Page 17

Crew

I ’d been waiting rather impatiently to get Kota back. It had been almost a week since she embarrassed me so bad that I was still scared to show my face on campus. I was just waiting for some random girls to come up to me and ask about my One Direction obsession.

We had a game against our rivals, St. Cloud State, next weekend, which meant that Coach Palmer was going to make this upcoming week brutal for all of us.

Which was why we usually called this week Hell Week.

It usually consisted of non-stop, hardcore drills with little to no breaks, Coach being a complete, unwarranted dick, and a handful of guys either puking or fainting at one point or another from how intense our practices were.

Our rivalry with St. Cloud went back decades before any of us were even born. No one knew why it started; all we knew was that our job was to beat them.

When Lane and I were freshman, we defeated St. Cloud State in the regular season, but they ended up beating us out for the conference title.

Last year, we were lucky enough to take the title back.

But it only meant that coach was going to put more pressure on us to keep that title.

The game we had against them next week was a regular season game, but that didn’t mean the stakes weren’t high enough already. Plus, the game was at their school, which meant they had the home advantage. Luckily, their student section was nothing compared to ours, so we didn’t have to worry as much about thousands of people screaming at us to go fuck ourselves.

Since we were about to hate our lives for the next seven days though, why not go into it with a little bang?

We were having a team dinner and grabbing some casual drinks. I had Matt on one side of me and Lane on the other, fully content with the plate of buffalo wings in front of me.

“You know they have things called napkins, right?” Lane ridiculed, popping a fry into his mouth.

I shot him a glare, my mouth full of food. He looked smug from my irritation as I plucked a napkin out of the dispenser in the center of the table and wiped my face.

“Thanks, Captain. Didn’t know these existed,” I mumbled, tossing the napkin beside my plate.

He grinned lightly as he took a bite of his burger, swatting Matt’s hand away when he tried reaching across me to steal a fry.

“Get your own,” Lane said after swallowing.

“Just give me one,” Matt cried.

“Knowing you, one means five, so no,” Lane grimaced.

I sat back as they leaned over me to face each other. “Ladies,” I grumbled, unamused, “no need to fight.”

Matt leaned forward more, blocking the pathway to my plate. “Well, Lane’s being unreasonable.”

“And now, you’re in my way.” I brought my hand to his shoulder and subtly pushed him back into his seat.

With a sigh, Matt gave up, clutching onto his beer. “Whatever.”

I stopped mid-bite as everything on the table began vibrating, the table buzzing beneath us. For a second, I thought there was an earthquake or some shit before Matt wiped off his hands on his own lap and picked his ringing phone up.

“Ah, it’s El,” he announced, accepting the FaceTime call.

El, whose full name was Eleanor, was one of Matt’s best friends from back home. I didn’t know the full story, but from what I did know, their parents had been friends since high school, so they’d known each other for years.

El had visited a couple times while Lane and I lived in the house, so we knew her pretty well.

“Yes?” Matt answered.

“Hey, I need guy advice.”

His face scrunched together like he’d just smelled something rotten. “I don’t wanna hear about all the guys you’ve been fucking.”

I could see her glossy lips curl upwards on the screen, a delighted twinkle in her eye. “Why? Cause you’re jealous?”

I leaned over Matt’s shoulder so that the camera caught the corner of my face. “Yeah, he is!”

“He moans your name in his sleep!” Cody shouted across the table.

“Not surprised,” she said. “I always knew you wanted me.”

Matt shook his head, scoffing, but I caught the light red glow that came across his cheeks. “Oh, shut up,” he stood, exiting the room.

Cody choked on a laugh. “He’s so in love with her.”

“Obviously,” I agreed.

She was practically the only girl that he genuinely respected from head to toe. I’d never heard him speak badly of her ever, and I had no doubt that if someone had some nasty things to say about her, he’d defend her honor over his own.

Not to mention that any time she came to visit, he gave up his bed for her to sleep in and slept on the couch with no complaints.

I wasn’t going to lie, she was hot as fucking hell and all the guys wanted her. Including me.

But Matt instilled a hands-off rule long before the first time she ever came to visit and threatened the whole team that they’d become best friends with his fist if anyone ever made a move on her. And considering Matt Gallagher was one of the best defensemen in the country and could fight dirty both on and off the ice, no one was looking to pick a fight with him.

I finished the last of my wings before running to the bathroom to wash the sauce off my hands. Pulling some cash out on my way back to the table, I handed it to Lane.

“Use this to cover mine, will ya?”

Unsurely, Lane used two fingers to pluck it away from me. “Why can’t you pay yourself?”

“I, uh... gotta go run some errands.”

He stared me down with judgement behind his eyes. “Dude.”

“Yeah?” I asked, sounding as clueless and naive as possible.

“Just give it up already.”

Goddamnit. I hated how he always saw through me. How he saw through everyone.

This was just one of the many moments that solidified how much smarter Lane was than everyone else.

Instead of starting an argument, I decided to continue playing stupid. “Dunno what you’re talking about.”

Giving me an apathetic glance over, he said, “Sure, let’s just pretend like I’m dumb.”

“Sounds good to me.” With a placid smile, I left the conversation at that. After saying goodbye to the other guys and hearing their groans when I said, “See you at practice,” I headed straight to the store.

There was one thing and one thing only that I needed to get.

I rubbed my hands together, taking a look at all the options of tinfoil they had.

One by one, I shoved package after package under my arm.

Goddamn, why didn’t I grab a cart?

Letting out a frustrated expletive under my breath, I walked back to the front of the store and chucked all the packages I already had into a cart before heading back to the same aisle.

By the time I was on my way to the register, there were only a few boxes of tinfoil left on the shelf.

In all honesty, I had no idea how much tinfoil I would actually need, but considering I spent over fifty dollars, I figured I had enough.

I overheard Kota telling Bridget this morning that she was spending the day with her mom, which meant I had the whole day to create something magnificent.

Bridget was putting her groceries away in the kitchen, singing along to “Save Your Tears” by The Weeknd.

“Good song,” I declared my arrival.

“Oh, hey,” she smiled.

I moved all the bags I had into one hand, using my now free hand to reach for a strawberry out of the bowl of fruit Bridget was snacking on, but she slid the bowl away from me.

“Get your own fruit,” she chided. “Don’t you have some in one of those five-thousand bags you’re holding?”

My chin fell towards my chest sheepishly. “No.”

Eyes trailing down to the bags in my hands, Bridget took in the packs of tinfoil peeking out of the top. “Do I even wanna know?”

Striding past her, all I said was, “Nope.”

“Ah, geez,” she said, shutting the fridge. “I was told to stop you if you tried to pull anything.”

I aimed a crooked smile at her, testing her. “Are you gonna?”

She inhaled deeply with one hand on her hip, staring off in thought. “Guess not.”

My playful smile grew as I pointed at her. “That’s why you’re my favorite roommate.”

Rolling her eyes, Bridget gave a little tsk noise with her tongue. “Don’t even. Lane will always be your favorite.”

“Alright, alright. Well, you’re my favorite roommate with a vagina.”

“Wow, I’m honored,” she joked with a hand on her chest.

A lighthearted laugh echoed down the girl’s hall as I pranced down it, and I broke into a malicious grin as I reached for Kota’s door handle and pushed it open.