“Yeah, alright. I can meet you there if you want me in the box.”
“You know…” His voice trails off and he clears his throat uncomfortably. “Coach was asking about you yesterday.” Weston watches from the corner of his eye even as he takes the second half of his giant sandwich off the white dinner plate.
I nod slowly. Hesitantly. “Yeah? What did he say?”
“He just asked where your head was at, and if you’re ready for the season to start, because you seem so… out of it during practice. But he brought me into his office to do it, so you know it wasn’t just him being polite.”
No. Coach isn’t polite. He’s a colossal asshole.
I don’t respond, instead nodding again, bowing my head a little, and removing my ball cap briefly to run my fingers through my hair.
Wes shifts uneasily. “I’m not telling you this to pressure you. I just wanted to let you know that we’re all pumped for the new season to start, and we can’t afford to have you benched. Haggerty is a piece-of-shit goaltender, even for a second stringer, and everyone knows it.”
Yeah, I’ve noticed.
Zack Haggerty, the rookie goalie who subs my spot in the event of an injury, killed the team’s stats the one time last season I was out with mono, and I still can’t help feeling responsible.
“You know I’ve been busting my ass in practice. Of course I’m fucking ready for the season to start.” I shake my head, irritated. Just because I’m not like my obnoxiously extroverted teammates does not mean my head isn’t in the game.
“Six tonight, you said?”
He confirms with a nod, his shaggy brown hair falling in his eyes. Dude needs a haircut.
“Alright. Yeah, I’ll be in the net for you.”
“Sweet, thanks, Showtime.” He stuffs another hunk of bread in his gullet and swallows, extending the sandwich toward me. With a face full of mayonnaise and meat hanging from his mouth, he asks, “You want a bite?”
Shaking my head, I walk over and smack him on the back with a grin. “No way, man. I’ll catch you later, though.”
Abby
Why is it that every time you run into a store like Wal-Mart for something simple, you always end up finding way more stuff than you actually need?
You know what I’m talking about. Walking in to buy something—let’s use milk, shampoo, or paper towels as an example here—but end up spending fifty dollars on random crap that you had no need for. Or no intention of buying. For example, a new magazine, tank top, or that tube of onyx mascara you only bought because it’s never on sale and you finally get to save forty whole cents.
Yeah.
Balancing the pile of such random merchandise I’ve accumulated because I didn’t grab a cart on my way in, my frugality kicks in and, like the spendthrift I am, I begin putting things back on the shelves.
Since I’m technically only here for tampons, I put back the microwave popcorn, fuzzy socks, silver nail polish I will never actually wear, and a Blu-ray of The Longest Ride.
Actually, no. I do want The Longest Ride.
I add it back to my pile.
Meandering dutifully back to the feminine products like I had intended to do in the first place, I grab a hot-pink box of regular absorbency, scanning the tampon aisle one more time just in case I missed anything exciting and new.
I round the corner and start down the main drag, retracing my steps past the cosmetics, perfume, and the pharmacy, idly checking over every endcap and eyeing any packaging with metallic sheen that catches my attention—after all, that’s what the displays were designed to do, right? Entice me.
Well played, marketing people, well played.
Like a sucker, I stand there scrutinizing everything like it’s my job, not because I need any more crap, but because I’m bored and in no hurry to return home to an empty house.
Standing in check-out lane numero tres, I study a display of candy, eyeballing a bag of assorted Tootsie Rolls and deciding that if I were to buy the whole bag (hypothetically, of course), I would eat all the blue-wrapped vanilla ones first. I’d definitely toss out the lemon ones—I mean, who eats the lemon ones? Who?
Lemon Tootsie Rolls? Come on now.
Get real.
Sighing, I mentally purchase half the chocolate candy bars on the metal shelves, a snack-size bag of Funyuns, and a roll of Mentos. It’s a rough life, but I’m muddling through.
Tapping the box of tampons clutched in my left hand listlessly against my thigh, I count the number of items the woman in front of me has stacked up on the counter. Let me tell you, it’s a lot of shit, which is annoying, since this is the Speedy Express ten-items-or-less lane.
By my estimation, the cheater has at least twenty-five items.
The cover of US Weekly catches my eye, and since I have nothing to do but stand here and wait, I grab the current issue and begin thumbing through, page after page, ignorant to the looming figure that has walked up to stand behind me.