Page 79 of Pucked Up

“Sell it to Hollywood,” I muttered crossly.

He leaned into me. “I fucking will. I’m going to make sure Pedro Pascal plays me.”

“You’re not Chilean,” I told him. “And he’s not blind.”

“I will sacrifice a disabled role to that able-bodied man,” Micah said. “He can strip me down and make me into his personal lampshade for all I care.”

“This conversation is getting weird.”

Micah laughed. “Sorry, I’m high on the fact that I’m sitting in this Lyft with a fucking famous pro hockey player!”

“We’re the only ones in this—oh. Shut up.” I still couldn’t help a smile. “I haven’t signed anything.”

“Uh-huh. But did you get a look at those zeroes?” He waggled his eyebrows. “They looked gorgeous.”

“I’m not falling into your blind pun trap tonight. There weren’t that many.”

“More thanmyrookie contract, babe. Why don’t you break up with Hugo and marry me. We could have an open marriage so I can fuck Pedro Pascal, and we can have a disabled Hollywood-hockey empire. I’ll write all the scripts, and you win all the trophies.”

“All your scripts would be porn. With, like, goblin dicks.”

“Only, like, eighty-three percent will be.”

“Again, I’m not having this conversation with you. My phone is dead, I’m stressed, and I—oh shit. There’s the hotel.”

Micah wrinkled his nose and ran his fingers along his thigh—a little stim he did when he was nervous. “How busy does it look?”

“The roundabout is full, and there’s a ton ofpeople waiting to get their tickets checked at the door,” I told him.

He paled a little. “Boden? Um.” He swallowed thickly. “Babe, listen. You know you’re basically the love of my life?—”

“You say that to all of your friends.”

“And I mean it,” Micah said. “But I’m being serious for a second.” His breath was trembling in his chest, and I realized that he was experiencing genuine panic. “This is too many people, okay? I’m the born-blind freak who actuallyfeelsblind as fuck in big crowds like this. And I don’t…I can’t deal with so many people touching me, and not knowing who the fuck is talking to me, and…”

“Hey.” I took both of his hands in mine. My fingers were stiff, but I tried to soften them as best I could as I rubbed my thumbs over his knuckles. “We can go in the side entrance and head up to the room. Half the channels have audio description. You can order room service and wait for me to get back from the benefit.”

“I promised to be Hugo’s date. I can’t just leave him.”

“Sure you can. He’ll understand, okay?” My chest hurt from hearing his name. “I’m going to mingle, say hi to my dad, avoid Hugo?—”

“No! At least find Hugo and tell him why I couldn’t make it.”

“I’m not going to coddle him tonight. I can’t. But I’ll tell him you weren’t feeling well if I see him.”

“Tell him that my balls tried to crawl up into mybody from the crowd, and I’m going to spend the evening trying to dig them back out.”

“I’ll tell him you wanted an empty room so you could jerk off into your sheets.”

“Better than the truth,” he said with a sniff.

Crisse. “I’ll tell him that things were feeling sucky and you needed space. He’ll get it. He’s a good man.”

“Yeah,” Micah said as the car rolled to a stop. “He is a good man. I know you have your plan or whatever”—he waved his hand at me, accidentally clipping me on the jaw, and he didn’t apologize—“but try not to forget that, okay?”

I couldn’t make that promise, so instead, I reached out and squeezed both his wrists as the Lyft driver found a way to the side door and let us escape the worst part of the crowd.

The moment I stepped into the ballroom, I regretted not bringing my wheelchair. I’d been too afraid to take it on the plane, considering it always got some sort of damage every fucking time I decided to fly with it, but it would have been really nice to give my legs a break.

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