Chapter 24 #2
“I think that’s what I’m saying, yeah.” Pecan taps his bottom lip. “Unluckily for you, Alec, we kinda need him because you’re the opposite. We’re less likely to score in the first period if you start on the ice.”
The captain’s mouth twists in annoyance and I shoot him a dark look.
I’ve never liked the douche. Not since he accused me of watching their practices and being a spy.
A SPY.
My dad deals with freakin’ two-hundred-million-dollar NBA contracts on the regular and this douche canoe thinks I’m a corporate shill. Yeah.
Considering how competitive the NCAA is, it’d serve them right if someone else was spying and they were too dumb to look past me.
“So, wait, you two are seriously an item?”
Because Gregg’s tone isn’t in anyway aggressive or agitated, unlike Alec’s, I shoot him a soft smile. Only for him to smile back.
That smile’s loaded down with a couple emotions that have my eyes widening in surprise.
Is that… disappointment?
Huh.
At his question, however, Pecan chokes on his coffee and sprays it across the booth. Gregg pulls a face and reaches for a paper towel to dab himself off. “Haven’t you been listening?!”
“Thanks, Pecan, I needed a second shower.”
“Of course they’re an item. Zach’d never mess with Denny.”
“Is she blackmailing you or something?” Alec sneers.
“You don’t want me to play next week, do you?” Zach inserts, his tone softer than silk as he toys with a strand of my hair.
It makes me wish that smug contentedness was back and not this twisted tension.
“You’re touchy about her.” Alec folds his arms across his chest. “It’s caused a lot of arguments—”
“I was touchy about her before, so you can bet your ass that’s doubled now.
“You’re so quick to tell me I’m a walk-on, Alec. You forget that I can walk off too.”
Alec’s shoulders stiffen. “You wouldn’t risk your spot.”
“What spot?” Pecan counters. “He doesn’t technically have one, does he? Except Coach Ridley keeps centering his plays around him as a forward so… maybe he does and no one told him.”
Zach thanks Lex when she places a massive plate of food in front of him. “Make sure to dose Alec’s breakfast with Ex-Lax, Lex. I think he’s having stomach troubles.”
Lex’s brows lift. “He does look constipated.”
Snickering, I shoot her a grin when she winks at me.
I get the feeling I missed something Alec said because the next thing I know, Zach’s biting off, “She’s my girlfriend.
” The words no way match his tone. This is a declaration of war.
And it settles something inside me. Something that quivers to life.
Something that didn’t dare to before. “So you better watch your words, Alec, or you’ll be down a player. ”
When Lex serves the captain, I turn to Zach with a warning look. “Your ego will get the better of you.”
Hey, just because I like what he had to say doesn’t mean I won’t give him shit for it.
“Has nothing to do with my ego. Everything to do with statistics, D. And if that’s what I have to wield around like a sledgehammer to get him to back off, then I will. Who I date has nothing to do with him or the team. He’s overstepping.”
I place my hand on his knee and gently squeeze.
Once Lex’s done serving us, an unlikely alliance pops up in the form of her and Gregg. She snags one of the stools that sit at the edge of booths for overflow and drags the extra over to ours.
“I’m taking my break with you,” she proclaims, then makes it clear she’s here to talk to me.
Outside of Dopie’s and the fact we have modern civilization together, I’ve never talked to her before. But for whatever reason, she’s chosen this moment of female solidarity and I dig it.
“Didja watch Passion Island last night?”
“Passion Island?” Pecan hmphs. “Hailey likes that show. She digs Fabio. Who calls their kid Fabio?”
“The mothers of sons who stole their mom’s romance novels,” Lex teases.
“Huh?”
“Fabio was a famous cover model on romance novels.”
Our small group tenses when a voice enters the fray. Wynter Kinnock, she of Pi fame, shoots us a wary smile and a ‘hi.’
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to intrude.”
“You’re not intruding,” is Lex’s kind reply.
“Yeah, take a seat if you want. I need all the estrogen around me I can get. The testosterone fumes are particularly suffocating today.”
Shyly, she waves but borrows a stool from another booth and slips onto it. She shoves her phone at Pecan who, frowning, accepts it. “That’s Fabio.”
I poke at an avocado cube that’s fallen onto my dish. “Your mom had a crush on him when she was a teenager, Pecan.”
“How do you know that, D?”
“Because, spoiler, we talk about things that aren’t you.”
Though heat burnishes his cheeks, he grouses, “Why aren't I called Fabio then?”
“I don’t know. Ask her!”
“I recognize him.” Pecan takes a sip of coffee then another sip of soda immediately after—honestly, he has guts of steel. “She has a whole collection in her library. I just thought she liked the books.”
Wynter hoots. “I’m sure she does.”
“She likes the covers more,” Lex cackles.
“There’s a Fabian in my ENV class.” Gregg peers at the picture on Wynter’s cell. “Weird kid. From England. Intense. Looks nothing like that guy.”
“He’s in my computer science class too,” Pecan inserts. “Definitely weird.”
“We share an elective.” Lex defends, “He’s cute! Don’t be mean.”
“Weird.”
“Cute!”
“WEIRD.” Gregg smirks when Lex huffs.
“You have no taste anyway, Gregg. You’re not allowed an opinion.” To me, she gags. “He likes Nevaeh.”
“On Passion Island? Ugh! She’s so bitchy. Why would you like her? She has the personality of a piranha.”
“What a way to go though,” he says dreamily.
As we delve into last night’s episode, I keep an ear open for any other outbursts.
Alec’s good sense seems to have kicked in—the last thing the team needs is to be down a player like Zach—so shit’s relatively quiet.
The fact that Zach needs eyes on him while he’s playing yet offered to skip a game for my honor has me squirming inside.
As a grand gesture, for a hockey player looking to get drafted into the NHL, there isn’t much grander.
The guys mostly bicker about their last game, chirping and talking big when, Zach’s skills aside, that mess against Georgetown was close to the wire.
When the end of Lex’s break nears, I shoot her and Wynter a grateful smile. “Thanks for keeping me company, guys.”
“No worries, Denver. We’ll have to chat again sometime.”
“I’d like that.”
And I’m not even lying.
I’ve always had guy friends. Always. It’s just what I do.
My failsafe. I’ve been surrounded by them from an early age so it makes sense.
Especially once Pecan and Zach grew into their faces and I became a stepping stone for other girls to stand on to get to them.
But Lex’s cool and Wynter seems sweet—considering both were Pi Beta Epsilon sisters at one time or another, I have no choice but to admit that they’re not all bitches.
Amazingly, neither girl is afraid of the testosterone these morons emit like it’s CO?.
“Hey, you hang around Callan Korhonen, right?”
“We’re buds.”
Wynter bites her lip. “I thought he was your tutor?”
“He is.”
“And mine.” Pecan sticks out his chest like bagging Callan is a win.
I roll my eyes. “We’re both dumb.”
Wynter snickers. “Hardly. You got into Oakwood somehow.”
“Somehow being the operative word,” I mock. “You want me to ask him out for you or something?”
Her mouth parts. “Oh! No! I mean, he’s cute, sure, but, like, no, I don’t, I mean—” She facepalms. “Can I start that again?”
With a laugh, I chortle, “Sure thing.”
“I need help with French.”
“Does he speak it?” Pecan drags a bacon strip through a pool of ketchup. “I don’t think he does. Just because he’s Canadian doesn't mean he speaks French, Wynter.”
“I didn’t—”
“Zach’s Canadian. He doesn’t speak French.”
“He should,” I insert. “His mom wanted him to.”
“He lived in Florida his whole life. Well, most of it,” Pecan reasons. “And the closest you get to French stuff in Florida are fries and Quebeckers.”
Wynter clears her throat. “He’s actually in French class with me. That’s why I’m asking. Not because he’s, you know, Canadian.”
Pecan angles his water glass at her. “That makes sense.”
“I’m glad something about this conversation does,” she grumbles.
“I’ll ask him if he can help you out, Wynter.” I take control of the conversation before Pecan can derail things further. “Mostly we just hang out at the library. You’re welcome to join us if you want?”
“I hate the library.” Pecan moans.
I flick him on the forehead. “Shut up. You have the attention span of a pickle. You need the library so you don’t flunk.”
When Victoria, from philosophy, and her friend hover behind Wynter, she peers over her shoulder. “Hey, Victoria! Hiya, Shay! Denny, guys, this is Victoria Vasov and Seamus O’Donnelly.”
Victoria waves at us but, to Wynter, says, “We’re just grabbing something to eat. Wanna join us? We can talk about that paper in commercial law we have to hand in this week.”
“Denny, do you mind?”
“‘Course not. Please, spare me from a discussion on commercial law,” I joke.
With Lexi working and Wynter sitting in another booth, I’m left with the team, who are all talking smack.
“Mason, Juniper told me you were sniffing around her,” Gregg jeers, making his eyebrows bob like two roaches stuck to his forehead.
Never let it be said that guys don’t gossip about the good shit. It’s just different to what girls discuss.
“Juniper Carson?” I sputter, then lower my voice because she’s on shift at the diner today. “I thought she was gay and dating.”
“I thought so too,” Pecan agrees.
Mason blushes and fidgets with the chain around his neck. “Do we have to talk about this?”
“We do now,” Joker jibes with a laugh.
“Hang on, don’t you have a thing for Charleston Hunter?”
Mason gawks at Pecan. “No fucking way. I hate her! I literally detest her. She’s a horrible human being and I—”
“Nah.” Pecan waggles his fork. “You talk about her too much to hate her.”
“Methinks the jock doth protest too much,” I joke.