Page 59 of Puck Daddies
“Dinner,” Oliver says without looking up. “Stir-fry. You’ve got a look.”
I tell them the basics about New York while stealing bites of peppers.
Oliver grins. “That’s fucking awesome.”
Hudson exhales like a whistle through his teeth. “Good. You deserve this.”
I wash up and grab a cutting board. I slice mushrooms and talk while the knife works. “There’s something else. At the shelter, Marta said there have been complaints about Addaway dealerships for years. Yo-yo financing, power booking, add-ons people didn’t agree to. Repos that wreck people’s lives. She thinks if he plays dirty there, he might be playing dirty with the building.”
Oliver sets the knife down. “We need facts.”
“We could hire a hacker to dig.”
“No,” Oliver says, firm. “We don’t break the law. We don’t need to. We use legal tools. Public records. Court dockets. CFPB complaint database. State AG filings. MVA records. We hire a licensed investigator and a forensic accountant. If there’s a story, we put it in front of a consumer reporter who knows what to do.”
Hudson nods. “We don’t give him a clean shot by doing something dumb.”
“Right, but he’s dating a lawyer. He knows how to get around shit. We need to play the game, guys.”
A line goes vertical on Oliver’s brow. “I’ll think about it.”
“So, you got a guy?” Hudson asks.
“I do. Just not sure he’s the right way to go.”
I can always tell when Oliver doesn’t want to do something. His shoulders bunch up, and right now, they’re by his ears.
We finish dinner prep without more talk about Luke. The food hits the pan, the kitchen smells like garlic and soy, and the noise in my head settles for a minute. We eat at the table. I tell them more about Siena’s setup and how the room will work. Hudson asks about repertoire. The more I talk about it, the more I want to do it.
Oliver wipes his bowl clean with a piece of bread. “Talk to Coach. Tell him the summer option is there. If he says wait, wait.”
“Of course.”
After dinner, Coach is more reasonable than I expected. I step back into the kitchen. Oliver is rinsing the wok. Hudson is drying. “Coach says summer.”
“Perfect,” Oliver says. “We can get the hearings done first, then you go sing.”
I hum a low line because I can’t carry it any other way. Hudson taps the counter in time and doesn’t make a joke. He just nods.
Meg texts a photo of the honeycomb with three new tiles from tonight.Wall is growing. We hit fifteen thousand on tiles. Dana says the press piece lands in the morning.
I send back a bee, andI’ll be there at open to drop filters.She replies with a thumbs-up because she knows I already did, and she’s teasing me on purpose.
When the apartment quiets, I sit on the edge of the couch and breathe. My heart is doing the fast thing that feels like stage before the curtain. I’m not on stage. I’m in my living room. I let it slow down. I think through the pieces again.
Say yes to Siena for summer, build a training plan that keeps my voice steady, help Meg with court and tiles and the list, do my shifts at the shelter, skate.
I stretch my shoulders and roll out my neck gently. I set my alarm and put the phone on the nightstand. The room goes dim. I hum once, low, so quiet it’s almost nothing. The note sits where it should. I hold it and let it go.
20
OLIVER
Permits pinned to my clipboard,I walk the block at sunrise and check every line again. Barricades are where the city map says they should be. The stage I built in two days sits level on rubber feet, braced, with a ramp and handrail I bolted last night. Cable mats cover every run from the distro to the mixer. GFCI outlets test green. The fire lane is clear.
Habitat signs are zip-tied to the fencing:Volunteer. Donate. Build.
Aqua arrives in a coat with curlers and a coffee, blows me a kiss, and steps onto the stage to check spacing. “You gave me two wings,” she says, pleased. “A proper diva needs options.”
