Nick

I’m pulling on my pads when my phone buzzes at the top of my locker.

Kami’s texting.

It’s a selfie of her, both our mothers, and Muffy in front of the new Thrusty statue outside the arena. All four of them are in Thrusters jerseys.

Our mothers are arguing over which one of us is more perfect. I think they’re trying to sell each other, she adds to the picture.

I’m so distracted, smiling at the photo of them all happy and bunched together around the giant metal Thrusty for a picture, imagining my mother telling Kami’s mom that I potty trained myself at two and a half and that I always give the best Christmas presents, that I almost miss Zeus walking in.

“Ready to kick some ass?” he asks the room at large.

Grunts and Fuck yeahs fill the room.

He saunters to his locker and stops with a smirk at the box sitting on the bench in front of it.

“Funny, Murphy. I’m not falling for your shit,” he tells me. “You open it.”

“It’s from your mom,” I reply.

He’s still smirking when he reaches around it and grabs his jersey.

Like I’m going to put the good stuff in a clearly labeled, very suspicious box.

There’s a pop!, and everyone around Zeus scatters while a puff of glitter and confetti explodes in the air.

“Fucking damn it!” he barks before he rounds on me, glitter and confetti sparkling all over his face. In his eyebrows. Up his nose. Square on the neck. Sticking to his stubble. It’s sprinkled all over his Thrusters T-shirt and down the front of his sweatpants, and he hasn’t yet realized what’s special about the confetti. “Did you talk to my sister, you fucker?”

I scratch my chin. “You got a little dick there on your face.”

Snickers and outright belly laughs are going through the room, because the entire team’s in here.

Berger scratches his face too, pulls the confetti away, studies it for a minute, and his face breaks into a big-ass grin. “You sneaky motherfucker,” he says. “Come give us a hug.”

Fuck.

Can’t help but like a guy who takes a glitter bomb well.

Especially a dick glitter bomb.

So I let him hug me and smear glitter all the fuck over my pads.

He gets me with a hand to the face, and I shove a second glitter bomb down his pants.

“Not the first time,” Ares mutters with a head shake when confetti explodes out of Zeus’s ass.

“That was you who sat on that fucking bomb the first time,” Zeus replies to his brother, rubbing confetti all over his twin too. “Who’s next? Come get your game makeup, fuckers!”

He snaps a selfie, and I can’t help but stare at the grin.

He got owned, and he’s standing there taking it like a champ.

Knew I liked him for some reason.

“What in the hell are you doing now?” Coach asks from the doorway.

There’s two massive piles of glitter and dick confetti all over the Thrusters logo in the carpet, plus trails of it everywhere. None of us are dressed. And everyone’s looking at me.

“Team building exercise,” I say.

“Fuck, yeah,” Zeus agrees.

He plops his three-hundred-fifty-pound ass right on top of the white box on the bench in front of his locker, and my voice—though higher and a little distorted—comes from the general area of Zeus’s asshole.

“That’ll teach you to fuck with me, jackass! You’ve got a face only a mother could love! Did your wife have to tie your skates for you this morning?”

It’s possible I’m the real asshole here.

Zeus snorts with laughter and rubs his ass harder over the box with the one remaining Nick Murphy doll while it squeaks out slower and more vulgar insults as he destroys the one-of-a-kind voice box inside, which is nothing like the You’re a winner! messages that went to the 298 other dolls at the children’s hospital. “Nice try, Murphy. I’m still gonna keep your ass outta trouble on the ice tonight, because I got a lot of respect for second-rate pranksters.”

“You can’t beat us,” Ares tells me.

“Years of experience,” Zeus agrees. “Ask my sister sometime.”

“Scarred for life,” Ares chimes in.

“And she married the fucker who instigated most of it. He’s got a billion-trillion bucks now, and me and Ares, we know when to bow to a master.”

Ares nods in agreement. “When to ask him for favors too.”

Coach rubs his eyes. “I’m coming back in two minutes, and you all damn well better be ready to win a fucking game tonight.”

“You can brag on your family later,” Lavoie tells them. “Get dressed.”

He looks at me, and his lips twitch.

“There’s one more in his car,” I mutter.

“Kami know you’re this kind of an asshole?” he asks.

I grin. “She’s got an idea. Hey, Berger. Smile for me, sexy thang.”

Zeus strikes a pose. Ares turns on the flashlight on his phone and shines it on Zeus making the glitter dicks shine and sparkle. I snap a pic and text it to Kami.

Somebody won’t be interrupting private phone time anymore, I tell her.

She replies with a gif of a woman falling over laughing, and I send her a gif of a kissy-face.

She replies with a gif that’s probably illegal and makes me break out in a sweat, because it’ll be at least three hours, probably four, before I get to actually see her.

Coach strolls back in. “You all got your heads in the game?” he asks.

We all nod, serious as we can be.

And when we take the ice, I’m ready.

No question. No hesitation.

Except that minute I pause to wink at Kami’s mom and toss her a puck.

Because if Kami has to sit through the whole game entertaining both our mothers, the least I can do is charm hers from the ice.

And they said charm school wouldn’t work on me.

Those fuckers were wrong.