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“Maybe that’s changing,” I hedge, pushing off the counter, pocketing my phone. “I’m going to head out.”
“You sure?” he asks. “Want to stay for lunch? Frankie will be back soon.”
Oh Christ, not Frankie. She’ll have gotten a whiff of that yoga story, seen the pictures of Ziggy and me, and while I’m confident I can navigate this dynamic with Ren, Frankie has a terrifying ability to sniff out my bullshit and scare the hell out of me for it.
“That’s okay,” I tell him. “I’m still full from breakfast.”
He frowns. “Well, all right. Let me know if I can pick you up soon, maybe we can…” He shrugs. “I don’t know, catch up a bit. You’ve been lying low because you’re healing and Frankie’s…trying to figure out how to fix things for you, but I miss seeing you.”
When I first got to know Ren, this staggeringly honest communication, the emotional openness, made me deeply uncomfortable. That’s not how my family works, not how I was raised. But since becoming close to him in the past few years, I’ve come to admire the bravery that requires. That he can look at me and tell me he misses me, that he can admit his needs and wants, so freely, without fear.
“I’ve—” I clear my throat. “Same here. I actually, uh…” I clear my throat again. “I actually was wondering if maybe… That is, I was thinking…”
Ren’s smile is faint and amused. He lifts his eyebrows, waiting.
“I was thinking…maybe I could join your Shakespeare Club.”
The smile on his face shouldn’t be humanly possible, it’s so bright. “Seriously?”
I shrug. “Seriously. Ziggy didn’t admit to there being a club, but she said that hypothetically, if there was a Shakespeare Club, it was a damn good time. And I could use that. Some fun that isn’t…empty.”
Ren smooshes me into a hard backslapping hug. “I’d love it, Seb! You’ll love it, too. All you have to do is—”
“Memorize and recite some of my favorite Shakespeare for at least two members of the club. If they agree that I perform genuinely, I’m invited to be a part of it.”
He nods as he steps back from our hug, still smiling. “She told you, then, good. Okay. Cool. Well, lucky for you, our next meeting is two weeks from now. Saturday, six sharp, my place, so get memorizing.”
Shit. That escalated quickly. “Uh. So soon?”
“It’ll be great,” he says. “You’ll be great.” I’m hugged once more as I’m about to argue, make up some excuse to buy me a little more time, but the look Ren gives me, his excitement and happiness, stops me.
After promising to be there, I see myself out. I take my time as I walk, watching the sun climb higher in the sky, feeling the sea breeze cut through my hair, whipping it back.
When I get to my place, I wander around, until my hands find their way to the bookshelves lining the small back room that I keep tucked away, private, just for me. Sliding my fingers along the spines of the books, I find the volume I want, tug it out from the shelf, and sink down into my chair.
The sharp, aching pain that’s become more frequent lately, nearly after every time I eat, claws into my stomach. I suck in a breath and tuck up my legs, gaining some relief in the pressure of wedging a pillow against my stomach, tight between my chest and thighs.
The pain’s bad. Bad enough that I’m starting to think this isn’t something I should keep ignoring any more than I’ve been ignoring the throbbing body aches, the thick fog wrapped around my brain, turning my thoughts sludgy and slow.
I should get myself checked out, get to the bottom of this. Especially now that I’m so close to coming back to hockey. The idea of trying to skate, to play at full capacity, when I feel like this—it seems impossible.
And yet, I’m so tempted to keep avoiding it. I don’t want to know what could be wrong, what could come between me and my identity as a healthy, active person, let alone someone who relies on that for my career and the one thing I love—hockey.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, I let my eyes settle over the words, and I think about saying them in front of Ziggy. The pain doesn’t dull, but I’m distracted, even if only briefly, by a calm sense of contented purpose.
It’s strange. And sort of lovely.
Glancing up, seeing my reflection in my windows, which looks so much like my piece-of-shit father, I’m reminded swiftly, brutally, what this little foray into allegedly reforming myself is, all it can be—
A performance that will have to come to an end.
11
ZIGGY
Playlist: “Sheets of Green,” Cat Clyde
“‘An unknown redhead’?!” I growl at my screen, squeezing my phone so hard, my sensory-friendly bubble-backed case makes a series of ominous pops.
