Page 29 of Pucked Up (Punk as Puck #2)

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

BODEN

Most of the athletes were taking the train, so Ford and I decided to skip the line and take a flight into Montreal.

My dad didn’t bother coming to get me, but he did send a car, which I appreciated since I didn’t want to deal with the traffic getting to the hotel, and Ford was too intimidated to drive outside of our little town.

We were both exhausted, so the moment we hit the hotel beds, I closed my eyes and didn’t open them again for several hours. I woke to the muffled sounds of Ford on the phone, and I realized my hearing aids had fallen out while I was asleep.

I searched through the blankets and pillows, catching Ford’s eye, who winked at me.

“It’s Tucker,” he said, pitching his voice a little louder.

“He says hi. Actually, Amedeo says hi. Tucker says make sure you don’t eat the hotel salads.

He just read an article that said some guy did a study that showed room service chefs using dirty knives to cut lettuce and people have been shitting their pants at weddings. ”

“We’re not going to a wedding, and I’m going to eat salad if I feel like a fucking salad,” I told him, finding my first hearing aid. I shoved it into my tender ear canal and winced. It didn’t matter that I’d been wearing them my entire life, they never got more comfortable.

“He said—oh. Okay. He heard you,” Ford said, turning back to me. “He said enjoy trying to impress PPHL owners with shit-pants.”

I flipped Ford off, then found my other hearing aid and put it in before edging to the side of the bed.

Every muscle in my body was sore, but I had no time to wallow.

My father was going to be expecting me for dinner, and he’d have some corporate asshole with him.

It was probably some kind of hostile negotiation, trying to find me a place on a losing team just so he could say he accomplished what I couldn’t in the last few years.

I wasn’t going to take any deals he got me. Not tonight. I wanted to give myself a little more time to do it on my own before letting him take over. But I had to prepare myself for him.

The weight of his disappointment was always so damn heavy.

“Where are you going?” Ford demanded as I stood up and grabbed my crutches from the wall.

“Shower. Want to come scrub my ball sac?”

He threw a pillow at me and missed. “Don’t take too long. I’m fucking starving. ”

Grimacing, I turned to face him. “Yeah. I have to meet my father for dinner, so if you want to?—”

“Go with? Uh, duh.”

Who said duh anymore? “Ford?—”

“Isn’t the entire reason I’m here to protect you from his bullshit?”

I blinked. “I mean, technically, but?—”

“So, how should I dress for this thing?”

It was clear there was no shaking him from this, and my heart throbbed in my chest a little. I loved my friend so fucking much. “Dress slacks and a nice shirt. Button-up. Not the one with ‘fuck’ embroidered in it,” I reminded him.

He looked disappointed. Ford’s favorite thing was making people uncomfortable. Especially people who upset his friends. He’d always had it out for my dad, and frankly, all my bitching hadn’t done a lot to prove my dad didn’t deserve it.

“I’m doing this for you, you know,” he said, then winked just as I turned to head toward the bathroom.

The suite was nice, and the bathroom was both accessible and comfortable, which made showering plane smell off my skin easy.

The bench wasn’t as nice as the one I had at home, but it held me securely as I used the citrus-scented hotel soap and attempted to massage some of the tension out of my muscles.

In the quiet of the bathroom, I found myself flooded with a sense of guilt and regret.

I had no idea if Hugo knew where I was. I’d been avoiding him entirely since accusing him of being a monster, then ditching him the morning after our impromptu, sexless sleepover.

The ditching him part wasn’t on purpose, really, but I couldn’t seem to face him after everything I’d said.

I had no idea what to say now. What if he asked me how I felt? Or what I wanted?

Telling the truth would ruin me.

Giving a lie would prove to myself that I would never be worthy of a man like him.

I knew I wanted him. I knew I wanted to abandon my rules and my strict decision to avoid anything even slightly resembling a relationship until I was firmly contracted with a team. He made it so easy to want to give all of that up.

But then I would resent him.

And if he compromised himself to be with me, eventually, marriage to a pro player would leave him resenting me. I’d seen it dozens of times over in every sports league. Marriages were strong, but they were rarely strong enough.

I didn’t want to end up like my parents. I couldn’t. The idea of hating Hugo for the sake of hating him made me feel sick to my stomach.

Closing my eyes, I let my forehead rest against the warm tiles, and I gripped my dick. It was still soft. It was like pushing him away had broken the connection between my cock and my brain, and you know what, fuck him for putting me in that position.

I gripped it tighter, willing it to get hard, but it was a goddamn dead fish against my palm.

“Fuck you,” I whispered.

“Are you talking to me?” Ford’s voice carried, echoing off the tiled floors and walls so perfectly it was like his voice was being funneled right into my ear canals.

“Why are you in here?”

“Because you’re taking too long. Finish jerking off so we can get going. I’m literally going to die of starvation.”

“You have days’ worth of muscle for your body to eat,” I told him, letting myself go and reaching for the shower knob.

Pulling back the fogged glass door, I saw Ford mostly dressed, leaning against the sink with his right pant leg loose over where his prosthetic should have been. “Are you not taking Carol-Ann?”

“Nah. The hussy said she wanted to stay in and watch porn.”

“You know, it’s super creepy you say shit like that when the character is a child.”

“She was a child in the seventies! She’s a nice, mature, gorgeous cougar,” he defended. “She deserves a night in to watch porn.”

I was actually pretty sure the actress herself had died as a little girl, but I wasn’t going to bring that up. This conversation was weird enough. “Whatever makes you happy.”

“Will it bother your dad?” he asked as I shifted over to the toilet lid and began to dry my legs.

“Probably.” There was no sugarcoating that. My dad had always been weird about disability. He’d taught me to play but avoided my sled games as often as he could when I was growing up, and he heaped praise on any of my friends I brought home who were able-bodied.

It was incentive to avoid them at all costs, which was also why the idea of bringing Hugo home as my boyfriend crawled under my skin. My dad would love him, and I would get freshly pissed off every time he sang Hugo’s praises, even if they were well deserved.

“What’s that face?” Ford asked, leaning in close.

I looked over at him and shrugged. “Just preparing myself for tonight.” I grabbed my hearing aids from the counter and slipped them in before sliding into my boxers and then strapping my orthotics on.

My slacks fit easily over them, and my legs were relieved to be supported as I stood at the mirror and began to fuss with my hair, but my hands didn’t want to cooperate after such a long day.

“Let me,” Ford said when he noticed my stiff fingers.

He sat me back on the toilet and attacked my head with a bottle of spray gel and his comb.

It felt nice to be doted on for a little bit.

I knew I could have had that more—that it could have been so much better than just sex if I’d let Hugo have what he really wanted.

And that sat bitter and acidic in the back of my throat.

“It’s not just your dad,” Ford said after a long while. Fuck, the way he could read me was really annoying some days.

“It doesn’t matter. ”

He said nothing as he finished my hair, then helped me into my shirt, doing all the little buttons up for me so I didn’t have to dig out my button tool from my bag. When I was finished, he used both hands to haul me to my feet, then gave me a slow up-and-down look.

“Fuckable.”

“Not what I was going for since it’s dinner with my dad, but thanks.”

He shrugged and hopped back a step. “I mean, he might have some hot-as-fuck, rich Daddy with him that you could use to?—”

“No.”

“Then maybe I could use to?—”

“Ford!”

He threw up his hands in surrender, hopping back another step. “Fine, fine. Suit yourself. Be a cock-block.”

“You and I both know you have zero interest in fucking some rich, shriveled-dick asshole who only lives for money.”

Ford grimaced and moved to the side as I grabbed my crutches and headed back into the main room. “I’d take one for the team if I had to.”

“Don’t be gross.”

He groaned. “Look, I’m trying to take your mind off Hugo, okay?”

I stopped, then slowly spun to face him. His expression was blank, and his skin was pale, which told me he knew he’d fucked up. “Why would Hugo matter to me? ”

He bit his lip, then sighed. “Because you and I both know it’s not just about sex, okay? You like him.”

“I—” The words would not leave my tongue. I was so done lying to myself and my friends. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have time for Hugo. Whatever I feel, it’ll pass.”

Ford looked like he wanted to argue with me, but he also looked like his blood sugar was low, and that won out. He dropped it and finished putting his shoe on so we could head out to the restaurant. I had a feeling this wasn’t over, but for now, I would take the reprieve.

I was wrong and right. My dad had brought some asshole with him to dinner, but the man did not have a shriveled dick. I knew that a little too intimately. I fought the urge to swallow and then choke on my own tongue when my gaze fixed on Hugo, and he went white the second he saw me.