Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 88895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
He’s about to cause trouble.
And it’s gonna be centered around me.
Joy.
“How about you sit in the back with me, Hoss?”
“That sounds like the opposite of what Rosa fought for.”
Small sniggers over my chirp seep free from the boys but don’t deter the man with the silkiest mitts on board. “You need my pregame ritchy, yes?” He slowly continues to back up. “You cannot get it, if you are not back here with me to witness it.”
“Someone please reassure me he doesn’t play a little one-man hockey in the back of the bus,” I call out to the boys who collectively laugh louder. “Coach?”
“Snowman keeps his mitts off his carrot,” Blanc playfully promises. “But if he doesn’t? You have my full permission to tape them to the seat to assure that he does.”
“You have my full permission to do that as well,” Tanner echoes with an eyebrow waggle. “I would never say no to a little pregame bondage.”
Gagging is mindlessly done.
“My apologies. I meant bonding.”
“You didn’t.”
“Wahl,” Cap grunts his interruption, “move to the back to provide a bit of D for Hoss.”
“I swear I’ve got all the D she needs.” The troublemaker I loathe myself for liking pats the seat next to him. “All she has to do is ask for it.”
“Does he actually need all of his teeth to play?” I teasingly goad Cap who is unhappily glowering.
“Looferz doesn’t, aye,” one of the Goonie Tunes points out while Wahl and I both relocate to Tanner.
Once I’m settled in the seat beside him – with Wahl in the one directly in front of him – I slide out my work phone to begin recording.
“Spill,” flies out of me in an impatient fashion. “What is your pre-game ritch? Music? Movies? Moonpies?”
“Man, I love a good Moonpie,” Wahl loudly murmurs from his seat. “Or those weird little Canadian pie things Becks used to eat pre-game.”
“Butter tarts,” Tanner states prior to pulling out a small booklet from his pocket. “And my pre-game ritch is. Crossword. Puzzles.”
There’s no stopping me from leaning to the side of the camera and delivering a sarcastic stare.
“I am absolutely serious.” A green pen is whipped out next. “At home it’s simple. I put on my suit. I hydrate. And I dabble on it until time to leave. On the road…I have to sit next to a window,” his open palm ushers itself towards the one beside him, “use my team color pen,” the object is wiggled in front of the lens along with his face, “and complete it the next morning whether that’s at breakfast or on the return home or in route to our next destination. However, I always start a new puzzle pregame every night.”
Amusement and disbelief fuse in my expression. “Very…intellectual of you.”
“Hockey players are not all just puckheads.” Tanner flips open to a blank puzzle as he calls out, “WonderWahl.”
The large d-man in front of us pops his head over the seat yet again. “Yeah?”
“What’s an eleven-letter word for an impractical theorist?”
Confusion doesn’t hesitate to crawl across his complexion. “I don’t even think there are eleven letter words, Snowman.”
“Although, some of them are.” Tanner winks into the camera. “Aye, Cap!”
“What?”
“Do you know a word for an impractical theorist?”
I can’t stop my attention or camera instinct from cutting over to the oversized Russian who is much smarter than most people want to give him credit for. “How many letters?”
“Eleven,” the three of us retort.
“Words don’t have that many letters,” mutters Potato from somewhere towards the front.
“First letter?” Cap cautiously inquires in return.
“Open.”
“Try doctrinaire.”
“Let’s try doctrinaire,” Tanner states in tandem with pen tapping the camera.
Curiosity has me leaning over to see if his top cheddar word choice actually fits.
“Correct amount of letters…” hums the man that won’t stop surprising me, “but does it fit with the clue that crosses it?” He uses the edge of the still capped pen to follow along with the next description. “Heavy metal band of ‘Down with the Sickness’.”
“Disturbed!” exclaims Wahl, scrambling back over the seat. “It’s Disturbed!”
“Fits,” our pen wielding crossword prince informs while popping the top off. “Which means Cap’s word is correct as well.”
“Yo, Cap, you got it right!” Wahl loudly announces during his slink back down.
“How the fuck did you know that?” questions one of the other boys.
“How about I get some credit too for getting one right?” Wahl whines, joining that conversation, leaving us to our own.
“See,” Tanner smugly smirks for the fans once more. “We’re much more than just puckheads.”
Ending the recording allows me to giggle openly.
Freely.
“Godilovethatsound,” is mindlessly muttered at the same time he fills in the letters. “Wanna hop on the assist?” His stare swings up to mine. “Show me what it is, I already know about you.”
“Which is?”
“You mean aside from you being impossibly stubborn?”
“Obviously.”
“That you are undeniably brilliant.”
“I um…I don’t know about brilliant…” adjusting my coat is done out of discomfort over the compliment, “but…I’ll take…not as dumb as the average skate chasing broadskie.”