Page 50 of Twisted Ruck

Jay grinned. "I know exactly where he's ticklish."

"I know where you keep your socks," Atlas told him. "I could put spiders in them.”

Jay bumped his shoulder against Atlas'. "Go ahead. That'll give me an excuse not to wear them." He wore canvas shoes without socks, even though the evening was cool.

"You laugh now, but they'll crawl into your underwear drawer and start breeding," Atlas said.

"Then I won't wear underwear either," Jay said easily.

He looked over to me. It was his turn to whisper loudly, "He thinks he's good at making threats. You might've noticed, he's pretty shit." He smiled warmly at me and Atlas.

"Only because I wasn't making threats," Atlas said simply. "If I was making an actual threat, it'd be better than that."

"Are you going to give us an example?" I asked. This banter between us was nice. A break from the tension of the last couple of days.

"I would, but I don't want to scare you," Atlas said.

I snorted. "You'd have to try pretty hard to scare me. When it comes to threats, I've probably seen and heard them all."

"You could teach Atlas," Jay said, elbowing the inside centre. "The last time he tried to get to someone, he put confetti in their locker."

"It was their school bag, and I was seven," Atlas said. "I've pulled better pranks than that."

"Name one," Jay said.

Atlas hesitated.

Jay snapped his fingers. "See? You need all the help you can get."

"What about you?" I asked Jay. "What pranks have you pulled?" I'd rather talk about those than actual threats.

"Epic ones." Jay puffed out his chest. "Like the time I put lemon juice in everyone's drinking water."

"Fuck off," Atlas said. "That was you?" He seemed impressed, eyes wider with a hint of awe.

"With a bit of help," Jay admitted. "But it was my idea. We should pull that on Storm. It would be awesome."

I tried to bite back a laugh, but failed. "I shouldn't encourage you, but I'd like to see the expression on his face." Although, that would likely be followed by Storm living up to his name. The aftermath might not be worth the giggle.

"You should definitely encourage us," Atlas said. "Most of the pranks we pull are harmless."

"'Most of them,' he says." I grimaced at him. "What about the ones that aren't?"

"One of the Devils players put itching powder in the coach's shoes right before he was about to put them on," Jay said. "Turned out, he was allergic to it. His feet blew up like balloons and stayed like that for about a week. He was really pissed off and uncomfortable. They could have ended up worse."

"They never found who did it." Atlas gave Jay a sidelong look.

The look Jay gave him back was pure innocence. "They can't prove anything."

"I wouldn't have picked either of you for pranksters," I said.

"Some of the Smashers don't share our sense of humour," Atlas said. "With the animosity on the team, it was better to keep our heads down. Let them get used to us."

"And vice versa," I said. "Now they have, can I look forward to hearing stories about glitter in places glitter shouldn't go."

"Glitter is evil," Jay said, with a mock shudder. "You wouldn't catch me pranking anyone with glitter."

"They wouldn'tcatchyou," I echoed. "That doesn't mean you wouldn't do it." Yeah, I was onto him.

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