Page 67 of Forbidden Puck
“It's certainlynot the family resemblance, thank God! Lance is a beast, butElla?” Ilya joked—a joke which earned him Lance's fist to the gut.
“Remember what I said about Winnipeg,” Lance quietly mumbled at him.
Winnipeg must mean something to them … who knows.
Lance turned to me again. “No, but seriously, she knew your name was Ella. How'd she know that?”
“Maybe you mentioned me in an interview once upon a time? She's probably a huge fan of yours,” I muttered.
When in doubt, always appeal to an athlete's ego.
Lance smirked. “Heh. You're probably right.”
I'd gotten away with another lie. With each lie, it felt like I slowly transformed into someone else, something dark and monstrous, something I wasn't …
The hostesses led us to a private event room with a giant table. Lance sat at one head of the table, and I sat at his right. Their older teammate sat at the other head—I'd pieced together that his name was Shea.
Radar tried to sit next to Shea, but Lance wouldn't have it. “The hell are you doing down there? Sit by us, Radar. We've got the guest of honor over here.”
Radar neared. He sat on Lance's left, across from me. I couldn't avoid him now.
If eyes could speak, his said,I'm sorry I got us into this mess.
If my eyes could reply, they'd say,yeah, well, being sorry doesn't change a thing, does it?
“The reason I want you sitting by us,” Lance began, “is because I'm sure everyone wants to hear Ella's re-telling of Radar's night yesterday.”
“What? No!” I protested.
But my voice was drowned out by the approving grunts and jeers of twenty-some grown men. Once they quieted down, all eyes were on me in anticipation.
“I don't really want to tell it again,” I said. “I don't really remember what happened now. My memory's fuzzy.”
I was met with boos.
“Sorry …”
Lance frowned at me. “Seriously, sis? You're not going to tell them?”
“I don't want to, Lance.”
“Ugh, fine. Okay, for those who didn't hear the story this morning . . .”
While Lance launched into a re-telling of the events I'd made up this morning, I caught Radar's gaze from across the table.
If his eyes could speak, they were saying,remember when I told you making all that shit up was a bad idea? Welp, here you go—hope you're enjoying this!
And if my eyes could answer, they'd say,I don't want to hear it! You made me lie in the first place, remember? How the hell am I supposed to be good at lying? I never even do it! Before I met you, anyway … now I'm suddenly getting a lot of practice at it …
Okay, maybe he didn't get all that just from my eyes, but that was certainly what was going through my mind.
Eventually, Lance's story came to an end, and everyone joked around about Radar's bad game, and openly wondered what could've been the cause of it.
“Obviously, she was too great of a lay. Drained his nuts completely dry, and today he's got nothing left in the tank.”
“Look, he isn't even talking!”
“Is that why Radar's so moody today? He just had his mind blown all night, and today he's thinking about the one that got away?”
