Page 19 of Call the Shots
Fine. I had my part of the man cave to deep clean anyway.
While I sorted through cleaning supplies, Bear emerged, hands shoved in his pockets. “Do you know what a DNP is?”
“Yeah, I worked in housing.” I paused. A DNP was a do-not-permit, a person who wasn’t allowed in someone’s dorm, no matter the circumstances. There were two packets of paper to sign and weren’t used very often. I set aside the cleaning wipes, pushing to a sitting position on my knees. “Why?”
“I have two DNPs and they can’t come in. Even as a joke. Wade and Paisley Kérouac—Xavier doesn’t have to be here, but they can’t be here either.”
I blinked. “What’d they do that was so bad it warranted a DNP?”
“Ha. Funny.” Bear ended the conversation, heading to his room. “Fucking hilarious.”
I knew how he saw it. His brother’s hookup, demanding personal answers, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I arranged my plants on my desk, pondering the DNPs. Xavier never mentioned anything about the Kérouacs. If they were family friends, I would’ve met them.
It took me a couple of tries to figure out how to spell the last name but eventually I found them online. Paisley had private social media accounts; Wade was much easier.
The first picture was a shot of him and Bear on the ice, bumping their helmets before a game. There was a video of them at a jersey signing, drawing their signatures on each other’s backs, and one of them making snow angels in knee-deep snow, yelling and laughing about how cold it was.
I gazed down at my phone, at a congratulations video of Bear pulling Wade in for a hug, saying something unintelligible over a cheering crowd.
Wade Kérouac was Bear’s hockey captain in North Dakota. The more photos I swiped through, the more my frown deepened. They used to be so close.
So why was Wade banned from Bear’s dorm in Texas?
What happened?
CHAPTER 8
BEAR
LEARN TO TAKE A JOKE
Back in North Dakota,I bounced between places to live while I worked two jobs and played hockey. I used to think unpacking my suitcase yet again was a pain. I should’ve been grateful.
Living with June Basil was driving me insane.
Our dorm smelled like what I could only assume fairies shit out. There was no hot water with the homecoming queen’s showers, and the kitchen was hostile territory, stolen from me. The counters were covered in weird food scales, and her weight-loss shakes took up an annoying chunk of the fridge.
Did I have groceries? No, but it was the thought that pissed me off.
I held up one of her shakes. “If you get any skinnier, you’ll disappear.”
“Comment on my weight again and we’ll have a fucking problem,” she said.
“Learn to take a joke.”
“Learn to make one.”
June and I snapped at each other on the walk to the arena.
And then—goddamn—the Colo, that had the charm of an abandoned, festering building after a natural disaster. I strode tothe locker room, avoiding the pitfalls in the hallway tile. I yanked open my locker to find two used condoms, squeegeed out on the top shelf.
“This fucking place.” I slammed the door shut.
There was no schedule for our rink, no time sheet for accountability, and no other hockey players in sight. I left a championship-winning team and signed up for the fucking zoo. Not even a zoo, at least the fucking zookeepers showed up for their shifts.
Muttering under my breath, I laced my skates and stepped on the ice.
Relief poured over my muscles, cooling me down. Some people are meant to sit behind a computer screen or design Lego sets or fuck on camera. I was meant for the ice. I breathed out the tension and pushed from the boards, picking up speed. Every angle had to be accounted for, but I knew how to ease into the turn. Heart pounding, I came to a hard stop, cutting the ice like it was meant to be.
