Page 14 of Punchline
And he was… maybe… into me?
Fuck.
The game started a few minutes later, which gave us all something to concentrate on. I was used to watching hockey with other hockey players, but it was a different experience with two people who weren’t as well-versed in the sport. Jake was mystified by most of it. Carson had obviously learned a lot since he’d been with Marek, but he still got confused about things.
I’d been internalizing the sport since before I could read, so it all made perfect sense to me. When I tried to look at it through the lens of someone who didn’t get it—okay, I could see how it all read like utter chaos. But the chaos made sense to me and Marek and, to an increasing degree, Carson.
Jake was, unsurprisingly, lost. “What the fuck is icing?”
Marek turned to me, eyebrows up as if to ask,You got this?
“It’s when someone flings the puck down to the other end of the ice,” I said. “If they’re not over the red line and they send it down to the other end, it’s icing.”
“O… kay? And it’s, like, a penalty?”
I shook my head. “Nah. The ref blows the whistle, the team who iced the puck can’t do a line change, and they do a faceoff in their own end.”
“And that’s… bad?”
“It is when you’ve been out for two minutes and need a goddamned shift change,” Marek grumbled into his beer. “I swear to God, if Kells iced the puck one more time in our last game, I was going to icehim.”
I laughed. “He just wasn’t ready to leave the ice! You guys were having so much fun!”
That earned me a middle finger.
Jake tilted his head. “Is two minutes a long time?” As soon as the words came out, he closed his eyes and grimaced. “Goddammit.”
Carson laughed and patted Marek’s head. “I mean, it can be for some people.”
Marek elbowed him in the shin, and Carson yelped. “Jdi do prdele,” Marek said. “You deserved that.”
Carson kicked Marek playfully, then rubbed his shin. “Asshole.”
Marek tilted his head back and batted his eyelashes. “What?”
Carson just rolled his eyes, leaned down, and kissed his boyfriend lightly.
“You two are so gross,” Jake said, but he was chuckling.
“They really are,” I agreed, and we shared a fistbump.
Carson and Marek both flipped us off.
“And to answer your question,” I said to Jake, “yes, two minutes is a seriously long time. Most of our shifts are like forty-five to sixty seconds. Two minutes is… ” I made a face.
“It’s fucking bullshit, that’s what it is,” Marek said.
I nodded. “What he said.”
The game continued, and I answered Jake’s questions as they came up. We were halfway through the second period before I realized Marek was deferringallof Jake’s questions to me, even if he did add his two cents here and there.
Was he…
Was he playing wingman for me?
Hell, maybe.
Was itworking?
