He shrugged, seemingly put at ease with that answer, and turned on his heel to leave.
On second thought… I should probably clarify a little so this wouldn’t turn into a Minneapolis situation… Thinking of Nick showing up for me did make me smile though.
“Duke, wait!” I heard him stop in his tracks on the stairs. “Do not let Nick come up here or I’ll kill you. I do not want him missing his game. I will see you guys at home for dinner. Okay?”
“Got it, Sister!”
I curled into a ball on my bed and tried to close my eyes. Maybe I could sleep away the pain.
13. Griff
When we went to pick up the Callahans for practice, only Duke wandered out, slouching under the weight of his hockeybag.
“Where’s your sister?” Nick asked with a concerned look on his face. “I thought she was gonna try to catch some of our game tonight?”
She usually came over to our side after finishing up her own practice to catch the tail end of our games or practices. I swear Nick skated like five times faster when he saw her in the stands. I always found it funny to look over at them between my shifts because they’d be talking and pointing and stuff. One time I asked what they were talking about and Sav kinda giggled and said they were pretending to be color commentators. I got a kick out of that and wished I could’ve heard what they were saying.
Duke grunted while struggling to throw his bag in the bed of my truck. “I see, ya only care about her now, huh?”
Nick just laughed. “Sorry, man. She smells better… and I like kissing her.”
“Bleh,” Duke made a barfing noise. “She says, ‘Tell them it’s a girl problem’, whatever that means.”
“What?” Nick asked, clearly confused.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, realizing I’d have to spell it out for the poor bastard.
“What? C’mon, tell me,” Nick narrowed his eyes at me.
“She’s talking about her period, man,” I told him.
“Oh God! Start driving!” Duke complained from the backseat, reminding me that he was only in the fourth grade.
“Oh damn.” Nick looked back at the house and moved to get out.
“Nope,” Duke reached his small arm through the gap from the backseat to block Nick’s shotgun handle. “She said, ‘Do not let Nick come up here or I’ll kill you. I do not want him missing his game. I will see you guys at home for dinner.’ She looked like she meant business.”
Nick looked back at me, wordlessly asking what he should do.
“Let’s go,” I sighed. “If she wants alone time, you need to listen to her, especially during this week,” I advised. “She’s prolly not feeling well.”
“Not feeling well?” His face was clouded with worry, but I just nodded and eased my car into drive, forcing him to follow Sav’s wishes.
As soon as I parked at the Ice League, Nick started searching around in my truck’s counsel instead of immediately hopping out.
“Can I borrow some change?” Nick asked distractedly, already picking through the coins to find quarters.
“Go for it, man,” I responded, not thinking too much about it.
But when we entered the rink, he scampered over to the claw machines, and I realized what he was doing.
A minute later, he jogged back over holding a pink teddy bear with a smile plastered on his dumb lover-boy face. He had to be the luckiest bastard on the planet. I hadn’t seen one kid win anything from those machines all year.
I was slightly worried that he did not have his head on the game in front of us though…
And… I’d been right to worry.
Nick was unfocused all game. He messed up each play I set up and only left the rink with one goal… which was unusual for him. He’d been a scoring machine all season. He also got nailed into the boards about four or five times. Normally, he was so quick on the ice that no one could catch him, let alone hit him. One check even caused him to almost fall into the visiting team’s box, which was kind of embarrassing… but he seemed unfazed.
