Page 66 of Punchline
For a solid week, boxes kept piling up and piling up. A bunch of them required signatures, too, which was stupid. Most of it was useless swag that went straight into the recycling bin or the dumpster.
Well, aside from the various protein powders and whatnot. Wehad beenthrowing those away at first, but then Marek had said, “What happens if racoons get into your dumpster?”
“They sometimes do.” Jake had shrugged. “So what?”
Marek eyed him as if he were equal parts horrified and gobsmacked that Jake could be so stupid. “Do you want a herd of trash pandas eating all that protein powder? Haven’t you seen that episode ofAmerican Dad!where the racoon gets all roided out from that shit?”
That had us all cracking up, and Jake had not, in fact, seen that episode. Carson pulled it up on his phone, and after watching the giant cartoon racoon wreaking havoc, Jake had innocently met Marek’s gaze.
“What’s wrong with that?”
Marek had just rolled his eyes and let the subject drop, apparently resigning himself to the idea that we were signing ourselves up for the fallout of rodent roid rage.
Wehadtaken his comments to heart, though, and we were no longer putting the protein powders in Jake’s trashcan.
We were secretly putting it in Marek and Carson’s.
“And now we wait,” Jake said with a grin as he shut the lid.
I just snickered, and then we headed up the walk to join the guys inside.
As soon as we came in the door, Marek eyed us. “You two are up to something.”
“Us?” Jake showed his palms. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Carson rolled his eyes. To me, he said, “If you two are ever being interrogated, don’t let him do the talking.” He punched Jake’s arm. “I didn’t think you were up to anything until you tried to play innocent.”
“Fuck you,” Jake said.
“Not my type. Sorry.” Carson grinned and snaked an arm around Marek’s waist. “I’m much more into?—”
“Lalala! I can’t hear you!” I put my hands over my ears and shook my head. “I don’t want to know what you two do in the?—”
Marek groaned, muttered what were probably some Czech curses, and stepped out of his fiancé’s grasp. “Do you want beers?”
“Not until they tell us what they were up to!” Carson inclined his head. “What’s going on, Radovitz? Because now I suddenly want to go check my brake lines.”
“Pfft.” I elbowed Jake. “I don’t think he’d even be able to find the brake lines, never mind cut them.”
Jake shot me a horrified look. “What? You think I—ugh. I’m offended.”
“No you’re not,” Marek muttered. “Do you guys want beers or not?”
We did, and in a matter of minutes, the four of us were settled into their living room, beers in hand. There was an HLWNA game tonight—the league a step down from the PHL. Those games weren’t broadcast, but like ours, the team streamed them online. Coach had told Marek there were a couple of forwards he was interested in pulling up to our team, especially while Frost was out with the flu and I was down with a busted hand. Lucky for us, our boyfriends were more than happy to watch hockey, and they were even happier if it meant chilling with beer and pizza.
About midway through the second period, as yet another fight broke out, Jake said, “You know, this doesn’t really jive with the ‘hockey doesn’t have as much fighting as it used to’ line you guys fed us.”
“It doesn’t have as much fighting as it used to.” I sipped my beer, then tilted the bottle toward the TV. “But this is the HLW.”
Carson and Jake eyed me.
“They’re the second-tier minor league,” Marek said. “And they’re… ” He gestured with his own bottle toward the screen. “Scrappier than we are.”
“You don’t say,” Carson said. “Do they actually know how to play hockey?”
“In theory,” I said dryly.
Marek huffed a laugh. “They’re supposed to. But yeah—scrappy. And it isn’t like they haven’t playedsomehockey tonight.”
