Page 47 of Slew Foot
Rafe had been eyeing the ribs, but everyone had pressured him into getting the smoked brisket. It wasn’tbadbut Rafe was more of a pulled pork with vinegary Eastern Carolina sauce kinda guy. Brisket always seemed, liketoorich.
But when he said that to Ben Estrada on their way out of the restaurant, he looked scandalized. Rafe was pretty sure that was the right word for it anyway. Definitelynotokay with the idea.
It turned out Ben wasfromTexas and his uncle owned the restaurant and that was why they’d gone there, and Rafe had accidentally insulted his family and his culture or something.Shit.
Sometimes Rafe thought someone should keep him from talking at all. He wasn’t surewhobut it seemed like a good idea to let someone else be in charge.
So Rafe told Ben that even though he wasn’t a brisket guy, the pinto beans and coleslaw had been bomb, then made a hurried excuse about having to ask Mickey something and ran away.
Relieved, he found Mickey in the line of guys walking toward the bus that would take them back to the hotel and fell into step beside him.
Mickey gave him a small smile, then returned to doing something on his phone.
“Hey, Turtle. You gonna join us for a movie tonight?” Tanner asked, his expression hopeful.
“Hell yeah,” Rafe said, and Tanner let out a whoop and galloped away to rope more people in. Not like, literally though. He didn’t have a lasso. But it was Texas and Tanner so it wouldn’t have surprised Rafe at all if he did.
“You notice how he never asksmeif I mind having half the team cram into our room,” Mickey said drily.
Rafe frowned. “You want me to tell him?—”
“No.” Mickey settled a hand on his arm. “No, I’m mostly kidding. But you’re sweet. Thank you.”
Feeling pleased Mickey wasn’t actually upset about it, Rafe jogged onto the bus and plopped into his seat, beaming when Mickey joined him a moment later.
Brisket or not, this was turning out to be a pretty great trip so far.
Back at the hotel, guys went to their rooms to change into sweats or pajamas before knocking on Mickey’s door.
Mickey, Tanner, and Rafe ended up piled on Mickey’s bed.
The room was actually quite large and Mickey would have happily sat on the floor, but he’d gotten flattened against the boards in their last game and ended up with a pretty nasty bruise along his hip and ass. Sitting on the plane had sucked and being on the floor for a couple of hours would hurt like the devil, so Mickey sighed and resigned himself to a couple of hours of being crammed close to Rafe.
Jesse and Connor disappeared to call their girls for the usual nightly video chat but said they’d be back after. Anker Henriksen, Graham Pennington, Ben Estrada, and a handful of rookies and call-ups joined them and—to everyone’s surprise—Luke Crawford came too.
Everyone stared.
“What?” Crawford drawled after he’d commandeered the large, comfortable chair by the window by glaring at the rookies until they walked away and found a spot on the floor.
“Youneverdo team shit like this at the hotel,” Tanner said, his tone accusing.
Crawford shrugged, draping one arm over the back of the chair, thighs spread wide as he got comfortable. “Well, Hoyt pulled me and a couple of other guys aside to tell me he didn’t want us to go out tonight. I had to dosomethingother than jerk it.”
“Yeah, why is that?” Tanner asked with a frown.
“I mean, chafing really sucks?—”
Tanner snatched a pen off the table and fired it at Crawford’s head. “I don’t want to hear about your nasty-ass dick. I mean why did you guys have to stay in tonight?”
Crawford caught the pen midair and fired it back. Tanner ducked and it pinged off the wall before clattering back onto the table. Mickey was going to kill them both if he got charged for damages.
Crawford snickered. “Riiight, you weren’t here for the whole thing last season.”
“Here forwhatwhole thing?” Tanner asked.
“Oh, some of us went out last year when we were playing here,” Crawford said with a grin. “And some of us got in a bar fight.”
“Dude, no way,” Ben Estrada said. He’d piled onto the other bed with Anker and Graham. “What bar?”
