Page 56 of Replay

I lifted my head. “No! Not when she pulled out a red condom.”

The table exploded in laughter. And yeah, that was funny, until a few weeks later someone I met asked to see my lightsaber again. I thought I knew what she meant, but when I started to drop my pants, she covered her eyes. She’d wanted to see my actual Star Wars memorabilia, not my dick.

“So what did your girl really say?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Was it dirty?”

Crash answered for me. “No, it was about what we can’t talk about. Right, Ducky?”

I nodded, but the conversation had taken off on its own. “What are we not allowed to talk about? Threesomes when it’s two guys?”

“Are we not allowed to talk about that?”

“Some people still freak out about the gay thing.”

“Ducky and his girl had a threesome with a guy?”

I said no, but no one was listening to me. They went off the rails talking about threesomes and how to describe if the two same-gendered people got with each other or not, and I actually learned some things. That led to the guys talking about vacations and where the best places to go were in the offseason, and suddenly the meal was over.

We’d managed to get through it without anyone getting more than a warning about mentioning the banned topic. Cooper had let everyone off, so he put down his card to pay for the meal.

“Good job, Ducky,” he said when I paused to thank him for the food.

“Me? I thought we couldn’t talk about…you know.”

He shook his head. “Once you got everyone talking about sex, we managed the meal without anyone obsessing over the game.”

I snorted. “I guess you can say it since you’re paying.”

He took back the card from the waitstaff, signing on to what I was pretty sure was a very generous tip.

“I can say it because I’m making up the rules.” He slipped the receipt into his wallet and grinned. “Now, let’s get back for curfew and a good night’s sleep.”

Chapter 18

My Path to Academic Glory

Katie

Josh didn’t answer my text right away, which made sense. He was playing a game, and he couldn’t have the phone on the bench or the ice with him. I could only imagine the number of phones that would be destroyed if they did that.

Actually, I could probably work out a formula. Say, so many guys on the team, with one phone per person…

My phone ringing distracted me while I was still working on variables, like how often a puck might hit a player, perhaps when they were blocking shots, or a check against the boards and the force that would have. They didn’t have pockets in those uniforms, did they?

For a moment, something very much like anticipation sparked at the idea of Josh calling me. The call wasn’t Josh though. It was my parents. And unlike usual, my first response was anger.

I loved my parents. They were great. Supportive and loving. But what they’d done in high school—that was wrong. Even if I understood their reasoning. There was a weight of expectations they had for us, and once Nora decided to keep her baby, all those expectations landed on me. And they’d decided breaking my heart was worth it to ensure I didn’t get sidetracked.

I was ambitious and wanted to do something with my life, but I was doing it for my parents and sister as well as for myself and…that was a big part of the reason I’d left home to come to Toronto. To get some space. Something even more important now that I knew what had happened five years ago.

I couldn’t not answer. And I should clear up this last bit of the past since what had happened then affected my future. I curled up on the couch and accepted the call.

“Katie! Are you okay?”

I blinked. Mom sounded worried, which made no sense. It derailed my plans for this conversation. Everything was going fine. I mean, a couple of my students were being pains in the ass, and my advisor was a total misogynist, but that was part of life as a TA and not anything my parents would know about. Not something I wanted to share.

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