Page 19 of Grumpy Puck

“For God’s sake,” Eve says.“First things first: are the two of you dating?”

“Fuck no,” Michael says and shakes his head so vehemently the resulting gust of wind nearly blows Wolfgang off my shoulder.

Hey.Does he need to act like us dating is so unthinkable?

“I just joined the team,” I say.“When would we have had the time to date?”

Eve shrugs.“You could’ve met prior, but yes, we didn’t think it was likely.I just had to check.”She looks pointedly at Linda.“Do you want me to say it, or will you?”

“Could you?”Linda looks ready to climb under the table.

Eve sighs.“We want you to keep up the charade.”

“What?”Michael and I ask in unison.

“Everyone thinks you’re a couple,” Eve says.“Or wants to believe that you are.So, to that end, it would be great if youweredating.Pretending to date, that is.”

Oh, no.No.No.No.I can’t believe I didn’t see where this was going, but now?—

Michael leaps to his feet.“I’m going to fuckingpretendyou didn’t just fucking say that.”

Seriously, why is he acting like I’m a leper?

“Michael, please,” Coach says soothingly.“The team needs this.”

Looking sullen, Michael sits back down.“This is fucking insane.”

“Well,” Eve says.“We realize this is an unconventional request, hence the extra compensation.”She clears her throat and looks pointedly at Linda.

“And HR gives our full blessing, of course.”Linda fiddles with a folder in front of her.“We do not have a rule that forbids a mascot from dating a player, so?—”

“Unconventional?”I exclaim.“Unconventional would be asking me to unicycle to work in my mascot outfit.Or asking Michael here to be polite for ten minutes straight.What you’re asking is?—”

“A big favor,” Eve butts in.“For which we’re willing to put an extra zero at the end of your salary.”

I don’t know how I sense this, but at the mention of that much money, Michael tenses next to me.“Do both of us get that bump?”he demands.

“Correct,” Coach says meaningfully.“And you’ll get a bonus upfront, as a sign of our goodwill.”

“How much?”I ask, unable to believe I’m even considering this.

Eve writes something on two business cards, then hands one to me and the other to Michael.

When I see my amount, I almost drop the paper.For this much, I’d pretend to date an actual bear, and maybe consider letting him get to second base.

“You get to keep the bonus if you keep up the pretense until the Yetis game,” Linda elaborates.“And the salary bump continues for as long as the good PR from the ‘relationship’ does.”

“Fucking fuck,” Michael says, his eyes on his paper.“We’ll do it.”

“Ex-fucking-cuse me?”I whirl on him.“We will not do anything until both of us agree.”

His jaw twitches.“My apologies,ptichka.Will you or will you not participate in this fucking charade?”

I narrow my eyes.“What’s aptichka?”

“Translated from Russian, it means ‘little bird,’” he says.“I figure if we’re dating, we’ll need pet names for each other—and the day I call anyone Honey or Boo Boo is the day I shoot myself in the fucking head.”

Hmm.Little Bird is better than either Honey or Boo Boo, but I’m not going to tell him that.“Fine,Pooh, I will participate in the charade.”

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