Page 9 of Zero Pucks

“Your silence is telling,” he said, swiveling around to skate backward. He lasted about four seconds before he slammed into the boards and fell on his ass.

“Hand,” I told him, offering it out.

He grabbed it and waited for me to brace myself on my stick before using me to climb back onto his skates. Jonah’s grin was young and boyish—probably because he was young and boyish—and he ruffled a hand through his hair before taking off again.

He was easy to see in his bright yellow jersey, and I followed him along, feeling free like this. If I stumbled and fell, no one cared here. I didn’t need a cane. I didn’t need help.

I could just…be myself.

I took a deep breath of the frigid air as I caught up with him. “Well, I don’t think it was a celebrity. Their handwriting was too crap for it. I have some super-vague memories of talking to people at the bar right after my brother and his friends left for the strip club though.”

Jonah turned around to skate backward again, but this time, he managed the turn before hitting the boards. “They left you and went to a strip club?”

“Dude, no. I didn’t want to go.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Uhh…because I can’t see shit in a dim room? I don’t want to sit in some slimy-ass, come-covered booth to listen to thighs slapping together.”

“Sounds like a rockin’ good time to me,” he said with a grin.

“I’m flipping you off.”

He burst into laughter again. “It’s funny because I know you’re not.” He was right. “Anyway, so let me guess. You were at the craps table losing poorly and met a hooker who promised you a better way to spend your money?”

“Where the fuck did you get that idea?”

“A porn me and Micah watched a few nights ago,” he said with a grin, and then he turned and snowed me as he came to a stop.

“Stop watching porn with Micah,” I told him. Micah was his brother—the goalie on his rival team, both blind from the same birth condition. But Micah was a fucking goblin, and compared to him, Jonah was like one of those chubby-cheeked cherub angels.

“It had audio description and everything. I can lend you a copy. Top-tier sex sounds.”

“Pass. I don’t think I’m going to be able to get it up again until my test results come back and I get some sort of memory of what the fuck I did with my dick that night.”

He grimaced. “Oh shit. Good point. You get the swab?”

I shuddered. I’d gotten the swab, and I could still feel that freaky pull behind my belly button that sent nerve aches all the way into my jaw. “Mm. Blood work, all that shit. I have to go back in for an HIV recheck, but I’ve been on PrEP for a few years, so my doctor seemed pretty sure I was alright.”

“Just gotta check you for the clap.”

“I hate you.”

“Aw, buddy, it’s not that bad,” he said again with a small grin. He still had the faintest twinge of his Ontario accent. “I had it like six years ago. The doctor gave me this powered antibiotic that tasted like grape Kool-Aid mixed with bitter ass juice. I stirred it into water and pounded it back like a frat boy taking down Goldschläger. Cleared it right up.”

“Good for you,” I said flatly.

He snorted. “Anyway. You were saying? Foggy memories of a bar and then what?”

I squeezed my eyelids shut and focused on the side of my face where there was no vision at all. It was still odd to have a total lack of anything there. My brain sometimes hallucinated shapes on my right side because it never did fully adjust to the loss.

“Tuck?”

“Black hair,” I blurted as a memory hit me. Wild black hair that was impossibly thick and hung over his forehead. And tan skin. And a large Roman nose. And…an adorable smile? A gorgeous laugh? And a baby face, kind of like Boden had.

God, was I making that up?

“Sorry, bud, black hair isn’t a lot to go on. I don’t even know what that looks like.”

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