Good Lord, I’m trying to imagine what they did to the kitchen and everything I come up with is awful. Santos must be thinking the same thing because I can tell he’s about two seconds away from picking Ollie up and moving him away from the door. And Ollie’s not a small guy.
“Remember what you said the other week, about how this is our year?” Mickey asks. “Well, you’re right. It is. So, Ollie and I were talking last night and we thought maybe we needed to visualize it? You know, like all that manifestation stuff? So, Deano raided his girlfriend’s art supply stash and we stayed up all night?—”
“Do I smell paint? Dammit. Tell me you did not paint some motivational quotes on the wall.” Pete’s shaking his head, like he can’t believe he’s basically in charge of this crew.
Deano walks back in and gives the thumbs-up. “It’s all good. And it looks fucking badass. You were right, Mickey, the glitter was the perfect touch.”
“Glitter is never the perfect touch,” I say. I don’t know shit about art or painting or any of that, but I know that glitter is never the answer.
“Fuck yes, it is. Wait until you see it. And you have to like it, Santos,” Ollie says, “because you basically inspired us. You know how back in school, when you were raising money for a charity or trying to get the whole school to read like a thousand books or whatever? There was always a poster with a thermometer on it, right? And every time you got closer to your goal, you colored in a section, you with me?”
“Yeah,” I say, afraid of where this is going.
“So, we made a thermometer. For the season. Every time we win a game, we’ll paint another section. And it’s in the kitchen so everyone will see it. It’s motivational.” Ollie’s as hyped up as Mikalski.
“I swear to god,” Santos says, looking at each of the guys, “if you painted a giant thermometer on the wall, I will fucking?—”
“Not on the wall,” Mikalski corrects, stepping aside to let us through. We walk into the kitchen, and thankfully, the walls are bare. “We painted it on the floor, that way no one can miss it.”
“Yeah, it’s like a yellow brick road. Except it’s burgundy and silver. And…not a road,” Deano says.
I look down at my feet and sure enough, there’s a huge thermometer on the scarred hardwood. There’s glitter everywhere, and the wolf logo they painted looks like a damn demon.
“What the hell is that?” I laugh. “Is Satan now our biggest fan?” His face is all red and his ears look like horns—giant, glittery horns.
Ollie’s not joking around. “Hey, that’s Willie T. Wolf you’re talking about. Put some damn respect on his name.”
“If you wanted to show him some respect,” Santos says, “maybe you shouldn’t havepainted him on the goddamn floor.What is wrong with you people?”
“Woah, what the hell? You really don’t like it?” Deano asks, sounding pretty hurt.
Santos just stands there shaking his head and I’m trying not to laugh because this place is fucking nuts. Just when I think Ollie and Santos might come to blows over the, um, art project, the back door opens and we all watch Norris sneak in.
“Jesus!” he curses, clearly shocked to see us all standing in the kitchen before seven a.m. I know where he’s been spending most of his nights—and who he’s been spending them with—but I’ve been sworn to secrecy. He looks around the room, then down at the ground. “Holy shit. Who painted a giant dick on the floor?”
“It’s not a dick,” Ollie says loudly, but as we all stare at it, I bust up laughing again. Norris is right. This is no thermometer.It’s a giant burgundy cock with glitter shooting out the top.
“Are the balls twin devils?” Norris asks me.
“Nah, that’s our mascot, Willie T. Wolf,” I explain.
Our goalie squints his eyes and turns to the side. “Oh, yeah, I see it now. It’s a massive jizzing dick and our mascot is the ball sack. Nice. I’m going to bed.”
Norris walks up the stairs, Ollie and Santos argue about the floor, and I laugh to myself. I’m excited about the future. I can’t wait to get picked up by a team and work my way up the ranks. But I’m going to miss the hell out of these guys next year.
“Tell me again why we have to go out tonight?” I whine as I lie on my best friend’s bedroom floor doing crunches.
“Ollie’s pissed at me for not appreciating the guys’ ‘artwork’ this morning. I told him I might have handled it better if it hadn’t been six o’clock in the damn morning, or if any of them had a shred of artistic ability. That was the wrong answer, so we’re all going out. It’s a team-bonding thing,” Santos says, dumping half a basket of clean laundry on his bed and riffling through it.
“Team-bonding, huh? Is Coach coming on our little field trip? I mean, he’s the leader of the team, so…”
Santos tosses the remaining laundry on my head. “Of course not, asshole. But that’s also why there’s a two drink/two-hour max. I need everybody back here by midnight, tucked in their goddamned beds so they are fresh as fucking daisies for class tomorrow.”
I peel one of his t-shirts off myself and toss it onto the bed. “Two hours is more than enough for me. I’ve got reading to finish up for Friday, but the narrator’s voice is so boring I wanna cut my own ears off.”
“Jesus. Thank god the knives are still missing.”
I crack a smile. “Not anymore. I found them a couple weeks ago. They’re in the crisper.”
