YEAH, THAT’S FINE, BUT YOU HAVE TO SLEEP ON THE COUCH.
V: TOTALLY COOL WITH THAT. I’M GOING TO GRAB A PIZZA AND I’LL BE OVER.
GET TWO. I’M STARVING.
An hour or so later, I was kicked back on my couch watching baseball when my front door flew open and Viper came strolling through, pizza and beer in hand.
“Sup, my man?” He bellowed as he dropped the stuff on my kitchen counter and came over to shake my hand.
I stood and shook his hand back.
“I’m clearly doing better than you. What’s going on at your house?”
He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Kat came home and the cleaning lady was still there.”
I stared at him, confused. “Why would that piss her off?”
Well, Kat came in and I was relaxing in my chair. The maid was on her knees … sucking my dick.” He laughed. “Apparently, that was not an approved chore. Kat ran over and grabbed her by the ponytail and started whaling on her. I’m not gonna lie, it kind of turned me on at first, those two going at it, but I wrapped my arms around Kat until what’s-her-name could get out of the house. Needless to say, she’s fucking pissed, and I didn’t want to sit there all night listening to it.”
Shaking my head, I asked my next thought out loud. “Why do it? Why go through all of this? Is it worth it? Why not just break up with her and live your life however you want?”
Viper narrowed his eyes, contemplating my question. “I don’t know. She’s always there when I need her. It’s nice to have someone there for me all the time. I know she’ll never really leave. Plus, she’s a fucking animal in bed.” His eyebrows wiggled up and down. “Clawing, biting, screaming. Who bails when you get to fuck that every night?”
“You … make my brain hurt.” I smacked him hard on the back of the neck as I walked into the kitchen to grab the pizzas.
“Speaking of fucking, what’s up with you? I haven’t talked to you all week. You fuck that girl yet?”
I turned around and locked eyes with him. “Dude. Don’t.”
He held his hands up in front of him defensively, his eyes wide. “My bad, man. Sorry.”
I picked up the pizza boxes from the counter and turned back to the living room, nodding toward the kitchen. “Grab the beer, will ya?”
“Got it.” Viper grabbed the six packs of beer and carried them over to the coffee table. “This girl really has you all fucking crazy, huh?”
“Yeah, she does. And I’m totally okay with that.”
“What is it about her? I don’t think I’ve ever met a girl who has made me act as idiotic as you are,” he said, as he shoved a piece of pepperoni in his mouth.
“Nothing. Everything,” I said, smiling to myself.
“Oh my God. Did you grow a * while you were up there?”
I reached over and punched him on the arm, hard.
“Seriously, dude.” He looked at me incredulously. “What is it about her? I’ve never seen you like this.”
“I don’t know…” Moments I’d had with Kacie started running through my head as I tried to pinpoint exactly what it was that had me so crazed. “It’s the way she looks when she’s playing with her daughters. It’s the way she crinkles her cute freckled nose when she smiles really big. It’s the way her hair looks sexy all the time, even when it’s in a ponytail. I could sit here listing things for hours and still not tell you all of the amazing things about her.”
Viper stared at me; his eyes wide open in disbelief.
“Whoa.”
Whoa was an understatement, I was beyond crazy about her and it was completely foreign to me. Ever since I was old enough to form memories, hockey was my life. I thought about it constantly, obsessed about it. I dissected plays from past games in my head, watched thousands and thousands of hours of highlight reels, anything I could do to improve my game. Kacie was the first person to pull me out of a lifelong hockey haze and consume my thoughts with something I never expected. Something far better. My mind often wandered to thinking about her and what she was doing right that minute, what she was wearing today, if she was thinking about me, too.
“She’s coming here this weekend,” I said nonchalantly.
“She is?” He grinned wildly and licked his lips like a wolf on the prowl. “Do I get to meet her?”
“Hell no.”
“Come on,” he begged.
“Not a chance.” I shook my head. “You can crash here tonight then get your ass up and out early before she gets here.”
He smirked at me like he had other plans. “We’ll see about that.”
“Stop stressing, we’ll be fine.” My mom smiled reassuringly as she wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug. “Go. Have fun. Relax.”