basically nothing else at this point.

No. None of that had been happening.

Louis felt Holly’s eyes burning into the side of his head, and realized he was staring at Riley on the bench instead of at his laptop screen. He knuckled his glasses up his nose and cleared his throat.

“He never called you,” he reminded himself under his breath, and turned his attention back to the data.

CHAPTER THREE

Riley

Two days after the Montreal game, Riley was back in New York. He staggered out of the team’s upstate practice arena into a crisp late September afternoon. The air was laced with the smell of dry leaves and the distant trace of woodsmoke, and the sky was clear as glass. It was good to be back — fall in New York was the best.

He’d just endured a brutal workout and the fifteen minute media scrum that followed it. Twenty iPhones with mics attached, all pointed at Riley as he stood outside the locker room, saying the words, “First game jitters,” a lot, and trying to catch Lindholm’s eye to bail him out. Unfortunately, Lindholm had puked his guts up after thirty minutes of bag skates, and been rendered wholly useless.

Petrov was trying to get a bar night going as they made their way out to their cars. Riley didn’t think he could stand up long enough to be at a bar.

“I’m not leaving the couch,” Miller announced, walking backwards and swigging a protein shake from the food lounge.

“Please don’t drink that in front of me,” croaked Lindholm, who still looked a little pale.

Miller slurped the last of the shake through the straw at a decibel level that defied the laws of physics, ignoring him. “Call of Duty,” he said, and burped. “Black Ops.”

“After naps,” said Anderson.

Miller rolled his eyes. “Aye aye, Captain.”

Riley slung his duffel bag into his SUV and drove through the suburbs with the windows down. Chilly, but the air felt good. He ignored a stack of notifications from Grindr as he Super-manned his bed with his shoes still on for his nap. He woke two hours later in the same position with a damp spot under his cheek, and rolled blearily into the living room to boot up Call of Duty. When he turned on his headset Miller was halfway through a story about a girl he’d hooked up with during preseason training, and Riley absently scrolled TikTok while he listened.

“No, like, sloppy natties,” Miller was saying, “I swear to God.”

The guys were laughing and Riley heard Petrov say something in Russian, but he wasn’t really listening because a video on the phone had stopped his thumb mid-scroll. It was a clip reel from the Montreal game. He clicked up the volume.

The announcer was halfway through saying something about Riley: “Webb looking like he took a few steps back to rookie year there.”

“Bad luck,” the other announcer agreed.

“Bad shot, I’d say. Unexpected, after his performance at the Olympics.”

Sighing, Riley turned the volume back down. Unfortunately, the subtitles continued to trash him at the bottom of the screen. He turned back to Call of Duty.

He stared at the TV, where his player waited to be equipped, telling himself he didn’t care what people said about him. He didn’t care. He didn’t.

Then he put down his controller, picked up the phone again, and opened the video’s comment section.

Which was dumb.

webb didn’t do shit at the olympics, said the first comment. harris and arsenault carried that whole team

Underneath, someone had replied: true story

And under that: u think webb and arsenault fucked at the olympics or wut

Rage boiled up in Riley’s chest. He was typing a reply before he’d even decided what to say.

Which was so, so dumb.