Sure Shot (Brooklyn #4)(52)

“Those tiny green underwear from that ad you shot? I think you gotta burn them. It’s the only way to get the Texas out of you.”

“Burn them? You’re insane.” I’m ninety percent sure I don’t have any of the underwear from that old photo shoot anymore. But I don’t want to give these idiots the satisfaction.

“We’re very superstitious,” Castro says from the bench press. “An underwear bonfire exorcism wouldn’t be crazy at all around here. It’s just, like, Tuesday, you know?”

“I hear the Texas twang,” Anton insists. “It’s giving me the heebie-jeebies.”

“Don’t touch that speaker,” I grumble.

My playlist moves on to a different song, and thankfully Anton shuts up. The room is getting a little crowded, and I’m grateful to be almost done with my workout. The music shifts to “I and Love and You.” It’s another great Avett Brothers song, and it’s about moving to Brooklyn, oddly enough.

The funny thing is that I always liked this song, even before the chorus became my reality. Life is weird.

“Now this is music,” Anton says. “Hear that, guys? This is a band that belongs in Brooklyn.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I should probably keep my mouth shut, but I just can’t. “It’s the same band.”

“What?”

“It’s the same band—the one you decided was Texas music.” I lift a forty-pound plate off the barbell and return it to the rack.

“Nah,” Anton says, shaking his big head. “No twang.”

“What?”

“It can’t be. I know twang, and I don’t hear twang.”

“The boy knows twang,” Castro says from the opposite corner, where he’s stretching. “He can feel the twang in his thang.”

These goofballs can choose their own music, because I’m out of here. “Y’all have a good day.”

“Oh God! He just y’alled us,” Anton hoots. “We’re gonna lose to Dallas if he doesn’t cut that shit out. First the twang and now the y’all.”

“Later!” I call over my shoulder as I head for the showers.

“You better look for that underwear!” Anton calls after me. “Don’t jinx us, y’all!”

I take a long, long shower in the hotel’s luxurious locker room. But when I come out, there aren’t any towels. I could swear I grabbed one off a stack on the counter, hanging it on the hook before I got into the shower. But now I’m dripping on the floor and there’s not a towel in sight. “What the hell?”

The only towel in the room is slung around Castro’s hips. He’s standing by a locker, shaking out his shirt. “You know he’s kidding, right?”

“What? Who?” I’m distracted because I’m still trying to solve the towel mystery.

“Anton. He’s a music hound. He plays the guitar and goes to every concert he can find. He was just putting you on with that Texas thing.”

“Oh.” For a split second I feel only annoyance. I fell for that shit? But then I realize something important. If Anton and Castro are pranking me, that’s a good sign. You don’t prank a teammate that you hate. “Wait. Did you take all the towels?”

“Towels?” Castro says innocently. “There are some paper towels in there, I think.” He points to a wall-mounted dispenser.

Because I’m a little slow, I actually walk over to the dispenser, if only to mop up the water I’ve dripped on the floor.

It’s empty.

“Fuck you,” I grumble, and Castro laughs. So I do the only reasonable thing, which is to stalk over to him, grip the edge of the towel he’s wearing, and yank it off his body.

Castro, bare-assed now, just snorts. “I was done with that anyway.”

“Good thing.” I dry myself off as best I can with his wet towel. “Did you really take the paper towels out of the dispenser? That’s pro-level. I hope you’ll put ’em back, though, so that some underpaid hotel worker isn’t cleaning up after your little prank.”

“Don’t you worry.” Castro opens his locker and shows me a tower of towels—cotton on the bottom, paper on top. “I left the toilet paper in the stalls. Once I watched a player try to dry himself off with TP. It disintegrates, you know? He was picking little pieces out of his underwear for days.”

I shake my head. The prank could have been worse, I guess. If I wasn’t willing to grab his towel, I probably would have walked back into the weight room buck-ass naked for a workout towel.

We get dressed in silence for a few minutes. Right until Castro opens his yawp and says, “So. You and Bess, huh? What exactly are your intentions?”

“My—” I let out a chuckle. “What are you, her dad? And is this 1955? Where do you get off asking me that?”

It comes out sounding snippy, and I fully expect Castro to get mad. But he just sits down on the bench and calmly levels me with a brown-eyed stare “You got to stop thinking of me as a young punk who doesn’t know things. And you really shouldn’t blow off my question. Bess doesn’t date players.”

“Yeah, except for this one. And I bet she wouldn’t be super-excited about you discussing it behind her back.”