Page 10 of Butterfly Effect

Maybe I should get a dog. That’s what lonely people do, right? Yeah, a sweet, loyal puppy is exactly what I need.

Chapter 3

Would a Drunk Person Be Able to Do This?

Wade

“Well,you can beh-tenne-tenne-tah-tah-tah-dunna woman’s man…”

I straddle the urinal, bunching the bottom of my tee under my chin while riffing the Bee Gees’s timeless hit, “Stayin’ Alive.”

The rest of the team boo from the other side of the wall, where they get dressed. Guess they don’t like today’s song choice.

“How can you hate disco?” I call.

“You suck!”

“No,yousuck!”

Blake Szeczin, one of the starting forwards, scoffs two urinals away.

“Really?” He motions to my up-tucked shirt. “What are you, five?”

“Whatever, Szecze. At least I’m not walking around with a pee-pee shirt.”

Pee-pee shirt? I facepalm internally, disgusted with how easy it’s become to pretend. But there’s no point in showing the world who you are when they’re perfectly content with the part you play.

I flip him off and turn away. Should probably use the toilet anyway. Sitting backward on it had been good luck the past few seasons. Would be a shame to mess up the streak by letting Winnipeg score. I emerge from the stall and wash up, then bump my shoulder into Szecze while walking by.

“Sorry, didn’t see you there, pee-pee shirt.”

Again, with the pee-pee shirt? Get a grip, Wade.

It’s a cheap dig on the 5’8 forward. The other starters are all above six feet.

I pinch his cheeks and talk in a baby voice. “You’we just so wittle.”

He elbows me. “Hands off, douche.”

Jaeger, our captain, and the team’s resident grouch, glares at me behind his bench. “Wade,” he intones. “Grow up.”

My arms fly up in surrender and get to my locker, emptying my mind of every violent thought. Everything except wanting to cut the arms off Jaeg’s suit between periods. That’ll show him.

After trailing the rest of the team onto the ice, my first stop is to the goal. I leave a kiss on the T-bar and stroke it from habit and superstition. “Good girl,” I murmur. “You’re gonna be a good girl for me this game, eh?”

Its metal pings in reply, and I skate back to the boards for warmups.

The backup goalie, a trade from Vancouver named Sullivan, and I stretch together, smirking at one another at the groups of women fawning over our splits. We run through a few quick edgework drills before he goes to the bench, and I return to the net.

Landon hits a puck over, and I scoop it up on my paddle, popping it against the blade. The section behind meoohsandahhsas I throw the puck higher and higher.

“When the puck hits the screen, like a tray of poutine, that’samore,” I sing, imitating Dean Martin. No one can hear how good I sound over the blaring stereo system, which is unfortunate.

Getting a signal for the start of the game, I toss the puck over the glass at an adorable, bespectacled kid wearing my jersey.

We’re at the top of the league, having won the Stanley Cup twice in the past three years, so tending the goal means stretches of downtime between explosive stints.

I fill the lulls the only way I know how: the steady entertainment of my own mind.

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