Page 156 of Call the Shots
“Sully.” I stopped him. “Hey.”
“You’re supposed to agree with me, Bear!”
“Even if we find a coach, we can’t convince Marrs to sign them on.”
Denali straightened up. “I want to thank everyone here. Not just the teammates but Mom and June too. It’s the best team I’ve been part of. Even if it came crashing down, I’m proud of us. So…thank you. For everything.”
A coupleof the guys and I sat together in the corner dialing numbers while the rest of them lined up for Cleo’s help. Transfer paperwork and lawyers. I laid back in my office chair while Elijah spun slowly in his, muttering Moosefucker every time he had to lift his feet to avoid hitting mine.
“This is fucking stupid,” he muttered.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“I was looking forward to being defense partners,” he admitted.
“Me too.”
June approached with one of her reusable bags. “Bear? I didn’t get to show you your new t-shirt design.”
The last thing I wanted was another ‘bearly hanging on!’slogan but it was a gift from June, and if this was her way to lighten the mood, I’d entertain it. It wasn’t like I could say no to her anyway.
“You changed the color?” I asked, unrolling the black t-shirt.
On the back it said ‘33’ and ‘Moreau,’ no comic sans this time. I flipped it over and stared. On the front was a picture of me with my hockey stick over my shoulders and the phrase ‘TOOTH AND CLAW’ in dangerously sharp letters.
It was the coolest t-shirt design we had.
“‘Tooth and claw’ is from a poem about nature,” she said softly. “About its unstoppable force. It reminded me of you.”
It was hard to swallow. My words were quiet when I could finally speak. “Thank you.”
June left to help Cleo. The guys had compliments for the shirt but those went over my head. With jerky movements, I grabbed Fridge, leading him to the hallway.
I ignored his questions, my head spinning. This couldn’t be the end of June and me. I refused to believe it. There were trains, flights, fucking skateboards to travel with. The way I felt about June was bigger than me, bigger than I could understand, this wasn’t our finale. I couldn’t let that happen.
“You know women,” I muttered when Fridge and I were alone.
“I know several women, yes.”
“No, youknowwomen—like their heads. The stuff they have in their brains.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I want to tell June how I feel, and I want to do it right because I’d fuck it up.”
“No better time than now.” He folded his arms over his chest. “What’s the pitch? How are you going to tell her?”
“The pitch. Got it.June. I—uh—” My brain wasn’t cooperating, I was too messed-up from everything that happened. “I love how you smell, and it gets my dick hard?—”
“Bad,” Fridge interrupted.
“Fuck. I wasn’t ready.”
“Go again.”
“I think about you all the time?—”
He nodded. “Good.”
