Chapter 6 #3
Pacey shakes his head. “No, you can always tell when Posey is backed up. He gets this tic in his jaw whenever he sees us around our girls.”
My jaw ticks right at that moment, and Eli points it out. “You mean that tic right there, where it pops out like a heartbeat?”
“That exact one,” Pacey says.
“Can you stop looking at my jaw, you perverts,” I say. “Staring at a man’s jaw is like staring at a pair of tits, and I don’t appreciate the ogling.” I press both of my hands to my jaw.
“Not the same thing.” Eli shakes his head.
“Not even a little,” Silas adds.
“Not even close.”
OC holds up his finger. “You know, I actually think a man’s jaw?—”
“Shut up,” Silas, Pacey, and Eli say at the same time, and OC clams right up.
I turn to him and say, “Don’t let them treat you like that. You go ahead and compliment me. I’ll be sure to add it to the running tally of reasons I like you and why I’ll help you with your love life.”
“Jesus Christ,” Silas says on a groan. “Yeah, have fun, OC, working with a real wizard. The guy has zero credentials. No love of his own. No girlfriend. Not even a recent one-night stand.”
“You don’t fucking know that,” I shout, losing my cool. We can thank the makeup-free face of Wylie Wood this morning for that and the restricted access to her.
“From the sounds of the outburst,” Pacey says, “we do.”
“Seems odd, though,” Eli says. “Being that he’s the guy who always has a girl with him, even secretly. What has changed?”
I look over at Silas, who now studies me, his hand to his chin. “You know, ever since last year, it seems like he’s paid more attention to us and less attention to himself, and then there was that girl he was crushing on that OC told us about.”
“I, uh . . . I was lying,” OC says. “I didn’t say anything. I was drunk. Medicated. Mistaken. Anything you heard from me was a fabrication.”
Silas just rolls his eyes and looks back at me. “He’s hiding something. All of this tension, all of this backup, it has to do with that girl.” I look down at my skates, and that’s all Silas needs. He snaps his fingers. “That’s it. He’s going through girl troubles, and he won’t tell us.”
“Is he really?” Pacey asks.
“That can’t be right,” Eli says while bending at the waist to try to look me in the eyes. “Are you having girl troubles?”
“No,” I growl as I stand. “I’m not having girl troubles.
I’m having . . . fuck, I’m having bologna withdrawals.
” I grip my hair, ready to lie right through my teeth because I can’t fathom telling them anything else.
“I’m trying to quit cold turkey because Grace said it wasn’t good for me.
So yeah, I’m crushing. You’re right. I’m crushing hard on lady bologna, so if you all don’t mind, I’d prefer for you to leave me the fuck alone so I can deal with my anxiety and heartache in private. ”
With that, I stomp toward the bathroom, locking myself in a stall and leaving the tension, anger, irritation, and frustration to bottle up in my shoulders.
It’s not going to be a good game tonight.
I know it already.
Sending well wishes to the opposing players . . .
“You seem tense,” Eli says over the roar of the crowd while I squirt some water into my mouth.
“Not tense,” I reply, eyeing Vladmir Popov out on the ice. He’s been fucking with me all night, and when our line is called in, I’m going to do something about it.
“Uh-huh. You have a snarl in your lip. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I say as I slam my water down and grip my stick tightly.
“Yeah, I’m not going to take that as a response. What’s going on?”
“Dude, we’re in the middle of a fucking game. This isn’t a therapy session,” I snap, just waiting for the moment we’re called out on the ice.
“Yeah, and I’m afraid you’ll do something stupid if we don’t discuss it.”
“I’m not going to do something?—”
“Change it up,” Coach Wood yells, and I’m off the bench and out on the ice in seconds. I spot Vladmir, who has the puck, and I charge after him with one thing on my mind.
Slamming him into the boards.
I sprint toward him, only hearing Eli briefly in the background, and with his back toward me, I slam into Vladmir, sending him right into the boards and freeing the puck to toss it down to Holmes.
“Fuck,” Vladmir shouts as he pushes off the plexiglass and then turns toward me. Immediately, he drops his stick, wraps his arm around my neck, and starts punching me in the ribs.
Perfect. Just what I wanted.
A way to release my frustration.
The crowd erupts, and whistles are blown as I spin out of his grasp just enough to cock my arm back and clock him in the head, sending him down to the ice.
I free my gloves, ready to take this further, when I’m grabbed from behind by one of my teammates, stopping me from getting out the rest of my aggression and pent-up irritation.
I’m sent straight to the penalty box with a five-minute penalty, leaving the team short-handed, but thankfully, Vladmir is serving as well because he started the fight.
“Think you needed that therapy session,” Eli says as he skates past.
Yeah, maybe, but at least I got one good punch in before it was broken up.
Of course the fans love it. They erupt around me, calling out my name and cheering for me. Sometimes I wonder if they’re fans of my hockey skills or my right hook. I think some more for my right hook. Regardless, it was fucking satisfying.
I glance over at Vladmir, who spits out a chunk of blood. Maybe stop slashing me with your stick, and I won’t slam you into the boards next time, you fuck.
I lean back and let out a deep breath. That’s when I catch Coach Wood out of the corner of my eye. His arms are crossed, and he’s staring me down.
Can’t tell if he’s pleased with what I did or angry.
Either way, I’m probably going to hear about it.
I push my hand through my hair as I move toward the apartment elevator and push the up button.
We suffered a loss tonight. Not because of my penalty, but because we couldn’t pull together any goals. It was a zero-one game. We were all off, and of course Coach Wood let us hear it while throwing a chair across the locker room.
If anyone needs a therapy session, I think it’s that dude.
Talk about blue balls. He needs to get laid.
No one talked to each other. Halsey was pissed at himself for not scoring at least one goal.
Silas was off as well with his passes, making it harder for Halsey to score.
And OC seemed to be somewhere else. It was the first time we didn’t work together.
And that’s bound to happen. You can’t be perfect every game, but you can sure as hell learn from it.
My phone dings with a text as the elevator door opens, and I press the button for my floor.
Eli: Want to have that therapy session now?
This guy. Christ. He’s been more involved in my life in the past few days than ever before. He has a lady and a baby. He needs to focus on them, not me.
Levi: Seriously, I’m good, dude.
Eli: You sure? Because it seems like all this pent-up aggression you had tonight could be directed toward the new change in your life. Perhaps the hot redhead who’s working for you?
Levi: If you think I’m angry because I can’t fuck her, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Eli: I didn’t say it. You did.
Clever fuck.
Levi: Just some built-up aggression. Nothing you need to worry about.
Eli: I do need to worry about it. You’re my second half out there on the ice. We’ll be off if your head isn’t in the right spot. Lawes worked his ass off tonight, blocking shots left and right. We have to do a better job.
Levi: I know. But I promise, it was just an off day. It will be better next game. We’ll get the dub.
Eli: Okay, but promise you’ll talk to me if you need to.
Levi: Promise.
Yeah, I don’t mean that. No chance in hell am I going to bring this up to the guys. Nope. They give the worst advice. I’ve lived through it. They’re lucky they had me to get them through their girl problems. Nope, I can solve this on my own.
I unlock my door and move into my apartment, flipping on the light only to find Wylie sitting at the island, waiting for me.
“Jesus Christ,” I say, hand to heart. “Fuck, what are you doing here sitting in the dark?”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. I was working on your placemat stain and then got tired and started doing social media.
It turned dark, and before I realized it, you arrived home.
I hope you don’t mind that I was in here.
I know you said it’s not a hang-out space.
But I needed the room and counter for the stain. ”
“It’s fine,” I say, shutting the door behind me. Compose yourself, Posey. Be cool. Steady.
“Sorry about the loss. Also, saw that you got in a brawl. Did you get hurt?”
“No.” I set down my keys and wallet on my console table, then take off my shoes. “Vlad punched me in my padding, but I got him in the face.”
“So he’s the one who got hurt?”
“That seems to always be the case.” I move over toward her and glance down at the placemat. The stain is now larger than it was before, spread out and only partially faded. I don’t believe she’s made it better but worse.
“Yeah, don’t look at that,” she says as she takes the placemat away and sets it on her lap.
“I was trying to go for a non-toxic chemical route, but it seems that won’t do the trick.
I’ll do more research and see how to remove this.
In the meantime, please direct your attention to the corner of the room to meet your new fiddle leaf fig tree. ”
Oh, fuck yeah.
The time has come.
Dreams are coming true after a shit of a day.
Come to Papa . . .
I turn toward the corner of the living room, expecting to see a well-nourished, thriving fiddle leaf fig, but to my dismay, a small pot sits on the floor with three leaves sprouting from it instead.
My brow pinches together. “What’s that?”