Charming as Puck(38)

Fuck, this is what relief feels like. I’m jelly-kneed and wobbly-thighed. I sink down on the bench in front of my locker and stare at Calgary’s logo on the carpet. “I just—just wanted to see how you’re doing,” I say.

“Aren’t you supposed to be playing a game right now?” she asks, and the concern in her voice is a life raft.

She still cares.

“Yeah. I mean, no. In a few minutes. Not yet. Klein’s starting. I’m—” I’m stuttering and stammering like I’m a freshman in high school asking the head senior cheerleader if she wants to come watch a cartoon movie with me and my family. “Your cousin Judy still setting you up on dates?”

“You mean Muffy?” she says dryly.

Muffy. I knew it was something funny. I grab my wallet and look for a piece of paper to scribble the name on. “Just making sure you’re paying attention.”

“You are utterly ridiculous.”

There’s a smile in her voice. I can hear it, and knowing I put it there lifts a weight I didn’t realize I was carrying.

Muffy.

I’m googling her as soon as I hang up.

“I like to think the ridiculous is part of my charm,” I tell her.

“You really need to stop with the gifts. It’s not necessary.”

“Bet nobody else you’ve dated would’ve thought of today’s.”

“That’s because normal people don’t buy thirty Heifers for Humanity in another person’s name. Or ask for all thirty of the gift goats that they give with the heifers to go to the honoree. I have enough stuffed animals for a goat orgy.”

I’m grinning now, because that was fucking brilliance.

Maybe not the part where people in third world countries will be eating Sugarbear’s cousins, but the part where I got cows into her apology gifts.

“It’s too much, Nick. Please. I get it—you’re sorry. You don’t have to keep sending presents.”

I’ve never had a real girlfriend, but I’ve dated casually plenty, and there’s one thing I’ve never found in another woman—the desire for me to not spend my cash on her.

How can I not like Kami?

She’s just good people. Selfless and shit.

“Maybe I just want to send my friend birthday presents. Maybe it’s not all about an apology.”

“Nick…”

“I can’t send people farm animals anymore. I have to channel my creative energy somewhere.”

Lavoie snorts. Frey outright laughs. Zeus is smirking.

Only Ares shakes his head like we’re all three bananas short of a fruitcake.

There’s a shriek on her end of the phone, and then a roar of people cheering. “Where are you?” I ask.

“Whoa, dude. If I can’t have phone sex in the dressing room, neither can you,” Zeus says.

“Wrap it up, Murphy.” Coach walks in and scowls at me.

“Gotta go,” I tell Kami. “I’ll call you later.”

“Nick—” she starts, but Lavoie snags my phone and ends the call for me.

Or maybe in spite of me. Because I didn’t want to hang up.

I wanted her to tell me she was having a miserable time and answered because she wished I was with her.

I wanted her to ask me to call again soon instead of me just telling her I would.

I wanted to her want me.

“Oh, fuck,” I gasp.

Lavoie rolls his eyes. Frey grins. So does Zeus.

Ares, though, pins me with a yeah, you idiot, and you’ve got your work cut out for you, don’t you? look.

Because they know. And they’re right.

I’m in love with Kami.





Twenty-Two





Kami



The phone goes dead, and after checking to make sure it was Nick hanging up and not my battery—nope, I have twenty-three percent left, so it was definitely a hang-up—I pocket it while Maren gives me the you are in so much trouble glare.

“It was game time. If he’s calling at game time, something might’ve been really wrong.” I turn back to my Skee-Ball game and toss a ball up the wooden lane.

And totally miss even the biggest ring.

“Was something wrong?” Maren asks.

“Just the fact that he’d call me right before the game.”

There’s a huge shout, and we both glance over at the table of men at Wreck’n’Roll who are still arguing over the greatest football players of all time. Maren and I agreed before we got here that we’d pretend to be football fans tonight, because it seemed safer than getting dragged into another Thrusters conversation like at the wedding Sunday night.

But we sold it a little too well, especially Maren with the trash-talking, and now all the men we were supposed to be speed dating are bonding over beers and yardage statistics.

“Maybe we should become domestic partners and both head to sperm banks,” Maren says.

“Will you buy me a farm in the country and let me have pygmy goats?”

“Can I install solar panels and wind turbines and a satellite wifi receiver?”

“Of course.”

“Done.”

We finish up our game, sneak around the guy who wanted to show us pictures of his ceramic clown collection—hello, childhood nightmares—and head for the door.