Page 161 of The Substitute

“You guys should both come. His parents are good people. They may be confused about all this, but they won’t judge,” Rhys suggests.

I nod but don’t say anything.

Savage stops in front of us and sets Tobi down. “I see there are plans.”

“Yeah, but I have no idea what they are. He wouldn’t tell me.”

Rhys laughs. “So studying then? Are you going to a science thing? The library?”

Tobi gives Rhys a flat look. “First of all, fuck you. Second, no. Third, keep talking shit, and I’ll tell Teddy how to get gummy bears to explode.”

“I can’t tell if you’re trying to make my life harder or kill your brother. It could go either way.” Rhys cocks his head.

“And you’ll never know.”

“Wait, how do you get gummy bears to explode?” I didn’t know they could do that, and with how much Savage likes them, that might be a useful thing to have in my back pocket.

“Speaking of gummy bears…” Tobi looks at me with a determination I’ve rarely seen. “Where are your keys?”

Rhys snorts and covers his mouth.

Fuck. I hoped he had forgotten about that.

“Look, I can’t get rid of it.” I point at him. “Savage will back me up on this.”

“What am I backing up?” he asks.

Rhys is shaking and doubled over laughing.

“Teddy gave everyone a good luck charm that we all bring to every game and practice.” I can’t believe I’m really about to defend this.

Savage nods in understanding but narrows his eyes. “And…”

“It’s literally Teddy’s cum!” Tobi damn near yells.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Savage is understandably confused, and the longer this goes on, the less I want to show him. “He gave you all a vile of it or…”

“It’s so much worse.” Rhys is crying from laughing.

“The suspense is killing me.”

With a sigh, I reach into my pocket and pull out my keys to hold up the white bear. “I don’t like it any more than you do…”

Savage looks at it, then at me, then back at the bear. “I’m not seeing the connection.”

“Apparently, you can send your bodily fluids to some lady, and she adds them to clay or something and makes things with it,” I try to explain, but I don’t actually know the details, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.

“Cummy bears,” Rhys cries in a high-pitched, barely legible tone.

“Cummy bears.” Savage blinks and starts laughing. “You have one, too?” he asks Rhys, who can only nod. “The whole Summerset team has one?”

“Yes. It’s for good luck, and he checks before every game time to make sure we all have them.” Ambrose sighs. “Rizz broke his and almost had a panic attack trying to glue it back together.”

“As much as it pains me to agree with my step-brother, sorry, baby, they gotta have them.” Savage shrugs. “You don’t fuck with a goalie’s luck.”

“Thank you!” Finally, someone sees reason.

“You are all ridiculous.” Tobi throws his hands up. “You all know what that means, right? He had to fill some kind of container with spunk and mail it to someone. How many peopleare on the team? Twenty? Twenty-five? That’s a horrifying amount of sploodge.”