Page 13 of Wrong Pucking Player

“You’re kicking Mickey out?!” I shriek.

“No,” they say quickly.

It’s kind of funny how they know ‘Mickey’ refers to Mikayla. Just like Mkaykay, Mishka, Sweet Kay, and whatever else her crew of men used to call her.

The crew we were a part of years ago.

“Then what’s this about placement?” Mikayla asks.

I hope they won’t drag this out because the fact they haven’t confronted this right now worries me. It could be something more serious, which is why Coach Cyrus has been lingering here his whole time.

Coach Johnson sighs before he slips off the stool and heads to one of the kitchen cabinets. He pulls it open and retrieves what looks like two envelopes.

What’s that?

I’m not sure how to feel about the sight of the white envelopes, which is why my face is pretty blank in expression. A glance at Mikayla, however, proves she’s on high alert.

I know why, which is why I reach out to lightly pat her knee from beneath the island so she doesn’t become a quaking mess in seconds. I’m actually impressed she hasn’t gone ghostly pale yet.

Any form of mail freaks her out. Ever since they opened that envelope and confirmed Jessica’s cancer was terminal.

Coach Johnson is back on the stool opposite us and presenting the envelopes before us. Our full names are handwritten on the front of the white surface in that common illegible cursive handwriting. If it wasn’t for the familiarity of our names, it really was illegible.

Crazy how adults went to school to write like this, and no one can read it.

“These came for you today,” he announces, his gaze specifically on me. “Still posting important stuff to our place?”

“Well, yeah.”

No shit. Who else is going to receive my mail when I’m ‘homeless?’

I’m sure it shows on my face, but I decide to elaborate further.

“My building is full of frat boys who come to this town for the hockey dream, only to get wasted and barely sober enough for preliminaries.” I shiver for added emphasis, but it really was a miserable place.The only government assistant building in town that didn’t scream, ‘you’re poor.’

I had no choice but to put myself into their system for my own sake. I’d been offered it when I was sixteen, and since my income was shit, I only paid about two-fifty a month, everything included.

The crazy part is I don’t stay there.

I’d go anywhere else, whether it’s sleeping on Mikayla’s couch or in motels.

I know it’s a lifestyle I can’t promote forever, especially when my bank account isn’t the best to be staying at a motel every night, but better than risking being raped in that shithole of a building with a sleezebag property manager who takes advantage of the system.

Don’t sleep with me, and you’re out.

Can’t do shit if you never see me now.

That’s the reason why I’ve lived there for almost ten years, but as a graduate, I really have to get my shit in order.

Easier said than done with no connections.

Strattonville was already proving that.

My silence seems to draw everyone’s attention, including Coach Cyrus who lowers his paper to give me a firm stare.

I know that look.

The‘is everything really okay or do I need to get involved’look. He knows—just like his son—that I never ask for help if I can avoid it, but I don’t want to worry him.

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