Page 62 of Puck You Very Much
I instantly regretted breaking my promise to myself about not discussing the whole ordeal. Now that I’d opened my mouth, I would have to live with the consequences.
“Are you his daddy?” Detenbeck asked. “He didn’t need saving, bro. He knew just what he was doing.”
“Don’t you realize the consequences of this?”
“From who? Coach Hardison?”
“No, from the even bigger powers that be. Those ejections might lead to suspensions, you wait and see.”
“None of that shit matters, you know. Not when it’s the Riptides.”
Don’t you think it’s time to give that up?I thought. The words nearly flew out of my mouth. Thank God they didn’t because I hated to dig myself in deeper.
“Something’s going on,” he said.
“Nothing’s going on.”
“Oh no? Then why are you acting all weird?”
Finally, he’d chipped away enough to reach the real topic at hand. I drew a deep breath, closed my eyes, and summoned all my might so I could fend him off.
“Ah,” he said. “You didn’t deny acting all weird. Isn’t that as good as an admission of guilt?”
“You’re an idiot, you know that?”
He pointed to himself as if requesting confirmation that he was indeed the idiot I was referring to, and then laughed it off in a way that suggested he was far from joking. I understood right then that my teammate wouldn’t quit, and that I needed to go on the offensive.
“Did you plan that?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Detenbeck, if you’re really not as dumb as you look, then you totally know what I’m talking about.”
“The fight? You’re blaming me for that?”
“I’m not saying you did anything directly or alone, but I get the feeling this wasn’t an accident.”
“They started it.” The way he spat the words out made him sound like a five- year-old. It also gave away his guilt. “If they hadn’t taken a cheap shot onyou, none of the rest of the chain of events would’ve happened.”
I paused, feeling supremely dissatisfied.
“Did you plan that?” I asked again.
“Fuck, man, I just told you we didn’t do anything. We just reacted to the thingstheydid, and I can’t believe you’d grill me about it like I’ve done something wrong.”
He didn’t have to tell me the truth. I saw it in his eyes. I’d already known the kind of relationship I had with Zane would be challenging. Any moron could tell you that. I didn’t realize my relationship with my teammates would grow so hard without them even knowing about it.
25
ZANE
“What the fuck were you doing out there?” Jax Echlin asked. “Wait, it’s really more like what the fuckweren’tyou doing out there?”
Always a pompous windbag, Jax normally reserved his worst traits for others, leaving me unscathed, but there was a first time for everything. I could have thrown him a quick and easy answer but opted not to even look at him. After how the game ended—victory for us or not, I wasn’t in the mood for his shit.
“You know you weren’t being a team player out there, right?” he asked.
“Really?”
