“Asked nicely? Like they do in Canada? Holy crap, dude. Attitudes like that have made your country the fifty-first state.”
“Whatever you say, bud.”
“I’m not your bud, number one. Number two, we do things a little differently here in the good ‘ol U.S. of A. For starters, we respect greatness. We don’t take lockers away from their rightful owners.”
Kayden Preston actually talked like that. I’m not joking. He was obviously living on another planet. Again, answering that would land me back in an ongoing argument loop with him. I would also be playing into his hands, which I couldn’t let happen.
“Well, is that it?” he asked. “Or is it the fact that you come from Hicktown, Ontario?”
“Stevensville. Not that you care.”
“Stevensville, a place no one has ever heard of and nobody important ever goes.”
“What about J.L. Kraft?”
“Who?”
“Tell me you’ve eaten Kraft Dinner, dude.”
“Huh?”
“Okay, you call it Kraft Mac and Cheese in the States.”
“Of course I’ve eaten it.”
“J.L. Kraft invented that. He was from Stevensville.”
“Well, la-dee-dah. Don’t you guys have horses and buggies on dirt roads in your town?”
“We did. They were finally paved a couple years ago when indoor plumbing came to Stevensville. We even have a stoplight now. Just one and it goes on the fritz a lot. Oh, and a single gas station where a dog sits out front scratching itself and a guywith a toothpick in his mouth holds a shotgun, also scratching himself.”
“You’re serious?”
“No, of course I’m not serious, you idiot. I said that because you were trying to be funny.”
“I know.”
He grinned, looking so proud.
“You were funny as a heart attack, Kayden.”
Kayden paused, did a double take. His face reddened. No one had dared speak to him that way before. I could tell. I would say those things all over again because that’s what you do with guys like him. When they get a little too big for their britches, you chop them down to size with words, especially cutting humor. Best of all, they can never keep up.
“Isn’t it true that you grew up on a farm there?” he asked.
“Sure did. Proud of it, too.
“You’reproud?” He smiled hugely and clutched his hands to his stomach like a bellyful laugh loomed. “You’re actuallyproudof being a farm boy?”
“Nothing else on earth I would rather to be.”
“Good, because you sure as shit aren’t going to make much of a hockey player.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, bud. The two go hand-in-hand. Farming is about hard work. So is hockey. You’ve got to be double tough to work on a farm. Ditto for hockey. There’s nothing in this game that can’t be solved with some hard work and toughness.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me like he found that comment a little corny. It sort of was, but I meant everything I said.
“Are you serious? Hockey takes talent, intensity, and determination. Judging by what I saw from you yesterday, you can throw out the intensity part. And you’re Canadian, so we can forget about talent too.”
