Page 12 of Married As Puck
“You know what your problem is?”
I tilt my head, give him the flattest stare I can manage. “No, but I’m sure you’d take the liberty of enlightening me.”
“You think brooding is a personality. But you’re just…stuck.”
“Deep analysis. Should I pay you by the hour?” I raise a brow, taking a swig of my water.
“You look like someone shot your dog,” he says.
I drag a hand over my face, resisting the urge to snarl. “It’s worse.”
“Worse than that time you found out Chipotle stopped serving your favorite salsa?” Keith slides into the seat across from me, grin sharp, eyes bright with the kind of humor that bounces off me like pucks off a post.
I don’t bite. “Collins called.”
That wipes the grin off him.
“Oh.”
Keith winces like I’ve jabbed him with my stick. Then, almost immediately, he shakes it off, reaching for his beer like he can drown whatever storm he just imagined. “So what? Collinsalways calls. That’s his job. Probably wanted to remind you your jawline photographs better from the left side.”
My laugh comes out low and humorless. “Try again.”
Keith studies me for a second, then sighs. “This about your arch nemesis?”
The name tastes sour in my mouth. I stare at the buzzing neon sign above the shoe counter—BOWL ‘TIL YOU DROP—and mutter, “It’s always about Jack.”
Keith leans forward, elbows on the sticky table, lowering his voice. “You’ve come back from worse. Hell, if I’d heard the crap he said to you, I would’ve put him in the hospital myself. You just got there first. Jack’s always talking trash, he had it coming for him. I mean the guy talks like he has a knot loose in his head or something.”
His attempt at comfort makes me smile but it still makes me feel worse than I already do.
“You don’t get it,” I say, shaking my head. The words taste like rust as they scrape out. “That scumbag is in the hospital. Last I checked, he wasn’t doing too good. I did that. I landed him in the hospital. I beat the shit out of him and look where he ended. He said really nasty and provocative things to me, and I snapped. And now I’m the villain, the thug, the washed-up thirty-five-year-old liability no team wants to touch. No one cares what he did or said to me, everyone’s focusing on what I did. Do you have any idea how bad this is for me? I’m only one wrong move away from being the total reject. Without hockey—”
I stop. The words catch like barbed wire in my throat. Without hockey what? Who the hell am I then? Cameron nothing? The boy from the living spring with washed up dreams and a failed future?
Fucking hell.
The lane lights blur, glowing streaks that pull me under. I hear the pins crash from someone else’s strike, kids squealing two lanes down, the low drone of some bad rock song from the ‘90s overhead. My chest feels like it’s caving in, the walls pressing tighter with each shallow breath.
Keith doesn’t laugh this time. He leans back, beer in hand, suddenly quiet. He looks at me the way only Keith can like he sees the cracks and doesn’t flinch from them.
For a second, I almost tell him how damn tired I am. How the noise in my head doesn’t shut off anymore. How even sleep feels like punishment.
But instead, I blurt the thing that’s been clawing at me since forever.
“And if that’s not enough,” I mutter, “I’ve got a stranger living in my apartment.”
Keith nearly chokes on his drink. He coughs, sputters, then breaks into laughter that echoes across the alley loud enough to make people look. “Wait. What? Say that again, I think I missed that.”
I glare. “Don’t start. Don’t fucking start.”
“Oh no, I have to start. You? Mister I-Lock-My-Door-Twice and Mister I-Don’t-Even-Answer-The-Door-For-Amazon have a stranger living with you? Please tell me you’re screwing with me.”
“I wish I was. I really wish I was pulling your legs right now.”
Keith slams his palm on the table, wheezing with laughter. “Okay, okay, tell me what the hell is going on.”
“No, no, hold on.” He leans forward, bracing his elbows on the sticky table. “A stranger. In your house. As in… moved in? Eating your food? Taking over your couch?”
