Page 12 of Absolutely Pucked (Punk as Puck #3)

CHAPTER

EIGHT

FORD

“I quit. I’m quitting my job. Goodbye forever.”

Manique looked over at me and rolled her eyes, shoving a lock of her very shiny, very straight black hair over her shoulder.

It wasn’t often I got hair envy over someone else, but she was one of the few.

Normally, she wore it in a braid down her back, but today, it was flowing over her shoulders in direct violation of our uniform code.

She was probably being a rebel because all of our store managers and the owner were out of town on some grocery store conference or some shit.

I was the only one with authority now, which was terrifying because I was not great when power was in my hands, and everyone knew it.

Including Manique, who just smiled at me.

“You’re not allowed to quit. And you’ve had one pissy customer all day.

” She ran her fingers through her hair, almost like she was taunting me.

I needed to buy a hair mask or something.

“And if you quit, I’ll be stuck with Cory, and I will not be stuck with Cory. He always schedules me on Saturdays.”

“That’s because he’s hoping you’ll let him pin you to the wall and lick your neck,” I pointed out, pulling another crate of pasta boxes toward me. Stocking was my arch-fucking-nemesis. Just like sitting on the floor was. I’d never managed to learn how to be graceful going from sitting to standing.

Tucker was amazing at it. I was more of a newborn giraffe.

“But fine, I won’t quit and leave you with that jackass.

Even if the one complaint today was a literal nightmare.

” The complainer had been an old man and made me go through his receipt line by line because apparently, six cents on his total didn’t add up.

The fucker made me use Satan’s alphabet, so he was officially on my shit list forever.

“I will quit if Don doesn’t hire someone to fucking stock this store though. I am so over this.”

Manique grimaced at me. “I know. But you’re so good at it.”

“Don’t try and flatter me, witch! Your spells have no effect on me.”

She laughed. “Honey, if I was putting a spell on you, you’d never know it.” She wriggled her fingers, and the light glinted off her silver rings. I was pretty sure she wasn’t a witch, but I also wasn’t taking chances.

Manique sighed and petted me on the head. “Listen, your shift is almost over, and I just saw Brian’s car pull into the lot.”

Brian was closing assistant manager, which meant I could shove my work off onto him and get the fuck out of there before anyone else wanted me to do something awful, like be a responsible adult.

Normally, I wouldn’t have been too bothered. Getting promoted had been nice. The extra three bucks an hour had made a small difference in my ability to spoil Nugget a bit more each month and order extra pumps of caramel in my latte.

But lately, the feeling of being a grown-up was too much.

The Wolves had been making noise about me taking the C since Tucker had betrayed me to take the Legends’ head coach position, and Boden was looking at pro contracts, and if I said yes, it meant actually leading the team. That was not where I shone brightest.

Plus, I was feeling very lonely and abandoned, which wasn’t fair to my friends.

They were allowed to move on with their lives. We didn’t all have to be stuck, pinned to the ground by our shitty pasts and poor choices. But if I was going to follow them out of this rut, I needed to figure out what the fuck I wanted to do with my life first.

“Help me up?” I asked Manique, holding a hand out.

She braced herself with her feet, then hauled me to mine without either one of us toppling over. “I’m going to send a couple emails and then get the fuck out of here. Tell Brian happy stocking.”

“He’s going to hate you,” she singsonged after me.

I turned my head and grinned. “Good. Maybe if enough people around here complain, we’ll fucking hire someone!”

I had one goal in mind: get the hell out and get home.

It was pissing rain and freezing cold, and I had to call Micah back since he’d been texting me nonstop for the better part of the day.

I also had to get my sled blades sharpened because I had been neglecting them, and we had a game on Friday.

It was the last game before Boden left for his conference thingie in Montreal, and I had a feeling this game was going to matter for him.

Christ, it was too much.

I needed a vacation. Or, like, a cave in the woods behind a waterfall that I could live in. I wasn’t sure I was built for cave life, but I’d be willing to give it a try.

For now though, all I had to do was lie low, sneak out, and?—

“Excuse me?”

Motherfucking fuck stick on a cheesy sandwich cracker.

I recognized the voice of a friend, and I was too nice to pretend like I didn’t hear him. I spun around and smiled pointlessly because this far away, I knew Tiago couldn’t see me clearly. “Hey, bud.”

He was standing beside the customer service counter with his cane, a basket, and a tense smile. The moment he heard my voice though, he relaxed. “Thank fuck. Bodie said you were working, but I wasn’t sure.”

I walked up, and when I entered the small pinhole bit of his vision he had left, he lifted a fist, and I bumped it with mine. “What’s up?”

“Grocery shopping. Need help.”

Fuck my fucking life. I smiled anyway. It wasn’t like I was going to tell him no. “I will do anything for you because I love you, but also make it quick. I have pizza rolls, ranch, and a gay Thai rom-drama waiting for me at home.”

He snorted a laugh and gripped the handle of the cart while I took the end and guided him to the produce. I knew Tiago well enough that I knew his path. Root vegetables first, then leafy greens, then the butcher, the baker, and the fucking candlestick maker.

“You sound tense,” he said as I stopped by the bin of potatoes and he began to fill a bag.

Leaning on the cart, I let out a heavy sigh. I was tense. There was a lot going on, and the one person who had given me any kind of relief in the last few months had disappeared like a ghost in the night.

I wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t a ghost.

Especially now that the spooky car had returned to my parking lot. I tried peeking in the windows again, but it was full of junk, which probably meant Alessia was right: it was some poor soul living in there.

But I wasn’t entirely giving up my theory that I was being haunted.

And maybe it was the guy from the bar. Our night had been hot as fuck, but his body had been cold, so…

“Hello?”

I blinked and realized I hadn’t answered Tiago. “Sorry, man. I’ve been in my head a lot these days.”

He nodded and dropped his potatoes into the bag before I led him to the lettuces.

“I get it. I mean, I know losing Tucker is difficult. But he was the least obnoxious guy they’ve interviewed for the position.

I was kind of holding out for Boden, but I know he’s not going to give up playing to coach us. ”

“Not yet, anyway,” I said. I could see Boden eventually stepping into the role of a coach, but not until he’d basically had enough trophies to metaphorically shove down his dad’s throat to shut him up for good.

“But yeah. I mean, I’m happy for him. It just sucks to watch my friends all leave, you know? ”

Tiago smiled as he added a couple of heads of butter lettuce to the cart, then tapped the handle for me to lead on. “Yeah. I’d be absolutely fucking fucked if Jonah left. The whole team would. No one plays like him.”

That wasn’t entirely true. Micah and Jonah both had very different styles, but they were also both goalie prodigies.

“Is Bodie feeling better now that he’s getting dicked down a bit?”

I froze so fast Tiago crashed into the cart and grunted. “Shit, sorry. Sorry! But what the fuck are you talking about? When has he gotten dicked down?”

Tiago paled and grimaced. “Oh, uh…I just… Never mind. I’m talking bullshit. Ignore me.”

He tried to push forward, but I held the cart still. “I don’t fucking think so. Explain.”

Tiago sighed. “There was a hot guy at the bar a while back. I was playing wingman that night because I was bored and dealing with Kelsy leaving.”

Right. His breakup.

“Boden was super into him, and when he and I talked a few days later, he seemed…different. And he’s been different since then. I figured he was getting some regular orgasms, you know?”

“Boden doesn’t shit in the same toilet twice,” I said flippantly. But something about what Tiago was saying rang true. Boden had been different for a while .

Tiago groaned. “That is not a saying, and please don’t try to make it one. But I don’t know. I mean, I know his rules, but?—”

“Well, he would have told me,” I said. And that might have been true in the past, but my gut was saying I was wrong on this. Shit had been so weird with him lately. “Do you know who the guy was?”

“You know his rule about names. I’m pretty sure he was Canadian. His accent was thicker than Bodie’s. But we were inside the bar, so I couldn’t see anything other than he had dark hair, and I’m pretty sure he was a white guy.”

“How did you know he was hot?”

Tiago’s eyes narrowed, and I realized my fuckup.

“Sorry, sorry. I know being hot is more than the way someone looks. I’m not trying to be an asshole.”

He deflated. “You’re not. I’m just sensitive right now. It’s been a rough few weeks with Kelsy leaving. Anyway, I’m probably wrong about this. I don’t think Boden would hide anything like that from you guys.”

I desperately wanted to believe that, but I couldn’t. Things had been upside-down for so long now, each day felt like waiting for the next crisis. And tonight, I was pretty sure, was no different.