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“I don’t understand how you can hate clowns,” Ashish muses.
“Why does she hate you so much?” Flip asks.
He rubs the back of his neck. “Probably because one of my friends cut off her braid when she was in third grade.”
“That’s a long time to hold a grudge about some hair.”
“Yeah. It’s one piece of the puzzle.” Dallas doesn’t elaborate because Coach Vander Zee gives us the five-minute warning.
“They better still have waffles and bacon.” Flip breaks rank and heads for the buffet.
Dallas already has a plate, so I follow Flip. He loads up like it’s his last meal. Just as we take our seats, Hollis comes in. Everyone cheers and claps. I join in, but heaviness settles in the pit of my stomach. As happy as I am that the surgery went well and he’s all healed up, I’m still worried about what that means for my career.
After the meeting, Flip goes out with a few of the guys, but my younger brother has a game north of the city. I try to attend his hockey games if I’m not traveling and they don’t interfere with practice times. His birthday is in the fall, and half the time I’m out of town, which sucks. I hate not being able to celebrate with him. Thankfully, this year it falls at Thanksgiving, on one of our days off.
I get a ride home with Dallas. He has a penthouse in an exclusive building a few blocks away. I’d been looking to upgrade my place until Flip was traded to Toronto last year and suggested we be roommates.
Dallas drops me off, and I head upstairs to our place. “Hello!” I call out when I open the door, but no one answers.
The condo is empty; no Beat to deal with. It smells like cleaning supplies and fresh lemon. The kitchen counter is free of all the random crap Flip often forgets to put away. A bowl of fresh fruit sits in the middle of the island, and there are freaking throw pillows on the couch. Two walls are all floor-to-ceiling windows, with a sweet view of the lakeshore. But it means having a TV down here is pointless because the glare makes it impossible to see the screen. Our only TV is in Beat’s makeshift bedroom, the loft.
I change out of my dress clothes into jeans and a T-shirt. I grab a jacket, since the arena is always cool, and head for the door. My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s my brother, asking if I’m coming to his game, and if I am, can I please bring back his video game that he forgot here the last time he stayed overnight. I keep forgetting it.
It’s in the loft, along with our gaming consoles. I toss my jacket on the counter and pull the ladder down to climb up. It smells like vanilla and citrus up here. And like the rest of the place, it’s clean. Beat’s bins are stacked neatly in the corner. She’s folded the bedding and set it on the arm of the futon. Her off-the-shoulder shirt and shorts from this morning are folded on top of her comforter. I spot something on the floor and bend to retrieve it.
It’s a pair of pale pink lace cheekies. I fight with my mind not to picture her wearing them and lose the battle. It’s inconvenient that Beat has gone from annoying teen to annoyingly hot. She’s got the whole girl-next-door, soft-around-the-edges angle cornered. It makes having her here even more frustrating.
I rub my bottom lip as I survey the loft. Her privacy is at zero. That situation with the roommates was pretty messed up, and as much as I don’t want her here, I don’t want her there, either. Whoever lived here before us hung plants from the ceiling, maybe to create a barrier?
I climb down the ladder and check the linen closet for something to hang on the hooks they left behind. I find an old duvet cover that buttons at the top end. It’ll do. I climb back up to the loft and hang the duvet. It’s janky and only goes halfway across, but at least it provides some separation.
I grab the game and descend again to the main floor where it smells less like Beat and more like cleaning supplies. Shoving my feet into sneakers, I leave the condo and take the elevator to the parking garage. I settle in my sports car and drive the hour and twenty minutes to my brother’s game.
On the way, I call my other brother, Nate, to check in. My middle brother is away at college, in his final year of his undergraduate degree in engineering. Dude is brilliant. Played hockey through most of high school, but his brain is massive and needs to be used for other things. He and I talk several times a week. When he answers this time, he’s with his girlfriend, Lisa, who he’s been dating for the past year, so we cut the call short with a promise to talk in a couple of days.
