“Daughter. Ten.”
“So you were kind of young when you had her?”
“I was. Her mom’s a little older. Used to play pro football but she had to get an elbow replacement after a brutal hit in a championship game. She has three other sons she’s raising to be players.”
“Your daughter wants to play, too?”
“No. Actually . . .”
His words faded off and he suddenly looked off. As if he was hoping she hadn’t noticed. But of course she had and now she was curious to find out what he was hiding.
“Actually . . . what?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“I get enough shit from Keane. I’m not in the mood to hear any more.”
“Oh, come on. Aren’t we beyond this?”
“Beyond what? You being nosy?”
“You noticing that I’m being nosy. And after everything we’ve been through together.”
“Really? You’re using that one on me? And exactly what have we been through together?”
“You saw me pee myself yesterday. Something that was traumatic for both of us.”
“That was in reaction to the poisoning and we don’t need to discuss it.”
“I actually do appreciate your not making that into a big deal. Most guys are not fans of girls that pee themselves.”
“It’s not like you got ridiculously drunk in a bar and then pissed on the DJ.” When she glanced up at him, he gave one of his shrugs and added, “That happened once with a girl. It was not pretty. And we didn’t have a second date.”
“Understandable. Anyway, just tell me about your kid. I’m not really a kid person, so the fact that I’m interested at all is . . . impressive. I’m very impressed with myself right now.”
He gave a soft chuckle before letting out a sigh and grudgingly admitting, “She likes math. And she wants to be an”—he cleared his throat—“an accountant.”
“An accountant? At ten? Did she see a movie?”
“A movie about accounting?”
“It’s possible. At ten I wanted to be a race car driver and a bounty hunter. Why? Because I saw two movies over a weekend, and one was about a race car driver and the other was about a bounty hunter.”
“Yeah, well, she’s loved math since she was three and wanted to be an accountant since she was six.”
“Oh. Oh. Yeah. She might be in it for the long haul.” She paused a moment, then asked, “How did she know what an accountant was at six, anyway?”
“I have no idea.” He gave a little smile. “She is good at math, though. Studying at an eighth-grade level. I mean, she’s not like . . .”
“Stevie?” Tock shook her head. “No one is like Stevie. And that’s okay, because she’s been in therapy since she was, like, five. It’s really hard being Stevie. So be grateful.”
“I am. My baby’s good in her other subjects, but average good. Not terrifying good. I think that balances out the math thing.”
“It does. I was always advanced with science and math, but I barely passed English. And I only find some parts of history interesting enough to remember. I mean, who cares about what happened in 1066?”
“The Battle of Hastings.” When she only stared at him, he muttered, “That battle kind of led to the birth of the entire English language.”
“Again, who cares? With some household cleaners and a match, I can take this entire building down. Isn’t that more important than who started the English language a bazillion years ago when people didn’t bathe?”
“Well, that’s . . . disturbing.”
“What is?”
“All of it. All of what you said just now. I was going to say interesting, but nope. It’s just disturbing.”
*
The fight came out of nowhere. They were just sitting on the private jet, heading back to New York. Everyone was pretty quiet. Either reading magazines or on their phones. Then it just happened.
Mads looked at Tock, who was sitting next to her and, without any warning, started yelling, “How could you be so fucking stupid?”
Shay was shocked. He’d never heard or seen Mads angry, much less screaming at someone. She was always the rational one of the group. The one who tried to calm everything down. But here she was, screaming at Tock.
And Tock started screaming back. The pair of them nose to nose . . . screaming. Shay didn’t even know what they were saying. He could barely make their words out, they were saying them so fast.
That was bad enough, but then they were on the floor of the aisle, trying to throttle each other.
Shay got out of his seat and reached in to grab Tock. He was glad to see his brother attempting to do the same with Mads. It was necessary, too, because their fellow teammates weren’t helping at all. Nelle continued to read a recent copy of Italian Vogue. Max kept eating honey-roasted peanuts by the handful while gleefully watching the fight. And even sweet Streep, who seemed to hate it when her friends fought, continued to text someone on her phone rather than intervene.
He was not, however, surprised that Keane didn’t do anything but roll his eyes and try to go back to sleep. Worthless. His brother was worthless.
It took a bit to get the women apart. Their claws were out and caught on pieces of fabric and tangled in each other’s hair. Once they did manage to separate them, Shay carried a hissing Tock to the back of the jet.
Shay put Tock in the very last seat and then pinned her there until she finished hissing in rage.
It took nearly five minutes until he could release her. And even then, he just took his hand off her face. He’d had to pin her head against the window to prevent her from biting his nose off.
Was this what it was like to work in a zoo? Did the caretakers have to worry about getting their noses bitten off? He doubted it. Those wild animals were behind several layers of fencing and metal doors. He had nothing to protect him from rabid badgers with rage issues.
Crossing her arms over her chest, Tock looked out the window that one side of her face had been pressed against and seethed.
Yeah. That was the best way to describe it. She seethed. He hadn’t known she could seethe. He’d seen her annoyed. Restless. Frustrated. But he’d never seen her seething. Not even with her cousins when she’d tried to choke one of them to death.
He suddenly had a bad feeling. Was this the end of the honey badgers’ friendship? Were Tock and Mads no more? That would be awful. They’d always been so close. He’d once had an argument like the one they’d just fought with a buddy on the team. It had been over his daughter’s mother and it had ended their friendship then and there. Half the team held Shay back and the other half held back his fellow cat. His buddy actually transferred to another team, refusing to even be in the same room with Shay during team meetings. And life in the locker room had been way too tense. Years later, they only met on the gridiron, and it was always the most brutal game of the season.
He’d hate to see that happen between Tock and Mads. Thankfully, the flight back was short, and the only other harm done was to the air quality because of all the carbon the jet had unleashed into the atmosphere. Not that Nelle or her family seemed to care about that at all. Finn had told him they had a fleet of jets. A fleet. How rich was Nelle’s family anyway?