Page 9 of Puck You Both

Patrick's hand, slow. Theo's head tipped back. The sound that got out of him right before Patrick covered his mouth. And then Patrick's eyes coming up over Moreau's shoulder, calm as a morning skate, like he wasn’t currently—

Hockey.

Fuck fuck’s sake, think about hockey.

I turn to the window. Milwaukee is sliding past, all highway lights and the vague outline of a city I have never really liked, and now have a reason to hate.

Three rows out, Becker puts my misery on hold.

"GENTLEMEN." Becker has never developed an indoor voice and has long stopped trying. "A reenactment. Petrov, you're the shooter. Ace, puck. Snooze, congrats, you're the net."

"How am I the net?"

"Arms out. Sag a little. You're G. after the third round."

Petrov rises and begins mock-skating up the aisle in slow motion while Becker narrates: "Petrov comes in with speed. The great G. is reading glove. He's reading blocker. He's reading everything except—"

Except, there’s no except, my brain chimes it. Patrick reads everything. That's the entire point of him. I have never once seen him look surprised. Which means… Which means when he looked up and found me in that doorway, he wasn't—

"—FIVE-HOLE! Somewhere in Gdańsk, a grandmother weeps!"

Ace takes a bow. Snooze, still being a net, receives a standing ovation for his portrayal of failure. Three seconds later, a robotic voice penetrates the fabric of Petrov’s pocket. I recognize the voice. The voice has already ruined two dinner parties this season.

“Word of the day. SULTRY.”

For a blissful moment everybody shuts the fuck up, all eyes on Petrov, as he pulls out his phone, face scrunched in concentration as he studies the screen, then nods. “I will use it in a sentence.” He ponders for a moment, and then, "Coach has sultry voice when angry."

The bus loses its shit.

"Coach does not have a—" Becker whirls on him. "Petrov, buddy. Do you know what sultry means?"

"Definition is 'hot and humid.' Also 'attractive in a way of—'" He squints at his phone. "'—causing sexual desire.'"

The bus loses another three decibels of sanity.

“You just called Coach Martin hot."

“I did not say hot.” Petrov grunts. “I said sultry. Different word.”

Becker’s not having it. “You’re twenty-two and you just called our sixty-year-old coach—"

"Fifty-eight," Coach Martin chimes in from the front, without turning around.

"—sexually attractive."

Petrov considers this. "He has... presence."

For the next ten minutes, it’s a full on riot. Somebody starts a slow chant of sul-try, sul-try. And I'm watching the whole thing through the window reflection with the engagement of a parking meter, because the footage in my skull just restarted and Patrick's thumb is doing that thing.

A head pops over my seat back. Becker, upside-down, eyes narrowed. "You didn't laugh."

Shit.

"I laughed internally."

"Don’t lie to me. I know when you lie."

I sigh. "Long game. I'm tired."