Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 90524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Though, I’ll admit it.
Even this pregnant she’s still a fucking snipe.
“The event was called Family Fun Day with the Dragons,” Hennington shrieks from the corner of the hospital waiting room she’s commandeered, “not Family Trauma Day caused by the Dragons!”
In spite of my actual ability to tower over her – given that I’m six foot five and built like I put shots in the Olympics versus slap pucks in the rink – I find myself shrinking smaller and smaller, doing everything in my fucking power to become the same size as my daughter’s favorite bite size Princess Bell that I’ve had to replace six times in the past two months because the shit is like a micro mini.
Not choking hazard size.
Just annoy Daddy size.
The damn thing makes me feel even more like Paul Bunyan than the flannel shirts I start wearing at this time of year when my favorite vintage t-shirts stop being dress code acceptable.
Her honey brown fingers lunge in the direction of my face, curling during the process. “What the fuck were you thinking, Alexeyev?!”
Yup.
I’m definitely fucked.
She just used my actual name.
I can count on one glove the number of times that’s happened and still have a finger to flick off Snowman with.
And I should.
After all, this shit is his fault.
Had he not been trying to make plans to get that Moana wannabe to suck his cock on her break and watched where the fuck he was going this would’ve. Never. Happened.
Okay.
Probably not have happened.
I mean, yeah, I’m a little two left feet off the ice, but not like this.
Not trip over air to accidentally unplug a goddamn bouncy castle with children and a princess character trapped inside.
Fuck me, I’m gonna be on some True Crime podcast for attempted mass murder of The Really Loud House cast, aren’t I?
Against my better judgment, I try to answer what is obviously a redundant question, “It was an acci-”
“Obviously, it was a fucking accident, you fucking pylon!” Her frustrated jazz hand motions have my back hitting the corner wall space. “I would never keep a player who would purposely pummel a fucking princess!”
Brendan “Bricks” Brickley, her husband and one of our assistant equipment mangers, not so quietly interjects, “No, yeah, I don’t think you’re allowed to call him a pylon as the GM. Pretty sure the league and PA have rules against that.”
They do.
But what sort of backwoods bender is dumb enough to rat on the person in charge of keeping him and his daughter fed for a little harmless shit talking.
“Hush up, baby bird,” Hennington commands on a lift of a pointed finger, “mama bird is chirping.”
“And it’s that chirping that’s gonna get mama bird fucking fined and caged for display on STN this week by her favorite zookeeper.”
Florence Ramirez.
Pretty sure the player code of conduct we most recently signed includes a clause about having no unsupervised, off-the-ice contact with her.
She doesn’t just hate our team; although, she does hate our team.
She did a report on me four days ago for “destruction of property” when I knocked over a fucking grapefruit display at The Concession Stand, a local health food grocery store chain.
Which was clearly a fucking accident!
Management even apologized to me for creating something so easily crashable!
The broadskie never hesitates to cover any of our mistakes even if she’s just commenting on someone else’s commentary.
Because she really does hate us.
But more importantly…she fucking despises our GM and uses every chance she gets to enrage her.
A lot like how Mom despises when Father goes into the kitchen determined to make a “taste of home” by cooking up my prababushka’s borscht.
Magically they end up missing several ingredients they had in the fridge only hours before.
I get it.
Beet soup’s the type of shit that puts hair on your chest.
Or at least that’s what he yelled at me in Russian over the phone so that I would shovel back bowls during Juniors.
“How is it I hate the bird metaphors more than the hockey ones?” Margot Adelstein, Hennington’s assistant, sighs upon her arrival, face still angled downward at her tablet.
“Do you come bearing stats or just judgments?” Hennington quickly inquires while giving her swollen stomach a soothing rub.
“Your unconscious princess’s name is Jonati Grier,” Adelstein factually begins, collecting everyone’s attention. “Paperwork says she’s currently unemployed. According to what Dixon was able to find on a brief dig, she was fired this morning from Snuggles & Cuddles, the toy store in the mall where you can build your own stuffed animal, for taking home the leftover parts – ones deemed not able to sell so they were instructed to throw out – to create her own by hand that she would then donate to foster children.”
“Really, Eeyore?!” Squawks Hot Rocket. “You knocked out a fucking saint?!”
“She’s not…knocked out…anymore…”
Three sets of eyes instantly narrow at me, yet it’s Adelstein that speaks. “Did the doctor or nurse give you any additional information?”