Page 114 of Puck Love

Islinkout of thebathroom, sweaty, reeking like another man’s piss, and feeling like I’m going to puke up my guts. I know there’s no way my phone is starting up again, and there’s no way in hell I’m sticking this shit in a bag of rice, but I couldn’t leave it in the goddamn bowl. I’ve got nudes of Stella on there, and I don’t think she’d appreciate explaining that to the media if some jackass managed to find it and recover those pics. They’re for my eyesonly.

The problem is, I’m now carrying a phone wadded up in toilet paper, jammed in my pocket and leaking piss down my trouser leg, and I don’t have Stella’s number. I can’t call her and explain what the fuck just happened. I don’t know how to get in touch with the ballbuster either, assuming she’d even pass my number on to Stella. I am fucked every which way from Sunday, and all I know is that I have to get out of here. I have to call Stella somehow, but when I set foot back in the bar, I’m accosted by Eli and Torres, and forced to guzzle a beer from a glass that looks like a cheap replica of the StanleyCup.

“Dude, you smell like piss . . . and come.” Eli glowers at me. “What the fuck, man? Are you cheating onStella?”

“No. I had anaccident.”

He laughs. “What?”

“I was whacking it in the bathroom with Stella on Skype, and I dropped myphone.”

“And?”

“I dropped it in the bowl, full of piss.” He laughs, and for the briefest second, I find humor in it too, until I remember I sort of proposed to her. “Oh, it gets better. Coach walked in.” That confession sends Eli over the edge. “It’s not fuckingfunny.”

“It’s a little bitfunny.”

“I proposed toher.”

He leans in, clearly unable to hear me over the noise of the bar. “What?”

“I proposed to Stella while I was whacking it,” I yell, and at that very second, the music cuts out, and several people stare in mydirection.

Eli loses his shit completely. A roar goes up from Torres and my teammates, and I don’t even try to explain. For the next three hours, I drink myself into a stupor and vow to find Stella’s number and call her in the morning. How we wind up in the pool at some Ottawa mansion is anyone’s guess, and one of alcohol’s greatmysteries.

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