Read Online Twenty Miles by Cara Hedley - Free Book Online

assumed, to remind us of our continuing obligation to compete.
    Hal placed me second in line on Boz’s team. Up first versus Toad’s team. Hal took her position as ref at the head of the table, raising her whistle. This triggered a rash of shouts and cheers, team members strung along both sides, encouragement shouted down to number one. Subs swarming around the table, the friction of bodies in Boz’s cramped kitchen, not enough elbow room. The competitive lean of my teammates’ faces down the line was as heavy as if they were sitting on me. I was going to choke, I could feel it. How far over the edge? How light the flick? My hands didn’t know this game.
    ‘And the losers each have to say something real nice about Toad’s daddy,’ Heezer said, performing some deep knee bends, apre-competition stretch. ‘Eh, buddy?’ She grinned across the table at Toad, who stirred the air with her hand and then cupped her ear like Hulk Hogan.
    ‘Oh, sorry! I didn’t catch that, sport. I don’t speak Asshole.’
    ‘All right, on your marks, ladies,’ Hal boomed. The chatter rose to a din. Adrenalin burned the back of my throat. Pelly, first in line on the opposite team, cracked her knuckles. Boz, our number one, cleared her throat, looked at me.
    ‘All set, babe?’ she said.
    ‘What if I can’t do the flick thing right?’
    Boz laughed. ‘You’ll get it. No prob.’
    Hal put the whistle in her mouth. I bent my knees a bit.
    Whistle.
    Boz and Pelly crashed their cups together, then threw the beer back. Pelly spluttered a bit and belched, but got the cup down quicker than Boz and fumbled her first attempt at the flick, the cup over-rotating and landing on its side with a hollow clatter.
    ‘Shit!’ she shrieked.
    ‘Light as a feather, Pell!’ Toad yelled next to her. ‘Light as a feather!’
    Boz fumbled her first try too – the landing was almost there, but not quite, the cup catching too much of an edge, and my pulse picked up on the cusp of my turn. Boz reset the cup, calm in her speed, while Pelly’s bounced on its side again.
    ‘Mother of, mother of – ’
    You could tell Boz’s second try was going to be it, the smooth, arcing flow, and it landed firm, my hands in motion on its landing, to the laughing chants of my teammates. Choked the beer back in two gulps, the raw tickle of it in the back of my nostrils, holding back a cough while I swooped the cup down to the edge of the table. That’s when the hands kicked in. I could feel the cup’s centre of gravity in my palm as I moved it swift into place over the edge. The weight of it, how it would fly. I flicked the rim like turning on a light switch and knew the way it would go even as I made contact, like hitting a baseball in the sweet spot of the bat, and it soared up smooth and landed solid. First try. Boz and Pelly yelpedcongratulations, Boz grabbing my shoulder, and relief flooded the tension in my arms, cheers swelling over the table, over me. Thank God.
    Another rookie, Roxy, flubbed six times at the end of our line and I felt a bump of sympathy and validation every time she screwed up. We lost, but not because of me, so I didn’t care.
    But then, immediately, the next obstacle: saying something about Toad’s dad, a heavy red-headed man with a sarcastic smile who picked her up after practice in a rusted K-Car and called her Toots.
    ‘Mo is a silver fox,’ Boz said. Toad gave an uninterested shrug.
    ‘Iz?’ Heezer said, pointing like a director. I didn’t have enough time.
    ‘Well,’ I stammered. Toad faux-glared at me. I looked at Pelly. She flexed a bicep and tapped it furtively. ‘Mo has nice muscles?’
    ‘Clearly, she’s drunk and confused,’ Toad said, and that was it. Another pass. Heezer pointed to Tillsy, the goalie.
    ‘Uh, okay, Mo. Well.’ Tillsy looked at the floor, deep in thought, then grinned up at Toad. ‘Mo wears extra large bikini briefs.’ Mild groans and Toad gave an exaggerated
so what?
shrug. Tillsy followed it up: