Page 46 of Punchline
I sighed. “I’ll try to get him to back off.”
“Eh, don’t bother. Soon he’ll be happily engaged, and we’ll be in bed. Maybe with cupcakes.”
I laughed. “I don’t think we should eat in bed.”
“What about just the frosting?”
“Mm, I’ve got to pass on that, sorry.”
Ethan was quiet for a moment. “Do you think I could get my hands on one of those confetti cannons?”
Oh my God. “Probably, but I’m officially vetoing bringing that into bed right now.”
“But it could be fun!”
“No.”
“God, you’re so mean. No cupcakes, no confetti cannons… how am I going to woo you properly?”
“You’ll look at me and say, ‘I missed you, take me home’ and I’ll fall all over myself to do just that,” I said.
“That… shouldn’t be as sexy as you make it sound.”
“Anything is sexy when you compare it to a confetti cannon.”
“I’m just saying, it’s got possibilities!”
Needless to say, I was going to check Ethan over thoroughly before letting him into the apartment. Possibly with my tongue. But first things first—Vegas had a game to win, and Carson had a proposal to pull off.
I still didn’t know as much about hockey as I probably should, considering the number of professional players I knew. I might have teased Carson about having two left feet on the ice, but I was just as bad. I needed to figure things out on a kinesthetic level to really get them, and on top of that I found hockey hard to follow. The puck was so small!It moved so fucking fast! How did they even see it half the time?
Carson wasn’t much better, but his enthusiasm was catching. It helped that Marek was having a great game. The crowd was amped up, happy to have their team home again, and Marek scored not once buttwicein the first period. Carson got so excited the second time around that he knocked his box of popcorn onto the guy in front of him as he stood up to shout. Luckily, the man only brushed the kernels off and said, “Favorite player, I take it?”
“I’m gonna marry him,” Carson said, completely earnest.
The guy laughed and raised his beer in a mock toast. “I’ll drink to that.”
The second period was a harder fight, but Vegas was up for it. They scored two more goals to their opponent’s one, and one of them was put away by Ethan. After he accepted so much pounding on the back from his teammates I was surprised he didn’t fall over, he looked up to the stands where we usually sat. I could tell the second he saw me—he beamed and waved, and I waved back.
“Puppy love,” Carson crooned. “So sweet.”
I scoffed. “If anyone’s the puppy around here, it’s you.”
“I don’t deny that,” he said, eyes darting away as the puck dropped, “but I—oh,fuck that guy!” Carson shot to his feet, dislodging his mostly empty container of popcorn as he started to shout.
“What?” I hadn’t seen the play. “What was it?”
“Boarding,” the guy in front of us said to me. “Number forty-two’s going to the box for that shit, but—hey, fight!”
There was, indeed, a fight on the ice right now. It was between Forty-Two, a burly player on the other team who’d apparently done Marek wrong, and?—
Oh. That wasEthan.
“Nice start by Bernier,” our neighbor said as we watched Ethan get in one good punch before Forty-Two got hold of his jersey and pulled him into a headlock. Shit, we hadn’t done any work on getting out of headlocks, but maybe he’d pull it off anyway.
He didn’t. His helmet came off, tumbling onto the ice at their feet. Ethan—who was drawing back to hit the guy in the side—tripped on the helmet. He might’ve been able to recover his balance, even on skates, but not while he was in a headlock and trying to throw a punch. Both men went down, and the other player’s fist connected with Ethan’s face. I winced—fuck, his cheek was going to be so bruised. I held my breath as he got hit yet again. The guy’s arm went up for a third, but a ref caught him by the elbow, and then he and Ethan were being pulled apart.
“Not much of a finisher, though,” the guy said, and I had to resist the sudden urge to choke him unconscious as I stared down at the rink, waiting for Ethan to look my way. He seemed okay, he was skating fine, but he didn’t make eye contact. He didn’t even glance at the stands, just headed for the penalty box. The period ended less than a minute later.
