PUCKED Up (28 page)

“
They’re hoping they can reduce the size enough to make it operable. I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

Vague answers suck. “I won’t say anything.” I stuff my hands in my pockets and grimace when I rub up on my
’
nads.

Brain tumors are tricky. Even if they can take it out, it doesn’t mean he’ll be the same kid when they’re done, or that the cancer won’t come back.

“
Let him come to the campfire.” I glance at the kid. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, head still hanging, looking like he hates his life. “I’ll keep him with me the entire time. I’d hate to be the kid who has to lie in bed, wishing he wasn’t so damn sick that he couldn’t even handle a campfire. It’s the best part of the day.”

I can tell how hard this is for Nurse Debbie. The medical professional in her wants Michael to rest. The human being in her wants him to have this experience. If treatment doesn’t work, he might not be able to have it again.

“
I’ll take good care of him, and I’ll make sure he doesn’t push himself.” I make a mental note to get more information on his family and their financial situation when I get back to Chicago and have access to the applications again.

Nurse Debbie releases him with some trepidation. She fusses over him, much like he’s her own kid, and finally sends us on our way. The stipulation is that I take him in a wheelchair since he’s sloppy about walking. He doesn’t seem all that excited, but when Randy and the girls meet up with us, and they fight over who gets to push him, he eases up.

The campfire is awesome. The counselors tell stories. We eat treats and talk about what’s planned for tomorrow. The kids share their favorite part about being here. A few of them say it makes them feel normal. Michael holds up through the entire thing, but at the end I can tell it’s taken everything he had to stay awake this long. One of the other counselors comes by to collect him—sleepy and happy and full of sugary treats.

By the time the campfire is over, the pain in my balls has reduced to a slight ache. I’m still straining the front of my shorts, but Michael’s situation puts mine into perspective.

As directed, I check in with Nurse Debbie on my way back to the cabin. She still seems concerned by the swelling, but happy about the lack of pain. In the cabin, a few of the senior counselors are playing cards and drinking contraband beers. Randy is nowhere to be seen.

I check my phone, hoping Sunny’s called. She hasn’t. It’s already eleven. She’s probably out with Patch McBushman and the gang.

The connection is in and out, but I manage to get on Instagram. While I wait for it to load, I stare at the wooden slats of the bunk above me. We decided it’d be best if I didn’t sleep on the top, in case I ended up being too heavy. Nothing says shitty camping experience like being crushed by a bunkmate in the middle of the night. It happened back in high school during one of my summer hockey camps. Carved into the wood are names. Some are tagged with “waz here” and other say “+ so-and-so” but there’s a name instead of so-and-so.

The first girl I ever groped I met at hockey camp the first year I was a junior counselor. My buckteeth—thanks to my thumb-sucking as a kid—were finally en route to being fixed. And by kid I mean ten years old, still trying to break the habit. I started after my mom died, according to my dad. I didn’t do sleepovers with friends because there was a damn good chance I would wake up with my thumb in my mouth. It was fucking embarrassing.

Anyway, this girl was dorky, but she was amazing at hockey, and she had great legs, so I liked her. We were walking from the lake to the mess hall, and she pulled me off the trail, behind some big evergreens. Then she laid one on me, just crushed her mouth against mine and rammed her tongue right in there.

I didn’t know what to do. Well, that’s not true. I’d watched enough movies and checked out the magazines my dad had hidden in his workshop to understand the mechanics, but she took me by surprise. When I recovered from the shock I full-on groped her and kissed her back.

It was close to dark, and the mosquitoes were terrible. I was covered in bites when we came back out five minutes later. It was worth it, since I managed to go right past first base and directly to second. Sadly, I found out later that night that Slutty Shellie—that was her nickname, not created by me—had kissed almost every single junior counselor in the camp. At least I got in the extra boob grope.

I imagine the number of guys she made out with might have been a bit of an exaggeration. Either way, it took some of the shine off the moment.

I think about that Michael kid, and how his future is up in the air. If treatment doesn’t work, he might never have the chance to get past first base. All those experiences, the good and the bad, will only ever be ideas in his head. Sometimes the world sucks.

My phone vibrates with an alert. There are new pictures. Some are posted by Patchy Bushman, but there are also a few from Lily and two new ones from Sunny. They were all added a few minutes ago. In one, Bushman has his arm around Sunny’s shoulder, his hand perilously close to her boob. It’s a selfie. They’re holding up bottles of beer. Bushman is staring right at her while she looks at the camera. In another, posted by Sunny, she’s in the middle of a Lily-and-Bushman sandwich. They’re, hugging her from either side. He’s not groping her, but it doesn’t seem particularly innocent, either.

At first glance she looks happy, but upon closer inspection her eyes are puffy and her cheeks are blotchy. I can’t tell if it’s the quality of the picture or not. Still, they’re smiling, and I’m not there to stop whatever might happen later in the night. And she hasn’t bothered to call me.

My phone rings. It’s not Sunny; it’s Violet.

I don’t have a chance to say a word before she yells, “Why are your disfigured balls all over the Internet?”

I’m going to drown Randy in the lake when I find him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ALWAYS WITH THE OVERSHARE

I roll off my bunk and limp-run to the porch so I can get some privacy.

I go with the most logical reaction. Denial. “What are you talking about?”

“
Your inflated balls are everywhere, clogging up my feeds.”

The next step is deflection. “How would you know it’s my balls, unless you’ve been looking at that naked spread I did a couple of years ago? It’s okay, Vi. You can tell me.” I never did a naked spread. I was asked; my agent thought it best not to go there.

“
You’re the most disgusting person in the entire world, Buck. Seriously. I’m going to assume they’re yours because you were tagged. Plus the shrinky-dink seems about the right size for you.”

“
My balls are swollen. It makes my dick look way smaller than it is.”

“
So it is a picture of your dick!”

“
I didn’t say that!” Shit. I hate it when Violet gets up to her trickery.

“
Yes, you did!”

“
Didn’t.”

“
Di—I’m not playing this game with you. It’s your dick. I recognize the shorts. You wore them the last time I saw you, jerkface. What I want to know is how and why it ended up all over social media. You’re supposed to be at a camp, not flashing your balls all over the place. Plus there’s another picture of you in the same damn shorts with a Sunny look-a-like hanging off you. She’s been posting the picture everywhere, which wouldn’t be so bad if the one of your damn balls wasn’t right beside it. You better not be messing around on Sunny. Alex won’t have to kick your ass.
I
will!”

“
Hold on.”

“
Don’t tell me to hold on—”

I take the phone away from my ear. I can still hear her giving me shit as I type in a search of my name + dick. The first link is a medical site with the picture Randy took, along with the question. “What kind of spider bite causes this sort of swelling?”

After that is the group photo with me and my unfortunately swollen nuts. My balls are circled in red, and Sunny’s Doppelganger has reposted it, along with the ball pic. And she’s also posted one where she cropped everyone else out but the two of us and made it her damn profile picture. So much for her concern about me. It’s amazing how quickly pictures I don’t want circulating can go viral within the span of a couple hours.

There’s nothing I can do to stop this trainwreck now that it’s happened. I go to my own social media profiles to find I’ve been tagged by an insane number of people. There’s loads of bunny love offering to come take care of my balls for me, and wishing me a speedy recovery.

“
It looks bad, doesn’t it?”

“
Bad? It looks like you’re messing around on Sunny with someone who looks like Sunny! How am I supposed to help you when things like this keep showing up?”

I scrub a palm over my face. “This relationship is doomed to fail.” I explain what happened with the whole spider bite fiasco.

“
Well, I see what you’re saying, but I still think maybe you’re right,” she mutters. “It’s doomed if you keep pulling stunts like this. I don’t even know what to say to you anymore.”

“
Thanks a lot, Vi. You’re an awesome source of support.”

She sighs. “I love you, Buck, but sometimes you make it harder than it needs to be. Why aren’t you posting pictures of you with all the kids at the camp? You must have taken a million of them by this point. You always do. You need to jam your feed with something positive, not all this garbage about your balls being swollen.”

“
It takes the altruism out of it if I post the pics of the camp.”

“
No, it doesn’t. Not even a little. All those kids’ families sign a waiver for that purpose.”

“
How do you know that?”

“
Because I read the emails Amber sends me. We’ve been over this before. I get that this is personal for you, but it doesn’t help anyone if you aren’t more vocal about all the good things you do. How do you expect to inspire other people if you keep it to yourself? All the positive things get shoved under the blanket of hockey hooker pics. Your life isn’t a frat party, but that’s the only version of you that people see. You’ve got all these great plans, but you’re not doing anything to promote your goals—unless your plan is to set up a hockey hooker support group.”

I stare up at the sky, a million stars winking at me. Violet has a point. Amber has been on me about this for a long time. She’s been asking me to be more of a spokesperson for the charities I support. I need to put some energy into following through. The offseason is a good time to get this ball rolling, and do something on my own. My end goal is to create a foundation so fundraisers for deserving kids and their families are ongoing.

“
Okay, Vi. I hear what you’re saying. I’ll put a few posts up about the camp. I also have an idea where I want to start with a project I manage. I’m thinking a charity game might go over well, especially preseason. I’ll talk to Amber, and we can start planning when I get back to Chicago. And I’ll email Dad and get him in on it since he’s got so many contacts.”

“
This sounds so much better than hockey hooker support. You need to do something that showcases your generosity beyond sharing your yeti love.”

I roll my eyes. “You can’t help yourself, can you?”

“
I really can’t. I should go.”

“
Wait. I have another problem.”

“
Not the kind that might make Alex try to break your dick off, I hope.”

“
Pfft. Waters couldn’t break my dick off if he tried. It’s made of straight magic, like a unicorn horn. Except not sharp. And made of flesh instead of whatever mythical substance unicorn horns are made of. But it’s unbreakable.”

“
Have you been smoking the greenery while you’ve been up there in Canada?”

“
No. Why? Never mind. So you know how Sunny’s on that camping trip with stupid Bushman?”

“
You mean Kale?”

“
Yeah. I’m worried she may have forgotten about my superior snuggle skills, or how fun naked movie-watching was, because there are pictures of him all over her like a horny dog.”

“
There’s so much about that sentence I don’t even want to think about. I don’t need an overshare right before bed.”

“
Can we not debate what constitutes an overshare right now? I don’t know how pissed I should be.”

“
Sorry. Okay, tell me about these pictures. She’s not naked is she? Alex will flip his lid.”

“
He’s got his arm around her.”

“
While she’s naked?”

Sometimes Violet is frustrating. “No.”

“
Is he fondling her boob over her shirt?”

“
No.”

“
Under her shirt?”

“
No.”

“
So he’s trying to kiss her or something?” She sounds disgusted, which would make me feel justified in my anger, if that was the case.