Page 104 of Unmanageable

“You think you’re funny, O’Connell?” she asks, her voice deadly calm.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sharky. Looks like a manufacturing defect. You should write a letter to the company.”

“A manufacturing defect,” she repeats, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across her face. “Right. Okay. Enjoy the drive, Cash.”

I should have known better than to underestimate her.

Two hours later, we stop at a rest area that’s just a concrete picnic table and a single, dead tree.

I step out to stretch my legs, walking a lazy lap around the van to clear the stiffness from my hips. When I get back in and turn the key, the engine roars to life—and the climate control instantly explodes with a violent, deafening blast of air.

The vent right in front of me has been packed to the brim with an entire box of generic gas station baking soda. A massive white cloud hits me straight in the face, filling my nose, my eyes, and my mouth before I can even blink.

I slam my hands against the thin steering wheel, coughing wildly, my vision obscured.

Through the white mist, I hear a sharp, triumphant shriek of laughter.

Scottie is literally bent double in the passenger seat, her forehead hitting her knees, her hands slamming against the dashboard as she howls with delight.

“You—” I choke out, wiping a thick layer of white dust off my eyebrows. “You’re dead, Scottie. Your agency contract is null and void. I’m firing you.”

“You look like a powdered donut!” she snorts, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “Oh my God, this is incredible!”

“Oh, it’s a war now,” I mutter, trying to blink the grit out of my eyes. “Watch your back, Sharky.”

Later, at a Wendy’s drive-thru, she goes to reach for her small container of honey mustard, only to find that I’ve used a tiny drop of superglue to fuse the plastic lid to the bottom of her paper cup. When she pulls hard, the whole thing flips, sending two ounces of yellow paste straight into the pocket of her shorts.

She counters forty miles later while I’m paying for gas.

I climb back into the driver’s seat, slide the key into the ignition, and grab the steering wheel to back out of the pump. The second my palms wrap around the wheel, my fingers sink into a thick, cold, squishy layer of cheap gas station grape jelly.

She had smeared it perfectly along the entire backside of the wheel, hidden from view.

“Son of a—” I snap, pulling my hands away only to find my palms purple and dripping.

She’s staring out the window, chewing on a red licorice rope, pretending to be deeply interested in a billboard for a discount mattress outlet.

By the time we pull into the parking lot of the ice arena in Memphis, the interior of the Volkswagen van looks like a crime scene.

There is baking soda on the roof lining, sticky yellow mustard on the console, and my left shoe is currently missing because she literally unlaced it while I was paying for snacks and threw it into the narrow space between the rear bench and the engine cover.

We are both covered in dirt, soda, and sweat, our collective aesthetic completely shot.

“Alright,” Scottie says, using a wet wipe to clear a streak of white powder from her cheekbone as she checks her phone. “This is Coach Derrick. Twenty years in the league, handled the Toronto goalie rotation during their playoff runs in the tens. He’s a drill sergeant. If you look like a slob, he’s going to write you off before you get your pads on.”

“I don’t look like a slob,” I say, stepping out of the van into the heat with my one shoe. “I look like a guy whose agent belongs in a mental institution.”

“Find the shoe, O’Connell,” she smirks. “I have to go use the rink restroom to fix my hair before the meeting.”

The second the door clicks shut behind her, my brain clicks into a dark, beautiful line of tactical execution.

I don’t look for the shoe.

Instead, I reach down into the side door pocket and grab one of those oversized, condensation-heavy liter bottles of glacier-freeze Gatorade we bought back at the truck stop. It’s been sitting right against the air intake, so it’s practically ice water, the plastic sweating in my grip.

I pop the cap with my thumb and pad silently against the rubber matting of the lobby floor.

Scottie is standing right by the trophy case near the water fountains, her back to me, her fingers working through her red hair as she tries to tame the cloud into something respectable for the coach.