Page 12 of Pucked Up (Punk as Puck #2)

“No, he doesn’t,” Ford said. Shit, I must have been talking out loud again.

The world seemed fuzzy already. The tequila was hitting hard.

“No one knows. It’s…whatever. It’s a thing.

My birth mom was a family friend. She had a rough life, and CPS took me from her at the hospital.

It was a whole…thing. Obviously, I don’t remember. I was a newborn.”

I blinked sleepily at him. “You…are angry about it?”

“I don’t like being lied to,” he said. There was tension in his voice I wasn’t expecting to hear.

“They lied. When I got mad at them for not preventing my accident, they told me I should be more grateful that they took care of me at all. That I wasn’t blood, but out of the kindness of their hearts, they took me in.

That someone in my position would have been put into a foster home and a lot worse off if I’d been injured in state care. ”

“Ford…”

“There’s a reason I don’t talk to them.”

Crisse, I was a terrible friend. I knew he never spoke to his family. When we were in Beijing, I’d asked him who had come to support him, and he’d told me no one. No one was there. No one had been invited.

I was too wrapped up in my own shit to ask why.

“I—”

He shook his head. “I don’t want pity. I just want you to know that I get it. I know shitty dads and shitty moms, okay. But I don’t let it wreck my life.”

I stared at him, bewildered. He hadn’t let it wreck his life? Maybe not. But he’d let it stunt him, just like all the rest of us had been stunted—stuck here, unable to move past whatever had us in a chokehold.

At least he knew my trauma.

“I’m allowed to be angry. And I want to know that I can count on the both of you to stand by me, even when I’m being irrational.”

He sighed and took the bottle, shoving the cork in the top and pushing to his feet. He wobbled a bit, then gripped his prosthetic knee and wrenched it slightly to the left. “It’s because we love you that we don’t want to see you ruin a good thing. I don’t know Hugo, but he’s a decent?—”

“Don’t fucking say it.”

“Coach,” he finished. “And you need to learn to cope better.” He set the bottle down on the nightstand, then kicked my dick box back under the bed.

“I’m going to crash in Tucker’s bed. Come get me if you feel like you’re going to choke on your own vomit.

And maybe have a big-ass glass of water before you crash out. ”

I flipped him off. Nothing felt solved, and a small part of me wished I’d yelled myself hoarse instead of drinking disgusting liquor until the world felt like it had tilted too far on its axis.

But there I was, on the floor, and the tequila shots were hitting.

I most definitely wasn’t getting up.

I had never been the sort of person who could crash on the floor and get up the next day like it was nothing.

There had never been an “in my youth” time in my life.

The first time I tried drinking, I had a seizure that lasted seven minutes, and my mom was certain it had given me brain damage.

It hadn’t, but it was a reminder that I was never quite allowed to be carefree the way my friends were.

And that morning was a stark reminder of that.

It was going to be an electric wheelchair day—which at least I had the upgrade to my manual chair rather than one of the hulking beasts that needed six hours to charge and weighed a thousand pounds.

But I felt a bit like a failure. I hadn’t listened to my body, I hadn’t listened to my friend, and now I was going to pay for it.

I peeled myself up off the floor after half an hour of struggle.

I could still see the edge of my dick box, and the entire room smelled like booze.

It was a mark of what an absolute fucking shithead I’d been lately that if Ford had come to check on me last night—and he probably had—he’d left me to stew in my own tequila-scented juices.

It took me another twenty minutes to crawl to my shower, where I nearly pissed myself on the way, but I had no one else to blame. I’d been an absolute monster to the few people in my life who genuinely cared about me, and I definitely deserved this.

I hadn’t been this low since college, and that was years before I’d met Ford and Tucker.

Most people assumed I’d been the bullied disabled kid since all the PSAs and sad, tragic online stories talked about how the entire world was made up of sociopaths who liked to laugh at the misfortunes of others.

And maybe that was true somewhere, but it hadn’t been for me. My mom was sort of internet famous for dating D-list celebrities and hockey players. My dad had a reputation in his hometown and even did commentary on ESPN during the playoffs. I looked young—annoyingly so—but I wasn’t unattractive.

I never had trouble getting girls, and after I came out, there was never an issue getting guys either. But I also hadn’t known how to be happy. No one ever satisfied me .

No one ever made me feel safe. Or like I was finally home. No one ever got me until I met those two jackasses that I happened to love with all my heart. That’s when everything changed.

With a heavy sigh, I turned on the water and immediately stuck my hand under the spray, pulling back with a loud hiss. It was so cold it was painful.

Then, of course, the door slammed open, and Ford appeared, one-legged, bleary-eyed, and angry. “Did you fall?”

Rolling my eyes, I covered my naked dick with one hand and waved him off with the other. “Va t’en,” I snarled.

He knew what fuck off meant in quite a few languages, but he was definitely most familiar with the French version. Leaning his shoulder against the door, he tilted his head to the side. “So. Not done being a dick, I see.”

I was in no mood, damn it. I had a hangover and a meeting in—oh God, probably soon. I was probably going to be late. Then I had to drag my happy ass over to the rink and let Hugo chew me out because it really was time to take my medicine or whatever the saying was.

But I wasn’t ready to admit how wrong I was just yet.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t be.”

“I thought we went over this last night.” He took a single hop forward, then stopped and hopped back again. “We love you.” He ticked that off on one finger. “We’re doing this for your own good—” The second finger.

“I don’t remember asking you to look out for me. I remember asking you to stand with me no matter what.”

His eyes narrowed. “Our love is unconditional, Boden. But sometimes loving you is telling you when you have your head lodged so far up your ass you could lick your own prostate.”

“That,” I said with a sniff, “is fucking disgusting.”

He gave an unrepentant shrug. “I said what I said. Now, do you need help, or?—”

“I need you to fuck off.”

He held up both hands. “I’m going home, then. Call me if you’re so hungover you crack your skull on the shower and need a ride to the hospital. If you can remember my name. Or yours.”

Ford occasionally forgot I’d been living like this my entire life. I knew how to navigate my own body with and without a hangover. And I would be just fine, thank you very much.

I waited for a beat to try and hear the door shut, but without my hearing aids and with the shower running, that was going to be literally impossible. So I counted to three hundred as the bathroom filled with steam, and then I reached over and slid the door open.

One foot in on the nonslip tiles. Success. And then the other.

My legs immediately began to spasm from all the tension I had running through my body, and instead of catching myself on my shower bench, I straddled it. My balls smashed first, and I hit the ground, rolling onto my side.

The water poured on my face, filling my mouth and one ear as I spluttered and attempted to get up. I deserved this , I thought as I managed to spin around and press my back to the wall as my legs finished their morning Irish jig. Whatever bruises were left behind, I had only myself to blame.

And as easier as it might have made my morning, I was not goddamn calling Ford to pick me up. No. I’d figure that out on my own.