Page 17 of Puck the Coach's Son
I don't have to say it loud. The room is already listening.
“The only person who fucks Theo is me.”
I do not look at Theo when I say it. I don't need to.
“Anyone else puts a hand on him in a bar, in a hallway, in a fucking elevator, you come through me. That goes for you.” I point at Jax. “That goes for every fucking one of you.”
Phoenix has reached me. He puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Mad Dog.”
“Captain.”
His fingers tighten a quarter-turn. That's his version of a warning.
“Outside.”
“Sure.”
I let him steer me. I do not look at Theo. I pass him close enough that my shoulder almost touches his and I do not look at him, and I walk out of the bar with Phoenix's hand on my shoulder and the whole Wolves team watching me go, and Dominic somewhere at the back of the room with a raised eyebrow and a whiskey and exactly as much information as he needs.
The air outside is cold.
I breathe it in. My hand is starting to throb from where I hit Jax, which is a good feeling, the feeling of a punch the morning-after.
Phoenix lets me go. He turns and faces me square. His hands go to his hips, which is the gesture of a captain who has run out of captain moves.
“Bud. What the fuck.”
“Yeah.”
He looks up at the streetlight for a second like the streetlight will back him up.
“What the fuck.”
“I heard you.”
Phoenix puts his hands on his hips and then drops them and then puts them back. A captain running through captain gestures looking for the one that fits.
“You just called a claim on the coach's kid in front of the entire team.”
“Yeah.”
He exhales all the air in his lungs at once.
“In front of the assistant trainer, who is a minor, Creed.”
“He's nineteen.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose.
“He is nineteen, yes, and he works for Paul Laurent, and you just called a claim on Paul Laurent's son in front of him.”
I don't say anything.
Phoenix holds the look until I look back. I have known him three years. He is looking at me like he has never met me.
“Is this real?”
