Marriage
Daze
Chapter
24: Home Improvement
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Notes: From Charlie’s point of view.
It was Thursday afternoon, and the whole team was preparing to get on the bus. They were entered to a small tournament over the weekend. Since the hockey-season was over since before spring break, the only games they played for real now was when they played in different tournaments.
Charlie yawned and tried to keep count on his players. They were all gathered in front of the bus, and he had to count them all to check that someone wasn’t missing. They had all been pretty low-key since the incident early on Wednesday morning. No one had made any kind of trouble at all, since they all knew that one simple mistake could make Coach Bombay explode.
Bombay had been like a bomb waiting to be lit. He was especially mad at Cecilia, even though both Connie and Sarah had told him that it hadn’t been Cecilia’s fault.
“Adam!” Charlie shouted. “Is your line-up here?”
“Yeah!” Adam replied. “All but Connie, but she’s talking to Mike.”
Connie and Guy hadn’t spoken two words with each other since the police station. Charlie had tried to talk to Guy about it, but he had just said something about not wanting to talk about it. How was anyone supposed to help them if they refused to accept the help?
Cecilia went up to him with a piece of paper. “I have the roster ready,” she said. “I stayed up all night with it, but it’s finally done. Where’s Travis?”
“I don’t know, I sent him away, because he was bugging me. How’s my lovely wife doing?”
“Screw you,” Cecilia muttered and pushed her by him to get into the bus.
Charlie smiled at her through the window. “I see your language has improved after that stay in jail.”
Cecilia made a face at him and disappeared up the stairs. Charlie continued counting players, and he was almost done when Cecilia came down again. She ran into Fred, and he dropped his bag on the ground. “Oh, sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s nothing breakable. Could you move?” Fred asked her. “You’re kinda in the way.”
Cecilia jumped out of his way, and this time she stumbled into Marcus. He lost his balance and took a few steps backwards. Charlie rolled his eyes and went back to his list. He was just about to start over when he heard a thud.
“Oh, God, are you okay?”
Charlie looked up at Cecilia, who’d been shouting. She was sitting next to Marcus on the ground.
“What happened?” Charlie asked Fred.
“He kinda fell over my bag. But it was Cecilia who pushed him.”
“It was an accident!” Cecilia exclaimed. “Are you okay?”
Marcus winced and tried to get up. “No, I’m hurt. Help me up.”
Charlie buried his face into his sleeve. Could things get any worse?
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Okay, so they were out one goalie. Just perfect.
Charlie had been trying to decide who would take Marcus’s place during the tournament. Goldberg, Julie or Scott?
“I had everything planned out just perfectly, but you just had to go and injure one of the goalies. It’s unbelievable. Would you like to chop off my right hand too? Does trouble seek you up by itself?” he asked Cecilia.
“No, but that’s just because I have an un-listed number,” Cecilia joked. “Wanna take care of little CeeCee while I’m taking care of the thinking for a while?”
“I thought we’d decided that the egg wouldn’t be called CeeCee. It needs a strong, though name. Like Rambo, He-Man or Jaws. Pick.”
“Nah, CeeCee doesn’t want to be named with any of those ridiculous names. He told me.”
“It’s a he? I thought CeeCee was a female-name.”
“Well, they all go through awkward periods in their lives, right?”
Charlie sighed. “No more stupid comments, please. Where are the others?”
“Fred said something about a plan, and he and Sarah went somewhere. Don’t worry, he promised to be back before it got dark.”
“Lucky him,” Charlie muttered. “How’s the eye?”
“You mean my little bruised eye? It’s fine. My cheek is completely healed, not even one little bruise is showing. And guess what? The cut in my forehead is healed too!”
Charlie laughed. “Can one have worse bad luck then you have had this past week?”
“Nope, I’m the master. Take a bow.”
Charlie went back to his thinking, while disregarding Cecilia’s yapping.
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Notes: From Sarah’s point of view.
“I have a plan,” Fred explained to Sarah.
“Yes, because the last plan I was involved in went so smooth and well, right?”
“It’s my plan, my plans never fail. Sometimes.”
“Have you been watching ‘Bad Boys’ with Cecilia too many times or what?” Sarah smiled. “What’s the plan, and how do I get out of it?”
“We change partner,” Fred said.
“Shouldn’t you have this conversation with Cecilia?” Sarah asked.
“For the project, of course! It’s the perfect plan. Ms. Adams will never know that we finished the assignment with the wrong partner. If you and I change, Connie and Guy would be paired up. Maybe they will stop fighting after that?”
“Yes, and it only took one day to build Rome, right? Forget it, we’re talking about my grades here.”
“Do it, or I’ll tell Ms. Adams about the elevator incident,” Fred muttered.
“Are you threatening me? Wait, lemme get Cecilia, she knows how to handle situations like these.”
“Just do it!”
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