Page 73 of The P*ssy Next Door

“But—

Coach walked by Doc's room, and when I say walked, I mean stomped like an angry rhinoceros. “Kingman. Get your ass in my office, right the fuck now.”

Shit. “Coming, Coach.”

Doc gave me a told-you-so look more like the kind I got from my siblings when any of us was in serious trouble. Great.

I hustled into Coach's office and stood in front of his desk while he stared at me like a slug he wanted to pour salt on. He didn't say anything for an uncomfortably long time. I was not used to being on his bad side. “Kingman. Get your shit together. We are going to the fucking bowl this year, and if we lose that game because you didn't listen to the doc, I'm going to eat your fucking helmet for lunch—with your head in it. You got me?”

Okay, this was actually the first bit of good news I'd gotten. Not that we were going to the bowl. Unless we really fucked up during the playoffs, we had the best chance of any franchise in the League. Chris was the right guy to take us there. We deserved to be there with our undefeated season so far.

The good news was Coach was counting on me to be playing in that bowl. “I got you, Coach.”

I did my stretching with the trainers, which both felt good and hurt like a son of a bitch. Then I headed home. But I stopped by a copy store to print something out first.

When I walked into the house, Willa was waiting for me. She knew how important today's checkup was. “So, what did they say?”

I shook my head. “I'm out for at least one more game. But they did send me home with this.”

I handed her the note I'd printed out and looked anywhere but at her.

“Hayes. This is from Dr. Harry Beaver.”

Yep, I did have the sense of humor of a thirteen-year-old. “Uh-huh. That's the team doc.”

“I'm supposed to believe the Mustangs' team doctor wrote you a prescription for,” she snickered and then cleared her throat to read the note aloud, “two doses of pussy a day?”

I took her hand and led her toward the stairs up to my bedroom. “If I want to get better, I have to follow my doctor’s orders.”

SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION

WILLA

After Hayes had to miss playing in the New Year's Day game and the last regularly scheduled game of the year, I decided to make him come to work with me so he couldn't sit at home and stew. He was making progress, but, of course, it wasn't enough for him.

“You're not allowed to watch those game tapes for one more minute, mister. Look,” I pointed to Seven who was sleeping on the couch next to Hayes, with his paws covering his face. “Even the cat can't stand to see the Bruins beat the Mustangs one more time.”

“We might have won if I could have been there to help them out. One fucking game from having an undefeated season.” He glanced over at me, noted my raised eyebrow, folded arms, and tapping foot. “Umm, but you're right. I've basically got every play memorized now.”

“C'mon. You're coming to the coffee shop. I've got new tea lattes I need a guinea pig to test out.” I didn't, but I'd come up with some. I sat him down in the office to go over the coffee shop's books. That was something he was good at, and he promised if he got a headache looking at the screen, he'd take a break.

I didn't believe him for a second and brought him one of the tea lattes I was testing for the upcoming week's menu at least once every half hour, just to have an excuse to check on him. He'd been at it for about two hours, making charts and graphs and all kinds of fancy things. He ran the numbers, his brow furrowed in concentration as he analyzed the data. But if I was honest, he actually looked like he was having fun.

“Huh,” he said, tapping his pen against the table. “Looks like two things specifically are making you the most money.”

“You can tell that from all this?” I waved my hands at the colorful charts that didn't mean squat to me.

“Your POS system tracks the products you sell the most of, and it's easy to extrapolate the food costs to see which food and drinks are the most profitable. Your bizarro, uh, new and interesting tea lattes are where the money is at, babe.”

“Really?” Those had only been a whim since I didn't like coffee.

“Look. It helps that your teas are coming from Heavenly Herbs over in Boulder. They're local, which helps, but even if they weren't, they're a better food cost per drink, overall. Your coffees are imported, and you can see, the costs there are increasing month over month.”

God, he was so fucking smart. I understood everything that he was saying, but I doubt I would have been able to look at the data and figure any of this out on my own. I kissed his head and gave it a couple of soft strokes. “We must do better at protecting your big brain, because I'm finding your smarts really freaking sexy right now.”

He spun in the office chair and pulled me into his lap. “Are you now? Want me to start talking in algebra and calculus when we're in bed?”

“Hey, big boy, is that a quadratic equation in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”