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We live in the same house together, eat most meals together, work out and play hockey together. Our lives are so intertwined we never have much space. Some days, I want to beat the living shit out of all of them, so they’ll give me some room to breathe.
But they are family.
And family sticks together.
“One slice,” I tell Drake. “You were sluggish at practice.”
“Easy for you to say, Prez.” Drake gives me a nasty look. “You could eat ten pizzas and never lose an ounce of muscle.”
I ignore his comment. It’s not as easy for me to stay in game-ready shape as he thinks. I have to work my ass off. Living up to the Parker name is hard enough. Everyone compares my hockey stats to my dad’s. The pressure to be as good as him, or even better, is often suffocating.
We cross the street, headed toward Giovanni’s Pizza.
“What were you talking to Coach’s daughter about?” Trent asks. “It looked intense.”
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, right?” Trent nudges me in the arm with his elbow. “That didn’t look likenothingto me.”
“I told her she was in the wrong locker room… and that she had a weird name.”
Jamie laughs. “Like you have room to talk about weird names, Spidey.”
I punch him in the arm, almost knocking him off balance, but he manages to regain his footing. “Call me that again and watch what happens.”
“Coach will rip your dick off if he catches you looking at his daughter,” Trent says. “We all saw you eye-fucking the shit out of her.”
I wink. “Good thing he didn’t catch me.”
“Coach loves him,” Jamie counters. “He treats Prez like a son. I’m sure he’d give him a pass to hit that.”
“Now, I really can’t fuck his daughter… seeing as how that would make us related.”
He laughs, opening the door to the crowded pizzeria for me. “I bet he wouldn’t care. He’d make an exception for his team captain.”
Would he, though?
Doubtful.
We step inside to wall-to-wall booths filled with college kids. Some people are sitting at the bar that runs along the right side, shoveling slices into their mouths. Gio’s is the local hangout for most people on campus. The pizza shop is almost always open, making it the perfect place to come when you’re drunk and need a quick bite to eat.
“Great, nowhere to sit.” Drake glances around the room and rubs his stomach. “Maybe we should get our pizza to go.”
“Nah, we can stand and eat,” I say.
Tucker points at a table of familiar girls. “I’m sure they would make room for us.”
I shake my head. “Been there, done that. Stay away from the redhead. She’s bat shit crazy.”
“I’d hit that,” Drake says.
Tucker makes a gagging sound. “Hard pass on Parker’s sloppy seconds.”
Jamie shrugs, unaffected. “Prez has good taste in women.”
“It’s called standards, something Tucker and Trent don’t have.”
We stroll to the counter about to order when I hear Coach Bryant call my name. I look over my shoulder. He’s with his daughter in a booth by the window. She stares at me with a slice of half-eaten pepperoni pizza in her hand. Grease drips down the right side of her mouth. Most girls would have blushed by now and wiped their face.
