Page 20 of Pucked Up (Punk as Puck #2)

CHAPTER

TEN

BODEN

The last place I wanted to be was on the road after the day I had, but I also wasn’t about to leave one of my best friends stranded.

I could see my lights glinting off Micah’s cane as he hovered by the side of the road, and then he came into view.

He looked a little disheveled, which was unusual for him.

Between the two brothers, Micah was the one who put a ton of effort into his appearance.

He was always on his Sighted Guide app to make sure he was well-dressed and had every hair in place.

Tonight, though, he looked like he’d been rolling around in a field.

I beeped the horn twice as I rolled to a stop, and he turned his ear toward the road. He was a few feet away from the bus bench, so I pulled up as close to the curb as I could and rolled down the window.

“Looking for a ride, gorgeous?”

His hands gripped the top of the door, and he grinned. “It’s five for a blowie. Ten if you want me to slip a finger in your ass.”

“I’d pay more. Get in, loser. I want a burrito since you dragged me out here at ass o’clock.”

“Cock o’clock,” he said with a grin, feeling for the door handle before yanking it open and folding up his cane. He slid in beside me and dropped his head back with a groan.

“Tell me whatever lay you had tonight was worth it.”

He scoffed. “It was not. The guy thought Jonah and I fucked.”

“Wait…” I blinked at him. “Like, each other?”

“I mean, it happens all the time in porn, so I think people assume we’d be into it.” He hunched his shoulders by his ears, but he had no right to be shocked with the shit he and Jonah said in public.

“You two tell people about the porn you watch together, so…”

“We don’t watch it together. I mean, okay, I make him listen to the hilarious parts with me, but we don’t do, you know, that.

He’s my goddamn brother .” He grimaced, showing all of his teeth as I pulled away from the curb so I didn’t get pulled over for actually trying to pick up a dude on the side of the road.

“Anyway, the guy got kind of pushy when I told him that Jonah isn’t into me and that it’s not a thing we do. ”

My hands tightened on the wheel. “What do you mean, pushy?” Hugo might have fucked some of my frustration out of me, but there was nothing better than clocking a dickhead in the mouth when he hurt one of my friends.

Micah wrinkled his nose. “I mean, he threw this hissy fit—said he didn’t know what the big deal was. He could gag the both of us, and Jonah wouldn’t even know I was there. Which…what the fuck, right?”

My anger was rising, though my voice stayed flat. “ Really ?”

“He didn’t like that I had a problem with that. He got, uh…handsy.”

White-hot rage sparked up my spine. “By handsy, you mean?”

He turned his head, and I could see a bruise forming in the curve between his neck and his shoulder.

“He only got the jump on me once, grabbed me around the neck, and pinned me to the floor. He was hard as fuck when he did it, so clearly, the guy was a fucking predator. I kneed him in the balls and walked out. He followed me for a while, but I think he forgot I was a hockey player, so…”

I waited. When he didn’t answer, I nudged him. “So?”

“So when he tried to sneak up on me again, I floored him and put my knee on his neck. He promised to leave me alone after that.”

“Damn it,” I swore under my breath.

His head whipped around to face me. “Did you want me to be dirty touched, Bodie? Is that what you were hoping?”

“Don’t be an ass,” I snapped at him. He winced, and guilt slammed through me. I didn’t need to be taking my issues out on my friends. “I just meant it would have been really nice to knock someone out, and a guy like that would be the perfect target.”

He hummed softly. “I see. So what size was the bug that crawled up your ass and died tonight?” He held up his fist. “About like this?”

Yeah, I was the dickhead here. “I’m sorry, Micah.”

Likely because I didn’t apologize often, he immediately went soft and smiled. “I forgive you.”

When I pulled up to the next red light, I turned to face him. He looked exhausted, his mouth drawn down around the corners, his eyelids more relaxed than they usually were, but that was a sign he was stressed.

Micah and Jonah talked a lot, but they didn’t always open up. The guys and I knew details about the way they grew up only because we’d known them for so fucking long that little bits and pieces had come out during nights where one of them would get tipsy and start telling childhood stories.

I knew that Micah not being able to use prosthetic eyes pissed their parents off because they accepted their sons’ blindness but wanted him to look “normal”—whatever the fuck that meant.

And while it wasn’t his fault he’d nearly died under anesthesia during his first surgery, they always kind of blamed him for it.

And one night, when Micah and Jonah were about half a dozen shots into a bottle of Maker’s Mark, they told me the worst story. Micah had come out as bi at eighteen, after being drafted into the PPHL. He was making his own money, he’d said. He felt safe to be himself.

And then his mother came over, and in order to “save his soul,” Jonah had sneered, his words slurred, she took his phone, turned off all his accessibility settings, then hid it in their apartment and left.

It took three days, then Jonah eventually calling his partially sighted coach and several members of the team with lower levels of blindness to tear apart the place and find it.

When he and Jonah confronted their mom about it, she simply said, “I know you’re on those apps, and if I can’t convince you to give your life some real purpose instead of condemning yourself to hell, I’m going to have to take steps to force you.”

And that was the last time they talked about her.

But I knew moments of him going on dates with men were more than just being attracted to them. It was also one more fuck-you to his parents, who had only accepted him for parts of who he was.

And I understood that more than I ever wanted to admit to anyone.

“You didn’t fall asleep, did you?” Micah asked.

My gaze shot up, and I realized the light had been green for probably a while. I gripped the gas too hard, and the car jerked forward, making him gasp.

“Bro. Fuck. Were you asleep?”

“No. I was thinking about your mom,” I told him. Oh Christ, what ?

He grimaced. “Dude. Keep that fetish to yourself.”

“No, no. Shit.” I took a deep breath. “Don’t be disgusting.”

“ You don’t be disgusting! She’s a monster.”

“No, I mean, I was thinking about shitty parents.” I paused for a second, then said, “My dad called. He wants me to go to this fuck-ass benefit thing for the PPHL.”

“Oh, the Reid Martin benefit.”

“That’s the one,” I said.

“Right. I won that,” Micah said. “They’re making me go this year.”

I immediately felt better. “Oh, shit. Really? Do you want to be my date?”

He grimaced. “Dude, I would love that, but they’re literally making me take that guy you hate.”

“You’ll have to narrow that down,” I said as I pulled onto his street. “It’s a huge list.”

“You’re such a fucking nightmare,” he said with a snort. “I love it. But, uh, yeah. Your coach.”

My veins went icy. He was taking Hugo as his date? My Hugo? “You’re going to date my coach?”

His face twisted into a grimace. “What? Fuck no. I don’t date anyone who has anything to do with hockey. You know this. But my coach called me and told me he and I were going together.”

“Tell them no,” I said. There was fire in my voice. Anger. Jealousy. It was absurd because even if Hugo did end up wanting Micah—and the guy was gorgeous, so I wouldn’t have been surprised—Micah really was adamantly against fucking hockey players.

He sighed. “I can’t. But look, find me there, yeah? We’ll ditch our shitty dates and go get wasted. Oooh, we should make a speech,” he added as I pulled into the parking spot for his apartment. He turned his face toward me and folded his hands under his chin. “Can we get drunk and make a speech?”

“Micah. I’m trying to get a foot in the door here.” I wouldn’t have another Paralympic incident. I would not.

“In where? My place? Bodie, I don’t fuck players, and I don’t fuck friends.”

I smacked him on the shoulder. “No, jackass. The PPHL. I need…I want…” My voice cracked, and Micah’s face fell. “Shit, I’m sorry, but I need to behave that night. I’m running out of chances.”

“Right. I forgot. I’m sorry, bud. I’m being a dick. I just hate being told where to go and what to do, you know?”

I did. More than I wanted to say.

“Just punch me in the mouth next time.”

“I’d rather punch people who made you feel like shit and tried to attack you,” I confessed.

His brows shot up. “Dude, just call me next time. There’s, like, at least six people I’d like to knock out right now. If your fists are feeling restless, we’ll go find one of them.”

“Deal.” I hesitated, then reached out and gripped his shoulder. “I’m sorry tonight sucked.”

“I’ve had worse,” he said. I hated that for him, but he really didn’t seem too bothered. But then again, when did he ever?

Guys like us were good at hiding until we weren’t, and I hoped one day Micah wasn’t going to crack the way I was starting to. And if he did, I hoped there was a Hugo for him to fuck it out of his system.

Just so long as it wasn’t my Hugo.

Oh God, no. I could not start thinking of him as mine. No matter how possessive I felt.

“See you later?” Micah asked, snagging his cane from between his feet.

“Yeah. Call me if you need anything.”

He shot me a little salute off the side of his forehead and then got out. I sat there watching him make his way to his door, not because I was afraid he wouldn’t make it but because I was afraid of going home to be with my thoughts.

I was feeling too many goddamn feelings about Hugo now, and those were the last things about myself I wanted to face.