Page 41 of The Switched-Up Playbook
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The smell of fresh pancakes and melted sugar greets me when I enter the kitchen half an hour later. The shower has restored some of my will to live, and my stomach rumbles in happy anticipation of real and homemade food—although I’m not sure it can be trusted just yet.
“You don’t deserve friends like us,” Oliver informs me happily as he puts a Tylenol next to my water glass. I glance wistfully at his steaming mug, which earns me a look of disapproval. “No taking medicine with coffee.”
“I know,” I sigh, which, honestly, is an answer to both.
“So, don’t you have anything to say to us?” he prompts, after we have loaded our plates with pancakes. It’s a game day for the other three, so I should probably be relieved there’s a limited audience for this, but I still groan.
“You already know.”
“That you lied to us? Allowed a complete stranger to live under our roof fortwo weeks?Yes, we do know that by now,“ Oliver huffs and I duck. It sure doesn’t sound good when he phrases it like that.
“Nate isn’t a stranger,” Linden interjects, putting a calming hand on Oliver’s elbow. “He even fought a bunch of frat bros for you!”
“Should have known he got in trouble because of you,” I groan, which has Oliver narrowing his eyes at me.
“First of all, we’re discussing Nicko’s wrongdoings and not mine. And second, it’s not my fault that B-Tech’s frats think homophobia still looks cute on men these days.”
I bite the inside of my cheek at that. This. This is why I don’t do social media posts or home stories.
“But you’re okay? They didn’t...touch youor anything?”
“I’m fine, your brother went all knight in shining armor—it was actually adorable, until one of them punched him in the face. Now that I think about it, he might be my favorite twin.”
The thought of someone punching Nate makes my skin crawl. Gripping my fork tightly, I stuff a piece of pancake into my mouth to prevent any dumb comments from tumbling out.
Oliver doesn’t have any fault in this. I just wish these things would be nothing more than stories old people tell about their past. Not a real threat.
“I also introduced him to romance books. That should have tipped me off,” Oliver muses as he empties half a bottle of syrup onto his stack of pancakes.
“Sounds like he tried real hard to replace me,” I grumble.
“It’s not funny, you two! What the fuck were you even trying to achieve with this?!” Linden huffs.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I...Nate came down with that stomach bug, and he had an important game on the weekend. Don’t look at me like that! I mean areallyimportant game. As in ‘scouts were going to be in the stands’ important!”
Linden and Oliver are giving me a skeptical look, and I sigh. I knew they wouldn’t understand—they both have their life figured out already and don’t plan on going pro in their chosen sport. They’ll both be doctors, Linden preferring animal patients over humans, and Oliver will probably have the time of his life terrorizing a whole hospital with cheesy quotes from gay romance novels.
They don’t know what it’s like to be drafted in the third round, where statistically most players don’t make it to the NHL. They don’t know how hard Nate worked for this. Hell, until a few days ago, I didn’t know either! I wasn’t aware he took runs at the asscrack of dawn or stayed for extra drills with Hart after training. I also assumed he went the easy path, picking a literature major, until I got stuck with his reading assignments. Having all of that taken away just because he missed his chance to prove himself in front of the right people is not fair.
“But that’sforbidden, Nicko. You two could get into so much trouble!” Linden looks seriously worried, like he thinks I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Only that I told the same to Nate—just to betray my words with my actions. And I would love to say I did it all for him, but there’s a quiet voice in my head reminding me of what it took to finally agree to this.
I think by now we would be better off without him.
He’s just not playing the same anymore, you know?
Devils’ left wing Jacques Autin expected to join Rebels in two-for-one trade.
Then quit.
The words are echoing in my mind as I chew on my pancake. The treat has suddenly turned into a piece of old gum in my mouth, rubbery and almost impossible to swallow.
“I’m pretty sure Nicko is aware of that,” Oliver says dryly.
“But why do it then?! I mean, it won’t help Nate if the Pioneers think he’s a better player than he actually is!”
“He’s not bad!” I protest.
