Page 9 of Double Puck

"So," Declan grunts, sliding onto the stool beside me. "Should we… talk about last night? About the roster situation?"

“Nope.”

“Beck…” Declan sighs. “Colin hasn’t approved anything. You know that, right?”

“And yet, somehow, Spreadsheet Barbie announced my execution in the middle of the locker room while everyone was still sticky with champagne.”

Mason sets down another stack of pancakes.

“Darcy’s not Barbie.”

“You’re right. Barbie has hobbies.”

Darcy Madden’s face flashes through my mind anyway.

The way her gaze dragged down my wet chest last night before she remembered she wanted me unemployed.

My cock, the disloyal bastard, gives an interested twitch.

Excellent.

Nothing says healthy coping mechanism like getting hard over the woman who wants me out the goddamn door.

Declan sets his mug down. “Her report is just one recommendation.”

“Oh! Wonderful! Such good news, Declan,” I announce, raising the green smoothie like a toast. “You hear that, Mase? Mom gets the apartment, Dad gets his yoga instructor, and I get traded. The Morrisons are absolutely crushing this divorce.”

"Christ, Beck." Declan shakes his head again. "Would you chill the fuck out? Nobody has decided anything."

"Darcy Madden did. She brought her work to the celebration last night. Who brings work to a party? Sociopaths and people about to end my career, that's who."

And there she is again, right on cue in my aching skull.

Dark hair like silk, those legs, that mouth saying I don't do hockey players while her eyes said something considerably filthier.

Fuck. I hit on the woman trying to trade me.

I'm not even mad at myself. That's the concerning part.

Declan opens his mouth again, and I can see the management speech loading behind his eyes. It's the same look he's had since we were kids, the let me handle this, Beck, let me decide what to do look.

"Don't," I say, cutting him a glare. "Whatever big-brother crisis plan you're cooking up, don't. I found out about Mom and Dad on a livestream, man. In front of the whole town. So maybe this once, let me be in the room while my own life happens."

The kitchen goes very quiet. Even Diego stops rustling his garbage bag.

Lucky for me, the tablet on the wall chimes with a video call. Zoey's face fills the display, her hair piled in a messy bun, her eyes doing that red-rimmed thing they do when she's been crying and pretending she hasn't.

"Morning, Zoey," Mason says from the stove.

"Don't 'morning Zoey' me with that gentle voice, Mason Morrison. I am living a nightmare." Our sister holds up a paint swatch. "Mom has moved in. She has reorganized Morgan's room according to a healing color palette she read about online. My daughter now sleeps in a room the color of anxiety and eucalyptus."

"Sage green is very calming," Diego offers.

Zoey glares through the screen at him. “She says the yellow walls are overstimulating and wants to repaint everything sage because she read an article about it's power over the human mind.”

Declan leans toward the screen. “How long is she staying?”

“She brought six suitcases and a framed photo of us from 2009, so… Somewhere between two weeks and until I die.”