Defenceman: Parallel Ice (Non-Canonical Saga)
Copyright© 2025 by Cold Creek Tribute Writer
27. Cold Start
Coming of Age Story: 27. Cold Start - Defenceman: Parallel Ice (A Non-Canonical Saga) builds on Cold Creek’s Defenceman series while offering a new interpretation. Michael Stewart’s journey extends beyond the rink into intrigue, modeling, and the launch of his AI: Aegis. From Ann Arbor to London, Japan, and Spain, the story explores honor, love, betrayal, and resilience. Rivals and allies test his limits in the arena, courts and shadows—where triumph demands sacrifice and heart both on and off the ice.
Caution: This Coming of Age Story contains strong sexual content, including Romantic Celebrity Sports Interracial White Female Oriental Female White Couple Royalty AI Generated
Campus Rhythms
The Grinder, August 28, 2010, 7:00 a.m.
Preseason reporting pulls me back to Yost before the first lecture hall opens its doors, before the campus fills with students hauling boxes into dorms and wandering lost between buildings.
While we’re waiting for Coach to arrive, I spot someone I haven’t seen since March—Jake Sloane, standing near the boards with the nervous energy of a rookie trying to look like he belongs.
“Jake!” I skate over, offering a gloved fist bump. “Good to see you made it.”
His face lights up, relief washing over his features. “Michael! Man, I was hoping I’d catch you before things got crazy.” He bumps my fist, then shakes his head with a grin. “Honestly wasn’t sure how the vets would treat a freshman walking in here.”
“You’re here because you earned it,” I tell him. “Saw your tape from Traverse City. That edge work’s the real deal.”
Jake’s shoulders relax a fraction. “Thanks. That means a lot coming from you.”
We catch up for a minute—summer training, the transition from juniors, what to expect from the coaching staff. Jake’s got good instincts, asks smart questions. He’ll fit in fine.
“Oh, hey—” Jake glances around, lowering his voice. “My sister Jaime’s been looking for me. Said she wanted to say hi before practice.”
The name hits me like a slap shot to the chest. Jaime Sloane. That kiss she laid on me back in March—confident, deliberate, the kind that leaves a mark. I’ve got enough romantic complications between Molly, Asuka, and Willow without adding another to the list.
Jake catches my hesitation and laughs, loud enough that a few heads turn. “Relax. Jaime’s got a boyfriend at college now. You’re safe.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, and Jake grins wider.
“However,” he adds, eyes glinting with mischief, “if things don’t work out with him, you can bet my sister will be stalking you. She gets what she wants.”
“Good to know,” I manage, shaking my head.
Jake’s expression shifts, turning serious. “Hey, one thing—can you keep something quiet for me?”
“What’s up?”
“Coach Benson being my grandfather.” He pauses, jaw tightening. “I know it’ll get out eventually, but I want to be known for my play, not who I’m related to. I don’t want guys thinking I’m here because of nepotism.” He shifts his weight, glancing toward the ice. “Coach is letting me skate with the team during preseason, but once the regular season starts, I’ll be on the scout team. Says I need to gain experience.”
“Jake.” I put a hand on his shoulder, waiting until he meets my eyes. “You’re here because of your skill. Period. I’ve seen enough tape to know that. And if anyone gives you crap about it, I’ll straighten them out.”
He nods, gratitude flickering across his face. “Thanks, Michael.”
The door at the far end of the arena swings open, and Coach Benson strides in, clipboard tucked under one arm, his steel-blue eyes sweeping across the faces assembled before him—taking inventory, measuring readiness, calculating who’s arrived hungry and who’s arrived complacent. He doesn’t waste words. Never does. The man speaks with the economy of someone who watches a thousand players come through these doors and knows exactly which ones will still be standing in March.
“Pace sets everything,” he begins, voice carrying through the arena without effort, projecting into the rafters where championship banners hang like silent sentinals. “Accountability isn’t something I hand out. You earn your role or you watch someone else take it. No easing in. No guarantees.”
He pauses, letting that sink in, watching twenty-plus pairs of eyes locked on him with varying degrees of confidence and anxiety.
“This season, we’re here for one thing: Win the Triple.” The words land heavy, deliberate. “Great Lakes Invitational. Mason Cup. National Championship. That’s the standard. That’s the expectation. Anything less is a wasted year.”
The energy in the room shifts—tension coiling tighter, shoulders squaring, jaws setting.
“Your captains talked,” Coach continues, gesturing toward where Cason and Reilly stand among the defensive corps. “Offense and defense both brought it to a vote. Unanimous decision.” His gaze shifts directly to me, and I feel the weight of every set of eyes in the arena follow. “Michael Stewart. Team Captain.”
The announcement hits like a one-timer I didn’t see coming. My chest tightens, heat rising under my collar despite the cold.
“Last season, Stewart showed this program what dedication looks like,” Coach says, his tone carrying a edge of pride that he rarely lets slip. “Played hurt. Elevated his game when it mattered. Then he took that work ethic to the international stage and brought home Olympic gold for Canada. That’s the standard we’re holding ourselves to. That’s what this team is capable of when you commit everything to the program.”
The room erupts—sticks banging against the boards, gloves slapping together, voices rising in a cacophony of approval. The sound reverberates through Yost’s low ceiling, amplifying until it’s a physical force pressing against my ribs.
“Yost! Yost! Yost!” The chant builds, rhythmic and thunderous, punctuated by the metallic clang of blades striking ice. The team is pumped, electric, feeding off the energy Benson has ignited.
I manage a nod, letting the moment wash over me as my pulse hammers in my ears. This is real. My teammates chose me. The guys I battle alongside every shift looked around that room and put their trust in me to wear the C.
Coach lets the roar continue for a few beats before raising one hand, silencing the room with a gesture. “Let’s get to work.”
The cold of the rink settles into my lungs as I step onto the ice, a heavy metallic humidity that contrasts sharply with the dry cedar of Sensei Ogata’s dojo. Two different worlds demanding two different versions of the same body, and the transition always impacts hardest in these first few strides.
Coach’s whistle cuts through the silence, sharp as a blade, and the bag skate begins.
Continuous lengths. Goal line to blue, blue to red, red to far blue, far blue to goal line, and back again. Twenty pairs of skates shredding the ice in unison, the stinging air burning through my chest as the drill strips away everything but the simple mechanics of survival. There is no wasted thought here, no reading of angles or anticipation of movement. Just the rhythmic thump of blades cutting bad ice, and the lead-heavy weight settling into my legs with each passing repetition.
Coach orchestrates the session from the bench, demanding north-south speed and linear power, a world away from the circular, evasive movement Asuka demands in our training sessions. Where she teaches me to redirect force and disappear from an opponent’s reach, Coach wants me to drive through resistance like a freight train, to cover the neutral zone in three steps and punish anyone foolish enough to stand in my path.
The exhaustion here is honest. Players lean over their sticks, sweat leaking through their jerseys, breath coming in ragged gasps that fog the air around their faces. I find myself grateful for it, this uncomplicated suffering that asks nothing of me except to keep moving, to push through the burn until my body remembers what it was built to do.
When Coach finally calls us off, the team scatters toward the bench while Rolf guides the Zamboni onto the ice, its low rumble filling the arena as the machine lays down a fresh sheet of water that hisses and settles into a mirror finish. I watch him work for a moment, the methodical passes back and forth, the craftsman’s pride evident in every turn.
The grounding respite won’t last. The psychological chess match waiting for me at the compound will resume soon enough, the weight of decisions and obligations pressing down with a complexity that makes a bag skate feel almost peaceful by comparison. But for now, standing in the wet cold of Yost with my lungs still burning and my legs still trembling, I let myself exist in the simple honesty of physical exhaustion.
The Fishbowl, August 29, 2010
The day starts before sunrise at Yost, and I grind through heavy compound lifts in the weight room, the certainty of iron and breath steadying me before the cognitive load ahead. The rubber floor absorbs the clang of plates, and the industrial fans hum their low-frequency drone while I push through squats and deadlifts until my legs burn and my mind empties of everything except the next rep.
I cross campus still warm from training, sweat cooling under a Michigan T-shirt, carrying that rare mental clarity that only comes after complete physical exhaustion. The Burton Tower bells mark the hour somewhere behind me, their melodic peal rolling across the Diag as students stream toward early lectures. I sidestep the brass M without thinking, muscle memory from walking this path.
The Fishbowl greets me with a different kind of pressure when I push through the ground-level entrance. Fluorescent light washes everything in flat white, keyboards clattering in uneven rhythms across the maze of beige partitions. No pretense here, just work. The air carries that familiar cocktail of cooling fans and lukewarm coffee, though the space is quieter than usual—classes haven’t officially started yet, so the late-night desperation crowd hasn’t materialized.
I drop into a corner carrel and pull out my MacBook Pro, the fifteen-inch screen flickering to life as I review the AEGIS codebase. The architecture has grown beyond proof-of-concept into something that assumes real-world failure, scale, and misuse. Every module I touch now carries weight, consequences that extend far beyond what Northern Edge players will ever see.
AEGIS evolves in my head from a resilience concept into quiet infrastructure—modular, portable, and deliberately unattributed—designed to adapt and recover without announcing itself. The Cognitive Kernel handles cross-domain transfer while the Resilience Mesh maintains autonomy even when connectivity fails. I trace the logic paths through the Economic Simulation Layer, watching how sensor data and market signals converge to detect cascading risk before it spreads.
A kernel fault forces a hard reset, pulling me out of flow just as a message from Dean Morrison reminds me of the scheduled stop-by. I stare at the spinning progress wheel while my laptop reboots, running through the deployment timeline. Phase I pilots need to go live by late 2011—four sites in Detroit and Nagoya targeting thirty percent downtime reduction and eight percent OEE uplift. Twenty-two million in seed capital to secure, fourteen to eighteen million in ARR if everything holds together. The architecture is sound. Now it needs funding and execution.
Dean Morrison’s office sits in the upper floors of the engineering complex, far removed from the student chaos below. When I settle into the chair across from his desk, the conversation is measured and precise from the start.
“I want to be clear from the outset,” he says, leaning back with practiced ease. “The university does not claim ownership of AEGIS. Your counsel made sure of that months ago.” He pauses, then allows a genuine smile. “What we want is to support your work and your success. And congratulations on Northern Edge. The launch numbers have been impressive.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Faculty have noticed.” His tone sharpens slightly, curiosity giving way to something more deliberate. “The success has generated interest in what else might be possible with the underlying architecture. That is natural, given what we have heard about AEGIS. But I want to be very clear. Institutional claims are not on the table. That is not why I asked you here.”
I watch his hands as he speaks. Relaxed. Open. Resting on the armrests. Deliberate body language. He has thought carefully about this meeting.
Credibility, not control. I turn the phrase over silently while keeping my expression neutral. He wants Michigan’s name adjacent to AEGIS without inheriting its risk. Reputation earned by proximity rather than possession.
“I appreciate that, Dean Morrison,” I say. My voice stays even, the Canadian defenseman mask firmly in place. “The support here has mattered. The resources, the environment. It has been a good place to develop the work.”
“Exactly.” He nods, as if confirming something already decided. “The ecosystem here contributed to your development. That is a story worth telling, when the time comes.”
When the time comes. I file the phrase away. He is thinking long term, positioning Michigan for whatever AEGIS becomes.
He shifts forward slightly now, hands folding together.
“There is one other matter we should put to rest,” he says. “Your academic status.”
I wait.
“You are on track to graduate early this spring.” His voice is calm and unequivocal. “That is not speculative. It is based on record.”
I feel the weight of the words settle, solid and final.
“You have carried a full course load every term since arrival,” he continues. “You accelerated through spring and summer sessions. You are enrolled in graduate-level Computer Science courses that exceed undergraduate requirements. Faculty evaluations of your independent work on AEGIS and Northern Edge support substitution for multiple upper-division and capstone obligations.”
He watches me closely, not for surprise, but for reaction.
“Those substitutions are approved. Additional credit has been awarded. Certain redundant requirements have been formally waived on the basis of demonstrated mastery. You are not missing anything. You are finishing early because you have done more, not less.”
I nod once. There is no need to speak yet.
“The university prefers clean outcomes,” Dean Morrison adds. “No ambiguity. No unfinished business when you step forward professionally. You will complete your degree this spring. Spring 2011. Once and for all.”
“I appreciate the clarity,” I say.
“That is my intention,” he replies. “Clarity.”
We stand. He extends his hand and I take it. No paperwork in front of me. No ceremonial language. Just a decision already settled.
He knows I need the university’s credibility while I am still a student. I know he wants Michigan close to whatever AEGIS becomes. Clean transaction.
I leave with sharper boundaries and a clearer understanding of where AEGIS sits in my life beyond hockey and classes. The walk back to the Fishbowl takes me past the Diag, past students spinning the Cube for luck before coding milestones, past the endless sea of Maize and Blue that defines this place.
I should loop Bill in. The thought settles as I walk. Dean Morrison did not ask for anything concrete, but questions about proximity and narrative always carry downstream implications. Bill will spot any future complications faster than I will.
Back in my corner carrel, I open my laptop and return to the core module I left half-finished. I rewrite it with that clarity in mind.
AEGIS is no longer just what I am building.
It is what I am protecting.
First Bell
The Brown Jug, August 30, 2010
After practice, John sidles up to me in the locker room, still half-dressed with his pads dangling off one shoulder. “Yo, Stew. Defensemen dinner. Brown Jug. Tonight. We gotta break in the new meat before Coach runs them into the ground.”
I look over at Noley and Joey Montador, the two rookies still figuring out which hooks belong to which stall. They’ve got that wide-eyed freshman energy, equal parts terrified and thrilled to be here. Perfect targets.
“I’m in,” I say, tossing my gloves into my bag. “Round up the blue line. Tell Pratasky if he’s late, he’s buying the first round.”
“He’s always late,” John grins. “That’s the plan.”
By seven o’clock, I’ve marshaled the entire defensive corps—John, Noley, Joey, Pratasky, Brian Smith, Don Farr, and Randy Pierce—and we’re descending on the Brown Jug like a pack of hungry wolverines.
The Jug reaches out and grabs you before you even get through the door. It’s a reckoning—shouting students, clinking glass, and the thumping bass from the speakers vibrating through the sticky wooden floor. The air is thick with fryer oil and spilled beer, that unmistakable perfume of college debauchery. Someone’s already screaming about the Tigers’ playoff push, and a group of sorority girls in the corner booth erupts in synchronized laughter that cuts through the noise like a referee’s whistle.
“HOME!” Randy Pierce bellows, throwing his arms wide like he’s greeting a long-lost lover.
We muscle our way through the crowd, eight hockey players carving a path through the civilian population with the same efficiency we use on the ice. The hostess—a junior I vaguely recognize from my Econ lecture—takes one look at our crew and points toward the back.
“Big booth opened up. Try not to break anything this year, Reilly.”
“No promises, sweetheart,” John fires back, already pushing toward our target.
We crowd into the deep wooden booth, bodies crammed shoulder to shoulder, elbows flying as everyone jockeys for position. The table is ancient, scarred with decades of carved initials and beer rings, and it rapidly disappears under pitchers of beer, my lone Diet Coke, and baskets of grease-laden fries. The seniors bought the rounds, and I catch Randy sliding a beer toward Noley and Joey on the sly—the unspoken deal being they keep their heads down and don’t act like idiots. Randy slides a beer toward me with a grin.
“Come on, Mikey. One beer won’t kill you.”
“Pass.” I pull my Diet Coke closer. “Someone’s gotta remember what you idiots say tonight.”
The waitress doesn’t even bother asking for orders anymore—she just starts bringing food.
“Alright, rookies,” John announces, slamming his palm on the table hard enough to rattle the silverware. “Welcome to the blue line. This is where legends are made and freshmen are destroyed.”
Noley, who’s built like a refrigerator and about as talkative, just nods and reaches for a fry. Joey looks like he’s trying to decide if this is a hazing ritual or a genuine welcome.
“Relax, Montador,” I say, sliding a basket toward him. “We only sacrifice one freshman per semester, and Noley’s bigger than you. You’re safe.”
“For now,” Don adds ominously, waggling his eyebrows.
The conversation immediately devolves into the aggressively trivial nonsense that I’ve missed all summer. Pratasky launches into a passionate dissertation about how the dining hall’s “chicken parmesan” is actually a war crime against Italian cuisine.
“It’s not even chicken!” he insists, gesturing wildly with a mozzarella stick. “It’s like ... compressed sawdust with red sauce. I swear to God, I saw it bounce once.”
“You’re full of crap,” Brian Smith counters. “The chicken parm is fine. The real crime is whatever they’re calling ‘beef stroganoff.’ That stuff moves on its own.”
“Okay, but have you tried the vegan station?” Randy interjects, and the entire table groans in unison.
“Pierce, why would anyone voluntarily try the vegan station?” John demands.
“I was curious!”
“Curiosity killed the cat, buddy. And apparently your digestive system.”
The roasting shifts targets when someone brings up practice. Specifically, the moment when Pratasky caught an edge during a simple skating drill and went down like he’d been shot.
“Dude, you literally tripped over the blue line,” Don howls, nearly choking on his beer. “The BLUE LINE. It’s painted on. It’s not even a real obstacle!”
“There was a rut!” Pratasky protests, his face turning crimson. “The ice was choppy!”
“The ice was FRESH,” I correct him, unable to keep the grin off my face. “Rolf had just resurfaced it. You tripped over nothing. On camera. During a drill we teach to eight-year-olds.”
“Coach Turnbull’s face,” John wheezes, wiping tears from his eyes. “I thought he was gonna have a stroke. He just stood there, clipboard in hand, staring at you like you’d personally insulted his ancestors.”
“I’m pretty sure I heard him whisper ‘why me’ under his breath,” Brian adds.
Pratasky buries his face in his hands while the rest of us pound the table, the booth shaking with collective laughter. Even Noley cracks a smile, which for him is basically a standing ovation.
The freshmen, emboldened by beer andJ the realization that they’re not actually going to be sacrificed, start peppering me with questions. Joey leans forward, eyes bright with that rookie hunger.
“So, Stew ... the Olympics. What was it actually like? Playing against the Russians in the final?”
The table quiets slightly, everyone leaning in. This is the story they’ve all heard pieces of, but never from me directly.
“Loud,” I say, taking a long pull from my Diet Coke. “Louder than anything you’ve ever experienced. The building was shaking. You could feel the crowd in your chest, like a second heartbeat.”
“Were you nervous?” Noley asks, his deep voice cutting through the ambient noise.
“Terrified,” I admit. “For about thirty seconds. Then the puck dropped, and it was just hockey. Same game we’ve been playing since we were kids. You stop thinking about the gold medal, the country, all of it. You just play.”
“And then you won,” Joey breathes, like he’s recounting a religious experience.
“And then we won.”
“CANADA!” Randy bellows, raising his pitcher, and half the bar turns to stare at us.
John seizes the moment to shift the interrogation. “Okay, okay, enough about the hockey stuff. Let’s talk about the REAL questions.” He turns to the freshmen with a devilish grin. “You boys seen the tabloids this summer? Our captain here has been BUSY.”
Oh no.
“FOR ART”
“Monica Bellucci,” John continues, drawing out each syllable like he’s savoring fine wine. “MONICA. BELLUCCI. The most beautiful woman on the planet. And our boy Mikey here spent a week in Sicily with her. Doing a ‘photo shoot.’” He air-quotes aggressively. “Fuck, Monica is hot. She was even in the Matrix. Our captain was hanging out with a literal movie star.”
“It was work,” I mutter, but I’m already losing this battle.
“Work,” John repeats, nodding sagely. “Sure. Work. With Monica Bellucci. In a villa. In Sicily.” He turns to the freshmen. “Boys, have you SEEN Monica Bellucci?”
Joey and Chris exchange glances that confirm they have, in fact, seen Monica Bellucci.
Joey’s voice cracks like he just took a slapshot to the throat. “Dude, she’s—fuck, man—she’s not even human.” He runs a hand through his hair, eyes glazed like he’s already three beers deep just from thinking about her. “She’s what you’d get if some Renaissance painter and a fuckin’ angel had a kid, then aged her up to that perfect point where she’s still got that smolder but you know she could also ruin your life with one look.” He shakes his head, gripping his glass like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. “And you worked with her. Christ, Stew.”
“A GODDESS,” John agrees emphatically. “And Stewart here was her ‘co-star.’ Doing ‘professional modeling.’” More air quotes. “In various states of undress. For ART.”
“It was a legitimate campaign for Dolce & Gabbana,” I try to explain, but the table is having none of it.
“Did you see her naked?” Randy asks point-blank, because Randy has never possessed a filter in his entire life.
“We were both naked at various points,” I admit, and the booth explodes.
“BOTH NAKED!”
“AT VARIOUS POINTS!”
“STEWART, YOU ABSOLUTE LEGEND!”
“It’s called modeling!” I protest over the chaos. “There were like fifty people on set! It’s not what you’re thinking!”
“Oh, we’re thinking it,” Don assures me. “We’re thinking it HARD.”
John’s about to pile on when he catches something in my expression—a slight flinch I couldn’t quite suppress.
“Wait.” He holds up a hand, silencing the table with captain-adjacent authority. “Wait, wait, wait. What was that?”
“What was what?”
“That face. You made a face when you said naked. There’s more.” His eyes narrow. “Stewart. What aren’t you telling us?”
I gulp my Diet Coke, buying time. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s SOMETHING,” Randy counters. “Spill.”
I sigh, knowing there’s no escape. “Fine. Before the shoot ... they had to, uh, prep me.”
“Prep you how?” Joey asks, innocent as a lamb walking into a slaughterhouse.
“They shaved me.”
Silence. Beautiful, confused silence.
“Shaved you where?” Noley asks slowly.
“Everywhere.”
More silence. Then John’s face splits into the widest grin I’ve ever seen.
“Everywhere,” he repeats.
“Chest, back, arms, legs...” I trail off.
“AND?” Don prompts.
I stare at the ceiling. “And ... everything else.”
“EVERYTHING ELSE!” John roars.
“THEY SHAVED HIS JUNK!”
“STEWART GOT A PROFESSIONAL BALL SHAVE!”
“FOR ART!”
“Some Italian woman with a straight razor,” I mutter, which only makes it worse.
“A STRAIGHT RAZOR!”
“ON HIS BALLS!”
“THAT’S HOW THE PROFESSIONALS DO IT!”
The booth is absolute pandemonium. Pratasky is literally crying. Brian has his head down on the table, shoulders shaking. The freshmen look like they’ve just witnessed a religious experience.
“Did she ... did she have to hold it?” Randy manages between gasps.
“I’m not answering that.”
“HE’S NOT DENYING IT!”
“SOMEONE HELD STEWART’S JUNK FOR ART!”
“DOLCE AND GABBANA TOUCHED HIS DOLCE AND GABBANAS!”
I should be mortified. Part of me is. But watching John wheeze, watching the freshmen bond with the veterans over my humiliation, watching the whole table come together in shared, merciless joy—this is exactly what the team needs. This is how you build chemistry. This is how you turn a roster into a family.
“You’re all terrible people,” I announce, which only makes them laugh harder.
“WE LOVE YOU, CAPTAIN SMOOTH-BALLS!”
I also trained a lot
John isn’t done. He pulls out his phone, scrolling with theatrical deliberation. “But WAIT. There’s MORE. Because apparently, Monica Bellucci wasn’t enough. No, no. Our boy also had to go to London and get photographed making out with Molly Treadwell at Heathrow.”
He turns the phone around to show the table the infamous arrival photo—Molly pulling me into the car, our lips locked, flashes exploding in the background.
“DUDE,” Pratasky breathes.
“Molly Treadwell,” Brian says slowly, like he’s trying to process. “The supermodel. The redhead. The one who’s like ... six feet tall and looks like she was carved by angels.”
“She’s five-eleven,” I correct automatically, which only makes things worse.
“HE KNOWS HER EXACT HEIGHT!”
“They’re DATING!”
“Mickey’s got a TYPE and the type is INTERNATIONAL SUPERMODELS!”
John is practically crying with joy. “So let me get this straight. In one summer, you won Olympic gold, shot a campaign with Monica Bellucci where you were BOTH NAKED, and started dating one of the most famous models in the world. Did I miss anything?”
“I also trained a lot,” I offer weakly.
“TRAINED A LOT,” John howls, making an obscene pumping motion with his fist. “He TRAINED A LOT. Boys, this is your captain. This is the standard. Olympic gold, naked Italian goddesses, British supermodel girlfriends, and he TRAINED A LOT.”
The freshmen are looking at me like I’ve grown a second head. Joey’s mouth is literally hanging open.
“How...” Chris starts, then stops, shaking his head. “How do you even ... how does that happen?”
“I honestly have no idea,” I admit, and for once, I’m being completely sincere.
“It’s because he’s pretty,” Randy declares, reaching over to pinch my cheek. “Look at this face. This is a face that sells underwear. This is a face that makes Italian actresses take their clothes off.”
I swat his hand away. “Can we talk about literally anything else?”
“NO,” the table responds in unison.
“We’re going to talk about this forever,” John informs me. “This is going in the team history books. Chapter One: Michael Stewart, Olympic Champion, Underwear Model, International Playboy.”
“I hate all of you.”
“You love us,” Don counters. “We’re your family now, pretty boy. And family means we get to bust your balls about dating Monica Bellucci for the rest of eternity.”
Pretty boy. Great. I really hope that one doesn’t stick.
“I didn’t DATE Monica Bellucci! I worked with her! She’s married!”
“To VINCENT CASSEL,” John adds, like this somehow makes it worse. “The French actor! Who is also impossibly cool! Stewart’s out here rubbing elbows with the European elite while we’re eating dining hall mystery meat!”
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