Chapter 30
(Kit)
“I’m done, tap out time,” I declared, pushing the half-finished bowl away from me. “If I shove another spoonful of ice cream in my mouth, my stomach will explode.”
“And now it’s down to two!” Ozzy announced as I groaned and leaned back in my chair.
Johnny and Rebel were seated across from each other, each with the melting remains of Rocky Road ice cream in front of them.
The rules had been simple. Each band member had started with three scoops of the ice cream of their choice.
Small scoops, we weren’t complete heathens, and besides, large scoops would have necessitated more ice cream than the lodge freezer could accommodate.
After those first three scoops, someone else selected your next flavor.
I’d quickly learned that the history the rest of them had with one another put me at a distinct advantage.
While they knew each other’s preferences, they didn’t know mine, so they hadn’t jumped straight to the flavors I wasn’t a fan of the way they’d done to each other.
All in the name of seeing who could eat the most in the end.
I hated Rocky Road and had known it would be my downfall the moment Johnny suggested it, but there was no way I could let them see that I found nuts in my ice cream revolting, so I dived in.
The fact that Rebel had chosen it for Johnny twice now had clued me in that I wasn’t alone in my distaste for the flavor, but Johnny had groaned and shaken his head at me when I’d chosen it for Rebel, hoping he hated it too, only to discover that it was his favorite.
Now I watched him grin at Johnny over his spoon before shoveling it in past his lips, while Johnny shot a miserable look at the scoop in his bowl, sighed, and picked up the spoon.
“I’d love to meet the person who decided to put nuts in ice cream,” Johnny groaned before he ate the next bite.
“Same!” I moaned. “Peanut butter is fine; it’s smooth; I like smooth. I just don’t like nuts.”
“What about smooth nuts?” Dash asked, causing Johnny to cough and almost choke on his ice cream.
Rebel just snorted, shot me a smoldering look, and kept eating while my face heated up.
Steel’s chuckle sounded absolutely filthy when he spoke up from where he leaned against the counter, having come in halfway through this little fiasco. “He likes those just fine.”
I shot him the bird as laughter erupted around the table to the point that Rebel missed his mouth and got ice cream on his nose.
I loved that Steel came and found us as soon as he’d gotten off duty and changed, but damn, these guys didn’t need any encouragement to give me shit.
Snark was a love language in this band, which fortunately meant I fit right in.
Keeping up was another story. Steel handing them ammunition would just mean it would take me longer to win a battle of the smartasses with one of them.
When Steel had given us his schedule, Rebel had tried to tell him that it wasn’t necessary, that he’d learned his lesson about hunting for Steel at the end of a show.
This way you know when you’ll get to see me…and be prepared.
Threat? Promise? Either way you took it, Rebel’s eyelids had dropped, and he’d let out a low groan that was almost a purr.
Then Steel turned his head my way, looked me dead in the eyes, and said, That goes for you, too. It was a good thing there was a chair behind me when my knees gave out, or I’d have wound up on the floor.
Were we together?
I was still trying to figure that part out when Rebel wiped the ice cream off his nose before polishing off the rest of the bowl, while Johnny still had half a scoop left.
“I concede,” Johnny declared, shoving it away. “Even if I finish that one, he’s just going to choose Rocky Road for me again.”
“And again, and again, until the carton is empty,” Rebel replied, waving his spoon in triumph.
“You are not a nice human,” Johnny moaned and leaned to rest his head on the table.
“You’ve known that for how long?” Rebel shot back, receiving a middle finger salute from Johnny in response.
“Well, I’m done here,” Rebel declared as he stood and carried his bowl to the sink. “Anyone up for round two tomorrow?”
Responses ranged from screw you to go fuck yourself from the rest of our bandmates while Johnny and I both flipped Rebel off.
“I’m going to find something to do that requires absolutely no movement,” Johnny declared as he slowly stood and waddled to the sink with his bowl.
“Same,” Dash said. “Whoever picked out the cotton candy ice cream needs to have their choosing privileges revoked.”
“That goes double for the person who picked up the Rocky Road,” I declared, looking straight at Rebel, who stuck his tongue out at me. “Should have guessed.”
“I thought about grabbing Pistacho too, but even I can’t stomach the stuff,” he admitted.
“Then why the hell would you get it?” Steel asked.
“Because he knows no one else can either, so he’d only have to choke down half a bowl,” Ozzy said. “It would almost be worth it to see him do it too. I think I know what my next pick is gonna be.”
Everybody groaned, even Rebel, who narrowed his eyes and muttered, “Game on.”
“Come on, guys, don’t escalate this; it’s gone too far already,” Dash pleaded. “Pistachio is no bueno. We do not want to do that to ourselves.”
“I’ll see your pistachio and raise you rum raisin,” Rebel declared.
“Eww, no, foul on the play!” Johnny declared. “Wasn’t Rum Raisin outlawed right alongside Chunky Monkey?"
“If it wasn't, it should have been!” Dash said. “Bananas, raisins, and walnuts do not belong in ice cream!”
Ozzy just groaned and looked like he was suddenly regretting his life choices. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t banned, though now I’m wishing it had been. I’ll formally retract my threat regarding pistachio if you’re willing to agree that both it and rum raisin need to be added to the banned list.”
So far, I’d only heard about the banned list, and was only privy to a handful of things that were on it.
Chunky Monkey I was completely onboard with it, considering my feelings about nuts, and hearing how the original Gone in 60 Seconds had wound up on it hadn’t inspired me to want to pull up a streaming service to find the movie.
All marble games had been banned after someone had misplaced one of the ones in the mousetrap game, and Dash had bruised his tailbone after he stepped on it and landed on his ass.
“Yeah, okay, we can ban those,” Rebel said. “But don’t even think about trying to ban Rocky Road.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Ozzy said.
They shook on it, then Dash produced a little red book from his back pocket and started flipping through the pages.
“So there really is an actual list,” I muttered as I watched him add the ice cream flavors to it.
“What, did you think we had it memorized?” Ozzy asked.
“No way we’d keep anything straight that way.
Everything band-related is in that book.
From the bylaws we put together to all the editions we’ve made along the way.
Important votes and venues to avoid. You should read it sometime.
It’ll give you a lot of good insight into how the band has evolved, as well as a glimmer of what you’re in for the next time prank wars jump off. ”
“Thanks, I will,” I replied, already itching to get my hands on that sacred book.
Reading about the decisions and misadventures that had shaped them would only help me grow even closer to my new bandmates and maybe clue me in on some things to avoid. Like anything else that was on their banned list.
“Go for it,” Dash said, passing it over when he’d finished writing. “Just make sure you get it back to me when you’re finished; the rest of these fucks can’t be trusted with it. Every last one of them has lost it at least once.”
“In all fairness, I had a lot of help,” Ozzy pointed out.
“The first time, maybe, and only because Johnny, Jagger, and Hennesy were involved, but the two times after that were all on you,” Dash pointed out as I took it and immediately headed for the brown and tan easy chair in front of the fireplace.
I heard Steel laugh behind me, then his voice as he addressed someone. "Well, we’ve lost him for the night.”
“Nah, he’ll have questions, which means I get to entertain you both with stories,” Rebel declared.
“You have fun with that,” Dash declared. “I’m loading The Hobbit and vegging out for the rest of the night.”
“Yeah, I’m out too,” Ozzy said. “I’ve got a book waiting for me.”
“I’m going to go find Draven and have him rub my stomach for me,” Johnny groaned and waddle-walked down the hall, flipping Ozzy off when he laughed and snapped a picture.
I’d just pulled a throw blanket over my legs and got settled in the easy chair when Rebel and Steel claimed the couch.
Rebel stretched out with his head resting against Steel’s thigh, Steel’s fingers immediately sinking into the red-gold strands to play with them.
He did it to me whenever I lay beside them, so much that it finally dawned on me that he was using me and Rebel as touchstones.
“TV or music?” Steel asked.
“Music,” Rebel murmured. “I’d rather stare into the flames than at a screen tonight.”
Steel cued up Rebel’s playlist, and Truckin’ by The Grateful Dead filled the room while I dove into the contents of the notebook, Rebel singing along every time they got to the line about the long, strange trip it had been.
No bull.
Page two, and I already had a question. “What the fuck was the Great Potomac Mills Fiasco of 2016?”
Steel snorted and paused with a soda can halfway to his lips. “It’s got to be epic if it has a name.”
Rebel started snickering and slapped a hand over his face. “It was beyond epic,” Rebel declared. “It’s what epic aspires to be.”
“In that case, spare no details,” I told him.