Page 48 of Slew Foot
Crawford shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
“So what happened?” Tanner asked. He was stretched out on his stomach at the foot of the bed Rafe and Mickey were on, chin in hand, legs bent and feet wiggling in the air. He looked like a little kid waiting for story time.
“Well.” Crawford leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “It was definitely a country place if you know what I mean.”
Ben and Tanner and a couple of guys nodded but several, Mickey included, looked at him blankly.
“You know, like with the old wooden floor and the line dancing and shit. Six kinds of beer on tap—all of them shitty—and you can still smell the cigarette smoke, even though it’s been years since anyone was allowed to light one up in public.”
Everyone nodded.
“A bunch of us were playing pool. The captain and I were playing against these locals, and they knew who we were but weren’t making a big deal about it, so it was fine. And then they started talking about the league and like, how stuff waschanging…”
Mickey grimaced.
“So like, I can see the captain getting tenser and tenser next to me. He’s got that scowl, you know? But this one dude was not reading the room. He starts spouting off about he can’t believe they’re letting, uh, these f-words play and …”
Mickey frowned.Fuckers? It didn’t seem like the sort of word Crawford of all people would censor himself about … Oh.Oh. The other f-word. Yeah, even Crawford didn’t touch that one.
Or, at least not anymore.
Rumor had it he’d thrown it around before guys started coming out but had cleaned up his act since. Whether it was genuine or because he didn’t want to deal with getting fined, Mickey wasn’t sure.
“So Connor goes all quiet butpissedand says, ‘you don’t fuckin’ talk about my brother like that’, and pulls back to punch the guy in the face. I shoved the captain out of the way in time and laid one on the guy myself. No fuckin’ point in our best goal scorer being out with cracked knuckles, you know?”
Crawford clenched his fist like he could feel the ache of a similar injury. “Besides, I can hit harder.” He bared his teeth in what was probably supposed to be a smile, but he had his fake tooth out and looked menacing.
Mickey certainly wouldn’t want to run intohimin a dark alley.
“So what happened after?” Tanner said, sounding almost breathless.
Mickey would give Crawford credit. He could certainly tell a story.
“The place goes absolutely apeshit. Fists flying, beer bottles getting smashed, sticks being broken.Mayhem.” His eyes gleamed like he’d loved every second of it.
“Did you get arrested?” Anker asked.
“Naw.” Crawford settled back in his chair. “Turns out this guy’s mommy’s a lawyer or something.”
He jerked his thumb toward Graham, who shrugged.
“She’s a prosecutor, yeah.”
“But he knew all her tricks and got us sprung.”
“Wait, you guys actually went tojailthough?” Tanner asked, sounding impressed.
Mickey stifled the urge to roll his eyes.
“No,” Graham said, doing just that and saving Mickey the trouble. “We were detained at the bar and questioned. I explained the situation to the Texas Ranger and suggested he might prefer to not make a big deal out of it and wind up making aninternationalnews incident of it. Thankfully, he was reasonable enough to agree.”
“Not all Texans are bigoted,” Ben said earnestly. “Like, I’m totally cool with playing with those guys. I’d have thrown a punch too.”
After, the conversation kinda devolved from there, with guys chiming in to say they would have stood up for their teammates too. It was funny, it was like they’d forgotten Mickey, Rafe, and Tanner were some of the teammates in question and were right there.
Mickey hadn’t been involved with anyone seriously enough to bring them around the team and Rafe was apparently new enough they’d forgotten he was gay but how had they forgottenTanner? He literally flirted with everyone without a single ounce of shame about who on the team he did it around. Hell, he’d been flirting with the waiter at the barbecue place tonight.
How had the guys forgotten?
