Page 14 of Bro Code

He turned to look over his shoulder. The guy he’d run down in the lobby yesterday – Louis – was in an aisle seat at the back of the cabin hunched over a massive keyboard, furiously tapping away. Next to him, an enormous black backpack was unzipped with a bunch of cables sprawling out of it and into various charging blocks, tablets, and monitors. Louis was wearing a pair of bright orange Beats by Dre, and was apparently oblivious to the racket he was making.

Tikkity-tap.Tap-ta-tik-tik-clack-TAP-CLACK.

Drawing a firm breath, Riley turned around and clicked up the white noise in his headphones one notch.

The team were on their way to Alaska, where management had scheduled a “bonding” weekend, before Riley’s first game on Monday. Riley had been to one of these in his rookie year with New York – a swanky resort in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, where they were supposed to do stuff that would bring them closer as a team.

Everyone was pissed. The rest of the guys had been making plans to see their families and girlfriends and hookups this weekend. They were not excited to be sitting on a plane to Alaska – and the fact that they were sitting here because of Riley meant they weren’t just pissed: they were pissed at him.

Which was pretty much, like, the opposite of what management was trying to achieve, wasn’t it?

Clackity clackity clickity clack.

Click clack.

Tap–

Jesus fucking Christ that keyboard!

Riley ripped out his earbuds. He got up and went to the back of the cabin and stood beside Louis’ seat and waited for him to look up.

Tikkity-tap. Tikkity-tikkity-tap.

He waited.

Clicky-clacky click clack. Tip tap-ta-tap-tap tip.

He waited.

Click clack tap tip tap. Tippity-tik-tik-ta-tik-tik-ta–

“Hey.”

Louis stopped. He looked up sideways through lifted eyebrows as his fingers stilled on the keys. “Yes?”

“Is that necessary right now?”

Louis pulled his headphones down around his neck. “Is what necessary?”

“The typing.”

“My job, you mean?”

Man, this guy was unfriendly. Was he still sore about Riley not remembering him yesterday? He could’ve just reminded Riley where they met. He didn’t have to be a dick about it.

Louis put on the headphones and went back to the keyboard. “It is, actually, yes.”

The typing began again.

Riley watched his fingers skipping over the keys. They were weirdly mesmerizing: the keyboard was one of those fancy bluetooth LED keyboards, and all the colors of the rainbow were lighting up the gaps between the letters. Wait…were those even letters? They were in some kind of weird alien language.

“What the fuck is that keyboard?” said Riley.

Louis pulled one headphone off and settled it beside his ear, not looking up. “What?”

“Why are all the letters on your keyboard gibberish?”

“It’s Klingon.”