Page 89 of Puck You Both

"Got it," the photographer says, checking her frame. "Good job, you two. You can really feel the history."

She has no idea.

I'm two lines into confirming teardown logistics when the reporter appears. Local station, phone-mounted mic, feel-good segment written all over him. "Mr. Grass-cow-ack—"

"Close enough."

He throws me a few softballs about where the money goes when this is over, and whether the kitten photo will be available as a separate print, which is somehow already a question, forty minutes into that photo existing. I hand out co-chair answers with half my brain, because across the room Theo is attempting to exit the building with a kitten inside his hoodie while two staffers explain the concept of paperwork to him.

"Last one." The reporter smiles, half-reading his notes. "You and Wallace seem awfully friendly for nemeses. And then you're at that diner. What is the deal here?"

The room doesn't change. Puppies yipping, cable being wound, Wanda laughing at something across the floor. Inside my chest, a door slams so hard I'm amazed nobody turns around.

Media training catches me before I hit the ground. The camera smile arrives. "The deal is we raised four hundred thousand dollars for shelter animals, and we’re not even halfway done."

He laughs, thanks me for my time and drifts off toward Petrov, who has been saving the word smolder for exactly this kind of customer.

The smile holds while he goes. It holds while I hand off the clipboard, and while I find my coat, and while I cross the lot into the gray Milwaukee afternoon.

My hands don't stop shaking until I'm in the car.

Chapter 17

THEO

MY OVEN HAS a light in it. Three years in this apartment, and I'm finding this out today, on my knees on the kitchen tile with half my body inside the thing and a sponge in my fist.

A man should take care of his own place once in a while. That's all this is. My name is on the lease, and the lease comes with an oven, and today the two of us are getting reacquainted.

I've been at it since noon. The bathroom is done. The windows are done, both sides. I even pulled the couch away from the wall and found a fork, two pucks, and a sock I don’t remember owning. Somewhere between the couch and the oven, a thought walked in without knocking: when something might get taken away from you, you fight for it.

I drowned that one in the bucket and kept scrubbing.

My phone buzzes on the counter above me. I back out of the oven too fast, catch my head on the roof of it, then check the screen, only to find a spam email. Again.

I don't know what I'm hoping for. That the report deleted itself out of shame, maybe.

Nope. Still up.

The radio last week was just noise. Everybody said so. I said so, loudly, to anyone who'd listen. But this guy is one of the real ones, an insider with actual sources and a smug little checkmark, and at eleven this morning he posted a tidy list of Vipers "available at the deadline."

Third name down. T. Moreau, LW. Destination chatter: Keep an eye on Anaheim.

Available.

I've read the word maybe forty times today and it hasn't improved once. Like I'm a couch somebody dragged out to the curb. Free to a good home, a bit too soft, some wear and tear.

A fan account has already photoshopped me into a Ducks jersey. I've zoomed in on it three times, which is totally normal and healthy behavior. I look terrible in orange. If you're going to ruin my life, at least color-match me first. This is supposed to be a professional league.

I navigate to my three-way group chat, again, and reread my own messages from an hour ago.

Me: good news boys i'm famous

Me: [screenshot]

Me: anaheim has beaches. do i look like a beach guy. don't answer

Patrick: Where are you?