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“Where’s Mase?” I want to know why that fucker can’t join his boys tonight. More than likely he’s talking to Ami, and then that makes me a little jealous. There goes my vagina talking again. “And why the fuck are you so happy?”
You know, I used to be that guy—happy, laughing, and generally upbeat about everything. Now look at me. Sulking over a girl. Pathetic. Unacceptable. I take a drink of my beer and slam it down on the table.
“I got Mase back,” Ryan blurts, barely able to contain the laughter falling from his lips. “It wasawesome.”
“And you think he’s going to let you get away with it?” I raise an eyebrow when he stares at me blankly. “That’s cute.” I raise my beer to him. “You got a lot to learn, Shawzer.”
Here’s the thing. When you pull one over on a hockey player, you better be ready to get back what you dished out and answer that bell when it rings. Ryan doesn’t understand that yet. Which is probably why he’s the brunt of retaliation so often.
“I don’t know why I talk to you,” he grumbles, turning away and taking a seat across from me.
“I know,” I mumble, watching Remy carrying two pitchers of beer. I have a feeling they might not reach the table given the girls giving him the come fuck us eyes. I lift my eyes to Ryan. “I’m a fuckin’ asshole. You’d think you would know that.”
“Nah, Remy takes that role, eh,” Travis, another one of our teammates, says as he too sits down at the table.
He’s right. I’m usually the one having a good time, and Remy’s the moody one.
Remy stops at that table near the entrance, three girls giving him the stares he can’t ignore. Looking over his shoulder at us, he waggles his eyebrows and then turns back to them. “Hello, ladies.”
What’s funny about that line? That’s all it takes for them to spread their legs for him. Sadly.
Sometime after Remy leaves with the blonde and Ryan is in the bathroom, I’m beginning to wonder where the hell Mase is when he walks into the hotel bar with blood dripping from his lip, chunks of hair missing, and a cut on his eye.
I stare at him. He didn’t look like that after last night’s game. Hockey players are rough. Sometimes we carry that passion on the ice to our hotel rooms, and shit gets physical when someone fucks with you. By Ryan’s grin earlier—and the blood on his shirt when he came down—I’m guessing this is the reason. He and Mase got into it.
“That fuckin’ asshole,” Mase says, sitting beside me and waving to the bartender for a beer.
“Who? Ryan?”
“Yes.” Mase stops and then eyes Travis and me. Ryan still hasn’t returned from the bathroom, and judging by the set frown Mase has, it’s probably a good thing.
Here’s another thing to point out for ya. Anything Mase tells us, can and will be used as the brunt of our jokes for months. Shifting in his chair uncomfortably, he reaches inside his jeans and scratches his balls. Yep. In the middle of the bar. “Is that Shawzer’s beer?” he asks, a half smile now on his lips.
I nod, my mood turning around. I love a good prank. “Yeah, he’s in the bathroom.”
Mase sticks his hand—the one he’d just had down his pants—in the beer. “Motherfucker.”
And as he’s shaking out his hand, Ryan comes back to the table, smiles at Mase, and then downs his beer.
See what I mean? Ryan’s dumb sometimes. Nevereverleave your beer unattended around us. Unless you’re Ryan.
And then it dawns on me what Ryan did to Mase. I look over at him. “You put Nair in his body wash, didn’t you?”
He growls, glaring at Ryan.
I don’t know if you know what Nair is… but it’s been a joke among us for a while. A little bit of that hair removal added to body wash and it can strip your chest hair in just a few minutes. Or even the hair around your balls. Yep, that too. Ever pissed at someone? Try it out.
Ryan is laughing so hard he can barely breathe. “I got you so good, bruh.”
Bruh? Ugh. I want to punch him in the face. These rookies have no class anymore.
Mase stands practically launches himself over the table and grabs him by the shirt. “Ya pull that shit again, and you’ll be pissing blood,bruh,” Mase spits at him.
The beers on the table hit the ground, glasses break, and the servers begin to circle.
“Come on, bud.” I clap my hand over Mase’s shoulder, separating the two of them. “Let’s go get some food.”
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