Page 27 of The Ex Puck Bunny
He chuckles. “I ordered a pizza.”
I tip my head from side to side. “That seems more fair.”
“Figured I’d make it worth your while. So, how was it meeting big bad Badaszek?”
“First, I’m pretty sure his assistant called him Dadaszek. As inDad. Is that a Nebraska Knights thing?” I sure hope my new coach doesn’t have people call him Dad. To this day, I call Derek’s father Mr. Rice even though he was as close to a dad as I ever had.
“Rumor has it Coach calls everyone by their last name. Considering he’s Cara’s father, that makes sense and is pretty clever. She’s a triplet. I can’t remember her sisters’ names. She graduated a year or two after us. I think she was in Heidi’s class.”
Heidi who seemed to hate me. However, if a kiss like that is what she does with people she despises, I do not want to beliked. Only I do. Except there’s a problem, and he’s sitting on the couch with me.
“I think Badaszek is trying to Mr. Miyagi me.” Maybe Heidi too—or use a warped kind of reverse psychology.
Derek almost spits his soda all over the new furniture. “Like from the Karate Kid movies?”
“This is strictly between you and me.” I tell him about being Ted Powell’s shadow. “See? I told you he’s not going to play me this season.”
“He will. You wait. He’ll give you a chance to prove yourself.”
“But that’s not all. He wants me to be the social media—” I’m about to tell him about the “Daily video diaries and engaging posts comeback campaign,” when someone lays on the horn from outside.
“Pizza is here,” Derek says.
“What happened to bringing it to the door?”
“She needs help,” he answers, springing to his feet.
Derek returns with a child in his arms, playing airplane and zooming her around the room.
“I thought you said you ordered pizza. Not a stork.”
A female laugh comes from the front porch. “Ha ha. Special delivery. I have the pizza and some Easter decorations Mom insisted you put on display for when Deborah gets home.”
I spin around.
Heidi freezes when she sees me. She’s wearing dark-washed jeans with stylish rips, pink Adidas, and a coordinating pastel pink off-the-shoulder sweater. Her hip is cocked and her arched eyebrow is locked and loaded.
Never have I been so hungry for pizza in my life. Heat creeping up toward my ears, I clear my throat.
She thrusts the Spaglietti’s pizza box into my hands andlists a bunch of details about the little kid’s care while setting down the bag of Easter decorations which spills out in a domino of sparkly plastic eggs.
The little girl gathers them up, nonsensically counting, “One, twee, nine . . .”
Derek says, “Nuh uh. You’re not going anywhere, sis. Sit down and eat a slice at least, but not on the new couch. We’ll eat in the kitchen.”
“You can’t force-feed me pizza, bro,” Heidi counters.
“Last week, you weren’t eating dinner until after you were done teaching and were hangrier than a starving hyena. Can’t do that to your blood sugar.” Derek steals a glance at me.
What I didn’t mention to Cara is that I hate my phone because it symbolizes my weakness—I can’t live without it because it’s constantly monitoring my insulin levels. I should appreciate that fact, but clearing that hurdle is harder than flying to Mars. In other words, it’s an impossibility. Much like how I’m stranded here on Earth, I have to live with my condition.
Finding the plates while Derek plays “Buckaroo” with the baby—this involves him on all fours with her riding on his back and making a fool of himself, which I have to be honest, is pretty heartwarming—I dish us up dinner.
We gather around the table and I flashback to being in the Rice’s kitchen, only we were much younger. Man, are things different now. We’re all grown up. Where does the time go?
Around a bite of pizza which the kid tries to seize from Derek, he says, “Finish telling me about the meeting with Badaszek. You started to say something about social media.”
“Yeah, he wants me to be the online activities chronicler pro temp czar or something.”
