Chapter 8

“Here.” I looked at the proffered card and then up into his blue eyes. 

“What’s that?” I asked, reaching for my glass of orange juice instead. Pat put the piece of plastic down on the table and pushed it towards me. 

“It’s a credit card. There’s like...five g’s on it. Get yourself whatever you need. But it’s not for stuff like groceries, okay?” I looked down at the American Express card and then up at him and waited. It felt like there had to be a catch but as I waited for him to add the addendum, he attacked his wholewheat toast with a butter knife, smearing jam and peanut butter all over it and said nothing more. Turning my attention back to the credit card, I pulled it the rest of the way towards myself and noted that my name was on it. 

“Does Penny know about this?” I asked, thinking about the credit card commercial I’d seen him in while I’d been up late eating Bugles and watching re-runs of Saturday Night Live. I’d known if I’d gone to bed I’d only lie awake trying my best not to think. Pat smirked and reached for another piece of toast. “Thanks,” I said quietly, taking the card and slipping it into the front pocket of my jeans. I felt guilty taking it, despite the fact that it had become more than evident that the other WAGs had no problems spending their significant other’s wages.

“Whatever, if it gets me out of the doghouse with the...,” he bit his bottom lip, effectively muting himself and grinned. “Anyways, I love the motorcycle boots but uh...maybe you should get some of those heels all the girls have.” I raised a single eyebrow at him and he shrugged. “Okay, I like them too, but...y’know there’s no need to go around being taller than me.” It was times like this when it was hard not to find the boy sitting across the table from me as adorable as I knew he was trying to be.

“Maybe I’ll ask that girl Julia...I think she’s Bolland’s girlfriend...?” 

“Fiancée,” he corrected me, making a face like being engaged was something perverse, or worse, a communicable disease that caused irreversible facial scarring.

“Yeah well, I must have missed the bling,” I shrugged to make him feel better. It seemed to have the desired effect. He perked up immediately. “You’ve got another one of those practices today right?” He nodded, chewing on a piece of toast and reaching for another. “Unless you want to come with me?” I asked, because I thought I should. He stared at me over the piece of toast he was smothering with butter. 

“You mean do the whole Pretty Woman shit? Sitting around stupid girl shops and helping you pick out shit and waiting for you to try it on? Um, no thanks,” he replied, wrinkling his nose, shuddering dramatically and then shoving at least half of the piece of toast into this mouth. 

“Okay if you put it that way, you’re totally not invited,” I laughed, picking up my mug of coffee and savoring its rich, dark aroma. I watched him through the steam, the way the morning light slanting through the windows of his high rise townhouse caught the hint of golden whiskers on his otherwise baby soft cheeks. He was a man and a boy in one package, but more a boy than a man still and I told myself that was why my skin didn’t feel like electric current was running over it when he touched me and why my heart didn’t skip a beat when he looked up at me like he was doing now.

“What?” he asked and I shook my head. 

“Just wondering if I was going to have perform the Heimlich,” I lied. He popped the rest of the piece of toast in his mouth and then brushed the crumbs down the sides of jeans. I rolled my eyes. 

“Call me if you need more. I can always call Peggy and give her a few more tips,” he said, standing and miming holding a hockey stick with both hands. “Y’know, a little shimmy this way, a little shimmy that way....” His antics made me grin, which I supposed was meant to be the point. 

“I’m sure it will be more than enough unless you’ve also hired those guys from What Not to Wear,” I replied as I reached for his plate and stacked it on mine. “Wait...you haven’t, have you?” I asked, peering over my shoulder with mock horror. 

“No way,” he laughed, suddenly wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me against him. “I like you fine the way you are,” he added in a gruff tone as his blue eyes grazed my skin where it disappeared into the artfully ripped t-shirt. He made a sound deep in his throat and grazed my neck with his teeth before planting wet and sloppy kisses down to my collarbone. I giggled and fought to maintain my balance and not drop the plates. 

“You’d like it if I was naked all the time,” I squirmed. He looked up at me with a playful grin and waggled his eyebrows at me. 

“Yeah, give me that card back,” he growled and then made crazy eyes and opened his mouth wide as if fangs should suddenly descend from his gums. I shrieked in feigned horror and pretended to faint as he growled again before biting into my neck. 

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“You gonna break a sweat on that thing or what?” I flipped Seabs the bird, put my head down, got my ass off the seat and pedelled harder. The last thing I needed was for it getting back to Coach Q that I wasn’t giving my off-ice work out a hundred and ten. 

“How’s the arm?” I looked over and find Tazer climbing on the stationary bike beside me.

“Fine,” I replied, doubling my pace. He smiled in that way he does when he thinks he’s so awesome. It makes me clench my teeth.

“Good,” he said, that smile growing as he started to peddle. I cursed under my breath. I knew what he was going to do, or what he was going to try and do. I leaned forward and focused on a spot on the wall and willed my legs to move faster. I could hear the gears spinning as he pumped the pedals. I could even hear his bike creak as he leaned into the handlebars. The fuckin’ guy is always trying to prove he’s better than me.

“You can’t fucking do it,” I breathed. He looked over at me and a slow, menacing grin spread across his face. 

“Oh I think I can.” 

“My money’s on Tazer!” I glared at Seabs. He’s always sucking up to Captain Self Importance. 

“Nah, Kaner hasn’t just done ten minutes of wind sprints,” Rat held up a twenty. Seabs grabbed it.

“Tazer’s been doing wind sprints three times a day all summer. He’s totally got this.” With a growl I leaned forward and peddled like I’m being chased by a hungry fucking Grizzly. 

“You’re going down,” I heard Jon say smugly. 

“You mean you are,” I snarled back. He laughed. I fantasized ten different ways to kill him with my bare hands, if I could just figure out a way to avoid that he’s got at least a three inch reach on me. 

For about ten minutes the only sound in the room wasthe gears and the chains on the bikes. After that I could hear my own heart beating in my ears. After twenty minutes I was breathing heavily. He, however, was not.

I fucking hate this guy. 

“Your girlfriend’s kinda cute,” he said, right out of the blue. I glanced over at him. I knew he was just doing it to distract me. I ignored him, turning my attention back to the hole in the wall that he kicked the last time he got injured. “She’s too good for you,” he added. Oh joy, that old gambit. 

“You say that about every girl I go out with,” I snarled. 

“You don’t go out with girls,” Seabs pointed out. I growled at him too. 

“Any living breathing female would be too good for me as far as you’re concerned,” I hissed. Tazer grinned, bearing his teeth at me like a Pit Bull. 

“You might have a point,” he smirked. Rolling my eyes I looked away and beared down.”When you text'd me about her I thought maybe she was the blow up variety,” he added for good measure. I ground my teeth together. I would flipped him the bird but I was kind of afraid if I took my hands off the handle bars I'd fall down dead. “So are you paying her to stay with you or is she really your house keeper?” 

“Jeezus, jealous much?” I coughed. Sweat was now pouring down my face but when I looked over, he was just starting to get red in the face. 

“Jealous of what?” he snorted. “If I wanted her all I’d have to do is...no wait, you crooked your finger at he and if memory serves that didn’t really go down so well.” 

“Burrrrrn!” I reached for my water bottle and threw it at Bolland, who caught it one handed out of mid air. Guy should be a goalie; he’s got the reflexes of a fucking cat.  

“So seriously, how long do you think before she catches you cheating on her?” Jon asked and that was it. I stopped pumping the pedals and got off the bike, grabbed my towel and headed for the showers. “Aww c’mon Kaner, don’t be such a fucking baby!” I flipped him the bird over my shoulder and kept walking. 

____________________________________________________________________

“Jesus, I’m pretty sure I’ve never spent that much money in one day. You should be a personal shopper or something,” I tetoldll Julia. She raised her glass towards me. 

“Shopping is not just a hobby, it’s a sport,” she replied emphatically. I looked down at the bags that are like colourful delicate Japanese lanterns around our feet and grin. I usually hate shopping but Julia made it fun. “Pat’s gonna love that uh...what did you call that thing?” 

“Merry widow,” I remind her, “and I honestly don’t think he’ll notice if I wear something like that or not.”

“Oh yeah, that’s why you’ve got that giant hickey on your neck.” My hand flew up to my neck and I felt my face get hot. Not that I didn’t know it was there. Every time I’d been in a dressing room the huge, livid red bite mark had been staring back at me, as obvious as a freshman at her first frat party. 

“He was pretending to be Edward,” I smirked. She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, let me guess team Jacob?” 

“Well let’s just say I like a well defined six pack, not a drawn on one,” she replied with playful raise of her eyebrow, “and you know who has the nicest washboard on the team, right?” I frowned. Was she talking about Pat? “Captain Delicious,” she purred and then sipped innocently on the curly straw in her mai tai.

“Jon?” I had the sudden urge to fan myself. I’d spent a little late night time on Tumblr. The captain of the Hawks could be a Calvin Klein underwear model. “He’s kind of...intense, don’t you think?” She looked thoughtful for a moment and then nodded. 

“He’s all business,” she sighed, putting her drink down and reaching for her fork, stabbing it into the chop salad in front of her. “It’s like...once hockey season starts there is nothing else in his life. Borrrrrring,” she added with a dramatic eye roll. 

“You mean...during the summer he’s fun?” I asked, thinking about how he could look so serious in one photo and in the next an impish, adorably crooked smile would transform his entire face. 

“Fuck yeah,” she smiled and then sat back and looked thoughtful. “You should have seen him in the Bahamas this summer, drunk and doing the limbo...I don’t think I’ve seen Dave laugh that much in...well a long time,” she added. I tried to picture it. I couldn’t. Or maybe it was that I couldn’t get past the thought of him on a white beach in nothing but swim shorts. 

“Pat wasn’t there?” I asked. I knew the answer because I’d spent nearly the entire summer with him but I wondered why, when all the guys seemed so close, he hadn’t been invited. 

“The wrist surgery,” she shrugged, looking apologetic. “I think he was a little bummed about not being able to swim and scuba and stuff.” 

“So, what do you guys do during the season for fun?” I asked, changing the subject. 

“Well this, for a start,” she replied lifting her glass again. I laughed. “Shop, go to the spa. I mean we do those fund raising projects but...I guess until we have kids, we do this,” she continued with a grin. I knew she and for that matter, the rest of the WAGs didn’t have jobs. When I’d mentioned looking for a job she’d immediately made a face and asked why. 

“With the guys though...I mean...does everyone hang out like they did at Pat’s the other night?” I asked, wondering if I’d be spending the fall making hors d’oeuvres for house parties every weekend.

“During the season?” she looked at me as if I’d just said something truly blasphemous, out loud and on purpose and then her expression softened into that ‘of course, she’s slow’ look. “No...during the season the only time you’re going to see him is when he comes home for a nap after practice and when he comes home all dejected puppy dog after a loss. The rest of the time, we’re on our own.” I blinked at her like she was speaking another language, one we didn’t share. Pat had faults, plenty of them, but he’d been more attentive than...well than any many I’d ever met in my whole life. I couldn’t really imagine him disappearing, even though, admittedly, sometimes I wanted him to. “That’s right,” she added as if she could read the thoughts flying around in my overloaded brain, “welcome to glorious and fucking lonely life of a WAG sister. It ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.” 

___________________________________________________________________

I checked the time on my phone. I was late and I knew Gabrielle was going to be pissed if she hadn’t already assumed she’d been stood up and left already. 

The patio at the restaurant was full of midday shoppers enjoying the late summer sun, sipping on colourful drinks wearing their Ray bans, shorts and light summer dresses. I could pick out Gabrielle’s frosted weave from half a block away. Her long fingernails were drumming the tabletop while she swung one perfectly tanned leg impatiently. I rolled my eyes. I really didn’t have time for this shit. I didn’t like her enough to have to put up with being berated for making her wait. 

I was about to turn around and head back the way I’d come when the glint of copper caught the afternoon sun and shone like a pond in an oasis on the other side of a desert. I stopped and stared.

I’d teased Bolland that he had no right to a girlfriend as pretty as Julia but I meant it when I said it to Kaner. Seeing her sitting in the sun in a black tank top with her hair like a flame licking her bare shoulders I hated him for being able to touch her, to hold her in his arms and taste her lips. 

As if she sensed me she looked up and I wished I could see the expression in her eyes behind the aviator sun glasses she was wearing. Did she want me to join them? Did she want me to leave? I should leave, I knew that, but my feet were moving forward already.

“Julia,” I greeted Dave’s fiancée with a soft kiss to her temple and then moved to her side of the small table. “Beth.” Her name tasted like vanilla frosting on my tongue, almost too sweet to enjoy. The palm of my hand came to rest on her bare shoulder. It was warm and soft. My hand lingered there too long, long enough that she looked up at me and I didn’t need to see behind those mirrored lenses to know that she was wondering what I was going to do next. I was afraid to brush a soft kiss on her cheek the way I’d done to Julia, afraid if I did I’d go for her mouth and kiss her the way I’d imagined kissing her, hard enough to force her pink lips to part so I could taste her breath, sweep my tongue over hers’. 

Instead of kissing her I slid my hand up to her cheek intending to just brush my knuckles along her high, sharp cheekbone but my body refused to listen to the signals my brain was trying to send it. My thumb caressed the line of her jaw as if it was made of the softest velvet as my gaze lingered too long on her mouth, as I thought of other things I wanted to do to and with that mouth. 

“Jon,” she breathed my name like I was touching her elsewhere, somewhere lower, more...private. For a moment I held my breath as she looked up at me, her lips remained parted like an invitation that I wanted to r.s.v.p. for immediately. 

“Jonny!” I shut my eyes. I knew that voice and it was the last thing I wanted to hear in that moment. I wanted to hear Beth whisper my name again. No, that’s not right. I wanted her to moan my name and then I wanted her to cry it out loud, loud enough for the whole street to hear. 

“I’m sorry,” I apologized and then turned to intercept Gabrielle before she could throw her arms around me. With reflexes honed by a life spent watching a small, hard object hurtle towards me at supersonic speeds, I reached out and locked my hand around her tiny wrist. “We’re just...leaving,” I said to Beth and to Gabrielle both at once. Gabrielle looked shocked as I dragged her behind me away from the two women sitting at the table. 

When I looked back over my shoulder Julie looked confused but it was the expression on Beth’s face that I felt all the way down to my balls. Her hand was pressed to her cheek where my hand had just been and she was watching me leave. 

Christ we both felt it. It wasn’t just me. 

“Jonny?” Gabrielle pulled back against me hard enough to make me slow down as we headed up the block. I forced myself to look at her. She looked like a cheap knock off imitation and as I stared down at her I wondered how I’d ever been able to look at her any other way. 

“This was a mistake,” I told her. She blinked up at me, startled still but panicked now. I watched as the meaning of my words sunk in. I wasn’t just talking about right now and she knew it. 

“Oh...okay,” she said breathlessly. Tears were welling up in her eyes. I’d done that. She’d be tweeting to all of her friends that I was an asshole in a matter of minutes and for once I didn’t care. “I...I wasn’t pressing for anything Jonny.” I hated the way she said my name. I might have been wearing shorts but they weren’t short pants. 

“I don’t have time,” I told her gruffly. It was true. At least I wasn’t lying. She looked back down the street to where Julia and Beth were still sitting on the patio of the restaurant and then she looked up at me. I could see her trying to put two and two together. “That’s Bolland and Kaner’s girlfriends,” I snapped, correcting her before the math in her head reached infinity. It was true, I wasn’t lying, but I didn’t like saying it out loud. She was his. It made her sound like a possession. 

I wanted to possess her so why did it sound so awful when I called her his, because I wanted her to be mine.

“Uh...okay,” Gabrielle said softly and fished for something out of her purse. A tissue, oh Christ on a bike she was going to cry now. 

“I’m sorry,” I apologized again and meant it but not for this, just for the other stuff, the stuff that had come before. 

“Yeah...okay,” she said again. I nearly growled. I wanted her to scream at me. I wanted her to call me names and maybe pound her little fists against me. Not for her, not to make her feel better. It would be for me, because I felt so god damned guilty. 

“Are you gonna be alright?” I asked softly. I raised my hand to touch her cheek, to brush away a single silver tear that slid down her cheek but then I let my hand drop. I didn’t want to touch her, not even to make her feel better. 

“Yeah,” she sniffed and nodded and then looked away which meant she wasn't going to be fine at all. 

“Uh good.” It wasn’t enough but I didn’t really care. I wanted to be away from here. I wanted not to feel her eyes still on me. If I stayed here much longer I’d go back and maybe next time I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from doing all of the things that I wanted so badly to do. 

“Good luck this season okay?” Gabrielle said softly. It took me off guard. I had no right to her well wishes. I was an asshole. 

“Thanks...uh...you too,” I said and then shoved my fists into my pockets. We stood there for another long, endlessly silent moment, neither of us looking at the other as people began to pour out of the office buildings around us. If we weren’t careful we’d be dragged into the undertow of the rush hour migration. 

“Umm well...bye then,” she said softly and as she looked up at me her bottom lip quivered. For one second, one brief crazy moment, I almost gave in and took it all back. I wasn’t going to actually go after one of my teammates girlfriends. That was a line guys like me couldn’t afford to cross and I did need a release that wasn’t my own hand. Gabrielle knew my predilections. I wouldn’t have to break anyone else in, it would be easy but....

“Yeah, bye,” I agreed. She dropped her gaze and turned. In less than a second I couldn’t pick her out of the crowd on the sidewalk. She’d been swallowed up and carried away on the tide of humanity. 

I turned and looked down the street and could barely make out the tables on the patio. I was taller than most on the sidewalk but I still had to go up on my tip toes to see that there were now two empty chairs where they had been. 

It was probably a good thing, or at least that’s what I told myself as I turned, my fists still in my pockets, and slinked away.