Page 96 of Puck You Very Much
“Hey thanks, bro, I—um, shit bro, your friend there is about to die.”
When I spun around, I noticed that the barbell was about to crush Jakob’s chest. I dashed over to pull it off of him.
When he sat up, he said, “What are you trying to do? Kill me?”
“Of course not. Why would you think I could possibly do such a thing?”
He didn’t answer, but I knew he understood the reason. He rolled off of the bench and didn’t say another word. I did nothing to rub in the fact that I could bench the two-twenty for an entire set and he couldn’t do shit without it landing on his chest.
All that mattered to me was that I’d won this round. After all, nothing in the whole world was more important than victory.
38
JAKOB
Sleeping with the enemy. That was how this really felt. Zane’s constant buzzsaw-like snoring might’ve contributed to some of it but there was definitely more. Knowing what my teammates would say probably played a bigger role than any of it. But there was so totally more to it than that.
Over the last few days, Zane had reverted back to the lunkhead I’d known before we started making the sheets sing. He wasn’t just the guy I’d laid out at the Colter Bay Grill. He was more like the guy that made it his mission to fight me again because he simply couldn’t stand losing.
When we woke up that morning, I knew we would have to address the elephant in the room.
He leaned over to kiss me, which I accepted, suppressing my disgust. No, our arguing hadn’t caused the distrust. You wouldn’t believe the nastiness of Zane’s morning breath. The U.S. government could use that to wipe out a small country.
“What’s for breakfast?” he asked.
“Why don’t you go down to the kitchen and find out?”
He furrowed his brow like I’d taken an unwarranted swipe. Here’s the deal: Zane always insisted on me making hisbreakfast like his mother lived at my place. I’d gone along with it mostly because I wanted my boyfriend to keep the hot sex coming. I would’ve drawn the line at doing his laundry.
“Come on, dude, you know how much I love your breakfasts,” he said.
When I rolled out of bed, I decided I’d already lost the debate. I wanted a big breakfast too and knew he would look at me with those sad puppy dog eyes if I didn’t make him one.
Even still, something definitely felt off, and I needed to get to the bottom of it.
Once downstairs, I scrambled some eggs in a bowl and poured the batter into a skillet. Then I did the same in another skillet with a handful of sausage links. I put on coffee while Zane sat at the table waiting like an excited kid. If he asked me to cut the crust off of his toast, that would totally be the last straw.
Breakfast probably wouldn’t make everything better, though. I hadn’t forgotten about how he’d behaved like a total asshole at the gym. All the other ways he had of being an asshole I could deal with. All part of being attached to Zane Hirst, in other words. Still, I had to draw the line in the sand.
“So, what’ve you got planned for today?” he asked.
“Preparing to kick your ass in the big game.”
His eyes darted at me like my comment had really set him off.
“Woops,” I said. “I mean, I’ve got practice to get to.”
“Should’ve just said that in the first place, dude.”
Technically, my boyfriend was right. I didn’t have to say that and normally I would’ve exercised far more tact. But I found that seriously hard to do after all Zane had said and done. The gym fiasco was the absolute worst. I wanted to pretend it was all a coincidence that Zane was actually a nice guy with an asshole coating. You know, like a really twisted candy?
I also wanted to believe that we could get through the title game without it harming our relationship. We were grownupsand a couple. Love would carry us through the worst of times, yadda, yadda, yadda.
When I thought about Zane’s behavior, I couldn’t really believe that someone his age could act that way.
“I guess you’ll be going to practice too, won’t you?” I asked.
“Yeah, and I’ll be preparing to kick some Lion ass really shortly. Better get your crying towel ready.”
