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Joey did not realize that agreeing to one museum meant he’d become Owen’s museum buddy. Well. It’s art this time, not history, but still very museum-y. It’s in the same category, probably, the category of ‘Places Joey Finds Boring But Will Go To If Owen Invites Him’. ‘Joey Is Pathetic’ for short.
“None of my other friends are into going at all, so thanks,” Owen says. So Joey guesses none of Owen’s friends whatsoever are into going, it’s just that his other friends have spines and aren’t hopelessly infatuated with him.
Joey squints at the painting in front of him. It’s a square, with smaller squares in it.
“Hmm,” Joey says.
Boxy.
“Oh cool, I didn’t know they had any Albers here,” Owen says.
“Is there literally anything you don’t know?” Joey asks, which was supposed to be an inside thought.
Owen laughs. “I don’t know that much,” he says.
“Uh huh,” Joey says.
“My ex was an art history major,” Owen says.
“Cool,” Joey says. Back to the squeaky. What else can he say? ‘Hey cool, my ex was a piece of shit?’ ‘Do you want to be my ex, except like, not ex, current? Current non-ex?’
“Money?”
Joey freezes. Like full on Jurassic Park, ‘if you don’t move, they won’t detect you’ freezes.
Unfortunately Willy isn’t a t-rex. Probably.
“Money!” Willy says. “What’re you doing here?”
“What’re you doing here?” Joey asks, still squeaky.
“Figured I’d check out the art,” Willy says, like he’s ever had even the slightest bit of interest in anything but hockey, video games, and sleeping with half of KC’s eligible population, and significant portions of the population of every other NHL city.
So Joey’s guessing it’s less that he’s checking out the art and more that he’s checking out the blonde he’s with. She’s like, unreal beautiful, so she’s exactly Willy’s type. She looks like a model. Joey bets she’s a model.
“Erica’s a model,” Willy says, ten minutes later, when Owen asks what she does as they sit in the museum’s cafe. Joey does not know how they got here. The power of Tate Williams, he guesses. Willy never bothers to turn the charm on him, but Joey has been assured by many people that Willy is incredibly charming. And talented. And handsome. Joey has a cousin who unironically used the word ‘dreamy’ to describe him.
“Stop, I’ve done like one ad,” Erica says, elbowing Willy lightly. “I’m in college. Art history.”
That sparks Owen, and him and Erica start discussing — some art-y thing Joey does not care about but tries and fails to follow. Something about Bauhaus, but Joey is pretty sure Bauhaus is a band his parents listen to when they want to remember their weird goth eighties youth — while Willy gives Joey a raised eyebrow and Joey gives him the finger back.
“How’d you and Joey meet?” Willy asks when there’s a lull in the confusing not-goth conversation, and looks absolutely delighted when Owen tells him how his grandma bought him a date with Joey Munroe. Joey foresees chirping from his entire team in the immediate future. Also until the day he dies.
“That’s like the ultimate meet cute, oh my gosh,” Erica says.
“Oh, we’re not—” Owen says, glancing over at Joey, because of course it must be made very clear to everyone that they are not — whatever. “We’re just friends,” Owen says.
Willy flexes his stupid eyebrow at Joey again, but Joey can’t respond with the finger this time because Owen’s paying attention.
“Oh,” Erica says. She looks kind of embarrassed, so Joey summons a weak smile and shoots it her way. “So what exhibit did you come to see?”
That draws Owen back into art talk, which he does while like, subtly glancing at Willy every once in awhile, seeming a little like, infatuated. That’s a very normal and mundane reaction to Willy, and Joey’s very used to it, but he doesn’t like it this time, especially since Owen doesn’t even know — or care — that Willy made the 50 goal mark last season and is on track for even more this year.
Joey kind of wants to wave his hands in front of Owen’s face and go ‘he’s the straightest straight to ever straight’, but like — he’s got an arm around a model girlfriend right now, so Owen probably knows. Well, probably not girlfriend, Willy doesn’t do girlfriends. Model girl that Willy is either currently banging or trying to bang? She seems nice. Joey hopes Willy’s not jerking her around.
“So Owen,” Willy says, and now Joey is mostly hoping Willy isn’t about to fuck with him. Joey, he means, not Owen. Though he also hopes he isn’t going to fuck with Owen, his main concern is himself at the moment. “How come we haven’t met before?”
Fuck, he totally is. Why did Joey think he was just going to limit things to chirping the shit out of Joey and not ruining his life?
“Uh,” Owen says, blinking a few times, clearly not sure where this is going. Which is to hell.
“You should come out after a game,” Willy says. “The guys usually go out after wins. They’d love to meet you.”
Yep, there it is. Hell.
“I—” Owen says. “Sure?”
“I’m sure Money can get you a ticket to a game too,” Willy says. “You and your grandma?”
“She has season tickets,” Owen says. “I can go with — yeah, sure, that sounds fun.”
Joey is going to murder Willy with his bare hands, current Rocket leader or fucking not. He will happily tank the Scouts entire season for revenge.
Joey tries to silently convey death threats at Willy without tipping Owen off. It doesn’t seem to work, from the way Willy’s smirking. Or maybe it is working, Willy just doesn’t fear him. He should.
Now that Willy’s successfully ruined Joey’s day — and also life — he’s ready to head out. Erica and Owen end up exchanging numbers so they can do more cool art talk stuff or whatever. Joey’s not jealous. Like, not romantically jealous, duh, Owen is immune to her model looks, if not Willy’s, but — Owen sure makes friends easily. Because he’s awesome, obviously. But what if Joey’s just one of dozens of friends to him? Not even just undateable, but not even high up on Owen’s list of buddies, when Joey thinks about him like, a probably unhealthy amount. No. A definitely unhealthy amount.
“You want to head back up?” Owen asks.
Joey does not want to look at more stupid boxes.
“Sure,” Joey says.
They go back. Apparently the boxes have something to do with Bauhaus. Joey would take the weird goth band over random boxes.
Joey squints at the boxes. They stubbornly just remain boxes. He shuffles to the next painting. It’s lines. Cool.
“Why does Tate call you Money?” Owen asks, and it takes Joey a full extra second to parse that sentence because Willy is Willy, and not just in the locker room. Even the fans and reporters call him Willy. Soon that will be past tense. ‘Remember Willy? Gosh he was good, it’s such a shame his own teammate murdered him’.
“Munroe, Money,” Joey says. He wishes it was cooler than that, that he was one of those players that’s money in the bank, but nope: near rhyming was enough.
Owen gives him this single eyebrow, like ‘they don’t even rhyme properly’.
Joey shrugs. “Could be worse, one of our guys is just called Shithead.”
Owen’s mouth twitches a little. “You’re messing with me,” he says.
“I’m really not,” Joey says. And Shithead deserves everything he gets.
“Introduce me to Shithead, then,” Owen says. “When I come around after a game.”
Joey was very much hoping he forgot about that invitation. Which was unlikely, because Owen does not appear to have the attention span of a goldfish, like many of Joey’s teammates, but still: hope. Hope that is now dashed.
“Don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Joey says. “He’s kind of a…”
“Shithead?” Owen asks.
“Pretty much,” Joey says. “Actually, all of my teammates are assholes, so.”
“Tate seemed nice,” Owen says.
“That was a total act,” Joey says, and Owen laughs. “Seriously, 100% assholes.”
“Except for you?” Owen asks.
“Oh no, I totally am one too,” Joey says.
“No you’re not,” Owen says. “You’re sweet.”
Joey colors. Are they flirting right now? It feels like flirting. Except it’s just Owen saying nice things because he’s nice and Joey thinking it’s flirting because he is, in fact, an asshole. Honestly he should disengage, for Owen’s sake as much as his own, because Owen thinks he has a friend and Joey’s totally not holding up his side of the friend bargain, except that Willy invited Owen out. And if Joey knows Willy — and he unfortunately does — Willy will not fucking drop it if Owen doesn’t come around.
It’s late by the time they head out, closer to dinner than lunch, and Owen heads home. To do work, this time, not go on a date or whatever, so that’s —
Totally irrelevant, god, Joey, you sound like the creepiest dude alive.
SOS, Joey texts Scratch on the way back to his apartment. Bring self and food.
Scratch is already on his couch when Joey gets in, watching highlights and munching on a bag of chips.
“That’s not food,” Joey says.
“It is,” Scratch says, mouth full.
“Not real food,” Joey says, and opens Uber Eats because he hasn’t ingested anything but coffee today and coffee is not, in fact, food. Just like chips. He orders for both of them — frankly Scratch deserves nothing, if chips are what he’s going to provide, but Joey also needs help, so he can be gracious.
Scratch waits patiently for Joey to order. It’d be weird, Scratch patient, but then, food is involved. He is very food motivated.
“Okay,” Joey says, sinking down on the couch beside him. Forty minute estimate, which feels like way too long, but then, it’s his own fault for not eating.
“Okay,” Scratch says, then offers the chip bag. Joey takes a handful. Not something he should be eating, but he’s famished.
“I ran into Willy today,” Joey says. “At an art museum.”
“Fuck was Willy doing at a museum?” Scratch says, then, a moment later, “Fuck were you doing at a museum?”
Joey sighs.
“This is an Owen thing, isn’t it,” Scratch says, then, “I don’t even know why I’m asking, of course it is. Joey.”
There is a lot of judgement in the way Scratch is saying his name right now. It is very much deserved.
“I went with Owen,” Joey admits. “Willy was with a girl. She’s an art history major.”
“Okay, the fact you were both there with people you want to bang is clearing things up,” Scratch says, still judgy, like he didn’t literally start jogging every day when he was with his ex-girlfriend. Not that Scratch isn’t in shape, because duh, but apparently Scratch and pounding the pavement do not get along. He does not have the patience for jogging. It was a whole thing. Joey was genuinely relieved when they broke up just so Scratch would stop telling him how jogging was a torture method designed by sadists to make people confront their thoughts and feelings.
Plus there was the way she always treated Scratch like he was dumb, which was not cool. He’s not a genius or anything, but Scratch is not dumb. Good riddance to her mean jogging ways.
“Willy invited him out to meet the team,” Joey says.
Scratch bursts out laughing.
“This is not funny,” Joey says.
Scratch keeps laughing.
“This is a crisis!” Joey says.
“Oh god you’re so fucked,” Scratch says, through stupid little chortles.
“Scratch!” Joey says. “Help!”
“Willy’s never going to let it go,” Scratch says. Joey was already aware of that, but outside confirmation is so helpful. Terrifically helpful.
Joey knocks his head back against the couch.
“So fucked,” Scratch repeats.
Joey knows.
He sighs.
A chip bounces off his forehead, because Scratch is the worst friend in the world. Joey doesn’t even know why he asked him for help, all he brought was chips and mockery.
“Open your mouth, Money,” Scratch says.
Joey sighs again, then does, and the next chip flung at him lands in his mouth.