Page 164 of Pucking Sweet

“Aww, what happened to Snuffy?” I tease. Some of the guys still call him that from when Doc Price thrashed that blonde bunny at the club. “I liked that nickname,” I add.

Sanford just rolls his eyes. He’s standing behind a large folding table, ironing jerseys for tomorrow’s game. “What do you need, Nov?”

“Not a thing,” Novy replies, taking a handful of the granola and popping it in his mouth. “Compton still around?”

“How should I know?”

“Uh…maybe because you live together,” Novy says with a laugh.

“And you carpool into work all the time,” I add. Novy flashes me another and I just shake my head. Yeah, we’ve started carpooling too.

“And you’ve got your weird DLP-ESP,” he adds.

Sanny just chuckles, flipping over the jersey he’s ironing. “That hasn’t been officially diagnosed yet. We’re still on the waitlist for that study at Mayo.”

While Novy laughs, I snag the bag of granola from his hand. This is my favorite batch we’ve made so far. Poppy added a little honey water drizzle over the oat and pistachio clusters after the bake. I move around the side of the table as he mutters a curse at me.

“Give it back,” he growls.

There’s nothing worse than a hangry Lukas, so I seal the bag shut and toss it back to him.

Sanny just shakes his head at our antics. “I’ve been down here since I got in,” he says, moving the iron slowly back and forth over Sully’s jersey. “I don’t know anything happening outside this room.”

Nov and I exchange another look. There are so many ways this could be done. Ways this probablyshouldbe done. But we can’t wait around and watch as this blows up further. We have to be ready to act, ready to protect them the way Mars seems so prepared to do. It’s what we hope they’ll all do for us too.

He narrows his eyes at us. “What is it?”

Novy takes another handful of granola, shoving it in his mouth, and I know that’s his fucking cue to make me talk first.

“What?” Sanny says again. “Come on, guys. I got a shit ton to do, so if you’re not gonna—”

“Are you with him?” I ask.

Across the table, Novy groans. “Dude, come on. You’re not supposed to just ask a guy if he’s gay like that. That’s like, breaking the rules. Right?” He looks to Sanny too.

Sanford is annoyed. “What are you assholes talking about?”

“You haven’t seen it then?” asks Nov.

“You haven’t heard?” I add, one brow raised.

He groans, dragging both his hands through his hair. “Fuck, guys. Drop the suspense, before I go looking for Colonel Mustard holding a candlestick. Now, what the hell are you talking about?”

Novy sighs. “Aw, shit. It’s everywhere, man. The guys are all chirping with it online.”

“Chirping with what?”

“That you and Compton are together,” I explain. “You know, like…together. Like a gay thing.”

He glares at me. “Yeah, I get what ‘together’ means.”

Diving in with both feet, we explain everything that’s happened in the last twelve hours, first with all the footage going viral from last night, which spilled over to the team chats. Neither Sanny nor Rachel has any social media, so I’m not surprised they’re in the dark.

Sanny acts totally surprised by the news that the team is chirping them too. We tell him about Asshole Avery and Mars coming to the rescue.

“He needs to learn his place, or the guys are gonna turn on him,” I say about Avery. “I don’t want my head of PT ribbing my teammates in front of me. That’s not gonna fly.”

“And hey, Sanford…” Novy steps around the table, going to stand at his side. “The point here is that if you everdowant to tell us anything, you can. You or Compton. Because this is a team. It might be a new team, but the way we see it, we’d like to stick around a while.” I don’t miss the way he covertly looks to me as he’s speaking.

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