Page 84 of Home of the Brave

“We have no idea.”

“Well, we have to get them back.” Joel rubbed the back of his neck while staring up at the hanging clothes. “Dang. This was good.”

“Has anyone else seen it yet?” Sean asked.

“Taz did, but he left pretty quickly,” Cambrie explained.

“You guys are the first reactions we got. Mind if we use it?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Joel agreed.

“As long as we can wait in here to see how the rest of the guys take it,” Sean laughed as he climbed the stairs.

“Just don’t give it away,” Cambrie warned with a smile.

“This is too good,” Holden followed Joel to sit in Sean’s row.

Small groups of two and three from both teams trickled in, and we captured the moments of disbelief, annoyance, and good humor.

Finally, I recognized the voices coming and fought to keep the smile off my face as I greeted Erik, Wyatt, and Josh.

“Morning,” I greeted.

Erik eyed me. “You’re being suspicious.”

“I’m not,” I argued, but Wyatt was faster than the others.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he groaned.

Josh looked up and laughed before covering it up with a cough when Wyatt glared at him.

“How?” Erik asked before cocking his head to one side. “Maintenance had to have been involved.” His chin tilted to the other side. “This had to have taken hours.”

“Someone clearly broke curfew,” Taz called before glaring at the rows of players.

“We’ve got to get them down.” Tyson descended the stairs after Erik finally stopped staring up and shaking his head.

“How?” Erik repeated. “We need a lift.”

“Or harnesses to climb around up there,” Levi added.

Tyson narrowed his eyes. “How would you know about that?”

“I’ve seen it done before,” Levi held up his hands in surrender. “When they do stuff in the rafters at our arena, they wear harnesses that clip into things.”

More voices drifted toward us, this time female.

“Oh, no,” Wyatt groaned as the women' s coaches came out of the tunnels across from us.

Cambrie didn’t miss a beat, her camera back out and pointed at them.

“Mind explaining what you’re all doing here?” one of them yelled out.

“Nope,” Erik said, just loud enough for those close to him to hear.

I tried not to giggle, but it slipped out.

One of the women in the back tapped the head coach’s shoulder, then pointed up.