Page 88 of The Call-Up
He walks away and steps to the next door, apparently making his way down our line of hotel rooms.
Ryan is sitting up in bed. He looks better than he did last night but still a little run through, if I’m being honest. He’s still handsome, though. Which is kind of annoying. This whole breakdown of his has him looking very roguish. Brooding. Bad boy.
“What’s he saying?” he asks.
I toss Ryan’s Mules warmup hoodie and sweats at him, then grab my own. “Team building, apparently. We gotta meet downstairs.”
“Did he say what kind of team building?”
“Nope. But he was carrying sticks and pucks. So it’s hockey related somehow.”
“It’s a little early, isn’t it?” Ryan yawns.
He’s gonna need some help. So I pause changing my clothes, and use the little hotel room coffee maker to instantly whip him up a cup. Once that’s done, I bring it over to him then make one for myself.
“Come on,” I say. “I don’t know what he has planned but we can’t keep Cap waiting.”
Ryan
This is the last place on earth I ever expected to be this morning. I’m shocked. My jaw has dropped open, and my heart is racing, trying to escape my chest.
I stand on the sidewalk and stare in complete confusion as I watch Danton, who’s holding a hockey stick, drop a puck on my parents’ front lawn. As soon as he’s done, I watch each of my teammates—except for Brandon, who is standing beside me equally as confused—step off the team bus carrying pucks and sticks. They follow his lead.
“I thought it was about time us Mules paid your parents a visit,” Danton says. Gone is his goofy smile from earlier. Now he’s a man on a mission. He hands me the stick he’s holding. “You want to take the first swing?”
I grin at him and nod my head. This is a terrible idea. The worst. But it’s also still dark outside, and the street is quiet, and I’m angry. Really angry. This is going to feel great.
Before I take this swing, I take a moment to look at my childhood home. It’s still gleaming white and sprawls across the lawn. The windows are expansive with expensive custom curtains hanging on the other side. The landscaping is manicured with no leaf or blade of grass out of place. It’s a model of suburban perfection.
It’s also the ugliest house I’ve ever seen.
I take my stance. Line up my shot. And let it rip.
The puck soars above the lawn and collides with a satisfying thunk right in the center of the white wooden front door, leaving the perfect black skid mark across it.
Throwing the stick down, I look at my teammates, all lined up on either side of me. “Let it rip, boys,” I say. “Then let’s get back on this bus. We have a game to win tomorrow.”
One by one, they each send their puck flying towards my parents’ house, peppering the lily-white siding with black rubber marks. Even Ivanov takes a shot. Though his lands in a bush where it will probably remain lost forever.
God, if only I knew what my parents were thinking inside. They were probably in a dead sleep when my puck hit the door. They might have even slept through the next few thuds. Maybe, because it’s such a strange sound, they won’t even have registered that something nefarious was going on outside. But I guarantee that the minute they heard the puck Brandon just sent through their living room window, they were rushing down the stairs.
“Wrap it up!” Danton laughs. “Everyone on the bus before the cops get here!”
THIRTY-THREE
Brandon
I’ll admit, to anyone who asks except the cops, that slap shot I took to Ryan’s parents’ living room window felt good. Better than good. It felt fucking great.
“Did you all have fun?” Coach Chris asks us from the doorway of the coach’s office in the Dallas visitors’ locker room.
Okay. Maybe I won’t admit it to him. I look over at Ryan beside me. He’s focused on taping his stick handle like he has no idea what Coach is talking about.
“Fuck, yeah, we had fun!” Roysy yells out across the room.
I turn to look at him, shocked. What the fuck is he doing?
Coach Chris looks at him and shakes his head. “You’re all lucky that the owners of the random, unconnected-to-us-in-any-way house aren’t pressing charges, or taking this to the press.”
