“I’m a halfling barbarian,” Kovy says, tilting his chin up proudly.
“If you spent any time with us, you’d know all this. Because we hardly talk about hockey outside of practice. We need breaks, too.”
Kovy sucks air through his teeth with an exaggerated wince. “Yeah, about that. Tonight might be a little hockey-centric. Just ’cause we got some things to work out.”
“Great,” I mumble.
The hockey house is right on the lake. So close I can hear the water against the shoreline as we head through the front door. It’s nicer than the lax house, with an actual entryway and an arch that opens to a living room with a big sectional and one of those curved TVs. The floor looks like wood but feels more like plastic when I take off my shoes. There are so many sneakers piled at the door, I doubt I’ll be able to find mine when I leave.
Zero and Kovy head right for the stairs, but I trail behind, taking the place in. I catch a glimpse of a clean kitchen, white cabinets and stainless steel, granite countertops and sliding glass doors out to a porch over the water.
If I stayed here another couple years, I would live in this house. One of the rooms we pass on the second floor would be mine.
I wonder how the hockey media would react to that. If at the draft combine I told every team that interviews me that I’m staying in school another three years. All because I got drunk one night and decided the campus was too pretty and my captains too nice to walk away from.
Talk about a James family scandal.
It sounds like people are wrestling above our heads, and my heart does this anxious kind of fluttering when Kovy opens the door to the attic, as if I’m about to be faced with a room full of strangers. Colie’s straight-up cackling up there. I’ve heard it enough at practice to pick it out from all the other laughter coming down the stairs.
Half the carpet in the attic is painted like a rink. They’ve got a game of three-on-three knee hockey going. My knees hurt just at the memory of playing with my sisters on the concrete floor of our basement as kids. I wonder if Mom and Dad still have the collection of mini sticks we built up over the years.
The team’s crowded onto couches on the other side of the room, cheering and shouting as they watch. The freshmen are all packed onto the smallest one. Jaysen’s head is thrown back, laughing so hard he’s got his hands clutched in his own shirt.
For the love of god, please kill me now.
There are cases of beer stacked on the floor and a few half-empty bottles of vodka scattered around.
Dorian’s the first to notice us. He shoves his fist in the air and shouts, “His Majesty has arrived!”
My face gets hot when they all look at me and start cheering. Doesn’t help when I catch a glimpse of Jaysen’s dimples before his smile vanishes at the sight of me.
“Put him on the rink!” someone shouts. The knee hockey game has ended with our interruption. A few of the guys who were playing lie breathless on the floor while the rest of them go for the alcohol. “He’s used to being that close to the ground!”
They all laugh again. I roll my eyes. Zero shoves my shoulder and says, “Join the rest of the rooks on the shitty couch, if it pleases Your Majesty.”
Jaysen keeps his eyes on me as I make my way over, a hint of that burning rage from earlier sparking in them while I try to keep my expression blank. My eyes feel too wide and my mouth is dry, my heart still doing that sick-butterfly thing like a ten-year-old faced with his first real crush.
I blame the alcohol.
I sit on the arm of the couch and try not to act too surprised when Dorian leans over and punches me in the shoulder. “Glad you showed up, bro,” he says with his standard level of excitement.
“Sure,” I say. Like I had a choice.
Zero claps his hands to get everyone’s attention, but it takes a minute or two for the giggling and snickering to die down. “Here’s the deal. Season hasn’t even started and we’re already off to a rocky start. We’re taking the NCAA this year, but only if we learn to operate as a cohesive unit. There’s rivalries and cliques and crap attitudes all over this team, and we gotta get over it. So we’re gonna play a little game, hash out some of this tension. Maverick, would you like to demonstrate?”
Kovy busts out a massive grin. “Of course. Colie? If you’d join me?”
Colie staggers to his feet and almost trips over some of the guys in his haste to get to Kovy. They face each other, holding each other’s hands in the space between them. Some of the guys wolf whistle and catcall them, and Colie bats his eyelashes at Kovy to play it up.