Pucked: Pucked Over Part 16

It's obviously Sunny. He takes the call and covers the receiver. "I'mma head up to the room. See you guys later."

Lance watches him leave. "Do you think I should be worried?"

"Miller's got a point. It's not professional. It makes her look bad."

He pounds back the rest of his beer. "I think I'm done for tonight."

"Yeah. Good plan. It's gonna be an early morning." The bus leaves at nine, and the drive from New York to Toronto for our next game is about eight hours plus stops. We'll be on the road all day.

Lance and I go our separate ways. When I get to the room, Miller's in the bathroom talking on his phone. I key in my pa.s.scode and find a new message from Lily.

Nice goal.

It was sent more than an hour ago. I'm surprised I missed it. I shoot her a message back.

Thanks. U awake?

I lie down on the bed that isn't covered in Miller's discarded clothes and wait for a reply. We'll be in Toronto by tomorrow night, and I want to know what my plans are going to be.

I've already booked a better room than the ones we usually stay in during away games, just in case I need privacy. I'm hoping. My plan is to require privacy as much as I possibly can in the short time we'll have.

I take off my s.h.i.+rt and lose my pants, dropping them on the floor beside the bed. I'm tired. And in need of release.

My phone vibrates with a message.

Getting ready for bed.

I fire one back.

Pic please.

I get one a few seconds later of her empty bed. It looks small. Not big enough for the things I'd like to get up to with her.

Of u. Not ur bed.

I don't wait long for her curt reply.

No.

I grin.

Y not?

The inchworm dots appear.

My face looks awful.

An image follows. She's wearing a paper bag over her head with holes punched through for her eyes. I love that she doesn't automatically send me naked pictures. I hit the call b.u.t.ton. She answers on the first ring. It's late. After midnight.

"You can beg all you want. I'm not sending a picture."

"I have a ticket for the game on Friday. I'll deal with no picture if it means I'm going to see you."

"About that-"

I get this sinking feeling low in my gut. It's not something I'm used to. Girls usually bend over backward, literally, to get what I'm offering. I brush it off and roll with it. "You don't wanna come?"

"It's not that. I have to work. I can't get out of my s.h.i.+fts."

"Call in sick."

"I can't."

"Sure you can. It's easy. You pretend you have the flu, and you call in. Then you come to the game. Then we get naked, and I make you come."

She snort-laughs. "You make it sound so appealing. I wish it was that simple."

"I've already got a room booked. I can rent a car and drive you back the next morning to wherever you have to be."

"You already booked a room? Wow. That's presumptuous."

I can't tell if she's offended. "It's wishful thinking, not presumption. Come on, Lily. I had a lot of fun last time, didn't you?"

"Well, yeah, but-"

"But what? I've been looking forward to getting you naked again. We can even f.u.c.k in the bathroom, since that's our thing."

This time I get a real laugh out of her. "Oh my G.o.d, are you always like this?"

"Pretty much. So you'll call in sick. I'll email you the ticket."

"I'd love to, but I've already asked for the time off, and it won't work. I teach lessons that don't end until eight-thirty on game night, and I teach again the next morning."

All the excitement over my plan fizzles out. "What about after your lessons in the morning?"

"I have a s.h.i.+ft late in the afternoon, too."

"You work too much." I don't intend to sound p.i.s.sy.

She's snappy in return. "I don't have a choice."

"Sorry. That was a.s.sholey." I run a frustrated hand through my hair. "I just wanna see you. What time are all your s.h.i.+fts the day after?"

"I teach skating from seven until eleven-thirty in the morning. My other s.h.i.+ft is from five to ten at the coffee shop."

"And after that?"

"I go home to sleep and get up for a nine a.m. s.h.i.+ft at the rink. Then I work at the coffee shop again in the afternoon."

I blow out a breath and scrub a hand over my face. "f.u.c.k."

"I'm sorry, Randy. It looks like it's not going to work out this time. Maybe when you're back in Toronto, if I plan far enough ahead and you still want me to come to a game..." Her voice goes soft at the end.

"That isn't for, like, another month."

"Oh."

At least she sounds disappointed. "We'll figure something out," I tell her.

"Yeah. Sure. I should probably go. I have to be up in less than six hours."

"Right. Okay. I'll talk to you soon."

"Good luck on Friday. Night, Randy."

She ends the call. I bang my head against the headboard and swear.

Miller comes out of the bathroom, b.u.t.t-a.s.s naked. "What're you doin' up here? And why're you banging your head?"

"Lily's not coming to the Toronto game."

He half-smiles before he neutralizes his expression. "You get blown off?"

"She's gotta work-unless that's an excuse."

Miller tosses his phone on the bed and scratches his leg, right beside his b.a.l.l.s. "It's probably not an excuse. Sunny's mentioned that she works a lot. Pulls doubles all the time and stuff."

"You gonna put on some boxers or something." I keep my eyes on the blank TV screen.

"I'm airing out."

"We're not in the locker room."

"You know, b.a.l.l.s, you can do it, too. No one gives a s.h.i.+t that your junk's a little wonky."

"f.u.c.k you, dude."

"I'm not being an a.s.shole. I'm serious. The scars make you gangster."

"I don't need a therapy session about this."

Miller's sensitive about his dyslexia; I'm sensitive about my junk. But then, almost losing half of it as a kid can do that to a guy.

"I was there, man. I saw it all happen. You're not the only one who has nightmares about it."

"Drop it, Buck." I rarely ever call him by the nickname a.s.shole kids gave him in grade school, so he knows I'm serious.

He holds up his hands. "Consider it dropped."

Back when we were kids, we used to play hockey on the pond down the road in the winter. We never wore helmets or cups or anything; we were just goofing around on the ice. Sometimes we'd join games with older guys-teenagers who played rep looking to get scouted to the minors. Miller's dad was always on the lookout for new talent.

Once we were playing with them and I stole the puck-even then I was better than most kids. It was one of the perks of having a pro dad. He knew guys who could train me the way I needed in order to make professional hockey a career. Anyway, some kid didn't like it and decided to put me in my place. It got a little rougher than it should've, and I ended up with a skate to the groin.

Vascular appendages bleed a lot. Emergency surgery repaired the damage, but the end result was pretty f.u.c.king disturbing. My d.i.c.k looks like it belongs to Frankenstein. I was off the ice for a few months while I recovered. d.i.c.k st.i.tches are not fun, especially with the whole onset-of-p.u.b.erty deal, when erections are spontaneous and uncontrollable.

Everything still works, obviously, but there are residual sensitivity issues, lots of scars, and a bend that otherwise wouldn't have been there. The upside: I still have all of my d.i.c.k, instead of half of it. But I don't swing free in the locker room because I don't like answering questions, or making people uncomfortable.

I shut down those unpleasant memories and go back to quizzing Miller about Lily's job situation. "She teaches figure skating. Doesn't it pay well enough? Why does she need a second job?" It's seriously interfering with my ability to see her.

"There's financial stuff goin' on there. I think she helps out her mom. Sunny's mentioned a couple of times that things are tight. She's got school loans and stuff. Her dad's a deadbeat. I think he was pro hockey, and he got her mom knocked up and bailed."

"That's seriously s.h.i.+tty." It also sounds kind of familiar.

"Right? She was, like, prepping for Olympic trials but the money wasn't there to support her, so she had to drop out."

"How do you know all this s.h.i.+t about her?"

"Because Sunny's my girlfriend, and we talk as much as we f.u.c.k."

Interesting. When I talk to Lily, it's mostly me s.e.xting her, or joking around about stupid s.h.i.+t. If things were different, I could know all this stuff, too, without having to ask Miller.

He nabs the remote and turns on the TV, flipping channels until he gets to the highlights from tonight's game. "Maybe it's not a bad thing she can't come to Toronto."

I glance at him, waiting for an explanation.

"Come on, Randy. You gotta know it's not gonna end well. It never does."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Never mind. Forget I said anything. Oh, s.h.i.+t." He points at the screen. "That was a serious screw up by c.o.c.kburn. I think he tries that move every d.a.m.n game, and it never works."

I get sucked into the highlights and picking apart the other teams' mistakes-how they could have managed a breakaway better, who missed what goal, who's making the best plays-but I don't forget what Miller said about things ending badly. And it irks me, because it's true, and I don't want it to be.

Chapter 14.

Sweet b.a.l.l.s LILY.

I'd like to say I go to work the next evening and don't take it out on my girls that I'm missing a hockey game and an opportunity to see Randy. That would be a lie, however. I almost make one of them cry. That's when I rein in the snap-itude and stop pus.h.i.+ng them.

I have the sound booth guy put on some upbeat music, and we freestyle it for the last fifteen minutes of cla.s.s. They have a training schedule to keep and moves to learn, but sometimes it's important to skate for pure enjoyment. Also, I'm struggling to focus, knowing I could've been at the game that's now almost over. Even more important is the fact that instead of sleeping in my c.r.a.ppy double I might've been able to sleep in a sweet hotel bed with Randy. Or not sleep. At all. And now I have to go home and deal with my mom and work in the morning.