PUCKED Up

by Helena Hunting

  I hadn’t expected the bunnies today, although I probably should have. Lance doesn’t do the chill-out thing very often. Usually when Natasha comes by, she hangs out for a while after the workout. We BBQ and swim, and then she takes off and we plan our night. Lance always walks her out. I figured it was him being all polite or whatever, but now I’m not so sure.

  “This must be torture,” Lance says from beside me.

  I glance over at him. While I was busy scoping the scene, he must have come back outside.

  “What do you mean?” I drain what’s left of my bottle of water.

  “All the girls.”

  “It’s no big deal.” Honestly, I figured it’d be a lot harder than it is. Although the bunnies are damn hard to avoid, especially with friends like Lance who throw parties all the time.

  I change the subject. “Did you find Natasha?”

  “Nah. She was already gone by the time I got inside.” A twitch under his eye is the only tell that I’ve hit a nerve. “You know, if you disappeared with one of the bunnies for a while, no one would say anything.”

  I take off my sunglasses and pin him with a cold glare. “My balls could be so fucking blue they look like they’ve been handled by a Smurf, and I still wouldn’t do that to Sunny.”

  He raises his hands in the air. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just figured . . . I don’t know. It can’t be easy. She’s all the way in Canada, and you’re here. Long-distance relationships don’t really work, you know?”

  I drop my sunglasses back in place. I don’t want to think about it not working, which is a real possibility. I don’t know the stats on long-distance relationships, but I’m guessing they aren’t good.

  Realistically, if me and Sunny are going to be long term, one of us will have to relocate. Since my job is always subject to change, that would mean Sunny going where I go, and she’d need a job that’s easy to do anywhere. It’s something I’ve already put thought into, which says more than I’m willing to admit about how I feel about her.

  I nab one of the lawn chair floaty things and toss it in the water, jumping in after it. This isn’t a conversation I want to have with Lance, not before I see Sunny. Sometimes I feel like this whole thing is set up to be a failure from the start.

  I must fall asleep on my floaty chair, because all of a sudden I’m really fucking awake, and I have to take a piss. Getting out means dealing with the bunnies. I paddle over to the edge and hoist myself up. Instead of passing about twenty of them to get into the house—they’ve multiplied while I napped—I head for the pool house bathroom. No one else is in here, thank God. I’ve accidentally walked in on people getting it on more than once.

  When I come out of the bathroom, a familiar-looking girl is waiting outside the door.

  “Buck!” She wraps her arms around my neck.

  “Hey.” I pat her back, fully aware she’s wearing nothing but a tiny string bikini, and there’s absolutely no ass to the thing. I can feel her boobs against my stomach. There’s too much skin. My dick wants to react. I think about dead kittens and roadkill to stop a hard-on from forming.

  Eventually she lets go and takes a step back. It’s not enough. She’s still too close. I keep my eyes on her face and try not to see her cleavage. I wrack my brain for a name, for something beyond the customary “Honey” I’m used to. I’ve got nothing.

  “It’s been a while,” she says. “I haven’t seen you at the bars. You hanging somewhere new these days?” Her desperation isn’t attractive.

  “I haven’t been going out as much.”

  She pops a hip and pouts. Her lips are red like cherries, or blood, or Satan’s ball sac. “That’s too bad. I think some of us are going to the club tomorrow night. You should come.”

  “I’m out of town. Maybe another time.” I step out of the way so she can get to the bathroom. “I should, uh . . . give you some privacy. The fan doesn’t work in there.”

  It’s a stupid thing to say, but I don’t care. I need to get away from this mostly naked chick who I evidently have a brief history with. I leave her to do her thing and head back to the pool. It’s no better.

  A few girls have gotten in the water. Two of them are latched onto Randy, their hair pulled up in ponytails. More of them are losing their shirts and shorts, so it’s skin, skin, and more skin. Some chick hands me a beer, and I take it, since it’s the polite thing to do.

  Unwilling to get back in the pool with all the half-naked girls in there, I drop down in one of the lounge chairs on the patio.

  “Oh my God! You’re Buck Butterson! But your real name is Miller, right?”

  A curvy brunette is standing right in front of me, and her friend, a skinny blonde, looks horrified. I’m shocked she knows my real name.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to—God, I can’t—you’re amazing. I love you. I mean, you’re an awesome player. Chicago won after you got traded! And that was bogus on Miami’s part. You didn’t do a damn thing wrong. The media can suck it. Anyway, you were outstanding during the finals. I’m so sorry. I don’t think I can stop myself.”

  I smile. She’s a real fan—the kind who gets genuinely excited about the game, and not just about my dick.

  “It’s cool.” I extend my hand.

  She grabs it and squeezes, shaking harder than necessary. “Jessabelle.” Her cheeks go a vibrant shade of red. “But my friends call me Jellie.”

  “Like peanut butter and jelly?”

  “But with an -ie on the end. Is that weird? It probably is. Is it okay for me to call you Miller? I know you go by Buck, but if it’s okay—”

  “It’s cool. You’re cool. Take a breath.”

  “Wow. Great. Awesome. You’re so blond. You’re like a real-life Ken doll, but your hair’s not plastic. Who’s the girl who always posts stuff about you being a yeti?” She glances at my arms. “You don’t have that much hair.”

  Fucking Vi and her comments on Facebook. “I only turn on the yeti moon.” When all I get is a blank look, I say, “My sister thinks it’s hilarious to post that BS.”

  She nods like she understands. “She’s funny, right? Do you think I could get a picture with you?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” I don’t consider her outfit—she’s in a pair of booty shorts and a bikini top that barely covers her nipples—or that I’m only wearing a pair of swim shorts.

  She pulls her phone from her back pocket and hands it to her friend. Then she drops down in my lap and wraps herself around me. Before I can stop her, Jellie’s friend starts snapping pics.

  “Whoa! Hold up!” I raise my hands in the air so I’m not touching her anywhere. Well, except for where she’s touching me with all her bare skin, which is a lot of places. “You can’t post those.”

  Her friend stops clicking away and once again looks like she’s about sink into the cement. I move Jellie off of me, touching as little of her as possible. “I have a girlfriend. My lap isn’t your chair.”

  “Oh! Oh shit. I thought that was a rumor. I mean, God. You’ve never had a girlfriend, and I thought maybe since there weren’t any pictures in the last few weeks you were done . . .” she trails off.

  “We’re not done.”

  “Not even after last night?”

  What would she know about last night? “I was out with the guys.”

  She gets this weird look on her face. She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I just . . . you’re an awesome player.” She snatches the phone from her friend and starts deleting pictures, or that’s what I assume she’s doing. I don’t want to be a creepy asshole and stand over her shoulder to make sure she deletes them all.

  “It’s cool. I just don’t want problems. You know?”

  “Sure. Right. Of course.”

  I let her friend take another, far less problematic picture of us standing next to each other, somewhat awkwardly, while smiling. “Well, if you ever break up and you’re looking for someone to make you feel better, you can always hit me up on Facebook.”

&
nbsp; She holds up the phone so I can see her profile. Her avatar is mostly her boobs. Below is a picture of her sitting in Lance’s lap. Up until this point I kinda liked her, in a player-to-fan way. Now she’s just another bunny making chairs out of us.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  FLASHITY FLASH WATCH YO ASS

  Twenty minutes later, I’ve abandoned the beer, and I’m nursing a mineral water, flipping burgers on the BBQ. This seems to be the safest place to hang out, away from the bunnies in the pool who are buzzed enough to stop protecting their hair. Randy comes over with my phone. “I think you need to check this.”

  “Is it working again? I got nothing an hour ago.”

  He drops the device in my palm. “Yeah, man, I turned it on, and it’s good to go. You got a shitton of messages. You might want to look at your flight details—you know, to make sure you got the time right.”

  That was probably the one thing I forgot to do—turn it on—but I keep this to myself because I don’t need to look like an idiot. Usually I can count on Amber, my Personal Assistant to send me a million messages—most of them audio—so I don’t forget important things like flights and dates and events. But since she’s away on some portaging trip in the middle of nowhere for the next two weeks, I can’t count on her managing my life, which means I have to do it myself.

  “That’s a good idea.” I don’t like the look on his face as I pass him the flipper. I key in my code; he’s right about the messages. A lot of them are from Sunny. Some are from Violet. And there are voice mails. Several of them.

  “I’ll be back in a bit.”

  “Take your time. I’ve got this. ’Sides, I need a break from the bunnies. It’s like mating season.”

  I pat him on the back, bypass the kitchen where some of the bunnies are hanging out, and head for the stairs. I hit the spare bedroom on the second floor and lock myself in.

  I start with the voice mails. They don’t require reading so they’re easiest to deal with. The first message is from Vi. I hold the phone a foot away from my ear, and I can still hear her screaming. She’s loud when she’s angry.

  “You’re a fucking asshole! What the shit is wrong with you? Do you have any idea how much shit you’re in? Alex is going to rip your balls off, not that it matters since they’re the size of raisins, and your dick can only be seen by a microscope. You better call me as soon as you get this. You’re fucked. Get ready for the ass-kicking of a century, you yeti bastard!”

  I have no idea why I’m in so much trouble, but I figure it’s in my best interest to listen to a few more of the messages before I call her back. The time stamp on that one is from early this morning—either two or five. I’m too worried about what’s made her this mad to absorb the numbers.

  The next message is from Sunny. It looks like it’s from about an hour ago, if I’m right about it being after two in the afternoon now. I can’t understand a thing she says because it’s garbled. The only words I make out are pictures and bunnies.

  Shit. This can’t be good. It has to be a misunderstanding. God knows there’ve been enough of them in the past few months. I can’t seem to stop messing things up with her, no matter how hard I try. That’s been the biggest roadblock to progress with Sunny. People post pictures all the time. Sometimes they don’t even ask before they snap their shots. It’s crazy.

  There are two voice mails from my PA, but they can wait. This drama needs to be taken care of first. I flip to the text messages. These are way more of a challenge to go through. I’ve always been a slow reader. The only As I got in high school were in construction and gym.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t get what was going on, it just took me seven million times longer to read the same thing everyone else did. It made me look stupid. People assumed because I was a jock I couldn’t be smart, too. So I stopped trying. Since my dad was a scout for the NHL and I had no mom—she died before I was old enough to really know her—teachers tended to be lenient.

  I got tutors once I hit sophomore year, especially after I got my teeth knocked out and missed a bunch of classes. Once the new teeth were in and the bite problem fixed, tutors were more than willing to help me. More often than not, there’d be an “exchange” of services. They’d help write my essays, and I’d work on perfecting the art of orgasm by fingers. By senior year there were a lot of girls looking to help me manage my school work. My grades weren’t awesome—they weren’t even moderately decent—but I still managed to secure a hockey scholarship for college, which was all that mattered since that was the only thing I ever wanted to do.

  Once I got drafted, there wasn’t enough time to do all my assignments, even with some flexibility from the college, so I dropped out. It didn’t make sense to struggle through a diploma I’d never use when I was going to make a shitton more money without it.

  I have an endless number of texts from Vi and Sunny, but one is from Waters. He normally doesn’t message me. His is easy to read:

  YOU’RE FUCKING DEAD, ASSHOLE.

  The ones from Violet and Sunny are more of a challenge. There seems to be a lot of autocorrecting and text slang—which is the worst thing ever created. It makes the words more difficult to decode.

  I bring up the text-to-speech app and listen as it takes the butchered English and turns it into Violet ranting. It’s much easier to understand, even with all the inaccurately corrected words.

  Why the fork would you let someone draw a dock on your face?

  Duck

  Fork

  Goddamnit Dick Fucking DICK, not duck. Autocorrect can suck my clot.

  Clit. Asshole

  The next set of messages came several hours later. The first one has twenty or so angry face emoticons attached to it.

  Seriously?!!!!!! You're naked! Who is that chick?

  Did someone lobotomize you?

  The question is followed by several screen shotted pictures. The first is one of me sleeping. It wouldn’t be a big deal if I wasn’t obviously naked—my left ass cheek is visible—and if I didn’t have a huge dick drawn on my forehead. Worse is that Lance’s bunny—Flash Beaver—is giving the thumbs up and pretending to ride me from behind.

  I’m seriously going to kick Lance’s ass.

  A few are from last night. They don’t look nearly as bad—just me with the guys and a few bunnies taking selfies. But the one from today with the mostly undressed chick in her little bikini top sitting in my lap is damn incriminating.

  Where the hell are you?

  You better fucking call me.

  I'm coming to your house.

  Those last two were sent ten minutes ago.

  Why aren't you here? You have a flight to catch!

  I'm coming for you.

  My phone rings as I finish listening to her texts. It’s Vi. Answering it is better than letting it go to voice mail again.

  “I’m at Lance’s front door. Let me in.”

  “What? How did you know I was here?”

  “Because I’m psychic, and Instagram is my oracle. Now let me in. You are seriously interfering with my weekly orgasm quota right now.”

  I have no interest in hearing more about that. I run down the stairs to the front door. Before I open it, I ask, “Is Waters with you?”

  “Are you kidding? I left him at home. I’m not interested in reducing our sex life to conjugal visits. Besides, he’s too pretty for prison. They’d probably make him bottom because of his monster cock.”

  “That’s more than I needed—”

  “I don’t care what you need. I need Alex to not be pissed off. I can see you through the damn door. Open it.”

  Violet is a small person. Maybe five four in heels, but she’s got an enormous personality to make up for her lack of size. I have a feeling I’m in for the verbal beat down of a lifetime.

  “Should we shave your body hair so they can make wigs for the elderly?” she asks as soon as the door opens.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “After Alex kills you, you can don
ate your fur to charity. And maybe some of your more viable organs. I’m pretty sure everything but your liver is good. Ooooh, maybe they can use your micro-penis for a clitoris enlargement surgery.”

  “This isn’t funny, Vi.”

  “I think the brain surgeons would love to take a peek inside your head—you know, for science, so they can learn more about what happens when yetis and humans mate.”

  I’m about to close the door in her face. She drops the sarcasm. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  I step outside and close it behind me. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong? Are you serious? Did you happen to see the pictures I sent you today? Those aren’t even the worst ones. What’s wrong with you? And why haven’t you been answering your phone? Do you know how suspect that makes you look? Also, why aren’t you at the airport right now, catching your damn flight?”

  “It’s not until nine, and it’s only, like, two in the afternoon. I’ve got lots of time.”

  “It’s five, not two. And your flight leaves in an hour. You missed it.”

  “But I checked—”

  “Apparently not. Jesus, Buck. Isn’t this why you have a goddamn PA? Even your agent called me this morning when no one could get in touch with you.”

  “Amber’s on vacation.”

  “And she also knows how bad you are with dates. I can’t imagine her not putting an alarm on your phone, or calling or something.”

  “My phone was giving me problems. I thought I had it all sorted out. I guess I got the times mixed up.”

  Violet rubs her forehead. The giant, marble-sized diamond on her ring finger sparkles in the sun. It’s insanely huge. She expels a breath and looks up at the sky. She’s wearing sunglasses, so I can’t see her eyes. She swallows a few times.