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Harris gently tapped his fingers to his desk as he listened to the ring on the other end of the line. He didn’t know *why* making this call made him nervous. Well, he did know, he supposed. It was very un-Harris-like.
But something needed to be done.
Suddenly, the clatter of a landline being picked up before being held to an ear with a short voice on the other end. “Yeah?”
Harris was taken aback for a second. Not the person he was trying to reach, but he’d accept it all the same. “Oh, hey Wayne!”
“Cousin Harris, how’re ya now?”
Harris had honestly been surprised to hear his cousin Wayne answer the phone. They had spent a few summers together as kids when the Drovers would drive the 6+ hours or so to Letterkenny, but Wayne had never been the most sociable kid. It probably didn’t help that his dad was not the friendliest guy in the world, but Wayne somehow managed to be a decent guy all the same. If Harris needed backup in a fight and the team of hockey players downstairs weren’t available, Wayne would be the next guy he’d call.
Well, in most cases…
Of course, all that Harris managed to get out was, “Good, and you?”
“Oh not s’bad.”
Leave it to Cousin Wayne to keep it short and sweet, but he expected nothing less. Quickly, Harris cleared his throat. “Hey Wayne, is Katy around by any chance?”
“Yeah, I think she just got back from MoDean’s. Hold on…”
Harris heard Wayne turn his head away from the phone as he shouted, “Katy! Cousin Harris is on the phone askin’ for ya!”
“Harris?! Just a second,” another voice shouted from further away.
Immediately, Harris heard the rustle of Wayne’s shirt as he turned his head back to the phone. “She’s on her way down.”
“Thank you Wayne,” Harris said with a bit of a smile that he hoped reflected in his voice.
“Say, did I hear right that the Centaurs nearly got caught in a plane crash a couple months back?”
Harris’ smile almost immediately disappeared as the question came out of Wayne’s mouth. Sure, it worked out pretty well for him in the end, but it wasn’t exactly an experience he enjoyed talking about. “Yeah, you heard right. I was on the plane with the team too.”
Wayne made a slight grumbling noise as he seemed to process this bit of information. “Well, are you…” Another pause as Wayne tried to collect his thoughts. “Well, are you alright then?”
Somehow, this put Harris at ease. Wayne felt terminally straight and emotionally constipated a lot of the time, but he knew he meant well. “Yeah, I’m alright. Still a little scared of flying, but I got a boyfriend out of the whole ordeal, so it worked itself out.”
“Then that’s good enough for me.”
A creak in the stairs came over the phone and he heard Wayne turn away again. “Oh Christ Katy, put some fuckin’ clothes on.”
“Not my forte,” Katy said calmly as she took the phone from Wayne.
“Unfortunate,” Wayne said as he stepped back and shouted, “Back to chorin’!”
“Harris,” a bright voice sounded on the phone as Katy put the phone to her ear while a screen door slammed in the background. “How’s one of my favorite Ottawa cousins?”
Harris laughed and eased slightly hearing his cousin Katy’s voice. He was never entirely certain how exactly he was related to his Letterkenny cousins, but they were still pretty good cousins to have. They could be a bit strange, but they were fiercely loyal, funny, and they never made Harris feel out of place with his heart condition. Especially Katy, a smart and gorgeous farm girl that was one of the first people Harris came out to that hardly blinked at the news. Probably because she was both family and Family herself. “I think me, Anna, and Margot are your only Ottawa cousins, Katy, but I’m doing alright all the same.”
“Even still, you’re one of my favorites,” Katy said with a hint of fondness in her voice. “Still doing social media for the Centaurs?”
“Oh absolutely. And it’s safe to assume you’re still on the farm with Wayne and terrorizing him with bikini tops?”
“You know it. I haven’t really been following the season too well, but I keep hearing Dax and Ron at MoDean’s saying the filthiest things about Ilya Rozanov and some other player… Troy something.”
Harris felt himself blush at that, but couldn’t help but laugh a little. “You mean Troy Barrett?”
He heard Katy snap her fingers over the line. “That’s the one.”
“Yeah, he’s actually my boyfriend. He came out at our Pride Night game recently!”
“Harris,” Katy exclaimed with a smile evident in her voice, “Why am I just now hearing about this? Congratulations! And sorry for telling you about how the gay gym rats want to fuck him.”
“Eh, comes with the territory. I’ve definitely read worse about him this season,” he said with a slightly bitter laugh.
“Oh right, the Dallas Kent thing.”
There was a fair amount of acid in Katy’s voice with the way she said the name “Dallas Kent.” He knew Katy wasn’t the biggest hockey follower, but it was hard to ignore the allegations. They had talked a little about them last time he called before Christmas and she definitely had some thoughts about where his dick needed to go.
Harris definitely thought she made a point. He also remembered her story about going to the city when her… friend? Stewart was dealing drugs to deal with a creepy guy threatening him.
Which is why he thought of Katy first.
“Actually, the Dallas Kent thing is why I’m calling.”
There was a pause over the phone. Long enough that Harris thought the line might have disconnected. He was about to say her name when she finally came back on the line, an edge of steel in her voice. “What about Dallas Kent?”
Harris let out a sigh and looked around, making sure his office door wasn’t secretly open and that he didn’t hear anyone in the hallway. Finally, he lowered his voice. “He’s out on bail and I’ve heard through the grapevine that he may be going to clubs again around Toronto.”
“That fucker,” Katy hissed. “Do you need me to get Wayne and the boys on it?”
The thought of Wayne and all the farm boys in Letterkenny driving into Toronto just to scrap with Dallas Kent was a great mental image, but Harris thought Kent needed something more… pointed. “Actually, I had something else in mind.”
—
“So his idea was to… what?”
Katy looked over at Bonnie incredulously. “You heard me.”
Bonnie held up her hands. “I did, I just wanted to make sure I heard right.”
“I mean, I feel like it’s a perfectly reasonable response,” Bianca responded, looking over Reilly and Jonesy on their phones to Aly.
“More than reasonable,” Aly stated. “It’s required.”
The two of them shared “Mhms” between them, sharing a knowing nod or two. Katy leaned back in her chair to take a sip of her beer. “So you’ll do it?”
“No hesitation,” Bianca responded.
Aly gave a slight nod. “It’s the least we can do.”
The two of them snapped and Katy felt her shoulders relax. A snap from those two city girls might as well have been a notary stamp.
Bonnie McMurray looked a little less sure at this plan. “Are you sure you can pull this off?”
“Absolutely,” Bianca said resolutely.
“Positively,” Aly responded. “Even if it’s not us, we know plenty of women who’d be happy to join in to set Dallas Kent in his place.”
“He’s been a known creep in the club scene for a while now,” Bianca stated. She was usually even keeled, but Katy thought she saw her fingers twitch and curl against the table. As if she was holding back what she really wanted to say.
“But what about them,” Bonnie asked, pointing at the hockey player shaped elephants at the table. “Should they be hearing any of this?”
Bianca let out a scoff. “You really think these two have been paying attention this entire time?”
The four of them looked over at Reilly and Jonesy, who were still staring at their phones, not a care in the world. After a few seconds, Jonesy looked up with a confused stare. “Uh, were you ladies saying something?”
Katy held back a laugh as Bonnie looked over at Bianca and Aly with a conceding look before she turned back to Reilly and Jonesy. “Nothing at all, boys.”
Reilly then looked up from his phone with a doofy smile, holding it up for them to see. “Hey, do you guys think Bonnie looks like Jackie Pike?”
The four girls leaned in to look at Reilly’s phone to see a picture of Hayden Pike, left winger for the Montreal Voyageurs, with his wife Jackie at last year’s NHL Awards. They studied the photo of Jackie in her silver dress for a second before leaning back and saying in unison, “I don’t see it.”
—
Bianca and Aly sat back in a booth in a noisy club, watching intently as people entered the space from the narrow hallway leading from the entrance. The speakers thrummed with a stuttering remix of a rock song as the lights flashed around the other people in the club. Dancing, laughing, shouting, writhing…
Suddenly, it felt like the sounds of the club melted away as he walked into the club, surrounded by his entourage, looking as if he thought himself invincible.
Dallas fucking Kent.
Bianca and Aly looked around the club again, spotting other women in the crowd. Some of those who noticed him seemed to shrink back in disgust, trying to inch away from him.
A few others though looked towards Aly and Bianca’s booth, as if waiting expectantly. With barely a second thought, Aly and Bianca looked to each other, nodded, and snapped. They then turned back to those watching them and nodded as well.
A nod of assent.
They slipped the black goiters Bianca and Aly had passed out before the night started over their noses.
Then they took their high heels off.
And then ran towards Kent at full speed across the dance floor with their heels raised high.
—
“I’m sorry, they beat him with what,” Wyatt asked in the locker room the next morning at practice.
“Fuckin’ high heels,” Evan responded, turning his phone towards Harris so he could watch the video of the mob of angry women just wailing on Dallas Kent with their stilettos before running off into the night with barely a trace.
Wyatt was soon joined by Ilya and Troy, who looked over the video with the same amount of astonishment as it played twice.
Suddenly, Ilya laughed. “And they just disappeared? Like ghosts?”
Evan couldn’t help but start laughing too. “Yeah. Like people clearly saw them, but they were like… wearing those mask things and they just bolted out the door before the cops could be called. Apparently no one could really claim to see anything.”
Ilya kept laughing and soon, Troy couldn’t help but join in. Maybe it wasn’t the best way to handle things with Kent before he went to trial, but it was definitely the most satisfying. “Hope that happens to him anytime he tries to go out,” Troy said finally after a fit of laughter.
“Probably will,” Ilya mused as he hit replay again. “Is very fun to beat up Kent. Everyone should do it.”
There was a knock at the locker room door followed by a creak as it was cracked open. “It’s just me,” Harris shouted. “Plus I brought a friend.”
The team shouted their assent and as Chiron bounded into the room, Ilya cracked another grin and held his arms out. “Chrion! Do you want to see Dallas Kent get the shit beat out of him?”
Troy looked over at Harris with a mischievous smile as Harris walked over to him while Ilya hit replay to show Chiron the video. “Would you happen to know anything about that?”
Harris tried his best to look perfectly innocent. “Know about what? The video of Dallas Kent getting beat up that’s going viral right now?”
Troy let out a “hmm” as he leaned over and kissed Harris on the cheek before dropping his voice. “Yes, but I also distinctly remember you telling me about those cousins you have out in Midwestern Ontario that like to fight people.”
Harris’ kept his gaze on Troy, still playing innocent. “I mean, yeah, Cousin Wayne is the self-proclaimed “toughest guy in Letterkenny,” but I don’t see how they’d be involved.”
Troy pretended to think about it, trying and failing to be serious about his line of questioning. “Oh, then what about that story you told me about them going into the city to beat up a drug dealer only for them to get beaten to the punch by a bunch of party girls and their stilettos?”
The corner of Harris’ mouth crept up for a second before he regained his composure. “Surely a coincidence.”
“Surely,” Troy agreed.
“Alright, everyone,” Coach Wiebe said entering the room. “Let’s get going. It’s been a crazy week, but we still got practice.”
Troy watched as Ilya handed his phone back to Evan and kissed Chiron on top of his head before following Wiebe out of the room. “Come on. Montreal isn’t going to beat themselves in the playoffs!”
The team whooped as Troy followed them out the door, giving Harris another kiss on the way out. As the room emptied out, Harris grabbed Chiron’s leash and let out a breath. “That was close, buddy.”
He sat down on a bench and began to pet Chiron’s head while he pulled out his phone. Quickly, he typed out a message.
Harris: Katy, I’m not certain what exactly you did, but thank you! I owe you one!! ❣️❣️👠👠
—
Katy: No sweat, Harris. When a friend asks for help, you help them. See you this summer?
“You know we could have handled it,” Wayne muttered as he looked over Katy’s shoulder to her phone as they sat at the bar.
“I know,” Katy said as she put her phone down. “But sometimes, some things are best handled by girls.”
“That’s fair,” Wayne considered as he took a sip of his Puppers. “Still…”
“I know,” Katy sighed as she leaned her head on her brother’s shoulder. “If for some reason that piece of shit ever ends up in Letterkenny, I’ll let you handle the next one.”
Wayne gave a nearly imperceptible lean into Katy’s head before he straightened back out and placed his bottle on the bar. “Good enough!”
“Seriously,” Reilly said from down the bar sitting next to Squirrelly Dan and Dary. “Doesn’t she look like Bonnie?”
Everyone at the bar looked down at Reilly’s phone, where he had a picture up from Jackie Pike’s Instagram account. They all leaned back and shook their heads in unison. “I don’t see it.”
—
Harris: When the season is over, for sure! I want you to meet Troy anyway. 👬👨❤️💋👨
Katy: Good! But we’ll keep him away from Reilly and Jonesy then.
Harris: Haha, You still wheeling them?
Katy: Fuck no. Haven’t for years now. Keep up. 😜
Katy: Though currently Reilly keeps thinking one of the Voyageurs WAGs looks like Bonnie McMurray? Jackie Pike, I think?
Harris: …Pics?
Katy: This is Bonnie...
Katy:...and this is Jackie and apparently one of her 500 kids according to Reilly and Jonesy.
Harris: ...I don’t see it, ngl.
Katy: Yeah, neither do I.