Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 20:57:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: NAU Representative <naupres@yahoo.com>
Subject: Music Shatters Ice - Part 2

Welcome to part two. I know I was not going to put this part out so soon,
but I felt that since the first part was so short I had to put this out.

Paws
naupres@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMER: Remember this story is fiction and is not intended to imply
anything about the true sexuality of the celebrities mentioned or any
personal knowledge about their private lives. And if you are underage go
somewhere else, this is not for you and you should wait a few years.

Music Shatters Ice

Part 2: Dense as Ice

The morning had not gone exactly as planned.  Lucky enough I was allowed to
leave first before the other guy did.  He must have been a hockey fan for
the local university for I know he recognized me, but didn't say anything.
And the only thing we did was exchange names and cell phone numbers and me
giving him my insurance.  I didn't even look at his name and number as I
shoved it into my hockey bag.  That's one of the many things that I was
taught when doing things on the fly, take it down and read it later.  No
insurance, great.  I would hope that he would pay for the damages, but that
did not put me at ease.

I arrived at the arena to find I was a little late.  Most of the time I was
one of the first ones there, but this time all my guys were already in the
dressing room putting on their equipment.

"Hey guys." I called out.

"Hiya Jace." Devon Sian, a defenseman and assistant team captain called
out.

"I heard you got into an accident." Terry Walls, our right winger said.

"Yeah, someone hit my rear while I was just getting in my car."

"She was hot eh?" Davis Collins, the captain and goalie said.

"Naw it wasn't even a girl.  It was some odd guy." I said, I kept it at
that as I was not about to tell them that he looked cute.

"So who was it? Anyone we know?" Devon said while putting on his bucket
(helmet).

"You may know him, but I have never seen him, otherwise I would have
recognized him."  I pulled out the paper with the name and number.  "Let's
see his name's James Bass.  Anyone know his guy?"  I was greeted by a few
nods and a few shrugs.

Terry was the first to speak up. "Yeah, I know who that is.  That's Lance
Bass of the bubblegum band, Nsync."

"Yeah and how would you know?" Davis said laughing.

"Because my sister can't stop listening to their music." Terry defended
himself.

"No, I've seen your car Terry, and you have an Nsync CD playing." Devon
said and left to hit the ice.

Terry didn't say anything and just blushed.  I always thought something was
a bit odd with him, but was never sure.

"Alright, everyone on the ice." I said and headed to my office for
administration work.

In my office I looked over the upcoming schedule for the new season. This
looks interesting.

* * *

The guys came back in two hours later.

"Take a seat in your stalls guys.  Its time to talk about certain upcoming
games."  They sat as I began to speak once again.  "First, Maine.  We need
to find a way to get through their defense.  The only thing I can find out
is that they have a weak power killing unit and an especially weak
transition between shifts.  Next, Alabama-Huntsville.  Boys, don't take
these guys too lightly.  They have been very strong in the past and they
take advantage of their opponents underestimating them.  The thing we need
to look out here is their offense.  It seems they can score whenever
needed: on the power play, even strength, and even while they are short
handed.  I must say that they led the NCAA in short handed goals.  These
are the games which we need to pick up our defense alot.  If we don't we
could be in for some serious embarassment at their hands.  Lastly, Harvard.
Harvard has both a weak offense and weak defense, but their strength relies
soley on their goaltender.  Sure you may say that they have a weak D so it
will be easy, but I don't want us to come out of that series with two ties.
I want those two wins especially.  Coach, anything else to add?"

"No I think that's enough for now.  Everyone get showered and I'll see you
later." Roberts said as he retired to his office.

I went back to my own office and sat down with the schedule.  It was going
to be a rough season.

"Let's see what else is there to look at.  Ah yes, we must keep an eye on
those juniors up North."

The phone rang, dragging me away from my examinations.

"Hello, Jace Taylor here."

"Jace Taylor, this is James Bass. I wanted to talk about the accident."

Great what was I to do now?

"And?"

"And I wanted to apologize again for what happened with the car and the
store."

"Well that's very nice of you but really..."  He cut me off before I could
speak.

"I wanted to know if there was anything I could do for you to make up for
everything.  I really feel guilty."

Terry came into the office at that point and didn't see I was on the phone
and began talking.

"Hey Jace, the guys are having a party at the house tonight and I don't
want to be there.  You mind if I come to your house for dinner tonight..."

I knew immediately what he was trying to say, it had happened several times
before.

"Dinner tonight at my house?" I said looking towards Terry, who merely
nodded his head.  "Need the address?" He rolled his eyes trying to
think. "Here grab some paper, its 519 Terrace Heights, off of the
Parkway. Got it?"  He nodded once again and left.  Sometimes getting that
kid to talk was like pulling teeth.  I put my attention back to the phone
long enough to hear:

"Got it."

And then the phone went to a dail tone.  Great, did I just invite someone
over to my house.  He must have thought I was talking to him.  Just
fantastic. I'll worry about this later, right now its back to hockey.

"Fourth place." I said outloud.

"What's fourth place?" Davis said sticking his head into my office.

"Ah, just where we were put in the WCHA rankings this year."

"You're kidding.  We'll do better than that.  Who do we face first?"

"I thought you of all people would have been keeping up with the schedule."

"Nope. So who is it?"

"Our first challenge is North Dakota."

He dropped off and his face went flat.

"I guess that's a wake up call at the first of the season." He said
quietly.

"Yeah, but you have to start somewhere."

Davis quickly left me to what was little of my work.  It was already 5:15,
I should head to my home and start on dinner.  Great thing about me is I
had two homes.  One was my parents house, where all the kids could stay if
they wanted.  And the other was my personal space with one extra bedroom.
Perfect if friends came over, such as tonight with Terry.  Ah Terry.  Terry
isn't like the other guys, he's the most quiet and doesn't like to party
and dance all the time.  He reminded me of myself, calm and a thinker.

* * *

My house was somewhat of a wreck and would need a little bit of time to
clean up.  Paperwork of player stats was on the carpet in the living room,
college books were on the dining room table, an empty pizza box in the
kitchen sink, and my bedroom looked like a hurricane, blizzard, tornado,
take your pick.  But who'd care about the bedroom.  No reason to go in
there anyway.  So it would be one less thing to clean. I started with the
living room first.  I picked up all the paper as fast as I could and then
shuffled them to get them into an orderly stack.  Putting them in one hand
I went by the kitchen and tossed the pizza box into the garbage under the
sink.  Next the dining room.  I put the stats in one book and then stacked
the four other books on top of it and carried all of them into my bedroom
and dumped it into a corner.  Out of sight, out of mind, for now.  Coming
out of my bedroom, I looked at the rest of the house, pretty clean.  My
attention was turned to the front window as it was becoming dark.  Going to
the front door I turned on the outside light and turned to head into the
kitchen.

The doorbell rang.

Turning around once again, I opened the door and there he was.

"So the party started early I guess?" I asked.

Terry entered, "They started their party and I left."

"Well I haven't started cooking yet, and your usual room is all ready for
you."

"Thanks."

"Any ideas for food?"

"How about...taco salad?  You make it pretty good."

"Sure. Ok, put your stuff in the room and I'll get started."

I walked into the kitchen and took out the lettuce and the shells.  I don't
know why he liked my form of Mexican food.  I guess that style of cooking
hadn't quite made it that far North into Canada.  Digging my hands in I
immediately started shredding the lettuce.  Terry came into the kitchen.

"Need help with anything."

"Go in the fridge and get out any ham, cheese, and anything else you put in
your salad."

"Ok."

Terry pulled out a number of hams, cheeses, and salad dressings. Ah, hockey
players, pure bottomless pits.

"Ok now put what you want on your lettuce." I said putting the shelled
lettuce in front of him.

Looking out the kitchen window I could tell the night had come pretty early
for the moon had its full reflection gazing upon the earth.

"Ah, a full moon is out.  All the nutcases are out." I told Terry as he was
jamming cheese into his lettuce.

"Yeah, I think they are all over at my place."

As I opened the ranch salad dressing, it slipped and part of my hands were
now covered in the white cream.

"What would dinner be without a slight mistake?" I said outloud causing
Terry to give a small smile.

Two seconds later the doorbell rang.  I just glared at the ranch dressing
as if it knew something was going to happen.

"I'll go get it seeing how your bathing in sauce." Terry said bounding to
the door.

The next thing I heard was the door opening followed by a large thud.  I'd
know that sound anywhere, one of my guys falling down.  I rinsed my hands
and gave a quick dry.

"Terry are you ok?" I called out expecting him to answer.  I rounded the
corner into the hall to see Terry on the floor.

"Crap." I gave him a quick lookover.  Nothing was wrong and he had a huge
grin on his face.  I looked up wondering what had caused his out of
character stupidity.

"Gee Scoop, you must be a disaster area everywhere you go." A person said
next to the guy who I had come to know as James Bass, aka my bad luck
charm.

"Shut up Chris." He sniped back.

"Yes I should know, he's tried to destroy my life all in one day it seems."
It came out a little harder than it should have, but too late now.  "I'm
sorry, but it has been a busy day. Please come in."

"Thank you Mr. Taylor." James Bass said.

I cringed at that name, which caused the two to notice.

"Please call me Jace.  The only ones to call me Mr. Taylor are the
reporters, and I've had it with them for a while."

The two looked towards each other and nodded.

"Well come on in.  Don't just stand there."

They immediately looked down to what was blocking their way. Terry.

"Damn Terry couldn't you find another place to collapse." I bent down and
hoisted him up and slung him over my shoulder. "Oh I am definately going to
work on getting your weight down.  You may be well defined but you are
still heavy."  I dumped him on the couch in the living area while leading
my guests in. "Please sit down."

"Thank you." Chris said.

"Where shall we begin." I commented.

"First I want to say that I want to pay all repairs to your car.  It's the
least I can do to repay you for all my misdeeds thoughout the course of the
day." James Bass said as his voice waivered as he was looking at me, which
earned him an elbow from Chris.

"I'm really fine..." I could not finish my statement as the cheeseball woke
up finally.

"What happened? I remember opening the door and seeing some cute darkhaired
guy that looked familiar." Terry said rubbing his eyes.

Cris blushed a little, "Thanks." He said softly.

Terry put his hands down oblivious to what his own words were and looked
around for the voice.  And there in front of him was,

"I oh wow." Terry could not take his eyes off of Chris' eyes.

That's it I've lost him, I said in my mind.  Apparently James Bass felt the
same way about his own friend.  "James Bass, what do we do now, continue
talking or..."

"I think we should really leave these two alone for right now.  I don't
feel comfortable with them starting to make faces at each other. And don't
call me by my full name. James will be fine by me." He said.

"Alright James.  I feel the same way.  Come into the kitchen, there is
salad that was going to be dinner before you two arrived." I said taking
one last look at Terry. Yep gone as a loon.

James and myself got our salads and sat down at the dining room table to
have a coffee talk, without the coffee.  Taking a quick glance at Terry and
Chris, I knew they would not be coming to eat anytime soon.  They were
deeply engadged in talk.  James interrupted my glance.

"Jace, when the officer came earlier today, he acted like he knew you."

"Well he probably knew who I was, but didn't know who I was on the personal
level."

"What do you mean?"

"I am sort of a celebrity up here in the North."

"You a celebrity, I don't believe it."

"I am an assistant hockey coach and that," I said pointing to Terry, "is
one of my players."

He didn't say anything but looked in Chris' direction.

"So are you usually trying to stalk or take out celebrities?" I asked.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Oh, that's right you are a celebrity as well. A singer, eh?  I'm sorry I
don't listen to music that much, only what they play at the arenas.  I
figure you don't get to attend many sporting events and watch from the
stands."

"Naw, not with our schedule. But it would be nice if we could every once in
a while."

"If you want to check out the real deal in college sports, you could come
and watch my guys play the opening weekend games here.  We take on North
Dakota." Yeah, that's me always trying to get new fans involved.

"We are staying around the area.  So I'm up for it.  I'll see later on if
the others would like to go."  He proceeded to look towards Chris again.

"So what's with the attention keep getting drawn to Chris and Terry?" I
asked.

"Nothing, I'm just amazed that Chris is able to hold onto a conversation
that long.  The last time he spoke to someone that long was his
ex-boyfriend Rich. And that was at the beginning of last year."

"Oh, I see." Was the only thing I said.

"You want to see a test to see how deeply involved he already is with
Terry?"

"Sure." I said uncertain on what he was going to do.

"Hey Chris," James called out, "Are you almost ready to leave?"

Chris hollered back, "Are you kidding, I'm not done talking yet.  Just
relax."

James turned back to me, "I was right, Chris has a strong crush on your
hockey player."

"Well I could have told you that, except with Terry having a crush on
Chris." I said smirking.

"Howso."

"Because Terry never talks to people in extended periods of time.  He's
usually quiet, not shy, just quiet. Watch this."

I looked over at Terry. "Terry, I was thinking about letting you talk with
each of the other guys tomorrow after practice on what we need to improve
the season.  Then you can report back to me."

"Wait for it." I softly said to James. The reply came quick.

"I, um, uh, I don't think." Terry tried to get out.

"I'm sorry Jace, but after practice Terry will be busy with me." Chris
said.

"Ok." I said while smiling at James.

I was starting to enjoy the time I was spending with James, and I'm sure
that Terry was with Chris. However the next question just floored me with
surprise.

"Jace would you mind if I came to where you work and watched to see what
you do?"

Shocked as I was, I still forced out an answer.

"Sure I don't mind. Tomorrow's practice will be at 1 at the arena."

We continued to talk for thirty more minutes until the conversation had
reached a lull.

James stood up, "I told the rest of the guys that we wouldn't be out that
long.  Plus, if I'm coming to see you at the arena, I need to get sleep."

I don't think James caught what he said, when he said he was coming to see
me, but I sure did.

"I understand." I said mildly. "Just try to pry your friend away from
mine."

"Will do." He said smiling. And he did have quite a nice smile. "Chris, its
time to leave."

"Fine!" Chris said a little angry, but knowing he had to leave. But before
coming to the door he leaned forward and whispered in Terry's ear.

Unable to hear what he was saying, I escorted James to the door.

"I look forward to seeing you tomorrow."

"So do I." James said.  Looking back, he saw Chris dragging his
feet. "Chris! Come on!"

Chris sped up and flew right by me.

"Nice meeting you Jace." Chris said while passing me by.

I closed the door behind them and turned to Terry.

"I'm sure that tomorrow will be a long day, good night." He plainly said
and went into the guest room.

I shook my head, locked the doors, turned off all the lights and went to my
bedroom.  Once in my bedroom, I thought about how Terry was hiding
something from me.  Truthfully though, I didn't care if he kept it from me.
It was his personal life, if he wants to tell, he will, but the way he
scurried off to the bedroom, he might not say anything for a while.  Laying
on my bed, I reached over toward the nightstand and grabbed a loose
notebook to try and draw up new practice plays.  Of course my mind was
empty, it was more engadged with the conversation I had with James.  Funny
how something totally disturbing can turn into an interesting situation.

The phone broke my concentration.  Again, I reached over to the nightstand,
but this time snatched the cell phone.

"Hello." I answered.

"Hiya Jace."

"Oh, hey Zelda."

"I just called to see what you were doing this coming weekend." She said
happily.

"Zee you know that I have hockey games starting."

"Ok, I wanted to know if you would escort me to the concert I am going to
see."

"Wish I could, but you know I can't.  Why don't you ask Chance to take
you?"

"Are you kidding? Chance would not be caught a hundred feet from the arena
or rather the band."

"So where are you going and who are you going to see?"

"Lansing, and Nsync." She said with a giggle in her voice.  My sister
always the big kid at heart.

"So is that the only reason you called?" I inquired.

"No.  Mom and Dad are leaving for the week and they need someone to take
care of the house.  I can't do it because I have to go back to my job."

"Yeah, and they know I'm busy with mine.  Why don't they ask Chance?  He is
just laying about the house for right now anyway."

"You know that slug doesn't do anything.  But I did think he said he would
do it if no one else would.  Hold on, I gotta beep."

"Ok."

"Jace I gotta let you go, John's on the other line. Talk to you later,
bye."

"Bye Zee."  I hung up and snuggled myself back into the bed. Family
members, sometimes they just keep on bothering you.  It just makes you want
to go live in a distant part of the world.

Turning off the lamp, I saw the time. 11:20. I laid my head down and closed
my eyes.

****************

Well that's all for this chap, what did you think?  What can I say I don't
like cliffhangers that much.