Ok, I was not thinking that, but Wagner beats me to the punch.
“What the hell? Dime I kinda understand, and Flow works with the hair, but Chimney? Now you’re just saying words. Why don’t we just call him Table and be done with it? Or maybe Lawnmower because there’s grass outside.”
JT laughs and Calla joins in. I feel like I should back Blue up here since we just found common ground, but there’s no way in hell I’m calling a guy Chimney unless he smokes four packs a day.
Blue sighs. “Santos, Santa, Chimney…ok, not my best work. We’ll come back to you Baby Santos.”
“Or you could just call me Leo,” he says, earning him a high five from Wagner.
Clearing my throat, I get everybody’s attention. “All right, so almost all of us have nicknames?—"
“Except you,” Mickey interjects. “How do you, of all people, not have a nickname?”
“It’s a cruel twist of fate,” I agree. “But the cardinal rule of nicknaming is that you can’t nickname yourself. And none of you fuckers are creative enough.”
“Until now,” Blue says, leaning back in his seat and smiling like the villain in an old cartoon.
“What really needs a name is this house,” I say, hoping that picking a name for our new place will bring us together, at least a little bit.
Flow raises his hand like he’s in elementary school. “Can’t we just call it the hockey house?”
“No,” I answer. “That was our old place. This house needs its own name.”
Wagner snaps his fingers and nods. “That’s right. What happened to the old house? Oh, yeah, Mouse burned it to the ground.”
“Technically he just burned the living room” Deano says, doing his best to be helpful. “The rest of the house was fine until we used the stairs as a ski slope. Then everything started to crumble.”
This little walk down memory lane isn’t helping anything, so I try to steer us to safer ground. “We need a name. Any suggestions?”
“Hockey House Two?” Jenksy volunteers.
“That’s dumb,” Wagner comments, and I can see the vein bulging in Jenksy’s neck. What is it about DuttonWagner that makes him want to piss people off at every available opportunity?
“How about The Rink?” Dime asks.
“There’s no ice here, dumbass,” Jenksy responds. Yeah, he’s that guy. If he doesn’t get his way, nobody else will get theirs.
“Didn’t this house have a name before the hockey team took it over?” Blue asks as we start clearing our dishes.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “It belonged to Booker and Fallon’s family. Their great-great-great grandfather founded the college, and he was a pastor, so they called it The Chapel.”
Wagner barks out a laugh. “That name no longer applies.”
It doesn’t, not really, but I see where Blue’s going with this. “I’ve got it,” I say. “It used to be The Chapel, but now it’s the Holy House of Hockey.”
“Fuck yes,” Blue says with a grin on his face.
“No way,” Mickey complains. “That’s too long. Who’s gonna say all that? ‘Where do you live?’ ‘Over at the Holy House of Hockey’. Yeah, no one’s doing that.”
Dime raises his hand once again. “You could just sound it out. Then you can tell people you live at the HHoH.”
Even Mickey laughs at that. “Fine, I can handle living at the Ho.”
“So, Captain Ollie,” Jenksy starts, “what’s next for this team? Are you cooking for us every week?”
“Nope,” I answer. “We’ll all take turns. But I do have plans for a little team outing.”
Wagner sets a stack of dirty plates on the counter. “Team Outing? Hell no. That sounds awful. Are you taking us all on a field trip to see how a Zamboni works or some shit? I’m pretty sure we’re all familiar.”
