Page 77 of Role Model

Troy’s eyes shot open at the sound of Harris’s extremely well-projected voice. He was standing in the aisle, right in the middle of the plane, grinning at everyone like this was a totally normal thing to do. “Have I told you guys about my sister Anna’s first date with her husband?”

“No!” someone shouted.

“Yes!”

“Tell us anyway!”

“Okay, so Anna had been crushing on this guy, Mike, for months. I can let you know now that he’s a super-nice guy and we all love him, but at the time all I knew was he was the reason I couldn’t borrow our parents’ truck that night.”

There were some scattered chuckles already. Troy would bet that Harris had the attention of every person on board. He even turned as he talked, making sure everyone at the front of the plane could hear him too.

“Anna and I never fought much, but that night it got vicious. I’d been invited to a party, and I’d offered to give a lift to this supercute boy in my geography class, so I needed that truck.”

Troy’s heart raced at the easy way Harris had said cute boy in front of an audience of NHL players.

The story went on, and everyone hung on Harris’s every word. Troy found he was on the edge of his seat for a reason that had nothing to do with fearing for his life. Even Ilya was smiling and laughing, and he groaned along with Troy when Harris told them that Anna had won the truck that night, and Harris hadn’t gotten to woo his cute geography boy.

“So Anna’s got her man in the passenger seat, and they’re driving to the movie theater, talking and flirting, and he asks her if she hears anything weird. Like, maybe something wrong with the truck. They both stay silent for a few seconds, and hear nothing, so he decides he was imagining things.”

“Harris,” Ilya warned, “if this story is about a fucking vehicle breaking...”

“It’s not! I promise. Okay, so they drive some more, and this time Anna hears it. Like a weird scratchy sound. But then it stops. The truck is driving fine, doesn’t seem to be any issue. No warning lights or anything. So she pulls over into a parking lot because she just wants to check the rear part of the cab, and when she peeks behind Mike’s seat, she sees a skunk.”

“No!” someone yelled.

“Swear to god.”

“Did you put the skunk in there? As revenge for taking the truck?”

“I didn’t!” Harris laughed. “But she still doesn’t believe me. But now she’s on this date with this guy she’s been into forever, and there’s a fucking skunk in the back, which is obviously a precarious situation because they have to get it out without, y’know, setting it off.”

“What the fuck did they do?”

“They were smart. They got out, left the doors open, and went to sit on the curb a few meters away. Eventually the skunk left on its own, no harm done. But the cute thing is that Anna and Mike had their first kiss sitting on that curb, waiting for that skunk. So the skunk is, like, a matchmaker. But man, she was still so fucking mad at me when she got home.”

“I think you did it,” a voice that was definitely Bood’s said.

Harris put his hands up. “I really didn’t. How would I even have managed that without getting sprayed? But I’ll tell you what, I’m glad it wasn’t me driving around trying to impress a boy that night.”

“Did you ever hook up with that boy?” Ilya asked, which was exactly the question Troy wanted to ask but was scared to.

“Yeah. We went to get McFlurrys after school a few days later. Then we went back to his bedroom.”

There were a few whoops and catcalls, which Harris waved away. “It wasn’t that great.”

Laughter filled the plane. The mood had shifted so drastically since Harris had begun his story, it was staggering. And really impressive. Troy felt a swell of unearned pride.

“So who else has a story?” Harris asked. He pointed to Evan Dykstra. “D, I know you’ve got a million.”

“Well,” Dykstra said slowly as he stood up, “since we’re talking about disaster dates...”

Everyone cheered. Harris caught Troy’s gaze and winked at him. Troy smiled back, easy and effortless. He’d bet he could smile all the time if he had enough of Harris in his life.

Eventually, they landed safely in Ottawa, and everyone on board breathed a collective sigh of relief. Troy caught up with Harris once he reached the tarmac.

“How’d you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?”

---