Sarina Bowen's Blog, page 27
September 17, 2019
September 13, 2019
First Chapter: The Shameless Hour
September
Rafe
It had been two hours since I blew out twenty candles on the cake Ma made for me, but my ass was still parked in a chair at Restaurante Tipico.
It was always hard for me to get away from the Dominican joint that my extended family ran. I needed to be on a train headed back to Harkness College. But here I was at table seven in the back corner, rolling silverware for the evening rush, the same way I’d done my whole life.
“One more and then I’m gone,” I said to Pablito, my sixteen-year-old cousin. “I have seven o’clock dinner reservations. If I miss the four-thirty train, I’m screwed.”
“Big date tonight?”
“Yeah, it’s actually her birthday, too.”
“No shit?” Pablito grinned as he applied yet another of the self-adhering bands we used to hold the napkin around the knife and fork. “So I’m going to sling food all night and go home smelling like the fryer. You’re getting a nice dinner, a bottle of wine and then” — he made a lewd hand motion — “some happy birthday to you.”
Jesucristo. I was not about to share the details of this evening’s plans with Pablito or anyone else. “At least you got an hour’s worth of labor out of me.” I set a silverware roll on top of his pile.
“Don’t forget your present,” he said, casting an eye on the vintage money clip my mother had given me for my birthday. It was sterling silver with an art deco design. “I know why your Ma chose that for you.”
“Yeah?” I tucked it in my pocket. It was no mystery why Ma gave it to me. I loved old things. She’d chosen well, and I’d thanked her.
“No place to hide a condom.” Pablito snickered.
I had to grin, because the kid made a good point. But looking out for a dozen younger cousins was a part of my life, so I felt obligated to add, “You’re not supposed to keep them in your wallet, anyway.”
“Eh.” He shook his head. “Like it would matter.”
Check please. I could not talk about sex with my sixteen-year-old cousin. Not today of all days. I tossed one last silverware roll onto the pile and stood. “Tengo que irme.” Gotta run.
He returned my fist bump. “Go on, then. Back to the good life. Don’t think of us, the little people.”
I cuffed him on the head, then ran into the kitchen to kiss my ma goodbye.
She wished me a happy birthday, and I thanked her for the cake and the present. “Bye. I need to go. I’m taking Alison out tonight.”
She eyed me for a few seconds. “Sé bueno,” she said finally. Be good.
Cristo. I could swear sometimes she had telepathic powers. When my mother got pregnant at nineteen, my so-called father had married her. But when I was a few months old, he’d gone back to his people in Mexico for a family funeral. And never came back.
Since then, it had been just the two of us — plus about three dozen aunts, uncles and cousins — but my mother had always impressed upon me that sex made babies and that good boys had a responsibility not to get girls in trouble.
My mother would not approve of what I had planned for tonight.
“I’m always good,” I told her. True statement. I planned to be very careful with Alison. Every single time. (I hoped there were many times.)
Before I left, my mother unleashed one last bit of Catholic guilt. She asked if I was coming home for my cousin’s christening in November. (I wasn’t sure.) She reminded me they were shorthanded at the restaurant (a familiar guilt trip, since I’d decided to go to college outside of the city) and she told me to have a happy birthday.
That last thing I could do.
I kissed her cheek one more time and ran out of there.
* * *
The Metro-North train from 125th Street wasn’t crowded, and I got a seat to myself. After watching the grit of New York transform into the green of Connecticut, I pulled out my phone to call my girlfriend.
“Hi,” she answered sounding a little breathless.
“Hi, angel. Happy birthday.”
“Happy birthday yourself!” I could hear her smile coming through the phone.
“I made the four-thirty, so we’re still good for seven o’clock.”
“I was just thinking about you,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Yeah?” I hoped she meant it in a good way.
“I love you, Rafe.”
Alison had said those words before. But there was something so serious about the way she said them now. “I love you too, Ali.”
“Tonight is going to be great.”
Warmth bloomed inside my chest. There had been too many moments during the past six months when I’d doubted Alison’s feelings for me. It was just so gratifying to hear she was looking forward to taking the next step.
“I can’t wait,” I whispered. “I hope dinner doesn’t take too long.”
She giggled. “See you soon.”
The train pulled into the Harkness, Connecticut station at six-fifteen. I ran the mile to campus because it saved me seven bucks, clearing the doorway of suite 307 in Beaumont House with just a half hour to get ready.
Unfortunately, both my roommates were home and bickering in the common room as usual.
When I passed them with my towel, they were arguing about politics, and when I came back freshly showered and shaved, they were arguing about tomorrow’s Giant’s game.
“You want some action on the game?” Mat asked me as I headed for my closet.
“No thanks.”
He turned his attention back to my roommate, Bickley. “Come on, fancy boy,” he taunted. “Bet me on the Giants. A hundred bucks. That’s like pocket change for you.”
“I will consider your wager,” Bickley countered, “if you shave that bit of ridiculousness off your lip.”
Alone in the bedroom I shared with Bickley, I chuckled. It’s not like I had time to witness the latest episode of The Mat and Bickley Show. But Mat’s experiment with facial hair was pretty hideous. Of course, the louder Bickley made this point, the longer Mat would keep his weird little ’stache.
“I’m not shaving it off,” Mat argued. “Tonight, when I have Devon’s balls in my mouth, I’m going to scrape it against his shaft.”
Cue a disgusted groan from the common room. “You arsehole,” Bickley spat. “No thank you for that image.”
“Then quit yapping and bet on the football game, sissy boy,” Mat said. “The spread is three and a half in favor of the Giants. I’ll even give you an extra point, okay? But only on a hundred bucks. No more.”
I rolled my eyes at this bit of salesmanship. Mat was a complete shark, and I was pretty sure that betting against Bickley was a major source of his income.
There was a silence while my roommate tried to decide whether there was a catch. Bickley was my soccer teammate, but as a Brit he didn’t have a lot of experience with American football. But he had trouble admitting that he wasn’t an expert at, well, pretty much anything.
The ego on Bickley? It was so large it had its own gravitational field. And the chip on Mat’s shoulder? It was as vast as the Grand Canyon. Between the two of them, I rarely had any peace.
“Give me the spread plus two,” Bickley countered in his clipped, aristocratic accent.
“Plus two? Forget it. I’ll call my bookie instead.”
“Well…” Bickley was about to cave. I could hear it. “Fine. Plus one on a hundred dollars. As soon as I look up the spread, you have a deal.”
“Seriously? If I tell you it’s three and a half, it’s three and a half.” Mat’s voice was full of irritation. But that was normal for him. Mat was a prickly guy. “Only a dick would lie about the point spread.”
“Trust but verify,” Bickley replied.
“You douche canoe,” Mat grumbled.
“What? You don’t want my money?” Bickley asked. “Ah. The point spread is indeed three and a half.” (His clipped British accent made it come out like hauf.)
Mat was silent for once.
A minute later, Bickley appeared in the doorway to our little room. “I feel good about this one,” he announced. With his designer jeans, polo shirt and preppy haircut, my roommate looked like a J. Crew ad come to life.
“Awesome,” I deadpanned. Not only was I sick of listening to these arguments, I had my own stuff to think about tonight.
“Where are you taking Alison?” he asked.
“The Slippery Elm.”
“Nice. Be sure to order the sweetbreads. They are a delicacy.”
“Wait — what the hell are those?” Taking dining advice from Bickley was nearly as risky as betting on football with Mat. The guy bragged about eating whale blubber in Japan and Haggis in Scotland. “Aren’t sweetbreads the calf’s balls, or something?”
“Pish. They are a gland and very buttery.” Bickley closed his eyes, smacking his lips with appreciation.
“I’ll take it under advisement.” The fancy restaurant lost its appeal all of a sudden. I was nervous enough about tonight without having to worry about which fork to use, too.
“Hopefully, I won’t see you here later,” Bickley added. “I know you bought earrings for Alison. But I hope she gives you the kind of gift that can’t be wrapped in a box.”
“I always wanted a pony,” I quipped, trying to steer Bickley away from this topic.
He flopped onto the bed, a gleam in his eye. “At brunch this morning, I heard your Ice Queen’s roommate say that she was staying away from their room tonight. This bodes well for you, sir.”
“Does it now?”
“Come on. You can tell Uncle Bickley. Are you going to finally shag that girl?”
I was, unless she’d changed her mind. “That’s none of your business, dude.”
“Very well. But I need to know if I can bring my date back here later. At least tell me that much.”
Bickley, to his sorrow, did not have our room to himself very often. Since I’d slept alone every night of my life (so far) his trysts usually happened elsewhere. When he did bring a girl home, they had to finish up at a reasonable hour. This made for the occasional awkward departure, where I kept my eyes on Bickley’s fancy television screen while he led his girlfriend-for-the-night out of the room.
My roommate had a whole lot of what everyone else called casual sex. In my head, though, those two words didn’t fit together. To me, there was nothing casual about getting naked with a girl. My sexual experiences — as limited as they were — had been intense. The first time my high school girlfriend let me touch her was an experience that was burned on my soul. The sounds she made, the heat of her body. The potent look in her eye when she…
Dios. “Casual” was not the right word at all.
I wanted all of that with Alison. And more. And the fact that I was supposed to have it all tonight? Mind-bending.
“Er, earth to Rafael.”
“Um,” I said stupidly. “You can have the room. If I come home, I’ll crash on the couch.”
“I hope it does not come to that.”
So did I.
“Do you need one of my suit jackets?”
“I’m good, thanks.” I’d rather wear my old one than borrow from Bickley. He’d probably lend me some Armani number that cost two grand, and I’d have to worry about wrinkling it. I didn’t need any extra reasons to feel jittery tonight.
The suit jacket I slipped on was the one I wore to church with my mother. It was a vintage 1940s blazer that I’d found in a Harlem thrift shop.
Funny how I was wearing my church jacket for the date where I would lose my virginity. And the next time I wore it would probably be to confession. Now there was a fun little irony.
I opened Bickley’s dorm fridge and grabbed the bottle of champagne I’d stashed there. The bottle went into a gift bag that I’d bought, along with a gift for Alison (silver earrings) and a gift for me (a box of condoms.)
With a wave to Mat and Bickley, I left.
The commute to Alison’s door took sixty seconds. Harkness College had twelve “houses.” But these were misleadingly named. Each house was a big stone or brick residence for several hundred students, with its own dining hall and library. Alison and I were both in the beautiful Beaumont House, with its gothic spires and slate flagstone walkways. As I strode across the courtyard, it impressed me, as usual, that Harkness students had been walking this path for a century. Ma had wanted me closer to home, and she meant well. But attending Harkness was an incredible opportunity, and I wasn’t about to feel guilty about it.
At Alison’s entryway door, I shivered as I peered into the little diamond-shaped pane of glass set into the oak. It was the third week of September, and we were having an early cold snap. But my chill? It was not due to the weather. Suddenly, I was nervous as hell.
Someone appeared in the entryway on the other side of the door. On a Saturday evening, there was always plenty of traffic in and out, as students returned from dining halls, libraries and coffee shops to get ready to party. So I wouldn’t have to call Alison to come down and let me in.
“Hey man.” The guy who opened Alison’s entryway door was in my French class. “Big date tonight?” He eyed the gift bag in my hand with a smirk.
“It’s her birthday,” I said quickly.
“Ah. Have fun,” he said, holding the door.
“Thanks. See you Monday,” I called as he walked away.
I stepped into the echoing stone stairway and began climbing the stairs. I loved this old stairwell, with its marble steps and its ironwork railing. Students had climbed these stairs to their rooms when jazz was still a brand new word. I didn’t hear any jazz right now, though. From behind the first door I passed came the sounds of a single-shooter video game. In the thirties, you might have heard the strains of somebody’s “wireless.” Or maybe a Victrola.
I was a bit of an antiques nut, which was kind of weird for a guy my age. But thinking about vintage audio equipment took my mind off my nerves. I was sweating just from climbing two flights up the curving stairwell. So when I reached Alison’s floor, I kept climbing. There was an odd little landing about ten steps further on. I set down my gift bag there, taking care to keep the bottle of champagne upright.
Removing my jacket, I took a deep breath. There was really no reason to be nervous around Alison. We’d been seeing each other since last spring, when we were both freshmen. We’d taken things slowly with our physical relationship. I was always ready for more, but Alison told me straightaway that she was a virgin, and when I admitted the same, she seemed enormously relieved.
I was patient with her, even though it was sometimes frustrating. There was a lot of kissing and cuddling on the couch. But she seemed to have a whole lot of sexual tripwires. One minute we’d be making out, and then suddenly she’d push me away. Not only did I always go home horny, I went home confused. And the confusion was by far the more painful condition. I didn’t like wondering what it was about me that didn’t quite do it for her.
After a couple of these awkward endings, I’d tried to get her to tell me what was wrong. But she’d just say, “I’m not comfortable,” and then change the subject.
And what kind of an asshole pressures his girlfriend for sex? I wasn’t going to be that guy.
There was a whole lot of good stuff between us, anyway. Alison always got my jokes, and I loved the way her face went soft when I paid her a compliment. I did that often, too. Because Alison was pretty great. She was smart and funny, as well as gorgeous. With all that fine, blond hair framing her face, when I looked at her, the word angel would pop into my head.
My mother said that Harkness College had given me an unhealthy attraction to pretty white girls. “What you need is a nice Latina,” she’d say. “Someone who will never look down on where you come from.”
Mostly I ignored my mother’s prejudice. But sometimes it was hard not to worry, or to read too much into Alison’s reluctance to get me naked. At Harkness I was surrounded by people who had a lot more money than I did, including Alison. I worried sometimes that she thought I wasn’t good enough for her.
That was probably just paranoia.
Summer vacation had separated us. I spent the month of June working in my mother’s restaurant, and trying not to die from heatstroke on the subway platform whenever she sent me on errands. At night, before I went to sleep, I’d lie on my little twin bed in our cramped apartment and talk to Alison on the phone, while the window unit blew cold(ish) air across my mostly naked body.
There was never any phone sex, of course. But I loved the sound of her soft voice in my ear, telling me all the things she put up with as an intern at the San Francisco art gallery where she worked. “I miss you, Rafe,” she’d say. “I was thinking about you when I was serving coffee to a table of old ladies. They’d asked for decaf, but I gave them all high-test by accident, because I was remembering that letter you’d written me on the old typewriter, instead of paying attention to the coffee.”
That made me laugh and miss her all the more. So I kept the old-fashioned letters coming. And the weeks flew by.
In July, Alison had called me, all excited. “Do you remember that international program in Ecuador that I applied to?”
Of course I did. After she’d been wait-listed, she’d cried a puddle onto the shoulder of my Harkness sweatshirt.
“A spot opened up! I’m leaving next week!”
“That’s awesome,” I’d said, feeling happy for her even though I knew I wouldn’t get to talk to her for six weeks. The Ecuador trip was an immersion program, and students weren’t supposed to speak to outsiders the entire time.
So that had sucked.
Needless to say, three weeks ago, when she’d finally stepped off the Connecticut Coach from LaGuardia airport to start our sophomore year, I’d been desperate to see her.
That first night back, I’d asked her to sleep in my bed for the first time. “I am not ready to let you go yet,” I’d told her. “Just stay with me. It isn’t a ploy to get your clothes off. And Bickley isn’t back until tomorrow, anyway.”
Her face had softened. “Okay, I can do that,” she’d said. I was actually stunned that she went along with it, because whenever I’d suggested she spend the night before, she’d turned me down.
But not this time. I’d given her one of my T-shirts to wear, and she’d looked sexy as hell in it. Of course, when we’d settled into my bed together, my body had gotten big ideas all its own. So I’d rolled onto my back and pulled her head onto my shoulder.
She felt terrific in my arms. I’d loved holding her, sneaking kisses here and there. “This is nice,” I’d said.
“Yes it is,” she’d agreed. We were silent for awhile before she said, “I know you’ve waited a long time for sex.”
I was so stunned she’d brought up the topic I hadn’t said anything for a moment. “S’okay,” I choked out eventually.
“We have birthdays coming up,” she continued. “Maybe that should be… a big night for us.”
Again, I was too stunned to answer. A few beats went by before I managed to agree with her. “That would be incredible,” I finally whispered.
“I think it will be.” She rubbed my chest with one hand, massaging a slow circle on my pec. Meanwhile, my dick hardened into something approximating an iron bar, just on the possibility that she was actually suggesting what I thought she was suggesting.
I slept very little that night. And for these past two weeks, whenever I kissed Alison goodnight, I became comically horny.
And now? I was hiding in a stairwell, practically splitting out of my skin with nervous anticipation.
Three and a half floors below me, the entryway door slammed. I heard footstep. Someone was jogging up the stairs.
That woke me up. I took a moment to fold my jacket over my arm and pick up the gift bag again. After giving myself the once-over, I began to quietly descend the stairs, as if it were perfectly normal for me to come from that direction. If I passed whomever was climbing, I’d give him a calm nod. Everything is fine, there’s nothing to see here. Just your average twenty year old on his way to get his V-card stamped. Carry on.
But I didn’t get the chance. The climbing footsteps stopped, and I heard a sharp rap on a wooden door. Then, the click of a door opening. “Surprise!” a guy’s voice called.
Weirdly, the guy’s voice seemed to originate from Alison’s doorway. I’m not sure why, but I took the last three or four stairs at a slow, stealthy pace. Just as Alison’s startled voice said, “Oh my God! What are you doing here?” the guy came into view.
He was tall and thin, but my attention went straight to the shiny Rolex hanging loosely on his wrist. I’m from New York City, so I could spot those at a hundred yards. Mr. Rolex was a rich boy.
“I told you I wanted to see you again. And what better time than on your birthday?” He stepped into Alison’s room, disappearing from view.
Some kind of gravitational force drew me down the last steps quickly enough to wedge my foot between the door and its frame. The view I saw next was sickening. Mr. Rolex had wrapped his arms around Alison’s waist, and was liplocked to the girl.
My girl.
“What the fuck?” I said, pushing the door open. And since the question was reverberating through my mind like a gong, I said it a second time. “What. The. Fuck?”
Alison’s arms shot out to her sides, as if she’d just received an electric jolt. Mr. Rolex let her go and turned around. “Who are you?” he asked, his eyebrows disappearing into his hundred-dollar haircut.
“Who am I? I’m the boyfriend.” I was sputtering with indignation, but I couldn’t stop talking. “The boyfriend since last April. That’s… five months ago. Almost six.” As if an accurate accounting really mattered.
Alison’s mouth kept opening and closing, like the goldfish I used to keep in a little bowl on the window sill in our apartment.
Mr. Rolex was not so quiet. And he looked almost as surprised as I felt. “The boyfriend? We were together for six weeks in Ecuador, and you never mentioned a boyfriend.”
At least I wasn’t the only one interested in getting the accounting right.
“I told you I wasn’t looking for a relationship,” she whispered in his direction.
“But you never said why. I guess that makes me an idiot.” Mr. Rolex actually had the balls to look sad about it.
Now that I’d been standing in the room for almost a minute, other little details were making themselves clear to me. Mr. Rolex had a bouquet of roses in one hand.
Flowers! I forgot flowers. To strew on the bed.
Wait. There wasn’t going to be any strewing. Or any bed. My feeble brain could barely wrap itself around the vastness of this problem. It was just so unexpected. I’d never wondered if Alison had someone on the side. Even if we’d never been naked together, we’d been together. For a long time.
I stood there, slack-jawed, my silly little gift bag in my hand, realizing I’d missed something important. “If she didn’t want a relationship from you,” I asked Mr. Rolex, “then what did she want? A Scrabble opponent?” My face began to heat as truth smoldered in my chest. “A study buddy? A foot massage?” I turned to face her directly. “Tonight was supposed to be the night we both lost our virginity, Alison.”
“Well that is not quite possible,” Mr. Rolex sputtered.
That’s when my heart really hit the deck. Alison had been saying that she wasn’t ready for sex. But she just didn’t want it with me.
My humiliation was like a many-tentacled monster — squeezing me everywhere at once. I let out one more hot breath, then spun on my heel.
“I’m sorry, Rafe,” she said as I wrenched open the door. “I’m so sorry.”
I’ll bet. Her door slammed behind me as I left. It slammed hard. Hard enough to wake the ghosts of students who had lived in Beaumont House when it was still new.
Bella
The new hockey coach had just blown the whistle, calling the third practice of the season to a close.
Now my boys were streaming back into the locker room, dropping helmets and gear all over the benches. With red faces and sweaty hair, they peeled off their layers, seconds away from heading for the showers.
I planted myself in the middle of the room, clipboard in hand. Putting two fingers in my mouth, I gave a whistle loud enough to echo off the tiles. That got their attention. “Guys, listen up! I need two minutes of your time!” It got quiet enough for me to speak normally. “First of all, unless your mother is dropping by later to clean up after you, used towels go into the hamper when you’re through.” I aimed this message at the freshmen. They always needed some schooling at the beginning of the year.
“Now,” I continued, “I only got seventeen health forms back. That means seven of you need to get that sucker back to me, or you won’t be allowed to suit up for next week’s preseason scrimmage against those punks at Quinnipiac.”
“Punks!” someone yelled, agreeing with me.
“Finally — I’m putting in our gear order tomorrow morning. So, if you have any equipment failures, I need to know ASAP.”
Davies, a senior defenseman, turned his giant, naked body in my direction. He put a hand over his bare chest in mock surprise. “Who are you accusing of equipment failures, Bella? My fragile male ego can’t take that kind of insinuation.”
I gave him an eye roll. “Your equipment is top notch, Davies. But if you come to me next week needing a new stick, it will be you who’s paying the extra coin for overnight shipping.”
“My stick is in fine working order,” he smirked.
“Nice. You can give me a demonstration sometime.”
“Wait.” He stuck a hand in the air. “Can you get some more of those extra-wide skate laces?”
“Not a problem,” I said, making a note of it.
I scanned the room, looking for anyone else who might be trying to get my attention. My gaze came to rest on the freshmen whom I’d housed together at lockers in one corner of the room. One in particular was sneaking looks in my direction. “Guys, don’t be afraid to ask for what you need, okay? Better to let me know before it’s too late.”
“Mouth guards?” asked the newb I’d caught watching me over his shoulder. His name was O’Hane, and he had a baby face and a sprinkling of freckles across his nose. He’d turned only his head in my direction, keeping his private parts facing the locker.
“We stock the basic ones in the supply closet, but if you want something special you have to tell me which model.”
“Okay, thanks,” he said. “And…” I waited for him to spit it out, but instead he turned toward his locker, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist. Then he came over, arms crossed protectively. “Is there a sporting goods store nearby?”
“Well…” Harkness was not a big town, and the shopping options within walking distance were limited. “There’s nowhere to buy gear, if that’s what you mean. Not unless you have access to a car.” And most of us didn’t, because parking was scarce here, too. “Shoes and sweats are easy to find, though. What are you looking for?”
His cheeks pinked up. “Gear. Can I see the catalog?”
“Of course.” I handed it over, tapping a toe while he flipped through the pages.
He stopped near the back of the book, a frown furrowing his youthful brow.
“Problem?” I asked.
Nervous eyes flickered up to mine. “I need,” he dropped his voice so low I almost didn’t hear the last part. “A cup.”
“Oh, honey, that’s easy.” He might not know it, but dicks were one of my specialties. I took the catalog from his hands. “Which brand are you used to?”
His face reddened further. “Can’t remember,” he said, studying the floor. “I accidentally brought my, um, little brother’s instead of mine.”
Ah, freshmen. They weren’t used to taking care of themselves. “The one you have doesn’t fit? Your cup runneth over?”
He barked out a nervous laugh. “Yeah. But the ones in the catalog don’t look the same.”
“Eh. It’s not rocket science. Are you wearing it in compression shorts or in a jock?”
“Shorts.”
“Do you want your dangler to point down, or are you used to tucking it up at the top.”
“Down,” he said to the floor.
I cuffed his shoulder. “No problem, O’Hane. I’ve got you covered, so to speak. I’ll order it for you.”
“Thanks,” he said in a strangled voice, then headed for the showers.
Our new coach was next to walk by. “Coach Canning!” I called, halting him.
“Yeah?” The new guy was a lot younger than our retired coach. He had a sort of grumpy edge to him that I did not appreciate. Some people don’t realize that gruffness wasn’t necessary to earn respect.
I gave him a friendly smile nonetheless. “I’m putting in my equipment order first thing tomorrow. If you need to add anything, you can email me tonight.”
“Thanks,” he said, snapping his gum. “Hey, should you be in the locker room?”
“Um,” I checked my watch. The barbecue didn’t start for another half hour. And I wasn’t in charge of the party. That was sissy work. “Is there somewhere else I’m supposed to be right now?”
He frowned. “No, I meant… the guys don’t mind?”
That just made me stare at him. Seriously? “Coach Canning, the players are in the locker room. I can’t get them what they need if I’m not here, too.”
“Yeah. That’s true,” he said, an unreadable expression on his stupid, grumpy face.
“Don’t forget,” I said slowly, “female journalists have been permitted in locker rooms since before I was born. Including this locker room.”
He stared me down for a long beat. And then he walked off without another word.
I stood there for a minute wondering what had just happened. As the student manager for our kick-ass men’s hockey team, I solved the players’ problems, and I moved people from point A to point B on schedule. I was good at it. Sure, it was a job that was usually held by a guy. But there was no reason it had to be a guy. All that was required was a good attitude and an all-consuming love of hockey. That was me. Surely Coach Canning would realize sooner or later that I lived for this job.
Anyway, it was time for the annual barbecue.
Though for the first time, I didn’t quite feel the level of excitement that usually came with the rush of hockey season. These were my closest friends. In a few weeks’ time, we’d spend every weekend traveling the Eastern Seaboard together, playing teams from Maine to Newark. I’d get to watch every game from the bench, which was just about the coolest thing in the world.
Even so, tonight I felt… down. Hopefully a beer and a pulled-pork sandwich could fix it.
* * *
A few hours later, I stood in our retired coach’s backyard, still feeling strangely wistful. All the rituals of Coach’s annual barbecue had held up tonight. Vast quantities of meat were eaten. Potato salad and coleslaw were consumed. Beers were drunk. This year there were two coaching speeches—one by our retiring Coach (in which he quoted several dead presidents,) and one by the new guy. And, as always, there were cupcakes for dessert, because Coach’s wife liked them.
But I was still chased by an unexpected sadness.
In the first place, there was an undeniable hole in my heart where last year’s seniors had been. I could hardly believe we were starting the season without Hartley and Groucho and Smitty. That just seemed wrong.
Not only did I miss them, but the progression was suddenly terrifying. Because this was my last year. How was that even possible?
I glanced around Coach’s darkened yard with fresh eyes. A year from now, most of these players would be standing here again, celebrating the start of yet another season. But where would I be?
The truth was that I had no clue. None at all. Until now, I hadn’t let it bother me. Four years had always seemed like a long time. So whenever my family prodded me with questions about my lack of plans after graduation, I’d found it easy to brush them off.
Rather than worry about the future, I’d immersed myself in a fun major (psychology) the best sport in the world (ice hockey) and my favorite people (hockey players). But now I felt as though an excellent book was coming to an end, and the slim stack of remaining pages in my right hand felt entirely insufficient.
With the party easing towards its conclusion, I wound up standing with the dates. There was Amy, our new captain Trevi’s girlfriend, and also our goalie Orsen’s date, whose name I had not caught.
“Who are you here with?” Orsen’s new little friend asked me.
It wasn’t the first time I’d gotten that question. I opened my mouth to explain that I wasn’t with anyone, but catty Amy beat me to the punch. “She’s here with everyone,” she snickered.
Lovely. Amy was one of the girlfriends who’d never liked me. “I’m the team manager,” I explained. I wouldn’t dignify Amy’s cattiness by getting irritated.
“Oh,” the newcomer said. “That must be exciting.”
“I hear that it is,” Amy practically hissed.
I tried not to roll my eyes. A lot of the girlfriends didn’t know what to do with me. They didn’t like how often I saw their boyfriends naked. They didn’t like wondering if I’d ever been naked with their boyfriends. The price of being me was that my reputation often preceded me. As a matter of fact I had hooked up with Trevi once, before he’d met Amy. But it was so long ago I didn’t even remember the details.
The Amys of the world pissed me off sometimes. But tonight I kept my cool, because you can’t let the mean girls win. “It’s a great job. The bench is the best seat in the house for the games,” I said. If anything should bother the girlfriends, it was my game-day privileges. Because hockey was awesome and they were missing out.
A few feet away, Trevi and Orsen were deep into an argument about the Bruins’ prospects this year. “You can’t say that there’s a hole in their lineup,” Orsen argued.
“You’re right.” Trevi chuckled. “It’s more like a gaping void.”
“Boys,” I jumped in. “The gaping void is here.” I held up my empty beer bottle. “Who wants another?”
“I’ll get ’em,” Orsen said. “Coach’ll probably kick us out soon, anyway. It’s almost ten.” He strode off toward the beer table.
“What’s shakin’ Bella?” Trevi asked, draining his beer in preparation for the next round.
“The usual. Trying to get the freshmen settled in. Trying to pick a topic for my senior thesis. How about you? Is it true that the Blackhawks are taking a look at you?”
Trevi grinned. “They’re lookin’. Doesn’t mean they’ll kneel down and pop the question.”
“I’ve got a good feeling about it,” I told him with a friendly squeeze of his arm. Amy’s face contorted, as if she’d swallowed something bitter. But I was excited about his prospects whether she liked it or not. There were several scouts circling the team. My guys had made a lot of headlines last year, finishing the season in the number-two slot in the country. The NHL was definitely going to be snapping up some of them.
See? Everyone had a plan but me. Or, if not a plan, at least they had a dream.
“Hey guys!”
I turned my head to see one of my former dreams walking into Coach’s yard. Michael Graham was the second guy I had ever really fallen for. And — because I had a perfect record for romantic disaster — the second one to break my heart.
“We missed you at practice today,” Trevi said, speaking aloud what I had been thinking. “Don’t know why you had to take up sports writing when I could use you on the blue line.”
My favorite ex-defenseman just grinned. “I had a blast today.”
“Doing what?” I stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss on the cheek, careful not to lean in too far. I didn’t want to get trapped in a memory. The feel of his skin against mine was a craving I’d struggled to overcome.
He gave my back a friendly pat before continuing. “I spent four hours on the river with the crew team. I thought I was just there to watch, but one of the heavyweights had a knee that was bothering him. So the captain said, ‘Dude, get in here. We’ll show you what crew is all about.’” Chuckling, Graham grabbed his stomach. “Fuck. Rowing is hard. My abs will never be the same.”
Not too long ago I would have offered to kiss it and make it better. Unfortunately, somebody else had that honor these days. I plastered a smile on my face. But my heart gave a little swerve, because the guy just looked so freaking happy.
Gone was the broody Graham I used to love. He’d been replaced by this lighthearted creature who was almost unrecognizable to me but for the familiar bulky muscles and his icy blue eyes. The Graham I’d known hadn’t smiled at everything that moved. He was dark and a little jaded, like me. But these days he was practically glowing.
Was there nobody else in the world who was confused about life?
“How does your D-squad look this year?” Graham asked Trevi.
“Is this on the record?”
“No, asshole,” Graham said with a chuckle. “Just some friendly conversation.”
Trevi grinned. “They’re young but scrappy. I like these freshmen. I really do.”
We all turned to glance over at O’Hane and the other frosh, who had gathered near the beer table. “They have good foot speed,” I remarked. “I especially liked that kid Hopper at practice today.”
“Wait,” came a new voice. “Who does Bella like? I need this intel for the season-opening bets.” Big-D, a senior defenseman, lumbered up to our circle and put his hands on his hips. “There’s a pool going on which freshman Bella goes home with first.”
Trevi’s girlfriend tittered, then slapped a palm over her mouth.
Lovely.
Again, I kept my bravado, even though his comment grated on me. It was true that I’d had a lot of sex with hockey players. (One at a time, usually.) But the players weren’t saints, either. And nobody was starting a betting pool about any of them.
Double standard, much?
I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like Big-D or his comments. Beside me, I sensed a spike in Graham’s blood pressure. “You ass,” he hissed. “Don’t start that shit or I’ll—”
“No you won’t.” I planted a hand on Graham’s chest. “Let it go, man. Everybody knows that Big-D only talks smack about me because I won’t take him home again. Once was plenty.”
Big-D’s mouth hardened, but I wasn’t afraid of him. I let go of Graham and gave Big-D an evil grin. “You should know better than to offend the team manager. You might get the shittiest hotel rooms on every road trip from now until April. Your skate blades might not get sharpened, and your meal vouchers could get lost.”
“I was just teasing, Bella.” He gave me a self-conscious smile. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“Wouldn’t I?” Try me.
“Tough crowd here for a Saturday.” Big-D shook his enormous head, as if we were all just a little too touchy. Then he turned and ambled toward the house.
“I hate that fucking guy,” Graham said after Big-D had gone.
“He’s just really insecure,” I said. It was true, too. Big-D wasn’t a pretty boy like Graham, or witty, like Trevi. And he didn’t have Orsen’s natural warmth. He was harder to love, and he knew it. As a result, he lashed out, making himself into an even bigger ass.
Did I mention that I was a psych major?
The truth was that people were always going to talk smack about me because I didn’t hide the fact that I’d had more than a few sexual partners. Girls who played the field got called names. I knew the drill.
Also, while we’re being honest, I had been scoping out the rookies earlier, pondering the fresh offerings. Last year I went home with a freshman from this very event. Proximity to the hottest athletes at Harkness was an important perk of my job.
“What do you think of the football team this year?” Trevi asked Graham, changing the subject. Because a good captain knows when to defuse.
Graham began to talk about quarterbacks. I wasn’t much of a football fan myself. So I tuned him out, tipping my chin toward the sky to look for stars. Harkness was located in a rather industrial part of Connecticut, and usually there’s too much light pollution to see them.
Not for the first time tonight, I felt my attitude sag. The temperature was dropping fast, hinting at winter’s approach. The chill seeped into my core. I stepped closer to Graham, who draped an arm around my shoulder. I appreciated the gesture, but it didn’t really solve the problem. The empty feeling I was working tonight was bigger than a friendly hug or the beers I’d drunk.
The caterers began to take down the beer table, signifying the end of the season-opening barbecue.
My last season-opening barbecue.
The year stretched before me felt like that giant hourglass in the Wizard of Oz, ticking down while Dorothy panics.
Behind me, a group of hockey players began to laugh hard over some joke I’d missed. Their jolly voices echoed into the night, making me feel more alone.
September 10, 2019
September 6, 2019
First Chapter: Rookie Move
Friday, January 29th31 Days Before the NHL Trade DeadlineBrooklyn, New YorkTop Team Headline: Will the Brooklyn Bruisers Name a Coach At Last? Press Conference Called for 10 AM —New York Post
Cobblestone streets did not pair well with high heels. So Georgia Worthington took her time walking to work through Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood.
Luckily, the office was just another block away. Her job didn’t often call for heels and a suit, but today she needed to look authoritative. That wasn’t easy when you were five-feet-three-inches tall, and every athlete and coach in the Brooklyn Bruisers organization towered over you. Today she’d need those extra inches. The press conference she’d planned would prove to the organization that they didn’t need to hire another senior publicist to replace her boss, who had left two months ago.
Every day that went by with Georgia at the helm of the hockey team’s PR effort was a victory. She only needed a little more time to prove she could handle the job alone.
Just like she needed a little more practice time in these shoes. Georgia was practically invincible in a pair of tennis shoes. She could serve a ball down the court at a hundred miles per hour. She could dive toward the net for a short shot, return the ball, and then pivot in any direction. But walking down Water Street in her only pair of three-inch Pradas? That was a challenge.
It was a sunny February morning, and a stiff breeze blew off the East River, though Brooklyn was especially beautiful at this hour, when the slanting sunshine gave the brick facades a rosy hue and sparkled off each antique windowpane. She turned (carefully) onto Gold Street, quickening her pace toward the office. The doormen of the buildings she passed were in the midst of their morning routine—sweeping the sidewalks, hosing off any filth that may have landed there in the night. That was more or less what she’d done herself for the past few years—leaning hard into the morning sunshine, banishing the darkness into the well-scrubbed corners of her mind.
In two hours she would host a press conference where the team’s owner would announce that the newest NHL franchise had finally anointed a new head coach. She’d set the whole thing up by herself, and it needed to go off flawlessly.
They all had a lot riding on this announcement. As the youngest team in the conference, the team needed the visibility. It had been not quite two years since Georgia’s boss had bought the Long Island franchise and rebranded it as a Brooklyn team. It was a risky maneuver, one that many sports pundits had already decided would fail.
As if the stakes weren’t high enough for Georgia already, the new coach just happened to be her father. After twenty years coaching college teams and then a stint as assistant defensive coach for the Rangers, he’d just agreed to take the riskiest NHL job in the nation.
Having your dad show up and outrank you at the office wasn’t exactly a dream come true. But Georgia had always been close to her father, and she knew this was a big step for him. She was just going to have to make the best of it.
And anyway, he was a tough coach, and she wanted her boys to win, right? No, she needed them to win. There was a chorus of voices ready to write the team off as a failure. They said the tristate area had too many hockey teams. They said the Internet billionaire who’d bought the team didn’t know what he was doing. It was Georgia’s job to help combat all those unwanted opinions with a polished public image.
Their critics were wrong, anyway. In the first place, there could never be too many hockey teams. And she’d seen signs that the young owner knew exactly what he was doing.
She climbed the steps to the team’s headquarters and tugged on the brass handle. Georgia wasn’t ashamed to admit that she loved the office building with the glee that other people reserved for obsessing over a new lover. She liked the weight of the big wooden door in her hand, and the golden sheen of the wooden floors inside. Like many of the buildings in this neighborhood, their headquarters had been a factory at the turn of the century. The team’s owner—Internet billionaire Nate Kattenberger—had bought it as a wreck and had every inch of it lovingly restored. Every time she stepped into this entryway, with its exposed brick walls and its old soda lamps overhead, she felt lucky.
Just inside the entry hall hung a wall-mounted screen showing clips of the boys winning in Toronto. Back when she’d just started as the publicity and marketing assistant, Georgia had edited that film herself. It gave her a private thrill to know that the first thing every visitor to headquarters saw was her handiwork.
Working for the Bruisers was her first job out of college. She’d landed it when Nate Kattenberger had just begun his tenure as owner. He’d fired nearly everyone from the old franchise and started fresh. That was a bad deal for the lifers, of course, but pretty lucky for a twenty-two year old new graduate. In the early days she’d done everything from fetching coffee to answering phones to arranging photo shoots.
Nate still referred to her as Employee Number Three. You had to know Nate to understand that the nickname was a high form of praise. At Internet companies, being an early employee was a status symbol.
Georgia didn’t care if she was Employee Number Three or number 333. But she really wanted to hang onto the top post in publicity.
When the senior publicist quit eight weeks ago to move to California with his boyfriend, Georgia was given his job on an interim basis. But so far the general manager (Employee Number Two) had been too busy trading players before the deadline to shop around for a more seasoned PR replacement.
At twenty-four years old, she was (at least temporarily) the senior publicist of an NHL franchise.
Pinch me, she thought as her heels clicked importantly on the shellacked floors. From the lobby, a girl could follow the left-hand passageway toward the athletic facility and the brand-new practice rink that Kattenberger had built. But Georgia went the other way, toward the office wing on the right. The double doors in her path were made from wavy old bottle glass, and she loved the way they gave the hallway beyond an underwater sheen until she pushed open the door.
The first sound she heard on the other side of the door was her father’s voice. And he was yelling.
Uh-oh.
Later, when she reran the events of the day in her mind, she’d remember this as the moment when the wheels came off. And it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet.
“Why am I even here?” her father hollered. “You said I’d have veto power over your trades. But I’m in the building ten fucking minutes when I find out that you took a player I don’t want.”
“Actually,” another voice began. Georgia knew that voice, too. It belonged to Nate, the thirty-two-year-old owner of the team. The self-made billionaire had built a browser search engine in his dorm room eleven years ago which was now active on eight hundred million mobile devices.
Nate started a great many of his sentences with the word “actually.”
“Actually,” he said again, “we grabbed this player one day before you stepped into the building. Totally our prerogative. Read your contract.”
“I shouldn’t have to read my fucking contract!” her dad hollered. “I put my whole career on the line to lead a team that everyone thinks will fail. You said, Trust me, Karl. I need you, Karl. And then you pull this crap?”
“Legally . . .”
“‘Legally’ is for pussies. That’s some underhanded shit you just pulled, and a real man admits that.”
Oh Jesus no. She began skating in her heels toward Mr. Kattenberger’s office, hoping to end this conversation. Calling the owner’s manhood into question was not a good strategy. The boss was a little touchy about that.
Okay, a lot touchy.
When she rounded the corner into the outer office, her heart dove. She counted two or three bodies as she passed by them in a blur. If any of them were reporters, they’d just overheard every ugly word of the argument in Nate Kattenberger’s office. If any of them recorded this dustup, her week had just gotten twice as long.
She ripped open the door to Nate’s office and slid inside. “Gentlemen,” she said quietly. As she feared, the two men were staring each other down, shoulders squared as if for battle. They were an interestingly mismatched pair—Nate with his steely eyes and his five thousand dollar suit on a lean frame, versus her square-jawed jock of a dad with his military haircut and I-eat-men-like-you-for-breakfast snarl.
“Princess!” her father barked. “I didn’t know you worked for a weasel.”
“Coach,” she warned. She’d decided ahead of time that she would call him Coach at work. Because calling her own father by his first name was just weird. And calling someone “dad” at the office was not good for a girl’s image. “Listen to me,” she begged. “We are expecting thirty or forty reporters in this building today. And there are people out there listening to you two chew each other up. That’s not what we want in the sports section tomorrow. So you can have this argument using your inside voices.”
“He just . . .” Nate began.
Georgia held up a hand. “Your publicist says to tone it down right now, or I’m sending both of you to the penalty box.”
They stared each other down while she held her breath. Her father folded his meaty arms in front of his chest. “We’re not finished with this conversation,” he hissed. “If that kid’s contract is unsigned, I’m tearing it up.”
“Too late!” Nate said cheerily as her father’s lip curled. “They sent us a scan of the signed file last night. Georgia, please add our newest player to your press release. We’ll have two additions to the Bruisers to announce today.” He reached across his desk and handed her a file folder.
“Yes, captain.” The boss had a thing for Star Trek, too.
Her father gave her a look. But what else could she say? Georgia and the big boss had a great relationship, and that was because she’d figured out early on that Nate had no idea how to be a team player. When you make your first billion while other college kids are playing beer pong, it’s the social skills that suffer.
And she’d warned her father that Nate was egotistical. You have to handle Nate. And shouting at him always failed. So she gave her father a look right back. We talked about this, she telegraphed.
He’s such an asshole, his sneer replied.
And it was probably true. But when she looked at Nate she saw a kid who’d been shoved into lockers during high school. And now he wanted the last laugh, taking every opportunity to throw his (nerdy) weight around. He’d bought a hockey team, and he was going to make the jocks do his bidding, at least until the day he realized that vindication wasn’t everything in life.
“Now,” she said quietly. “Let’s go over the announcement.” She set her leather briefcase on the corner of Nate’s egotistically sized desk and pulled a folder from the outside pocket. From inside, she pulled a page for each of them. “Nate will introduce you, Coach. I have him leading with your win record at the college level, because it’s pretty spectacular.” She winked at her father and saw him relax by a degree or two. “Then we’ll hit your NHL years, for depth . . .” From her coat pocket, her phone began dancing a jig. There was too much going on this morning to ignore it. “Sorry, one sec.”
She pulled out the phone and took a peek at its massive screen. Everyone who worked for Kattenberger was issued a big-screened, turbofast, ubersecure phone that Nate had designed himself. The call she’d received wasn’t business, though. It was from her old friend DJ. It wasn’t until after she rejected the call that she realized his timing was a little odd. DJ never called her at work. It made her worry that today’s big announcement had already leaked to the media.
God, she hoped it hadn’t.
“Georgia,” her father grumbled, breaking her train of thought, “was this the shirt you meant for me to wear with this tie?” Her father tugged at his half Windsor knot. The tie was purple, of course—the team color. Georgia had messengered it to her childhood home out on Long Island yesterday. The fact that she still bought her father’s clothes for him was not something she wanted to put in a press release. But Georgia’s mother had passed away when she was six years old, and her father did not like to shop.
“You look dashing,” she smiled at him, hoping he’d lighten up. “Now, can you two play nicely together until after the press conference? It’s either that, or you need to double my salary, because I’ll have to work twenty-four hours a day to undo the damage.”
Coach Worthington sighed. “I won’t shout anymore. But we can’t keep this player.”
“Bullshit,” Nate hissed. “The kid is good. And I got him cheap.”
“Quiet!” she whispered. “I’m begging you both. Now I need to head into my office for half an hour, before we’re overrun with reporters. Stay out of trouble until the press conference, okay? I’ll fetch you right before I speak to the players.”
Her father set his jaw into a grim expression of acceptance. Georgia was fairly certain he wouldn’t start yelling again when she left the room. He was passionate, but he was smart, too. “Okay, honey.” He put a meaty palm on her shoulder.
Unfortunately, she picked up her heavy briefcase at just the same time, and the weight of his hand destabilized her. “Whoa,” she said as she teetered on the stilts that passed for her shoes.
Her father reacted fast, catching her by the elbow before she could fall down. “Christ, Princess! Are you okay? Should you be wearing those things? I thought you swore off heels after that incident at your eighth grade graduation . . .”
Nate snickered behind his desk, and Georgia felt her face flush.
She stood up straight again. “Coach, a favor? Don’t call me Princess at work.”
Her father tucked the strap of her briefcase over her shoulder, the way you would for someone who was about five years old. “Sorry, Miss Worthington,” he grinned. Then he pecked her on the cheek.
Yeah, they were going to have to work on his style of office interaction. But at least he wasn’t yelling anymore.
She made her way back to the outer office of the C-suite. Sure enough, a couple of the people sitting on Nate’s exquisite leather sofas tried hard to look bored as she passed through.
Not a good sign.
Georgia hiked her bag a little higher on her shoulder as she turned into the hallway. She gave a wave through the open doorway to the bullpen area, where most of the assistants and interns sat. “Morning,” she called to Roger, the publicity assistant.
“Morning!” he waved. “I’m going for donuts in a few minutes. You want jam-filled or chocolate?”
Georgia dug into her pocket for some money, noticing that Roger had not asked if she wanted a donut. That was just assumed. Georgia’s metabolism was well known around these parts. “Jam,” she said, darting in to put a five on his desk. “Thanks. You’re the best.”
He gave her a salute as she stepped back into the hallway to open her office door. Her keys eluded her, though. She had to dig all the way into the bottom of her bag to find them. When she finally fit her office key into the lock and turned, it was heartening to hear the squeak of old wood giving way. At least for today, this office was still all hers. She stepped inside, but then dropped the keys to the floor, where they made a small metallic crashing sound. She bent over to pick them up, and had to smile because the ground was further away than usual. So this is what it’s like to be tall.
If she’d been just a little less clumsy, she might have missed the conversation at the other end of the hallway.
“Come right this way,” she heard her coworker and roommate Becca say, the clomp of her Dr. Martens echoing through the grand old passageway. “The general manager is still sitting in traffic, but Nate is excited to meet you.” Becca was Nate’s assistant, and Georgia lingered half a second to wave her down and ask if she wanted a donut, too. But Becca didn’t happen to look in Georgia’s direction as she led a tall man down the corridor. Something about his gait snagged Georgia’s subconscious. So she took a second look.
And that’s when her heart took off like a manic bunny rabbit. Because she knew that man. She knew the chiseled shape of his masculine jaw, and the length of his coal-black eyelashes.
Oh my God.
Omigod, omigod, omigod.
“How was your flight?” Becca asked him, oblivious to the fact that Georgia was spying.
“Not too bad. I got in late last night.”
The sound of his voice fluttered right inside Georgia’s chest. It was the same smoky sweet timbre that used to whisper into her ear while they made love. She hadn’t let herself remember that sound in a long time.
Now it was giving her goosebumps. The good kind.
“Welcome to Brooklyn,” Becca said while Georgia trembled. “Are you familiar with the area?”
“Grew up about thirty miles from here,” he answered while chills broke out across her back.
Holding her breath, Georgia eased her office door further closed, until only a couple of inches remained. She could not be caught like this—freaked-out and speechless, hiding behind a door.
The movement caught Becca’s eye, though. Georgia saw her turn her head in her direction and then pick her out in the crack where the door was still open. Becca raised one eyebrow—the one with the barbell piercing in it.
All Georgia could do was close her eyes and pray that Becca wouldn’t call out a greeting.
There was a pause before Georgia heard Becca say, “Right this way, please.”
Quietly, Georgia stepped into her office and shut the door. After flipping on the light, she let her briefcase and pocketbook slide right to the floor. Only the folder that Nate had given her was still in her shaking hands. She flipped it open, her eyes searching for the new player’s name on the page.
But she didn’t even need the paperwork to confirm what her racing heart had already figured out. The newest player for the Brooklyn Bruisers was none other than Leonardo “Leo” Trevi, a six-foot-two, left-handed forward. Also known as her high school boyfriend, the boy she’d loved with all her heart until the day that she’d dumped him. And now he was here?
“Thanks, universe,” she whispered into the stillness of her office.
After tossing the folder on her desk, she gathered up her bags and shook off her coat. She sat down in her office chair, her back to the Brooklyn Navy Yard out the window behind her. Usually she stopped for a moment just to appreciate the view, but now her phone was buzzing again. It was DJ calling once more, and now she understood why—her old friend DJ just happened to be Leo Trevi’s little brother.
The phone stopped ringing before she could answer it, but a text appeared next. Call me? I need to tell you something, so you won’t be shocked later.
Georgia’s answering text was only two words: too late.
The phone rang in her hand again, and she answered it this time. “Hi,” she said. “How are you?”
“Pretty damn good,” he said. “I’m on winter break in Aspen with Lianne.”
“Nice. I sort of remember what vacations are like. Though the details are fuzzy.”
He chuckled in her ear. DJ and his older brother sounded nothing alike, which was one reason she found it easy to stay close to him. Their friendship was totally separate from the past she had with his brother. “Gigi, are you okay?” he asked.
“Um, sure?” she said, convincing nobody.
“I mean . . .” He was quiet for a moment. “You never talk about him. Like, never. And whenever I mention him in passing, you always change the subject.”
That was entirely true. “Why can’t you be like other men, who don’t notice things?”
“Sorry, girl,” he snickered. “Have you seen him yet?”
“No,” she said quickly. Because she was sure DJ was asking whether she’d spoken to Leo, and not whether she’d spied on him through a two-inch crack in the door. “All right, then. Since I never ask, give me the 411 on your brother.”
“Well, the big news is that he’s the newest rookie forward for the Brooklyn Bruisers.”
“You’re hysterical.” Some warning would have been nice. But trades happened swiftly and secretly. That was the nature of the beast.
“He just got the call just yesterday, Gi. I heard late last night when I finally turned on my phone and found a voice mail from my mom.”
“Huh,” she said. Her boss had been a busy man yesterday. Why had he bothered acquiring a new player the day before her father showed up? Even if he’d made it too loudly, her dad did have a point.
“Leo’s been busting his ass on that AHL team for a season and a half. He’d been hoping to get called up to Detroit, but a trade gets the job done just the same.”
“What else?” Georgia asked, wincing at the vagueness of her own question. The things she really wanted to know were the things she did not have a right to ask. Did Leo ever talk about her? Did he have a girlfriend? Or worse—was he engaged to be married?
God. That idea made her shudder. If there was a fiancée in his life, she needed to know now so she could work on her game face.
“I dunno what he’s been up to this season. I haven’t seen him since Christmas. But I guess I’ll be coming to a Bruisers game pretty soon. If they’re really going to play him in the big house.”
“Come anytime,” she said. “Can’t wait to see you.”
“Let me guess—that’s not what you would have said to Leo.”
Busted. “Well . . .” she cleared her throat. “It’s hard.”
He went quiet again. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be. It’s been more than five years, you know? He’ll probably be really happy to see you.”
She doubted that very much. The last time they’d spoken was the day she dumped him. “We’ll get through somehow,” she said, praying it was true.
“Hang in there,” DJ said. “Call me, okay? Lianne and I aren’t skiing today. We’re too sore from yesterday.”
“How will you fill the time, then? Just the two of you in a hotel room . . .” She giggled into the phone.
“No comment,” he said, laughing. “Bye.”
“Bye!” She hung up the phone with a smile, but it faded quickly. Talking to DJ was easy. Talking to his brother would not be.
And she had a press conference to throw. Pushing Leo’s file folder away from her on the desk, she tried to get to work.
Get Your Copy of Rookie Move Here
September 3, 2019
August 30, 2019
First Chapter: Man Hands
Sandwiches and Sorrow
Brynn
“What you need is to be fucked.”
Ashley says this to me, and I sorta can’t breathe. The not-breathing is because I’m winded from giving Ash and Sadie a very long monologue about how desperate and alone I feel now that my divorce is final. A divorce I wanted, mind you, but the end of my marriage is devastating.
I’ve failed at marriage.
My Monologue of Despair was so all-consuming that I haven’t even taken a bite out of my crisp, gooey Cuban sandwich with garlicky mojo sauce. That’s how bad things really are—I let that slice of salty ham heaven just sit there and get soggy and cold, like my love life.
Because I am in despair.
So after Ash says, “You need to be fucked,” I can’t breathe. It’s partly because my nose is filled with snot over my sorrow, and also because, goddamn it, she’s right.
I take a bite of the sandwich, just so, you know, she’ll continue with this line of thought.
“…and I’m not talking that kind of ‘Oh you complete me’ bullshit and ‘Can I touch you here’ lovey shit. I mean the growling, fumbling, grunting—”
“Biting,” Sadie adds as she steals one of my fries.
“—biting kind of hot fucking. You know, headboard-knocking fucking. The kind where you’re all…”
“Sweaty?” I guess.
“Yes! Sweaty, but that good kind of sex sweat, right? Like when you’re done and you’re starving and you go to the store for ice cream, people take one whiff of you and they know. They know!”
“They know you got the dick,” Sadie finishes.
I sort of giggle-burp because I’m really emotional right now and this sandwich is so good, and Sadie, a therapist and a mom to newborn twin girls, isn’t one to use the word “dick”. Usually, it’s penis, if she says anything at all. She’s my most anatomically correct friend.
“What I’m saying is—” Ash holds up one finger to mark her place while she drains the rest of her beer. “—stop wallowing and let’s find you someone to screw.”
I swallow another bite of my sandwich, and then I realize a bearded waiter is leaning over the adjacent table, mesmerized. He’s polishing the same few inches of the wood surface over and over again with a dirty gleam in his eye.
Also, he’s wearing really tight hipster pants.
That’s when me and my friends—my dear friends from college, my soul sisters—share a secret glance of amusement. We’re at eye level with his crotch and the evidence therein. He’s not our waiter, but it’s clear that he’d still like to help us out with anything we want…and not just food and beverages.
Ash leans forward, maybe to get the waiter’s attention by hoisting up her boobs, or maybe she just wanted to rest them on the table. “You, sir. I can see you’re invested in this conversation. Can I ask you a rather blunt hypothetical question?”
I try to kick her under the table, but I am on my second mojito and the first mojito went straight to my fine-motor skills, meaning I am one mojito away from drooling, two away from peeing.
He blinks, and then he blinks again. He moves his skinny hips closer to the end of our table and I have to avert my gaze. “Hit me. I love this conversation.”
“Well then.” Ash shoots me a look. “Hypothetically,” she asks, “would you fuck my friend? Like, a good fuck? Not a romantic fuck?”
Blink. Blink. Blink. Then: “I’m working a double shift,” he says.
“I’m not talking reality,” Ash scoffs. “I’m talking hypothetically. You know that hypothetically means in the supposed universe, right? As in, just in theory?”
He adjusts his pants. There is a marked swelling on one side of his leg, and I can’t help but do a double take. That enlargement travels almost to his knee. I mean, it’s a fucking anaconda. He could jump rope with that thing.
“Sure,” he says. “I mean, not that I would, I’m totally engaged to my girlfriend. It’s on Instagram and everything. We had chalkboards with our names on it and the date and all. But yeah. I’d totally fuck her.” He leans down and whispers, “Against. A. Wall.”
There is a pregnant silence, by which I mean I could almost get pregnant just basking in his stare. His eyes are on my generous cleavage. Sometimes I find that sort of behavior from a waiter rude. But he’s not our waiter. And since we just invited him to hypothetically boink me, I can’t really hold it against him.
Hypothetically.
Sadie snorts, breaking the silence. “Hopefully not these walls,” she says, motioning to the wood paneling. “Splinters.”
“Ow,” he agrees, leaning close to me, and I swear he smells like wonderful things, including bacon. “I get off at three a.m. Just saying.”
There is another awkward pause, and I pass the time admiring his trouser snake. I’m a little worried that it’s going to bust out of his pants all Hulk-like. Some kind of response is required of me, but mojitos and pheromones have rendered me speechless.
“She’s not going to be wallbanged by an engaged man,” Sadie says, answering for me.
Right. I’m not. I’m not one for casual…wallbanging. I need an emotional connection. I needed someone like…Steve.
Goddamn it!
My emotions suddenly flood me again as I picture Steve. Slender Steve. My husband. My ex-husband. Our first kiss. The first time we made love, and he apologized because he couldn’t keep an erection. The last time we made love and…he apologized for not keeping an erection.
Ash snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Stay with us, Brynn! Don’t go toward the light!” To the waiter she says, “Check, please!”
He speeds off.
“All right,” Ash says, fishing her credit card out of her purse. “What did we just learn?”
“The waiter has an extra limb?” I offer.
“Oh, honey,” Sadie says with a sigh. Motherhood has made her a very effective sigher. “Answer this question for me: is that man attractive? I mean—are you attracted to him?”
I think about it before answering. I sip the rest of my mojito until it slurps. I try to analyze the peculiar warmth and throbbing in my vagina. Is it attraction or a urinary tract infection? Hmm.
“Yes. I am attracted to him.” I mean, he’s skinny and wearing tight pants and has a funky mustache. He looks like he writes poetry and listens to Philip Glass or something. His skin is slightly translucent, even though it’s June.
He’s totally my type.
“That’s what I thought.” Sadie grips my hand. Her fingers are cold and so fragile. “As your friend… No, as your therapist, I’m telling you from here on out, if you’re attracted to a guy, it’s a giant red flag. I agree with Ash that you totally need to be fucked, and we should make this our mission as your friends and sisters by choice. But here’s the thing—you can’t be attracted to the guy. Not at all.”
“Wait.” I’m having trouble following her, which is probably the mojitos’ fault. “You want me to fuck someone unattractive?”
They shake their heads in perfect synchronicity. “No, babe,” Ash says. “You need to do the nasty with someone who isn’t your type. If your body is responding with all those whozits and whatsits, then you need to run away because your instinct is just plain wrong. You make bad choices.”
Sadie is nodding along. “Really bad.”
“So…” This can’t be a good idea. “You want me to jump back into the dating world, forgetting that my tender emotions that have been run through a pasta machine.” (I’m a food blogger. Don’t judge my metaphors.) “You want me to ignore my instincts? My own body?”
They’re nodding. They’re totally nodding!
I think of Steve again and when I told him I was leaving him. “Ah,” he’d said.
Ah.
I burst into tears.
The waiter brings us the bill and another mojito for me. “On the house,” he says and winks. His mustache, I swear, waves.
Ash and Sadie don’t say anything. Oh no. They just let me sit for a while. It’s loud in here, with the sounds of laughter and carefree Friday night cavorting. But it’s all weirdly quiet in my mind. “Okay,” I finally say. And then I drink the rest of my mojito in one long, impressive slurp.
I also think I pee a little.
Get Man Hands at: Amazon | iBooks | Nook | Kobo
