Page 64 of Punchline
“You don’t know that!”
I didn’t, but worrying about it wasn’t going to do anything except make Ethan sick. All the more reason to drag him out of the apartment so he could hang with Carson while I took on classes for the day. We could run open mat in the evening together, but Carson needed a break too.
Ethan joined me ten minutes later, just as I was plating the omelet I’d made—according to his trainer’s specifications, I might add. Hockey players didn’t control their dietsquiteas ruthlessly as some athletes did, but he still needed a shit-ton of protein in addition to ensuring he got enough calcium, Vitamin D, potassium… the list went on and on. It was just easier to use their recipes, and it was honestly pretty tasty.
“Smells good,” he said as he came up next to me.
“Thanks, I… ” My brain went offline as I realized Ethan was wearing one ofmyshirts. Not a special shirt, not a particularly noteworthy shirt, just an old, worn T-shirt I’d gotten from a sponsor years ago that I liked to wear when I worked out. It must have gotten mixed into his laundry. It was big enough on him to sag a little at the neck, so I saw about an inch more chest than I was used to seeing when he was clothed, and for some reason it reminded me of the one girlfriend I’d had who liked lingerie.
“Earth to Jake?”
“Hm?” I glanced back up when Ethan waved a hand in front of my eyes. “What?”
He was trying to look innocent, but I could see a smirk lurking at the back of his eyes as he said, “You don’t mind that I’m wearing your clothes, do you?”
“Ah… no.” No, I decidedly didn’t mind. In fact, I felt about two seconds away from dragging him back to bed for a second round regardless of my good intentions.Eat. Go. Stop perving on his collarbones.“Here.” I handed him a plate. “Silverware’s on the table.”
“Thanks.” We sat down together to eat, and silence reigned while Ethan inhaled his food. Before he even opened his mouth to ask for seconds, I said, “There’s more on a plate in the oven.”
Ethan smiled. “You take such good care of me,” he said as he got up, stopping to kiss me on the way over.
I didn’t do anything special, but if he wanted to kiss me about it I didn’t care. A knock at the door caught my attention, and I got up to check who it was while Ethan had his second breakfast.
A UPS driver stood outside my apartment, his head blocked by the huge package he was holding. “Hey, man,” he said, turning so he could catch my eye. “Can you give me a hand?”
“Sure, but… ” I shook my head as I took the box and put it on the floor. “I don’t have any orders coming in.”
“Huh. Hang on.” He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and swiped a few times. “Are you Jake Radovitz?”
“Yes.”
“Then this is for you. From… ” He peered at the screen. “Gene Dimon?”
I had no idea who that was, but apparently he was sending me shit. “Okay, thanks.”
“Just sign here… ” I signed, then the delivery guy walked off and left me with a box as tall as my thigh. I pulled it into the apartment and shut the door, then grabbed my pocket knife, sliced it open, and?—
“What the hell?” I pushed the bubble wrap aside to reveal a weird grab bag of stuff, everything from zero-calorie energy drink mixes to protein bars in fruity flavors to, down at the very bottom, a whole pile of XXL T-shirts in everything from black to neon advertising a bunch of brands I’d never heard of before, except for a few jiu-jitsu-adjacent ones.
“What’s all that?” Ethan asked from behind me.
“I have no fucking clue,” I said. “All I know is I didn’t order any of it.”
“Then how’d you get it?”
“Some dude named Gene Dimon sent it to me.” I shook my head. “There’s got to be some sort of mistake.”
“Like how that Chinese seat cover company made the address for their returns some random house in California, and now the lady who lives there is getting a hundred packages a day?” I stared at Ethan blankly. “What? I listen to NPR.”
“Shit, I hope it’s not like that.” I closed the box back up. “I’ll look him up later and see if there’s a way to return it. Come on, we should head out.”
The ride was quiet; Ethan was on his phone and I was thinking about the lesson plan for the day. We’d had an influx of new students lately, which meant taking things at a slower pace while they got up to speed on the basics. The curriculum called for leg locks, but there was nothing scarier than a white belt holding your ankle while falling, so I’d have to be careful how I taught the set-ups.
Carson was waiting at the gym for us, standing between a pair of oddly familiar boxes with a look on his face like… I wasn’t sure how to explain it. It was somewhere between “haha, this is hilarious” and “fuck, please don’t.”
“So,” he said as we took off our shoes and walked over to him, “when were you going to tell me you were being courted by the EFC?”
I did a double-take. Like literally, I stared from him to the boxes and back again, because I was so confused I barely knew what to think, much less say. Luckily, Ethan stepped in before things got too weird.
