Page 8 of Bombshells
Bryce Campeau raises a hand and gives me a serious nod.
“Excellent. Leave in ten?” I twist my head around, looking for my buddy, Drake. “Anyone seen the Drakerator? Why did he leave the ice early?”
“Blood-sugar crash,” O’Doul mutters.
“Oh, shit,” I say. Drake is a type 1 diabetic. Managing his condition during peak athletic performance is tricky. Sometimes he gets things a little wrong and starts to crash. And it’s often worse at the start of the season, when his metabolism has to readjust to the daily strain of professional sports.
Hoping to check on him, I head for the treatment rooms. But Drake comes skidding into the dressing room, his face red, looking harried.
“You okay, man?”
“No,” he says shortly. “I just fucked up big time.”
“Damn. You want me to find Doc Herberts?”
“Not necessary. And not what I meant. My blood sugar was a little wonky, so I headed off to find the juice and the test kits I keep in Doc’s office, right?”
“Sure.”
“Well, they moved it.”
“The juice?”
“The whole office!” He throws his arms wide. “It’s upstairs now, on the new floor. So I’m, like, dizzy as I climb those new stairs, and I’m in this hallway I’ve never seen before. I don’t know which office is which, so I start poking my head into all of them.”
“Whoa. Did you find it?”
He winces. “Eventually. But first I found this super-pretty girl in a treatment room, grabbing some tape. So I say, ‘Hey doll, could you help me find Herberts’s office?’” He scrubs a hand through his hair.
“Wait, you called a stranger doll?”
“I know, okay? But I was using one-syllable words for a reason. Everything started looking yellow around the edges, and I thought I might pass out.” He heaves a sigh. “I didn’t.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“Sorta. Turns out that girl is a player. I think she said defense. There was yelling. I didn’t get all the details.”
“Question.” Jimbo, our equipment guy, raises his hand, like a boy in school. “Do they still call her a defenseman even if she’s a defensewoman?”
“They could say D-man,” someone suggests. “Oh, wait…”
“Does this story have a punchline?” I ask. A guy could go all day without finishing a thought in this room.
“She ripped me a new one,” Drake grumbles. “She went off. And it didn’t help my case that in the middle of her telling me what a turd I am for treating her like a waitress or a puck bunny—her words—I basically staggered away from her, found Doc’s office, and grabbed my juice and chugged it.”
“Oh, man.” I just shake my head.
“So she thought I was an asshole twice—”
“Which you were,” Castro points out. “Even if you were not totally in control of your faculties.”
“Right. And I just kept on being an asshole, trying to stay conscious while she delivered a long lecture about making assumptions.”
“Assumptions you made,” Castro points out again. “And by the way, the women’s team officially starts today.”
“Wow, thank you for that timely information,” Drake grumbles. “The girl was pissed. Now I gotta watch my back every time I walk into this place.”
“Come to lunch with Campeau and me,” I say. “Sounds like you could use the calories. And we’ll guard your six.”
