Page 156 of Reaper and Ruin

Violet hushed him. “Don’t say that in front of the cat! He has a cape! Dildos don’t have capes!”

The crowd went wild anyway. From down the row, far away from the dildo talk, Violet’s kids stood and whooped and hollered at their father.

Beneath more sequins than I’d ever seen in my life, X waved and did a little shimmy. In gold skates, he moved slowly across the rubber-matted floor to get to the ice.

Violet stood and cheered and shouted, and the rest of us followed suit, screaming in the dark.

The people around us laughed at X’s dance moves, and he fist pumped the air, hyping them up, clapping his hands together above his head, encouraging the crowd to do the same.

We joined in, big grins all around. I couldn’t deny the mood was infectious. The claps got faster and faster as he approached the ice.

“He’s doing so good!” I said to Violet. “He’s made for this!”

She couldn’t hold in her laughter, or her pride. “Isn’t he? I think he’s found his calling. The crowd is loving it!”

Loving it was an understatement. There was something ridiculously perfect about the way X flashed his sparkly cape and danced his way to the ice, and the crowd around us lapped it up.

“I really had my doubts about this,” Violet leaned in to say to me. “But I take them all back. He’s—”

X stepped onto the ice for the first time.

His arms pin-wheeled. His feet kicked, trying to keep him upright.

None of it was to any avail. He went down like a sack of potatoes, crashing hard.

The entire stadium winced all at once. You could hear it in the collective “ooh” that reverberated around the circle.

X lay on the ice for a second, doing his best stunned mullet imitation. He lay there for so long and so still, I wasn’t fully sure if he was just trying to get his bearings or if he’d hit his head and knocked himself out.

But then his arms and legs started air flailing, and suddenly he looked more like a turtle stuck on his back, trying desperately to flip over but unable to, due to the weight distribution of his massive shell. Or in X’s case, his massive mascot head.

Violet clutched my hand. “Oh, this is bad, isn’t it?” She clapped her free hand against her leg. “Come on, X! I mean, Vicious the Viper! You got this!”

Whip, on the other side of Violet, sank lower in his chair. “This secondhand embarrassment burns worse than an STD.”

I snorted on a laugh, and even Violet was trying to keep herself in check.

It was so bad. It was clear to me that if X could normally skate, he definitely couldn’t in that suit, with a snake head five times the size of his own. “Didn’t he practice in costume?” I asked, wincing as he finally found his hands and knees and crawled around the ice, trying to find the railing.

“We only finished putting the final touches on it last night. There was no time.” She gripped the cat carrier and covered the mesh with her hand. “Don’t watch this, Harold. It’s not pretty.”

X managed to get back up, only to crash again. The crowd erupted into laughter, like it was all part of the show.

Eventually, two of the players skated out onto the ice and helped him up.

X hung between them while they hauled him off the ice, and we all politely clapped.

Violet bit her lip. “That’ll probably be on the news tonight, won’t it?”

I tucked my arm through the crook of her elbow. “Oh, one-hundred-percent. But for now, let’s just watch the game. Hopefully the players can skate better than X can.”

She nodded, and I left her to wrangle her two overexcited kids, her men, and a very angry and probably slightly chilly cat. Though part of me did wonder if Harold had rage to keep him warm.

I settled back in my seat and leaned into Dax.

“French fry?” he asked me, offering me the paper bowl full of deep-fried goodness.

I grinned at him and kissed his salty lips instead. “No, thanks.”