Page 129 of Puck My Life

She turns, slips in her puddle of water, elbows the wall hard, and knocks off a ceramic cat before she rights herself and stalks out.

I go and grab my phone, lean into the shot, and smile at the camera. “Phase one: complete.” Then I end the live stream.

The party rages all night; it is an epic success. Indy doesn’t enjoy it as much as she enjoyed our parties, and that is indeed so very sad. Plus, you know, she got to clean up the mess. I’m not sure she was amused by the vomit on her stilettos or the pair fucking on her bed.

She never cared at our house. Funny, that.

The next day, she disappears, and when she comes home, she glowers at us and retreats to her room with a vicious order to clean up our mess.

We don’t clean. We do, however, take over a whole bedroom each, leaving Indy’s room alone. I pull out all the gloves I’ve borrowed from the team and dump them on the kitchen bench and quietly go off to bed.

I get up in the morning and drink the last of the orange juice, while I tip the milk down the drain. The coffee follows suit, and I put the tea in the yogurt.

Indy walks out and gags. “What is that smell?”

“You didn’t wash our gear for practice?” I say reproachfully. “The team is not going to be happy, Indy.”

“Wash your gear?” she asks blankly; her face is back on today, small mercy.

“Isn’t that what girlfriends do?”

“No!” Indy fairly vibrates with rage.

“Vae did it.” I flip my hand over casually and accidentally on purpose knock over the only coffee she has left in this shithole.

“Vae was a saint,” Indy spits venomously.

“No argument there.”

She opens the fridge and gawks at it. “Where’s my protein shakes?”

“Mm, was good,” Mal says from the couch. He belches and then throws a tennis ball at the ceiling. Leaving dirty marks that I have no idea how someone will get off.

“My green tea smoothie?”

Raynor holds up a hand. “Oh, I loved that. I couldn’t stop drinking them, though, fair warning, it came out, and you’re going to need a nuclear warhead to clean the porcelain throne.”

Indy goes green, her mouth gaping open. “You did not.”

“What goes in, must come out,” Mal sings.

“Oh, grow up!”

Her temper is becoming even more frayed. I’m really enjoying seeing her lose the plot, but there’s a deep satisfaction in knowing that, as she unravels, we get closer to Vae.

Raynor walks past scratching his crotch.

Indy follows him, her mouth open wide in horror. “You’re going to wash your hands, aren’t you? Oh, my God, what are you doing? Don’t wipe them on my curtains. They cost me a fortune.”

Raynor doesn’t answer. He just groans and goes back in again.

“Did you touch anything else?” she shrieks.

I wince at the harsh sound. Perfect.

I sigh and scrape the entire packet of very expensive tofu into the bin. “That cheese is off.”

She does a double take. “That’s my imported tofu. I had to go to five stores to find it.”