Page 89 of Puck You Very Much
“I think this is something we need to talk about,” I said.
He set the pizza slice down. God, I hoped that meant he was ready to listen.
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about hockey,” he said. “I mean, like, at all.”
“I still don’t. That rule was mostly for when we?—”
“When we had next to no chance of facing one another in the championship game?”
“That’s right.”
I felt sort of stupid but shouldn’t have. Low chances don’t equate to zero possibility, I understood. My luck was just bad enough that the worst possible scenario would actually come to pass.
“You should cut me some slack,” I said. “I didn’t see this coming.”
“What do you mean you didn’t see it coming? How could you not?”
“Well, I didn’t honestly expect you guys to make it to the game.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Honestly, I expected you guys to get bounced after the first round.”
Jakob sputtered loudly enough to spray me right in the face. I wiped the spittle away from my face and steeled myself for action because I wasn’t done with him.
“What the fuck would make you think something stupid like that?” he asked.
“Well, for one thing, you were lucky that you even made the playoffs.”
“Um, excuse me, but the Riptides only made it in by the hair on your balls.”
“Lovely analogy, Jakob. You should write poetry.”
He rolled his eyes. Despite our history, we hardly ever argued, and he must’ve been missed that I was coming out on top… just like in the bedroom.
“Look, we both knew from the start that playing one another was a possibility,” he said.
“Well, yeah. But I was thinking more that there was only a possibility that we would reach the title game. I wasn’t expecting nearly as much from the Lions—sad but true.”
The remark sounded enough like a joke to me, but I knew damn well that I wasn’t really joking. Not completely, at least. Not that I ever thought Jakob or the Larkin Lions were the shits or anything. They had talent and coaching. They had desire and drive. Even at the worst time, I knew enough to always respect my opponent. Getting too cocky was a sure way to get beaten.
Then we would be totally fucked.
“Okay,” he said, “so, we’re playing each other. It is what it is. We’ve played each other lots of times, right?”
“Right.”
But it wasn’t really right. Not completely. We would face off against each other for the hundred thousandth time, but the stakes were now too high to pretend like they didn’t matter. Before we could just promise to not talk about it. No friction, no animosity, no competition. Just fun times with plenty of hot sex. Now, we had to address the elephant in the room.
When I gazed at Jakob, I fell in love all over again. Not that I would admit that to him. Fuck no. I never liked admitting it in the first place, but that didn’t make the facts any less true.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t want to get into this.”
“But you have to. You brought up the topic, didn’t you?”
I rolled my eyes, hating to admit anything. I wanted to escape this but couldn’t find an escape hatch. And wouldn’t you know it, Jakob Martin crossed his arms like he had all day to await a response.
“It’s just that I don’t want there to be any hard feelings when the Riptides win,” I said.
