Page 3 of Afterglow
His skin reddens. “Thisis your best? You’re so fucking aggravating. Do you even hear yourself?”
My sister cuts in again, her lips tightening into a line. “This is why he doesn’t like coming home.”
“Yeah?” Parker’s green eyes bolt to mine. “Then don’t come home.”
The muscle in his jaw ripples before he turns to stomp away. As best as one can stomp away on a rubber floor.
Miller circles an arm around my padded waist and breathes out. “Sorry, he’s such a dick, Fletch.”
I reciprocate by squeezing her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”
My sister pulls her phone from a pocket with a half-laugh. “I’m gonna go help Cam. Rav fell asleep on his shoulder before he could get his skates off, and he’s stranded.”
“No worries,” I say, worrying about literally every goddamn thing. “Call me when you get to the hotel.”
Her tall frame disappears down the corridor in the opposite direction. I head to the locker room, hoping for some quiet time to sit with my guilt.
People say my brother’s looking out for me, but Parker wants for me what he actually wants for himself. Sometimes it’s like I’m living someone else’s life. Playing puck and on the road all the time. I’d rather be in bed with a book, forgetting the world exists while sifting through well-worn pages. Bonus points if it’s a comfort reread, and the Decemberists anguish softly in the background while sandalwood incense releases swirls of smoke around the room.
I can almost smell it, but the stench of hockey gear overpowers my imagination. My ass plops onto a bench.
“When they said family skate, I don’t think they meant yourwholefamily, Donny.”
Goalies are notoriously weirdandannoying, but Wade Boehner likes to remind us that he’s not half as annoying as he once was, and nowhere near as annoying as he could be.
“A little late to be testing out a new nickname, dontcha think?”
“Fletchy doesn’t have the same ring to it. Donny, on the other hand,” —he snaps and points a finger gun at me— “Donny is solid. Shortened last names are classic.”
I stand to remove the hockey sweater from my chest. “If you say so.”
Landon does the same, just past Wade. “Why are you so mopey today? Is your brother still being an asshole?”
My left shoulder lifts and drops. “When is he not?” The bench welcomes my sweaty, padded ass again as I pry gear from my torso.
Wade gets rid of his chest protector and compression shirt, revealing a vintage-style heart tattoo on his left pec. In a blocky sports font, it readsProperty of Freckles.
Lucky, loved-on bastard.
“Take a picture and sell it online, Donny,” Wade interrupts my staring, “It’ll last forever.”
I roll my eyes.
“You, too” —his arms stretch apart — “could be property of a certain raven-haired beauty. If you weren’t a big ol’ scaredy-cat.”
“I’m not a scaredy-cat.”
I’m totally a scaredy-cat. The biggest.
“It’s true, Fletch,” Landon adds. At least he’s not going along with Wade’s new-nickname bullshit. “You’ve talked a big game over the years.”
“Right? Remember that time he said he was gonna—” Wade clicks his tongue with a loud pop while thrusting his hips and miming seating someone on his lap. “Whoosh.” His hand moves mid-air as if swinging a revolving door.
I groan and hide my eyes behind clammy palms.
After several years, they can’t let it go. I shouldn’t be held responsible for something I said when my spongy, underdeveloped frontal lobe was soaked in scotch.
“I’d sit her on my cock and spin her like a top,” were my exact words. The sentiment was as true then as it is now, but with no plan of execution, saying it out loud meant a lifetime of shit doled out by the starting lineup of the Ottawa Regents.
