See? No need to be jealous.
* * *
BEING PAIRED UP right at the start of King’s is a surefire way to get super drunk super fast. Karim makes a rule that everyone has to keep a bottle cap on their head during the game, which Marcie keeps failing at when she tilts her head toward me or laughs too hard. Then Sid makes another rule where we have to say hashtag in front of everything we say, which I just don’t want to do, so we both are continuously chugging our drinks. Marcie ends up on the couch next to me at some point, probably around the time Jade climbs into Delilah’s lap. She’s got her arm draped over my shoulder and her head bent against mine.
I turn to say something to her, putting our faces close enough that we’re breathing each other’s air.
That’s when the back door bursts open and Zero shouts from the other room, “Attention, lax bros and brahs!”
Zero. As in Luca Cicero. As in my captain.
“You have something that belongs to the men’s hockey team,” Zero says. “Please do return it.”
“Kill me,” I mutter as the clomping of footsteps finds its way into the den. Zero and Kovy stand in the archway, taking in the sight of me with a girl practically in my lap. They look like total opposites, what with Zero in his standard floral print, this time on a button-down and the brim of his snapback, and Kovy in his blue polo and gray chinos.
“Come on.” Zero snaps his fingers at me like I’m a dog. “Andiamo. You’ve consorted with the enemy long enough.”
I glare at him. I should tell him no, stay right here where I am.
But I can’t hide from the team forever. After what happened at practice today, it’d be better to face the drama now than let it simmer till the season starts.
I push myself off the couch and brace for a second as the rush of my drinks finally hits me. My whole body thrums as I stalk toward my captains. They grin at me like they’ve accomplished some impossible feat and lead me outside, away from my sisters, away from Marcie, away from a night I was actually enjoying.
Kovy shoves a bottle of water at me on the back porch. “Sober up, Majesty. You got a long night ahead of you.”
I take the bottle. My stomach is rolling and my tongue tastes like whiskey vomit. At least I’m walking in a straight line. I think.
“Are you hazing me?” I ask as we start down the hill back toward the main road.
Zero looks straight-up aghast at that. “You think we’d risk suspension with a team this good? We’ve made Frozen Four three seasons in a row. This is my last chance at a championship, and I am not throwing it away over some hazing scandal.”
“We don’t haze. We bond,” Kovy adds. “And you’ve missed all our team bonding.”
“I’m not social,” I say.
Kovy gives this kind of bewildered laugh, short and high-pitched. “Which is why we just pulled you out of the lax house. Where Marcie was literally on top of you.”
I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”
Zero closes his eyes and shakes his head as we pass under a streetlight. “Look. We’ve got a lot of talent on this team. But that won’t matter if one of our best players isn’t on board with the rest of us. Is it because of the royalty garbage? If it makes you that uncomfortable, we’ll stop.”
“That’s not it,” I say quickly. His niceness makes me feel, I don’t know, guilty, I guess?
“Then what is it? We can’t fix it if you don’t tell us.”
I kick a rock down the hill. There’s a perfect view of the lake from here. Hell, there’s a perfect view of the lake from most places on and around campus. Part of me wishes I could stay here and get a degree, just so I can keep seeing this every day.
“Cauler?” Kovy asks in a way that says they know, they’ve just been waiting for me to say it.
“No,” I say firmly. No way am I admitting Jaysen’s antagonism gets to me. “It’s not anything you can control. It’s just. Sometimes I need a break from hockey. Can’t get that hanging around hockey players all the time.”
It feels like the wrong thing to say. This is why I usually don’t talk. Nothing I say is ever right.
Zero hums. “I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, Mickey. We’re more than just hockey players. I’m also a psych student and a volunteer firefighter in the summer. Maverick here? He writes Dragon Age fanfiction—”
“Bro!” Kovy says.
“—and already has a job lined up with a game developer after graduation. And a bunch of us are also huge nerds who play D and D once a month.”