The Not-Outcast by Tijan

1

Cheyenne

The present

Iwas lit, weak, and horny.

That was not a good combination for me. Usually my willpower was strong, like industrial-strength super-latexed condom strong, but not tonight. Tonight, the combination of the booze and cocktails had melded together and taken down my last holdouts of willpower. I was gonzo and then I got this text.

Dean: Mustang party! Now! Where r u???

Dean was my colleague, but let’s forget about why he would be texting me because we are not ‘texting’ colleagues. Kansas City Mustangs. That was the important part of that text, and it was getting all of my attention.

Dear God. I could hear the whistle of the impending bomb right before it hit.

That was the professional hockey team that he played on.

Party.

Did I mention the he that was him? He, as in the only rookie drafted for Kansas City’s newer team? He signed his contract after he had one year at Silvard.

The he that the team’s owners were hoping could be grown into one of the NHL’s newest stars, but that’d been a three-year plan. Nope. He had different ideas because once he hit the ice in their first debut game, he scored a hat trick in the first period. First. Period. Playing against five to ten-year veterans, and that had not gone unnoticed. By everyone. After that he exploded into the NHL scene and in a big fucking way.

They started calling him Reaper Ryder after that.

It was the same he that I perved on during a brief stint in high school, and then again during that one year in college before he got whisked away to superstardom. Though, he didn’t know any of that 411 about my perving habits.

The second text from Dean gave us the address where to go, and the whistle got louder, target hit…direct implosion.

It was two blocks away.

Hewas two blocks away, and there went my restraint because I’d kept away from him for the last four years when I moved to the same city he was living in—of course he didn’t know that—but this city was totally amazeballs by the way.

I was doomed. I might as well start digging my own bunker at this rate because I was already downtown partaking in some celebratory boozetails, so here we were. Here I was, well we because I wasn’t alone. My main girl since Silvard days, Sasha, was on my right, and Melanie on my left. Melanie came after Silvard, but that didn’t matter. She was one of my girls. The three of us. We were awesomesauce, and we were walking into this building that looked like a downtown loft, one that was probably the humble abode to someone not so humble, but someone with old-money wealth who enjoyed partaking in their own boozetails as well.

I already felt a whole kemosabe camaraderie with whoever owned this joint.

“This place is fucking awesome.”

That was Melanie. She enjoyed coffee, girls, and she was an amazing barista at Dino’s Beans.

“Girl.”

That was Sasha. She owned a strip club, told everyone she was an angry Russian, even though there wasn’t one Russian strand of DNA in her body, and she enjoyed using one word for everything. That’s not to say she didn’t speak more than one-word answers, but those were her go-to for speaking.

“Whoa.” That was me.

Melanie had jet-black hair. Sasha had ice-queen white hair, and me—I was the in between. My hair was usually a dusty blonde color, but today it looked a bit more lighter than dusty blonde. I still enjoyed it, and I also had super chill electric-blue eyes. The other two both had dark eyes so I figured I was still the ‘in between’ for the eyes, too.

When we entered that party, all eyes turned to us, and not one of us was fazed. We were used to it. Where we went, we got attention. Guys loved us (sometimes), girls hated us (usually), and we didn’t care (ever). We weren’t going to tone down our awesomeness because of their insecurities.

But we were all works in progress, or at least I was.

I was known to have entire conversations and whole other worlds and every version of apocalypses in my head. That was just me. You’ll understand the more you get to know me, but trust me when I say that I’m a lot better than I used to be. Meds, therapy, and a dead junkie mother will do that to you.

But enough about me.

Melanie was the shit, and she really loved the word ‘fuck.’ A-fucking-lot.

Then there was Sasha, she’d been my roommate from college, and here we were, three years out of graduation (well, four for me since I graduated early, and don’t ask me how that happened because it still shocked the hell out of me) and going strong. But we were on a mission.

That mission was more boozetails.

There were people everywhere. Stuffy people. One woman who had a tiara on her head. There were guys in suits, some in hella expensive suits, and tuxedos, too.

Whoa.

This wasn’t just a party party. This was like a whole shindig party.

Fake Stanley Cups were placed all around with mucho dinero inside.

Crap.

I started to mentally shift through the emails—easier said than done when one was halfway to boozeopolis—that I liked to avoid and I was remembering some of the subject lines of those that I had skipped. There’d been a bunch from Dean lately, though, and one was about some ‘Celebrity PR for Come Our Way’ and I needed to double down on the crapattitude because I had a feeling we just waltzed into a fundraiser.

“Cheyenne!”

Dean rushed over to us, holding a boozetail in one hand, and his eyes glazed over. He was medium height with a more squat build that he easily could buff up more, but I didn’t think Dean went to the gym. He was always at work and because of that, I usually saw him with his hair all messed up. That’s how it was now, and his eyes glazed over.

My dude coworker was lit.

I started smiling, but then no. Not good. What corporate espionage was he up to by telling me to come here?

“Where’s the bar, Deano?” Melanie.

I was impressed she hadn’t used her favorite word.

“There.” Directions from Sasha and like that, both my buds moved away.

I settled back, knowing they’d have my back. They’d be bringing the boozetails to me—even better—so I had the time to grin at Dean. “What’s happening, hot stuff?”

He never got my quotes. Or jokes.

He didn’t react and he grabbed my arm. “Have you read my emails?” Then he looked at me, his head moving back an inch. “What are you wearing?”

Nothing appropriate for a work event, that’s for sure.

But I only upped my grin wattage. “I was going for a Daenerys theme. Felt like wanting to tame some dragons tonight.” Except I took my own liberty with the outfit. Instead of her flowing robes and dresses, I was wearing a leather, almost corset-like top, one that wrapped around my neck and hung off one of my shoulders. The bottom was more Daenerys theme, a chiffon skirt with a slit up one thigh. And high heels strapped to my feet.

It shouldn’t work, but it did. It so totally did, and I had woven colored threads in my hair so they were swinging free, free and lit.

He took another step back, looking me up and down again.

“You are,” a pause, “something.”

I scowled. “Dude. Insulting.”

He had to blink a few times because he hadn’t realized I spoke again, then he refocused. “Wait. You’re downtown. There’s no way you could’ve gotten here this fast, even if you were at the shelter, but I know you weren’t at the shelter. And your place is an hour out.”

Case in point, my outfit.

He was right.

Come Our Way. The name of our kitchen had been a marketing and genius ploy, one put in place by Deano himself, because while I wrote the grant that got us five million (not a common thing to happen for a start-up) and got us going, his job was actually to work on marketing and promotions to keep the money, spotlight, and volunteers streaming to our little kitchen. I maintained our grant, and I helped with literally everything else. I was the final say-so on all executive decisions, except for matters that we needed the board to oversee. We had another full-time staff member, but she liked to Netflix and chill (and really Netflix and chill with wine, not the other Netflix and chill) on her evenings. But all three of us manned our little kitchen that fed a lot of the downtown homeless in our corner in Kansas City.

And Dean knew I wasn’t known for one to partake in alcoholic libations, but we were here, and I was thirsty.

It was my last day on my medication vacation. I was taking advantage of it.

It was a thing that happened to help cut down on build-up immunity. Sometimes I enjoyed it, but it was usually a whole struggle to get back on and make sure everything was smooth running.

But that wasn’t something I was going to think about tonight, though my brain was already starting to go there. Tomorrow I’d go back to living almost like a saint.

Where were my girls with my drinkaloo?

Also, I was firmly not letting myself think of the he and that took mundo restraint because he had been a big major part of my daydreams since my junior year in high school through now—especially now since I’ve been living in the city where he was hockey royalty.

I didn’t answer Dean, but spying another Stanley Cup filled with cash, I asked instead, “What’s the funding for?”

“Oh!” He perked up, throwing his head back and finishing his drink. A waitress walked by with a tray loaded with fully filled champagne flutes. He snagged two, for himself. “That’s why I’m here. I got the final acceptance that the Mustangs are going to dedicate an entire two days to Come Our Way. Two days, Cheyenne. Two days? Can you believe that?” He leaned in, excited, and I could smell how excited he was.

Booze breath. It’s a thing.

I edged back a step. “Totally.”

So not totally.

“That’s awesome.”

Really so not awesome.

It was a great PR day for the kitchen and for the team, I was sure that’s why they agreed to do it. It wasn’t uncommon for Come Our Way to have local celebrities pop in for a day or an hour to volunteer, but the media that followed them was always too much for me. I either stayed in the back kitchen, or I took a personal day. Media days were something extra extra. Flashing cameras. Razor-sharp reporters. Sometimes you got a good one who just wanted to spread good news about our mission, but sometimes you got the reporters who wanted to swing things to a more controversial article for the click-baits.

I wasn’t down for that poundage.

Plus, the extra buzz in the entire building was like hay fever for my meds. I couldn’t handle it, and therapy had taught me to avoid those types of situations, so hence why I usually disappeared—and if the entire team was coming for two days, it’d be insane. I was already not looking forward to it, and yes, I wasn’t letting myself think of him being in my place of business. At all.

I thought he’d known me in high school, but that turned out to be a result of some slight delusions from my undiagnosed hyper disorder, so that was embarrassing, and then when college rolled around, I intentionally stayed in the background. But if he was going to be at my place for two days—forty-eight hours—there’s no way he wouldn’t see me, and that information was already bumbling through my head like an intoxicated bee hooked on coke and champagne. It just didn’t know what to do or where to sting. Super painful.

Dean was still talking. “...and that’s why I’m here. They reciprocated with an invite here, and by the way, it’s so on-the-down-low that there’s no security outside. Did you see that? To even get in here, you had to know about it.”

That made no sense.

Dean didn’t care. “And I’ve already met half the team. Oh!” His eyes were bouncing around just like my intoxicated inner bee. “I got tickets to their game on Sunday. They rocked preseason, did you see?” He kept edging closer and closer to me the more he talked, something that was so un-Dean-like that I was having a hard time processing all this newness of what was happening around me.

Dean was around the same age as me, a few years older. Coming straight from grad school with a masters in reinvigorating the world to give a fuck about homeless and runaways, he had an axe to grind and an agenda to save the world. He liked to cut loose. You had to in our profession because burn-out had the highest success rate, but seeing him this tricked out had that bee flying sideways. He didn’t know if he was in my bonnet or my hair braids.

Then I remembered; Dean was a hockey fan.

I was, too, but I kept my undying adoration on the down-low like a lot of things.

Not Dean. He was out of the closet and loud and proud about his love for the Kansas City Mustangs. He also turned traitor and was a Cans fan, as well as the Polars (boo, hiss), but both those teams weren’t in this current building or city. So yeah, it made sense now. He was geeking out on the full freak-out reader.

That, and I was wondering how much champagne he had already consumed because he just downed both those two flutes in front of me. He was so drunk that my own lit meter was heading down into the empty zone. Not cool. Not cool, indeed, and where were my girls?

Just then, I saw one of them.

And my lit meter skyrocketed right into the red zone.

The crowd parted. I had a clear view right smack to the bar, and there she was. And she wasn’t alone.

Sasha had her sultry and seductive pose out, clearly liking what she saw, gazing up at him.