Zeus

We’ve officially adopted Joey.

She probably doesn’t know it. Probably shouldn’t know it. But we have.

Once you play rubber chockey with us, you’re ours.

Consider yourself adopted by extension. Welcome to the rubber chockey club.

Guess we have to keep Manning too, but so long as he keeps his hands off Joey’s sister, we’re fine.

We’re hanging at Ducky’s Burgers, a hole-in-the-wall joint two blocks from Mink Arena, eating the shit out of these juicy burgers the size of my fist and fries fresh from the potatoes while Joey and Chase and Ambrosia bicker about the future of space travel.

I could argue with them, but these fries are hot and salty and the next best thing to pineapple tater tot casserole, so instead, I’m just listening.

And playing that triangle tee game.

Joey solved it in four seconds. Because she’s Joey.

Me?

I get like six pegs left every time.

It’s her fault. Every time she opens her mouth, I quit paying attention to my burger, my fries, and the tees, and I just listen.

She’s smart. She’s tough. She’s probably a terrible singer.

But I can’t stop listening to her voice anyway. It’s music to me.

“Fine,” she says to Chase. “Believe what you want. But don’t come crying to me when Peach and I put a colony on the moon and suddenly you want a piece.”

See? Fucking music. She’s got balls and she knows what she’s worth and she’s not letting anyone—not even my best friend, who can be fucking ruthless—undersell her.

“Shut up and just make her a real offer,” I tell Chase.

He gives me one of those looks that means I’m probably gonna find some massive blow-up Halloween spider in my living room when I get back to Nashville, but I don’t fucking care.

He wants in on Joey’s company. I know it. He knows it. Ambrosia, Ares, and even Manning know it. He’s dicking around now, seeing how far he can push her.

“It’s like carting around a preschooler,” Chase says to Joey.

“I’m the whole fucking preschool class, and it’s fucking dessert time.”

Preferably with both the fucking and the dessert. Or maybe fucking as the dessert.

With Joey, I mean. Not with Chase.

“Stay out of it, Zeus,” Joey tells me. “I can take care of myself.”

Huh.

Lady might’ve just told me no fucking, because she’ll fuck herself. Not so sure I like that. But— “Sure. I like to watch. But I get bored when I can’t play too.”

“There are medications for that.” She scribbles a number on a napkin and slides it to Chase. I catch a glimpse, and the number of zeroes makes my eyes water.

That’s a fuck-ton of money.

Yeah, Chase has it, but me and Ares together won’t ever make that much playing hockey combined. Total. All our years added up.

This chick is making me so hot and hard I could fucking Zamboni the shit out of a rink with just my dick right now.

“That’s insane,” Chase says.

“Your loss. You don’t want it, I can count at least six other investors who do.”

“And then you have to deal with six jackasses instead of just me.”

He can be six jackasses all by himself. Which I don’t say out loud, for the record, even though I know Chase, my brother, and my sister all know I’m thinking it. Ares and Ambrosia snicker like they agree. Chase gives me those squinty eyeballs that mean I’m finding more than a giant spider in my living room if I don’t shut my pie hole.

Don’t care.

Except I do care that Joey’s looking at me.

Like, looking at me. Maybe through me. Like she heard me say it too, and when those hard lines around her mouth soften into something that’s not a smile, but is definitely amused, I feel like I just put a biscuit in the basket at the buzzer to win the whole fucking Stanley Cup.

That redwood in my jockey shorts is once again reaching for the heavens.

And by heavens, I mean Joey’s special lady cave.

“You’re forgetting one very important detail,” Joey says to Chase.

“Highly doubt it, but go ahead. Amuse me.”

“Weightless doesn’t need to expand. We’re solid just as we are.” She takes the napkin, crinkles it up, and drops it in her ketchup-mustard mix that’s just as disgusting as my jock strap after a game. “Bet I could beat the shit out of all of you playing rubber chockey on the moon.”

Ares shoots me a look. Dude. You are in so over your head.

Fuck, yeah, I am.

“But don’t you want to grow?” Ambrosia asks. “Zeus said there was a three-month wait for private flights. And there’s so much interest in research on the effect of zero-gravity on plants and humans and—”

“Bet you fifty bucks I can eat more ice cream than you,” I say to Joey.

She tilts those dark eyes at me, and there it is again—that subtle amusement at my expense. “Is your brain capable of freezing?”

“I was born with my brain freezing.”

Ares nods. We share a fist bump. Hell froze over the day we were born. Except we weren’t born in Hell. Minnesota was just butt-ass cold that day.

“It’s too late to ask you not to encourage him, isn’t it?” Ambrosia says to Joey.

“He encourages himself.”

“That’s freakishly accurate. Are you sure you just met a couple days ago?”

“She can tell them apart too,” Chase says. “It really is fascinating.”

“You can’t?” Joey asks.

“Sometimes I don’t want to.”

Ares grabs him in an affectionate headlock. I tilt my head at Joey. “Got a banana split with your name on it.”

“You are so gross,” Ambrosia mutters. She flicks Ares’s ear. “Let him go or I’m pulling out my kazoo.”

“Bad hum,” Ares mutters. He drops his hold on Chase.

Manning’s just taking it all in, grinning.

“What’s so funny, fucker?” I say.

“Just like being at home,” Cheery McCheeryFace says. “Except I’d still like to take dear old Fireball’s sister out for dinner and dancing.”

Joey doesn’t go all Alien baby on him. No lasers sprout out her eyeballs and castrate him on the spot. She doesn’t even flinch.

Much more than anyone but me would notice, anyway.

She smiles at him.

Warm, friendly, and fucking terrifying. “That’s fine. You’re boring.”

His grin’s so wide now his eyeballs are disappearing in the crinkles. He’s one big mass of well-groomed beard, thick eyebrows, prominent honker, and disappearing eyeballs.

He nods to her. “The psychological games. Excellent. Works well with sheep too.”

Joey leans over his plate. His royal guard—ever vigilant, but quiet enough I usually forget he’s there—leans toward the table.

She plucks the last of his hamburger off his plate—four normal human size bites there—shoves it all in her mouth, flips him off, and turns to stroll out the door. “Later, y’all,” she says.

I think.

Hard to tell with her mouth full.

But I know one thing.

That woman’s not leaving without me.