The Pilot and the Puck-Up Page 15

  “I’m the whole fucking preschool class, and it’s fucking dessert time.”

  Preferably with both the fucking and the dessert. Or maybe fucking as the dessert.

  With Joey, I mean. Not with Chase.

  “Stay out of it, Zeus,” Joey tells me. “I can take care of myself.”

  Huh.

  Lady might’ve just told me no fucking, because she’ll fuck herself. Not so sure I like that. But— “Sure. I like to watch. But I get bored when I can’t play too.”

  “There are medications for that.” She scribbles a number on a napkin and slides it to Chase. I catch a glimpse, and the number of zeroes makes my eyes water.

  That’s a fuck-ton of money.

  Yeah, Chase has it, but me and Ares together won’t ever make that much playing hockey combined. Total. All our years added up.

  This chick is making me so hot and hard I could fucking Zamboni the shit out of a rink with just my dick right now.

  “That’s insane,” Chase says.

  “Your loss. You don’t want it, I can count at least six other investors who do.”

  “And then you have to deal with six jackasses instead of just me.”

  He can be six jackasses all by himself. Which I don’t say out loud, for the record, even though I know Chase, my brother, and my sister all know I’m thinking it. Ares and Ambrosia snicker like they agree. Chase gives me those squinty eyeballs that mean I’m finding more than a giant spider in my living room if I don’t shut my pie hole.

  Don’t care.

  Except I do care that Joey’s looking at me.

  Like, looking at me. Maybe through me. Like she heard me say it too, and when those hard lines around her mouth soften into something that’s not a smile, but is definitely amused, I feel like I just put a biscuit in the basket at the buzzer to win the whole fucking Stanley Cup.

  That redwood in my jockey shorts is once again reaching for the heavens.

  And by heavens, I mean Joey’s special lady cave.

  “You’re forgetting one very important detail,” Joey says to Chase.

  “Highly doubt it, but go ahead. Amuse me.”

  “Weightless doesn’t need to expand. We’re solid just as we are.” She takes the napkin, crinkles it up, and drops it in her ketchup-mustard mix that’s just as disgusting as my jock strap after a game. “Bet I could beat the shit out of all of you playing rubber chockey on the moon.”

  Ares shoots me a look. Dude. You are in so over your head.

  Fuck, yeah, I am.

  “But don’t you want to grow?” Ambrosia asks. “Zeus said there was a three-month wait for private flights. And there’s so much interest in research on the effect of zero-gravity on plants and humans and—”

  “Bet you fifty bucks I can eat more ice cream than you,” I say to Joey.

  She tilts those dark eyes at me, and there it is again—that subtle amusement at my expense. “Is your brain capable of freezing?”

  “I was born with my brain freezing.”

  Ares nods. We share a fist bump. Hell froze over the day we were born. Except we weren’t born in Hell. Minnesota was just butt-ass cold that day.

  “It’s too late to ask you not to encourage him, isn’t it?” Ambrosia says to Joey.

  “He encourages himself.”

  “That’s freakishly accurate. Are you sure you just met a couple days ago?”

  “She can tell them apart too,” Chase says. “It really is fascinating.”

  “You can’t?” Joey asks.

  “Sometimes I don’t want to.”

  Ares grabs him in an affectionate headlock. I tilt my head at Joey. “Got a banana split with your name on it.”

  “You are so gross,” Ambrosia mutters. She flicks Ares’s ear. “Let him go or I’m pulling out my kazoo.”

  “Bad hum,” Ares mutters. He drops his hold on Chase.

  Manning’s just taking it all in, grinning.

  “What’s so funny, fucker?” I say.

  “Just like being at home,” Cheery McCheeryFace says. “Except I’d still like to take dear old Fireball’s sister out for dinner and dancing.”

  Joey doesn’t go all Alien baby on him. No lasers sprout out her eyeballs and castrate him on the spot. She doesn’t even flinch.

  Much more than anyone but me would notice, anyway.

  She smiles at him.

  Warm, friendly, and fucking terrifying. “That’s fine. You’re boring.”

  His grin’s so wide now his eyeballs are disappearing in the crinkles. He’s one big mass of well-groomed beard, thick eyebrows, prominent honker, and disappearing eyeballs.

  He nods to her. “The psychological games. Excellent. Works well with sheep too.”

  Joey leans over his plate. His royal guard—ever vigilant, but quiet enough I usually forget he’s there—leans toward the table.

  She plucks the last of his hamburger off his plate—four normal human size bites there—shoves it all in her mouth, flips him off, and turns to stroll out the door. “Later, y’all,” she says.

  I think.

  Hard to tell with her mouth full.

  But I know one thing.

  That woman’s not leaving without me.

  23

  Zeus

  I catch up with Joey outside a pie shop down the block. “Hey.”

  She looks up at me like she’s never seen me before, and I can’t deny what that pang in my chest means.

  This chick’s getting to me.

  “You’re rather relentless.”

  “You’re special.”

  It pops out before I can think. Or stop it.

  And now she’s looking at me like not only has she never seen me before, but I’m possibly from an alien planet.

  Which I’m realizing isn’t necessarily a bad thing. She likes space and shit. Maybe I’d be more appealing if I was an alien. I should slather my body in purple face paint, dye my chest hairs green, and see if it helps.

  “I’m special,” she repeats.

  She’s still chewing her hamburger. I love how much this woman loves food. I can eat a whole fucking sheep—wool and all—in a single day. I go out with some skinny chick who eats like two pieces of lettuce and a protein shake, and we just sit there while she cringes at me shoveling it in.

  Just because I’m a big fucker doesn’t mean I don’t pick up on shit.

  Means I don’t date much either.

  What’s the point?

  “You…” I’m losing words. You want poetry, talk to Ares. He can one-word haiku the shit out of trash-talking on the ice. You want to be fucking told how it is, you come to me.

  Until you’re a badass, hot as fuck pilot chick who can both outclass and probably out-burp me.

  That’s mad skill right there.

  “I?” she prompts.

  She’s pretty? I like her hair? Her brains make her boobs look good? I’m out of my league with Joey Fireball.

  “You wanna go look at some stars or shit?” I blurt.

  Her lips part, and a chunk of hamburger falls out. She snaps her jaw shut, swipes her mouth, and visibly swallows.

  She’s no longer staring at me like I’m an intriguing alien specimen.

  Nope, this is all who the fuck does this moron think he is?

  “Or go bench some bellhops,” I add quickly. “Or get a wool coat and try to light it on fire while we tie Manning up and make him watch. Dude loves his wool. Gets freaked out when I make my biceps dance too. He’s jealous.”

  She tilts her head and looks up at the sky, then slugs me in the arm. “Do whatever the fuck you want. I’m going to look at the stars.”

  24

  Joey

  Zeus Berger: The Romantic.

  Didn’t see that coming.

  Didn’t see me liking it either, but here we are. Stretched out on a couple blankets he commandeered from the hotel, an hour or so south of the city, breathing in the warm night air, listening to crickets, and bullshitting while a carpet of stars twinkles in
the vast eternity of space.

  He’s not touching me. Not physically. But even if he were silent as the moon, I’d know he was there.

  It’s not just his presence. The impossibility of overlooking him for his sheer size.

  It’s something else. Something putting a quiver in my belly, a pull in my pussy, and utter stupidity in my chest.

  “Your favorite animal is a lemur,” he guesses.

  “Can’t guess it if you can’t spell it,” I reply.

  “It’s got an um in it.”

  He’s so full of shit. He can spell it and we both know it. Or at least come close. It’s a weird word. I’d spell-check it, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

  “Your favorite is a koala,” I guess.

  “Fuck, yeah. I love animals that start with a Q. Especially when they’re in the cat family.”

  I try—and fail—to stifle a snort of laughter.

  His teeth glint in the darkness. “You as bad at coloring as you are at driving?”

  “You as bad at baking as you are at spelling?”

  “I can bake the shit out of chocolate chip cookies.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  A pebble drops on my face as Zeus crashes his shoulder into mine. On the blanket. While we’re both on our backs.

  I shove him, because if I don’t, I’m going to straddle him, and this thread holding us together is too weird. I don’t do emotional shit. I do concrete, take-care-of-myself shit. “What the hell?”

  “Missed. Dammit. You want a Milk Dud?”

  He’s back on his own blanket, silhouetted in the darkness as he rattles a box.

  Of candies he’s trying to toss into his mouth.

  Making the little things extraordinary. Fun.

  “Got any Cadbury Mini Eggs?” I ask.

  “Those M&M-wannabes they sell at Easter?”

  “Yep.”

  “Fuck, no. It’s August.”

  “You’re dead to me now.”

  He snorts. “Whatever. You want my Milk Duds. I know it. You know it. The fucking stars know it.”

  “I’ve never wanted a dud in my life.”

  “Missing out. Probably wouldn’t try pineapple tater tot casserole either. Loser.”

  “Punk.”

  “Hard-ass.”

  “Baby.”

  He laughs—holy dog, Zeus Berger has a laugh as big and rich and surprising as he is. I smile in the darkness and breathe in the night air.

  Been too long since I stopped to watch the stars, much less took the time to really enjoy another human being’s company. Peach and I have been so busy researching opportunities and updating our long-term business plan—Weightless took off much faster than we expected—that neither of us has taken much time off the last several months.

  Okay, years.

  Peach brought most of the money to the table to start the company. I scraped my share together with loans, minimalist living, and sheer gut. I don’t like not pulling my weight, so when I start out behind, I work my ass off to catch up.

  Having Peach out while Meemaw recovers from hip surgery isn’t going to help.

  Not when we’re playing with an investor who’s serious enough and has big enough pockets to put Weightless on an entirely new playing field.

  Zeus’s shoulder brushes mine, his arm cuts off my view of a third of the sky, and I make out a finger pointing upward. “You going there someday?”

  “Fuck, yeah.”

  His arm drops beside mine. Close enough that I could grab his hand and squeeze it. Or he could grab mine.

  He doesn’t.

  Neither do I.

  But I think about it.

  “Big dude like me couldn’t fit in a spaceship,” he says quietly.

  He’s not wrong. His height would disqualify him from NASA’s space program. Even with private space flight, he’d take up as much room as two passengers.

  I roll to face him, squishing my boob against his arm and perking up my nipples. “Do you want to go to space?”

  “I’m fucking going on your airplane again.”

  I don’t mention him puking, because despite being a badass unafraid to call him a baby—which we both know he’s not—I don’t rub people’s shortcomings in their face. Life’s too short to be a shithead—the cruel kind, not the take-care-of-yourself kind—and you never know who you’re going to need tomorrow.

  I never know who Gracie’s going to need tomorrow.

  And possibly I can confess, since it’s dark and I’m feeling mellow, that I like having guys on my crew who will step up and have my back when a big-ass hockey dude looks like he might eat me.

  “Didn’t think you could do it,” Zeus adds gruffly.

  “Motion sickness is easily managed when you know it’s a potential issue. Hell, even Peach still tosses her cookies up there now and again.”

  “I meant make me weightless.”

  His voice isn’t just quiet.

  It’s vulnerable. Exposed. Human.

  Like maybe he doesn’t always want to be a big badass.

  Like maybe sometimes, he just wants to be normal.

  A whole fucking rose bush explodes in my chest in a blooming mass of flowery emotional shit. My lungs gobble up the sweetness. The jet engine driving my pulse fires up.

  Not good.

  So not good.

  I hold myself completely still until I’m sure my voice won’t wobble.

  Sometimes, I’d like to be normal too. “Never doubt a kid from the sticks.”

  He rolls to face me. Our noses are inches apart. I could grab him and kiss him again. Swing a leg over his hips.

  Or, you know, his ribs.

  Because neither of us is normal.

  “You always know you wanted to go to space?” he asks.

  “Nope. Used to want to be a lady.”

  He doesn’t laugh. Like he knows it’s not actually funny.

  Gracie and I grew up crammed into a one-bedroom bungalow patched together with duct tape and tar. We had Dad and two dogs that were less ours than they were simply not anyone else’s. There was love, but there wasn’t much else. Heard the song “Fancy” when I was nine, decided I’d be a lady too some day. Until the day I found my true calling.

  Maybe it’s the night air. Maybe it’s the stars. Maybe it’s this weird magnetic pull that keeps bringing me back to Zeus. Whatever it is, I’m suddenly whispering secrets I’ve never told another soul outside my family.

  “I won a trip to D.C. my junior year of high school. It was the first time in my life I’d been on an airplane. Swore it wouldn’t be the last.” That drive to be something more than a poor kid from the sticks was always in me, but being airborne for the first time took it to a new level. “I’ve worked my ass off since then to live a life in the sky, starting with the college scholarship courtesy of the military. Flight training too. I wanted to be an astronaut. Knew it would take a long time. But then I heard about private space flight companies not long before I almost died of appendicitis, and I didn’t want to wait any longer.”

  “Your scar.”

  “I got better.”

  He breathes out a chuckle and traces the path of my arm from my shoulder to my wrist. Goosebumps erupt over my entire body.

  Even my toes. Fuck, my toenails too.

  “Your family come fly with you?”

  “Just Gracie.” Dad was too sick by the time Peach and I were ready for our first flight. I asked him to go anyway—it’s almost your time anyway, what’s it matter if it happens while you’re almost touching the stars?—but he declined.

  He was sick and dying. It shouldn’t have felt like he abandoned me. Like it meant he wasn’t proud of me. But those fucking emotions—they get in places they’re not supposed to and tell you lies convincing enough to border on your fears about the truth.

  Zeus pulls my favorite trick and stares at me in the dark.

  “Your family come to your games?” Because I’m not going there.

  He doesn’t push it. “When
they can. Just retired, so they’re probably coming to more games this year.” He snorts again. “Probably follow in their footsteps before long.”

  “You’re going to go watch your kids’ hockey games and drive like you can’t see the road?”

  “My mom can kick your ass at driving.”

  “She’d have to catch me first.”

  “And I don’t have any kids.”

  “That you know of.”

  “You know what I know?”

  “Dog himself probably doesn’t know what you know.”

  “I know if I had kids, I’d fucking know it. And I wouldn’t have fucking one. When I have kids, I’m having quadzeuslets. Live large, play large, procreate large.”

  Quadzeuslets.

  That’s the most fucking terrifying thing I’ve heard all day. “Oh my dog.”

  “Not having kids.” Again, there’s a rawness to his voice that tugs at every fiber in my chest.

  “Why?”

  “Because who the fuck wants to have quadzeuslets?”

  With him, he doesn’t say. Out loud. Except it’s hanging there between us.

  I saw him with Bailey. His heart’s just as big as the rest of him. He’s loud. He’s outrageous. He’s everything the world expects him to be.

  Until someone smaller and weaker needs him to be something else.

  Walls. Down.

  I want to hug him. And I never want to hug anyone.

  “My mother left us when I was eight,” I whisper. “Didn’t stick around to watch us grow up. Never checked in on us again. I don’t know if she’s dead or alive. I just know she didn’t want us anymore.”

  I can’t do this anymore, Josephine. Take good care of Gracie. You’ve always been better at it than I was anyway.

  Gracie barely remembers her. And Gracie still believes in forever.

  Me?

  I believe in stars. Constellations. The moon landing. The physics of the universe.

  I don’t understand them all, but I know they’re not going anywhere. And they’re bigger than I am.

  I poke Zeus in the chest. “You’d be a better parent than my mother was. Don’t fucking sell yourself—mmph!”

  He muffles my order by capturing my lips with his mouth. I grip the soft cotton of his T-shirt and hold tight while I part my lips for his tongue.