Page 17
Story: Pucked Up
Chapter seventeen
Micah
T he cabin door fought me on the way out, half-frozen at the hinges. It stuck like it didn't want to let us go.
I shoved it with my shoulder hard enough to make the wood complain. Outside, the air had teeth—sharp, wet cold that didn't merely bite but sank in and held on. It slipped under my collar and settled in my bones. The wind cut sideways off the ridge, dragging the scents of pine and distant chimney smoke.
Noah stood a few steps behind me, looking out like it was the first time he'd remembered the rest of the world continued without us.
"Truck still runs?"
"Barely, but she's got at least one more trip in her."
Noah smirked slightly. "Kind of like you." He grinned and walked past me, boots crunching through the icy crust.
He tossed a canvas bag into the truck bed—empty gallon jugs, odds and ends, and our reasons for going to town. It wasn't a long list, but it was enough. We needed gas for the generator, coffee, and more loaves of bread.
I climbed into the truck and turned the key. The engine spat once, hesitated, then caught with a wet, grinding growl.
We rolled out slowly. Gravel snapped under the tires. Soon, the trees parted, and we reached the asphalt-paved road to town.
We didn't talk for a while. I listened to the rattle of the heater trying and failing to do its job and the low hum of Noah's voice as he flipped through radio stations. He found nothing but a distant, static-y country music station, but he left it on anyway—some woman crooned about rivers and redemption.
He finally directed words toward me. "Feels weird."
"What does?"
"Movement. People. The idea that someone might make us a sandwich that doesn't involve three-year-old mustard."
I snorted. "Are you complaining about my cooking?"
"Micah, you made spaghetti that crunched. That's a cry for help."
He leaned his head against the window, watching the snowbanks blur past. "You think they'll recognize you?"
"Probably."
"And me?"
I didn't answer. I wasn't sure what to say. His face had been in the news, too. He was the kid Keller took out, a rookie with a busted collarbone and a career that might be cut short.
He shifted in his seat. "If anyone asks, just tell 'em I'm your parole officer."
I barked a laugh. "You'd be the worst damn PO."
"I'd make you do push-ups every time you got broody."
"If that were true, I'd be dead by Tuesday."
He grinned and kicked his boots up on the dash like he owned the truck. I didn't stop him. After a few more miles, we pulled into the gas station on the edge of town. It was also a convenience store and hunting supply depot. They sold deer jerky next to ammo and still stocked VHS tapes like someone might come back for them.
I filled the jugs while Noah went inside. The scent of diesel clung to my gloves.
When I entered the store, the bell over the door gave a cheerless ding. The warm air reeked of cheap coffee, fryer oil, and chemical disinfectant.
Noah was already chatting up the guy behind the counter, a wiry old-timer with a Detroit Tigers baseball cap and a face like a dried apple. I stayed back, letting the rows of canned chili block me from view.
"Y'all headed out to the lake?" the old man asked.
"Cabin," Noah nodded toward me. "This one's competing for the title of hermit of the year."
I bit my lip while I grabbed three loaves of bread and two dented cans of chili. Noah tossed in four bags of chips and a sleeve of peanut butter crackers.
Outside, the wind had picked up. It whipped through the fuel islands, tugging at my coat. I loaded the jugs into the truck bed, tucked the food into the cab, and watched Noah crack open one of the bags of chips like he hadn't eaten in a week.
"You know they're gonna look."
He popped a chip in his mouth and crunched slowly. "Let 'em." He glanced at me. "You don't have to come inside. I get it. You can sit in the truck and glare at the teenagers sneaking in with fake IDs."
I exhaled through my nose. "I'm not hiding."
"I didn't say you were."
"But you were thinking it."
He shook his head. "I was thinking you're a guy who's been hit enough already. Nothing wrong with giving the world a minute to forget."
I gripped the wheel. It was too smooth in my hands. I put the truck in gear and headed into town anyway.
The bar came up around the bend like a memory I didn't want to revisit—glowing windows and peeling siding with red neon announcing FOOD in one window.
I parked under a broken streetlamp. Before I could kill the engine, Noah leaned over. "Don't worry, I won't get into any bar fights tonight… unless you do first."
I didn't say anything; I merely looked at him with a half-smile.
The bar smelled like fried grease and something sour caught in the carpet. Heat pressed in from overhead vents, thick and stale. Booths lined two sides—cracked red vinyl and laminated menus curling at the edges. Another side was barstools and a long counter.
We picked a table by the back wall. Noah dropped into his seat like it was a couch at a house party. He scanned the menu and looked up.
His eyes were wide. "They have mozzarella sticks."
"That doesn't mean they should . "
He smirked, flagged down a server, and ordered them anyway—with a burger, fries, and whatever local IPA they had on tap. I went for black coffee and something that had eggs in it. I didn't really care.
Around us, a low murmur of conversation swirled—spoons clanged in mugs, chairs dragging over linoleum, and someone laughed too loud near the jukebox. I scanned the room out of habit, mapping exits and the quickest route from our table to the door.
A stranger was already watching us when I noticed.
Mid-thirties maybe. He wore a ball cap low over his eyes, with an unshaved jaw and denim jacket. He held a beer bottle in his right hand, resting it against his chest like he wanted it to hear his heartbeat.
He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at Noah—a long, slow assessment.
The guy said something to his friend, too quiet to catch, then got up and walked toward us like he was stretching his legs… until he stopped. He leaned against the bar less than five feet from our table, with his eyes still fixed on Noah. He tipped his chin.
"You're the kid Keller destroyed, huh?"
He said it loud enough for the tables around us to hear. It came out like he was repeating a fact from trivia night, almost like asking who was the guy who used to host the local weather broadcast.
Noah blinked once. Then, he looked down at his beer like he was deciding whether to take a sip or throw it.
I didn't think. I didn't move right away, either.
My blood roared so loud that I couldn't hear responses from anyone else in the bar. My vision tunneled.
In my mind, I saw my fist grip the denim jacket just before his back hit the bar hard enough to rattle the bottles. I watched as his eyes flew open wide, and the beer hit the floor.
I heard the collision with the boards. That sound. That crunch.
Only I wasn't on the ice now. There were no helmets or officials. My hands twitched, but I remained seated.
I dug my fingers into my thighs under the table, grounding myself with the pain of it. My shoulders were tight. I had done enough damage.
My pulse pounded so hard in my ears that I could barely hear Noah respond in a soft voice. "Yup. That's me. I'm the kid with the titanium collarbone and fan mail from the ER nurses."
The guy laughed once, sharp and mean. He turned to go like he'd done what he came for but lingered a second too long. Testing.
I stood. My chair scraped the floor. The sound captured the room's attention. Heads turned.
I walked up as calmly as I could fake. Every part of me vibrated, but I tamped it down. I stopped before him, close enough to smell the beer on his breath. I didn't touch him. I didn't need to.
He looked up, one eyebrow rising.
"And he got back up," I said.
It wasn't loud. It didn't have to be. I held his gaze and didn't blink. It was a dare to say one more thing.
Noah's voice came from behind me, clear but quiet. "He always does."
The guy broke first. Scoffed. He shook his head like we weren't worth it and muttered something on his way back to his stool.
I didn't watch him go and failed to move for a long minute, letting the tension leak out of my knuckles one drop at a time. I stood there a second longer. I ensured he could feel the space I'd occupied before taking it with me.
Next, I returned to our booth.
Back at our table, Noah had his beer in hand again, fingers tapping the glass. "That was… dramatic. You okay?"
"No," but I sat anyway.
When we left, the truck's engine rumbled low like it had something to say but didn't know the words. Snow hissed under the tires—melt refreezing into patches of ice, the kind that liked to slide up under you when your attention drifted.
We didn't talk for the first few minutes. It was quiet except for the sound of the road unraveling beneath us and the soft metallic rattle of the gas canisters in the back. Noah had one arm propped on the door, fingers resting loose on the window crank like he was thinking about rolling it down to feel the cold again.
I gripped the wheel like it might pull free if I let go.
I broke the silence between us. "My hands were shaking."
"Back there?"
I nodded. "I wanted to break his face. I saw it… felt it in my bones. I knew how it would sound and feel." I paused, jaw tightening. "I wanted it."
"But you didn't." Noah delivered his observation in a calm tone. "That's the only difference that matters."
I stared ahead, eyes on the long stretch of black road. "That difference feels… thin, like it might not hold next time."
He was quiet for a beat. "It held this time."
The heater clicked. A gust of lukewarm air spilled onto my boots and smelled like rust and dust from a thousand years ago.
Noah shifted enough to close the space between us. His hand dropped onto my thigh, palm down.
We drove on like that—no music and no more words. We only had the road curling in front of us, and the breath we hadn't realized we'd been holding started to ease up and let go.
We didn't say much when we got back either.
The truck door slammed shut behind me like punctuation on a sentence I hadn't finished. Noah grabbed the groceries and the gas canisters without a word.
I got the door and didn't bother kicking the snow off my boots. We unpacked in parallel. Peanut butter on the shelf. Extra bread loaves in the freezer. Gas jugs back in the corner by the stove.
Every movement was deliberate. I wanted to say something— Thanks , maybe. Or I'm sorry I made a scene , but that didn't seem to fit.
Noah disappeared down the hall, and I stood alone in the kitchen for a long minute, staring at the faded label on a can of beans. Finally, I headed down the narrow hallway to the bathroom.
The light flickered once when I flipped the switch, then held. I looked into the mirror. At first, all I saw was what I always did— jaw set too hard and a few days' beard growth, making me look older than I was. Then, I looked closer.
The veins stood out in my neck. My fingers still trembled. There was a line of tension running from my temple to my collarbone.
I braced my hands on the edge of the sink. I wasn't scared of hurting someone. I was afraid of who I'd be if I didn't.
Violence was a language I understood—one-two, hit-react, break-repair. It was a pattern as predictable as a puck sliding across the ice. But this… this choosing not to… it left space, a gap. That space asked questions.
The most disturbing thing wasn't that I didn't hit him. It was that I didn't want to anymore. If I wasn't that guy anymore, who the hell was I supposed to be?