Page 117 of Jace
Asher tucks his longish dark-blonde hair behind his ears. “It’s a form of early social bonding between the duckling and a caregiver, often the first moving object they see after hatching. They follow it like it’s their parent.”
Ava frowns, she just came up to us, a tray with some beers in her hands, standing next to our table. “But that can’t be, right? I mean, the ducklings were already born. Jace wasn’t the first person they saw. Scoot over, Miss.” Her best friend obliges and Ava takes a seat, completing our foursome, and hands out the drinks.
“Thanks, babe,” Asher says, winking at his girlfriend. “And I’m not sure. I think they didn’t have someone nearby when they were born, so they didn’t imprint at all. And you did kinda put them in his room all the time. And use his clothing as blankets. They are used to his smell now.”
“ButItook care of them. With Lamar. They should’ve imprinted onme,”Missy whines, looking with longing at the little bundles.
I feel for her, so I gently grab the ducks which are indeed wrapped in one of my old t-shirts, and slowly hand them over the table to Missy. We’ve found out a couple of days ago that as long as they smell me, they’re happy.
“I love your hair,” I say to Ava, ignoring Missy and her cooing. “I like it better than the purple.”
Ava practically shines with glee. “Thank you!” She grabs the end of her braid, which is a very mermaid-y teal right now, and goes off in an elaborate explanation how it took her sisterforeverwhen she was home for Christmas. And when she’s slab damn in the middle of a rant about some extensions or shit, I swear my eyes glaze over.
Asher gets me out of my daze with a poke of his elbow and a nod to the screen. “They’re up.”
I follow his line of sight and yeah, there they are. A smile immediately appears on my face as the regulars in Yetties start applauding and cheering for our guys. The same smile gets impossibly wider when number twelve appears and the commentator goes off about Tyler’s stats and excellence.
Excellent he sure is. Especially that bubble-butt of his, in those painted-on pants they’re wearing, is veryexcellent.
“Jesus, Jace…” Ava is definitely eyeing the same thing I am, her head cocked. “Please tell me that looks spectacular when he’s only in his jock-strap.”
“Hey!” Asher throws a balled-up napkin her way, making her giggle.
“What?” She waves at the screen. “I love your ass, honey. You know I do. But nobody can denythatbehind.”
“Those are some mighty buns,” Missy pipes in when the Tyler on screen squats.
I groan skywards. “Stop ogling my man’s butt.” I do need to know what he looks like in a jock-strap, though. Should put that on a list somewhere. I don’t even know if he wears the damn thing when he plays, or has compression shorts on or something. Feels like something I should check.
“But it’s such afinebutt,” Missy says to annoy me.
“It should have its own zip-code, its own museum or no, its own song. Yes! We should totally write a song about it,” Ava conspires with her.
I can only give my two girlies a dirty smirk, and when Missy rolls her eyes and Ava starts to giggle, Asher groans. “Please don’t tell me one of the new songs is actually aboutthe ass of a quarterback.”
I pretend to zip-up my lips. “I’ll never tell which one.”
“Well that’s obvious, no?” Missy says, petting the still sleeping ducks. “It must be that one where you rave on about those globes and that universe shit. And–”
“Oh look, we’re in the lead!” Ava suddenly butts in, gesturing to the screen. And yes, we are up by six points. Good for them.
I cheer with them, focusing on the match now like the rest of the bar. I’m still not entirely sure what exactly all the rules are, so I just admire the game itself and cheer when everybody else is cheering. And groan and curse when everyone else is groaning and cursing.
Which is a lot.
Because when the final seconds dwindle down and it’s dead-quiet in the bar, I don’t need to know what the rules of the game are. Because the silence is evident. We lost.
It takes Missy approximately an hour before she’s getting too annoyed with the amount of glances I sneak at my phone in between practicing new songs.
“Just call him already,” she hisses, slamming her hot-pink guitar back in its stand. Ava and Asher follow suit, plopping down at our table, probably happy that they can quit playing. Because my sullen mood reflects poorly on the rest of the band. We sound whack, out of sync. Not something that happens a lot.
“Easy for you to say, you already heard something from Lamar,” I grumble as I put my own guitar away as well. I don’t play during all the songs, preferring to just sing, but in some we need the additional sound.
“He only called to ask about the stupid ducks.” She glares at the box that’s on our table, where they–after we let them wanderoutside a bit and gave them some duck-food–sleep soundly again on my old ratty t-shirt. The box is overly glittery. Ava thought it was sad that they had a boring old sneaker box, so she put glitter and gems on the damn thing. It now spells out ‘PATRICE’ and ‘PATRICK’ in bright purple and gold.
“At least he called after you texted him.” I did the same. But no response whatsoever. I just want to know if he’s okay. He really looked forward to this and worked so damn hard…
“Oh nope. No way. Are you turning into a girl now? Since when do you act this insecure?” She waves my phone in front of my face, and I narrow my eyes at my long-time friend. “Yoohoo. Where’s Jace and who the fuck are you? Just. Call. Him.”
