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“What cleft?” The guy on the right squints and leans in closer. “Oh, that little thing? Here, let me make it bigger for you.”
In the blink of an eye, Not Brad cocks his fist back and lets it fly, landing a blow right in the middle of Brad’s chin. Brad’s head snaps back, but he recovers quickly, putting Not Brad in a headlock and giving him an uppercut to the spleen.
“It’s a touchy subject,” Carter whispers in my ear as the two guys wrestle to the ground.
I look up to find him inches away, a smirk on his lips and pride shining out of his honey-colored eyes. That’s another smile I know by heart.
The one that means I did good.
Once upon a time, that look was everything the future Mrs. Rainbow Renshaw ever wanted. I was willing to do whatever it took to earn Carter’s approval. And when I did, that look was my reward. I would commit whatever I did to memory so that I could keep doing it just to get more of that look.
Now, the only look I want to see on Carter’s face is his mouth hanging open when I beat his ass in hockey.
I clap my hands together, drawing the attention of the group. “As team captain, I choose Brangelina.”
It turns out that hockey is just soccer with sticks, and I played church-league soccer until middle school—when I realized that church-league soccer wasn’t cool. Of course, when I played, we used an actual ball and goals with nets, not a jagged piece of broken plate and sticks fashioned from wooden pallets, but otherwise, it’s not really that different. Plus, Brangelina and I kinda make a perfect team. I hang back and play goalie while they run around Carter like tornadoes with ADHD. Poor guy is pretty much on his own out there. Tiny Tim’s approach to goalkeeping consists of talking shit while moving as little as possible, and Loudmouth’s main priority is strictly defense. As in, defending himself against having to interact with the puck by all means necessary.
Carter pulls his signature basketball spin move to evade Not Brad, but I block his breakaway shot with the side of my foot. I have to use the side of my foot because the stick I’m using is just two splintery pieces of pallet nailed together, and it wouldn’t stop a marble. When nobody calls me on it, I raise my worthless stick in the air triumphantly.
“Boom!” I shout at Carter, but my gloating is cut short when the top half of my homemade stick swings down and practically chops my fingers off. “Ahh!” I drop my stick and grab my hand, holding it as I bounce in place and hiss through my teeth.
“High-sticking!” Tiny Tim shouts, pointing at me like a suspect in a police lineup. “High-sticking!”
“What the hell is high-sticking?”
“High-sticking is when a player is struck by a stick that has been raised above waist-level,” Loudmouth quietly recites to himself while staring at the ground.
“But I hurt myself!”
Carter smirks. “Sorry, babe. Rules are rules. You gotta go to the penalty box.”
“Penalty box?” I swing my head from side to side. “What penalty box?”
Tiny Tim points to the mildewed cardboard box I noticed when we first walked in and grins through his grimy beard.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Go on, princess.” He chuckles, waving me off. “Two minutes for high-sticking. Do your time like a man.”
I stick my tongue out at him as I stomp over to the soggy cube of cardboard. Loudmouth follows me with his head down, and once I’m sitting inside with my knees pulled to my chest, he adds the final touch.
He picks up the toilet seat lying on the ground next to the box, and just before the quiet little accordion player slips it over my head like a statement necklace, I notice that someone has scrawled the word PENULTEE on it in black permanent marker.
I glare at him, but it’s pointless. His eyes are on the floor, and he’s already halfway back to his safe little corner of the store.
The guys howl with laughter, and my pout lasts all of five seconds before I’m laughing right along with them.
“What’s so funny?” a feline voice purrs from the entryway.
My head swivels to the left where Q is leaning against the wall, looking cool as hell with her lion’s mane of dreads and her kicked-back posture, but she doesn’t fool me. The intensity in her eyes and tightness in her muscles tell me that she’s ready to pounce on the next gazelle that crosses her path.
In fact, she can’t wait.
“The doc got a penalty for high-sticking against herself!” Tiny chuckles, wiping a tear from his eye.
Q raises a brow as she takes in the sight of me sitting in a cardboard box with a toilet seat around my neck before her gaze cuts back to the group. “Looks like y’all could use a third then.”
“But … they’re supposed to be down a player for two minutes,” Tiny whines.
