3. Finnian O’Connell
Finnian O’Connell
Me: bro
Dean: No.
Me: you don’t even know what I was gonna ask
Dean: Experience.
***
“WHERE THE FUCK IS BARNABY?” Callahan yells, clutching his head with both hands.
His knuckles are white, his hair looks like he stuck his finger in an electrical outlet, and he is currently missing his left shoe.
“This is not good,” I murmur, my voice echoing off the gravel of the empty parking lot. “This is objectively, statistically, not good.”
Two hours earlier
Statistically speaking, there is a ninety-eight percent chance this ends in a federal crime.
I know this because Noah—our team’s resident analytics geek—has been reciting the odds for the last three miles.
He isn’t exactly part of our inner circle, but Callahan has this aggressive “no man left behind” policy, which is currently backfiring on a spectacular, global, and highly illegal scale.
After four rounds of “The Goalie’s Widow” shots back at the first tavern, Noah is vibrating with a mix of social anxiety and a terrifying amount of hidden, repressed frat-boy energy.
“Um, guys..” Noah mutters, adjusting his glasses, “the likelihood of us finding a goat breeder at ten at night who takes cash and doesn’t ask questions was remarkably high in rural Massachusetts, but the survival rate of the animal under our collective supervision is hovering near zero.”
How we even got the goat was an hour-long detour into a sketchy farm property.
Nico had found a listing on Facebook Marketplace after our fourth round of whiskey, posted by a guy who claimed he was rehoming a “highly athletic” Nigerian Dwarf goat for two hundred bucks.
Nico, completely blasted, convinced Callie that every championship team needs a living mascot, and forty-five minutes later, we were handing a wad of crumpled twenties to a man in overalls in a dark, dirt driveway.
“Zip it, Numbers!” Nico chirps. He is stumbling over a tree root, still wearing a neon-pink silk headband he stole from the bridesmaids’ suite earlier today.
“Barnaby is a warrior. Look at his eyes. He has the eyes of a guy who can hold the blue line. He’s our mascot now. He represents the soul of the Reign.”
The goat lets out a loud, pathetic baaah, its small hooves clicking against the asphalt.
“He needs a beer,” Kovács shouts from the back of the line. His taxidermied squirrel is still tucked into his front pocket.
He bought it off a shelf at a terrible roadside antique barn we passed a few hours ago, insisting it was a good luck charm for the postseason.
He calls it Sir Nut-a-Lot.
“Barnaby is dehydrated, Cash. Give him a sip of the cider.”
“Do not give the goat alcohol, you psychopaths,” I command, though my grip on reality is slipping.
I try to pull up my phone to check the map, but the screen is just a blur of colorful squares. I can’t focus on the letters.
I drop my chin to my chest and think of Scottie. The thought of her sharp, judgmental voice—the way she calls me a disaster with that specific, dry cadence—makes me grin like an idiot into the dark.
I want to call her. I want to tell her about the goat.
I want to hear her tell me to go to hell, then hear her sigh because she’ll inevitably be the one to bail me out.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Nico stops, squinting at a dark patch of woods. “Look at that tree. It’s shaped like a goalie in a full butterfly slide. We must pay tribute.”
“We are not paying tribute to a cedar tree, Nico,” Cal groans, but he’s already wandering toward it with the solemnity of a monk.
“Callie, buddy. You hanging in there?” I ask, slinging an uncoordinated arm around his neck, nearly knocking both of us into a ditch.
“I’ve been away from her for six hours, Cash,” Callahan says, his voice thick. “Six hours. Do you think she’s thinking about me? She was really worried about the napkins being too eggshell and not enough ivory. What if the linens ruin the vibe, man? What if she hates the tables?”
“She doesn’t care about the tables, Callie. She loves your dumb, handsome face,” I say, swaying. “But she will care if we bring a farm animal into the reception. We have to be smart. We have to be tactical.”
“Barnaby is a guest!” Nico yells. “He’s family!”
Fifteen minutes later, we finally find a way out of the woods and stumble into the buzzing neon light of a dive bar called The Rusty Bucket.
We burst through the double doors, Nico leading the goat right past the pool tables.
The bartender, an old guy with a beard down to his belt and eyes that have seen way too much, doesn’t even look up from wiping a glass.
He just stares at the goat, then at Kovács’s taxidermied squirrel, and lets out a long, weary sigh.
“Fifty-dollar cover charge for the livestock,” the bartender grunts.
“Done!” Kovács roars, slamming a hundred-dollar bill onto the sticky wood. “And a bowl of those pretzels! Also, do you have a karaoke machine? We have a rookie who needs to find his manhood!”
We crowd into a corner booth, the goat tied to the table leg, chewing happily on a discarded paper coaster. The emotional toll of the looming wedding, combined with a truly reckless amount of draft beer, hits the table all at once.
“Cal. Callie. Listen to me. You’re getting married,” I say, my head dropping onto his shoulder.
The whiskey is fully running the show now.
Everything feels warm, fuzzy, and incredibly loud.
“I am,” Cal says, tears welling up in his eyes. “I love her so much, Cash. It hurts my chest. Like, right here.” He thumps his sternum. “Remember when we were twelve and we stole your dad’s lawnmower?”
“We crashed it into the pond,” I say, a tear genuinely slipping down my own cheek.
Callahan looks at me through watery eyes. “Your dad never forgave us.”
“Your mom didn’t forgive us either.”
“Nobody forgave us.”
We stare at each other.
“Good times,” I whisper. “We were just kids, Callie. Now you’ll be a husband. You’re gonna have a house. With… with curtains.”
“I want curtains,” Cal sobs, wiping his nose with his sleeve. “I want to pick them out with her. I want a home.”
“That’s beautiful, man,” I choke out, wiping my own eyes, both of us actively weeping into our beers while the rest of the team watches in respectful, highly emotional silence.
Nico is sniffling, using his pink headband to dab his eyes.
Our collective sob fest is cut short when the bartender slams a heavy glass down on the counter and glares at us. “Hey! The goat just took a massive leak on the floor by the jukebox, and it’s spreading under the pool table. Get that thing out of here before I call animal control.”
There’s a second of stunned silence before Callahan shouts at the top of his lungs.
“EVERYONE OUT!”
We pour out into the gravel lot, leaving a wad of cash on the counter and a very angry bartender behind us. We run half a mile down the dark road before we stop, panting, bruised, and covered in cheap draft beer.
Which brings us right back to now.
“WHERE THE FUCK IS BARNABY?” Callahan yells, clutching his head with both hands.
His knuckles are white, his hair looks like he stuck his finger in an electrical outlet, and he is currently missing his left shoe.
“This is not good,” I murmur, my voice echoing off the gravel of the empty parking lot. “This is objectively, statistically, not good.”
I look at the empty yellow rope in Nico’s hand. The knot has been cleanly chewed through.
“He stayed behind,” Nico whimpers. “He chose the bar. He’s one of them now.”
“We lost the wedding goat,” Noah gasps, his glasses crooked, his face smudged with dirt.
I look around the dark road, the reality of our situation finally sinking in. “We need to get back. Like right now. If we’re caught by the ladies, it’s over.”
The trek back to Ivy and Callahan’s house is a nightmare.
Brick is literally carrying Noah over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, while Noah mutters probability formulas under his breath. Leo keeps stopping to look for “the prophetic owl,” and Kovács is whispering apologies to Sir Nut-a-Lot for the hostile environment.
By the time the familiar silhouette of the house appears through the trees, the sky is just starting to turn a faint, bruising shade of purple.
We creep onto the front lawn like a band of medieval thieves. Every single one of us is dead silent, moving in a slow, agonizingly cautious line toward the side porch.
“Please,” Nico whispers, his hands clasped together in front of his pink headband as he stares up at the dark windows. “Please, God, let them be asleep. Let them be in a deep, buttercream-induced coma.”
“If Ivy is awake,” Callahan says, “she’s going to look at my face, see that I’ve been crying, and realize she’s marrying a degenerate. Please, Lord, let her be snoring.”
“Ivy doesn’t snore, she rests like an ice sculpture,” I whisper back.
I lean against a white pillar, my eyes burning.
I check my phone one last time. Still no service, but the lock screen photo of the orange van is staring back at me.
Scottie is going to find out about this. She has a radar for my stupidity—a sixth sense tuned specifically to my failures.
She’s going to see the mud on my jeans and the peanut shells in my hair and she’s going to look at me with that cold, perfect, disappointed disdain.
And I’ll smile when she does.
There’s something deeply wrong with me.
But, fuck, I miss her.
I need her to call me an idiot right now just to stop the room from tilting.
“They’re probably not even up,” Marcus whispers, trying to soothe the panic. “The girls probably went to some luxury spa resort for their bachelorette party. They’re doing normal, civilized human shit. Face masks. Drinking cucumber water. Watching a romantic comedy. They won’t be back until noon.”
“Dear heavenly Father,” Kovács mutters out loud, ignoring Marcus and clutching the taxidermied squirrel to his chest as we reach the top step of the porch.
“Just give us ten minutes to get to the basement. Ten minutes to wash the goat smell off our clothes. I’ll go to church on Sunday.
I swear to you. Just keep the girls in bed. ”
“Amen,” Noah whimpers from Brick’s shoulder.
Cal looks at me, the front doorknob just inches from his hand. His lower lip begins to tremble again, the sheer emotional weight of the night—and the remaining four percent of the whiskey—crashing over him all at once.
“Cash,” he whispers. “I’m so lucky. She’s so good to me.”
“I know, man,” I choke out. “You’re gonna be such a good husband, Callie. I’m so proud of you.”
“Don’t cry, because then I’ll cry harder.”
“I can’t help it,” I sob. “Just turn the handle, Callie. Turn the handle before the women wake up and end our lives.”
Cal’s hand shakes so badly the keys clink violently against the brass lock, but with a heavy twist, the deadbolt clicks back.
We throw ourselves across the threshold, bracing for the inevitable blinding lights, the smell of expensive lavender candles, and the terrifying sight of Ivy standing at the top of the stairs with her arms crossed, waiting to execute us.
Instead, the house is dead quiet.
“They’re not here,” Cal whispers.
He slides down the inside of the front door until he’s sitting flat on the hardwood, his single shoe splayed out. “They really stayed at the resort. God is real, Cash. He’s real and He likes hockey.”
“Thank the Lord,” Nico groans, collapsing onto the plush rug in the foyer.
Nobody makes it past the living room.
Brick drops Noah onto the oversized sectional sofa like a sack of laundry, and Noah is asleep before his head even hits the throw pillows. Kovács collapses directly onto the floorboards next to the coffee table, carefully placing Sir Nut-a-Lot on top of his chest.
I stumble blindly toward the largest armchair, but my legs give out halfway there, and I end up face-planting onto the rug in the center of the room.
Callahan trips over my ankles a second later, groaning as he drops heavily onto the floor right next to me, his arm landing over my shoulder blade in an unconscious embrace.
As my eyes grow heavy and the room finally stops spinning, my last hazy, alcohol-soaked thought drifts back to my Shark.
She’s going to know.
The second she looks at me tomorrow, she’s going to read the absolute degeneracy written all over my face.
I smile into the rug, pulling Cal’s arm a little higher over my shoulder, and let the darkness take over.