Olli
“What’s this I hear about you being a dick to your new PA?” Christenson asked as he sat on the bench next to me. I huffed, bending over to tie my cleats, looking around for Brooker. When I spotted him by Carter’s cubby, trying to steal from our teammate's gum stash, I sat up and tossed a bundled-up pair of socks at him.
“I can’t believe you fucking tattled.”
“Hey,” he shouted back, knocking the socks down before they hit his face. “Don’t be a fucking prick to me, too. "
Brooker grabbed my socks, moving to toss them back at me, but Carter smacked them out of his hand.
“Are you stealing my gum again?” he asked.
“No,” Brooker lied.
“Uh-huh. Get your ass away from my cubby, then,” Carter said, taking his pick from the top shelf to smack Brooker’s hand.
“Kean,” Christenson said with that special sternness only a captain could use without getting shit for it. “Why’re you being a dick to her?”
“I’m not,” I grumbled, trying to refocus on my shoes. But before I could finish tying up my other shoe, Brooker slid in next to me, apparently chased off by Carter.
“You totally were. Like, even a bigger dick than you are to us on your bad days. You’d think you didn’t want her there or something.”
“That’s not it.” With a huff, I sat back up, accepting that I wasn’t going to be left alone any time soon.
“Then what is?” Christenson asked.
“If you ask me —” Brooker started.
“Nobody did,” I mumbled and Brooker elbowed me in my side.
“He’s got a little crush on his PA and it’s flustering him so bad he’s forgotten how to act. You should’ve seen how quick he turned into a caveman the second I said I was gonna flirt with her. He —”
I threw my arm into Brooker’s stomach and knocked the breath out of him. He bent over, coughing like I’d smashed in his lungs. But that was par for the course with Brooker; he’d roll around on the field if he so much as stubbed his toe, the dramatic prick.
“Don’t hit your teammate,” Christenson mumbled like an exhausted mom. “And even if you are attracted to her, that doesn’t mean you can be a dick to Brooker. And youespeciallycan’t be a dick to her just because you can’t date her now or whatever.”
“It’s not about dating her,” I grumbled under my breath, looking around the room for a way out of this conversation. A few of my other teammates were meandering around, gettingready for practice, but with the captain on my ass, they were all pointedly looking away from me.
Christenson wasn’t a hard-ass captain, but Coach Boyd wasn’t exactly … on top of shit. He only showed up to every other practice, yelled a lot of nonsense on the sidelines, and provided little to no advice in strategy meetings. Had I known what a shit show Boyd was to work with, I probably would’ve searched harder for another team to transfer to. And the reason I hadn’t realized the Dastards coach was a useless bitch was all because of Christenson. The man wasn’t captain for nothing, he picked upallthe slack. He planned and called the plays, he kept track of everybody’s schedules, he even went so far as to create spreadsheets for away games of where everybody was staying, room numbers, restaurant suggestions, etcetera. He was basically a pseudo-coach, and if the Dastards owners didn’t hire him to coach when he was ready to retire, they were idiotsandassholes.
“So then you won’t mind if I asked her out?” Brooker asked, suddenly over his feigned injury. I nudged his side with enough force that when he bent over, it wasn’t just dramatics this time.
“Kean,” Christenson muttered, before leaning behind me to nudge Brooker off the bench. “Stop poking the bear and get out of here.”
“But I wanna —” Brooker started but Christenson gave him another rough shove and Brooker tumbled off the bench. He mumbled a few choice words but went off to his cubby.
“So,” Christenson started once Brooker was out of earshot. “What’s up with this PA? She’s barely worked a full day, so I find it hard to believe she’s done anything to deserve this much hostility.”
“I’m not being hostile.”
“That’s not how Brooker described it.”
“That’s because Brooker’s a dramatic bitch.”
“Well, Alvarez backed him up.”
“Hmph. Him and Fuller’ll echo whatever he says. They think he’s so cool, with how he —”
“Kean,” Christenson warned.
