Page 41 of Pucking Wild

“What?” asks Sully.

Jake looks to me. “I’ve got the perfect place you can stay. Furnished, close to the practice arena, and not a single stair.”

“Where?” I say.

He slips his hand into his pocket and takes out his keys, working one off the ring. “Here, man.”

I shift forward, taking the silver key from his hand. “What’s this?”

“Key to Mars’s house,” he replies.

The three of us stare down at the key like it’s a rare, unearthed treasure.

“I’ve never been to Mars’s house,” Morrow says, his tone almost reverent.

“Me either,” says Sully. “I don’t even know where it is. How do you have that?” he adds, eyes wide as he takes in Jake, like he’s suddenly recalculating him and his potential.

Jake just laughs, then frowns. “Wait—are you assholes serious?” When none of us respond, he huffs again. “We got married, remember? In L.A.? You were all fucking there?”

“But…I thought it was like a ‘Doc in the middle’ kind of thing,” Morrow says.

“Yeah, we didn’t know you had a key to his place for…you know, just like…just you,” Sully adds.

Jake scoffs. “You guys really need to brush up on your polyamory. I’m not fucking Mars, alright? And he’s not fucking me,” he adds, pointing a finger at Morrow who swallows his retort. “He’s my metaphor.”

Sully and I share a quick glance. “Your what?” I say.

“My metaphor,” Jake repeats. “It’s a polyam term.”

“I really don’t think it is,” Sully says, trying to contain his smile.

I’m doing the same. I drop my gaze to my knee, which sobers me right up.

Jake crosses his arms over his broad chest. “I think I should know what I call Mars in our own marriage.”

“Dude, a metaphor is like a figure of speech,” Sully says. “Like ‘life is a highway’ or ‘I’m so hungry, I could eat an elephant.’”

The corner of Jake’s mouth quirks. “You’re bullshitting me right now.”

“Nah, man. I’m pretty sure that’s right,” says Morrow.

With a glare, Jake pulls out his phone. His thumb taps the screen, and we soon hear a dial tone as he puts the call on speaker.

“Fuck—what?” comes Sanford’s voice. “I was asleep.”

“Hey, solve something for us really quick. What’s a metaphor?” Jake asks.

Sanford grunts, and there’s a rustling sound like he’s sitting up in his hotel bed. “What?”

“Ametaphor.” Jake enunciates each syllable. “I’m sitting here with Langers and the guys at the hospital tryna tell them Mars is my metaphor, and they don’t believe me that it’s a real polyam thing so…”

There’s a pause so pregnant you could feel it kick the air between us.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Sanford says at last. “Babe, a metaphor is a figure of speech like…fuck, I don’t know… ‘life is a highway’—”

Sully and I choke on our fists, trying to quiet our laughter, as Jake launches off the bed, taking the phone off speaker. “Well, then, what the fuck is Mars?”

It’s all we can do to hold it together as Jake paces from my bed to the door. I don’t dare look at the other guys. I just focus on my busted knee.

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