Page 47 of Puck You Both

I hold the record button and boo for nine uninterrupted seconds.

The voice memo goes directly to Wall.

The reply arrives before the pressure cycle ends.

Wall: :thumb_up_emoji:

I stare at it.

That’s it. No words. One yellow hand raised in bland approval after I gave him nine seconds of committed performance art. I drop my forehead onto the table and laugh into the paper cover while the compression sleeve tries to squeeze the soul out through my knee.

At noon, Patrick drives us to my apartment so I can collect the suit I allegedly own.

Most of my clothes are at his place now. This happened without paperwork. First, I left a shirt after a game. Then underwear reproduced in his dryer, my hair products colonized the space beside his sink, and three pairs of shoes established residency by the door. I spend five nights out of seven there and remain naked for roughly sixty percent of the time, because clothes are for people with no one to fuck.

We have discussed none of this.

My apartment smells closed when I unlock it. A stack of mail leans against the door, and the plants have entered a dry and judgmental phase.

Before I can warn him, Patrick saunters to my fridge, opens it, and looks at one bottle of hot sauce standing upright under the light, constituting the fridge’s entire content. He turns his face toward me and raises a brow.

I shrug. “It’s a condiment. That’s food-adjacent.”

“Go change. And get your suit.”

I strip on the way to the bedroom, leaving practice sweats in a trail behind me. By the time I come back in clean boxer briefs and one sock, Patrick sits upright on the couch, looking like he’s waiting for a delayed appointment. My hot sauce rests on the coffee table beside him. “Are you evicting it?”

“It expired four months ago.”

“It has vinegar, Patrick. It’s immortal.”

I snag the bottle, carry it to the kitchen and put it back in the refrigerator, because principles matter most when they’re stupid.

On my return, his phone is in his hand and I peek over his shoulder. The group thread is open. Nothing new under the call link.

There it is. The subject standing in the room with us while neither of us says its name.

I sit beside him, bare thigh pressed to dark denim. “We should invite him over.”

Patrick locks his phone and sets it facedown on his knee and says nothing.

“He watched you fold me like a lawn chair, Patrick. The man is ready.”

“He has to ask.”

I huff internally, because I know better by now. Hell will freeze over before Wall asks for anything. “He’s asking in goalie.”

Patrick’s mouth moves at one corner. “That isn’t a language.”

“It has grunts, and evasive answers. It’s absolutely a language.”

No answer. He looks down at our legs touching, then back at the dead television.

Patrick has never met a silence he couldn’t use as leverage. With Wall, he’s gone professional. Every open door and carefully framed camera has led farther into the woods, and now he’s waiting beside the trail for a big red to wander into the snare himself.

“You’re running a trapline,” I accuse.

He picks a piece of lint off his jeans and doesn’t deny running a trapline.