Wingmen are a Girl's Best Friend: Laketown Hockey

by A. J. Wynter

  “Son, I love you. If you want to play in the National League then I would be happy – FOR YOU. I am perfectly happy here in this house. And I’m just as proud of you whether you’ve got a hockey stick or a hammer in your hand.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” She pushed the Thermos towards me. “Don’t be an idiot. Go.” She swatted her hand at me to leave.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m proud of you, Leo. But if you stay here one minute longer I might change my mind about that.”

  It was a no-brainer. I wanted to be with Faith more than I wanted to play as a pro. Without having to worry about my mom, I could think about what I really wanted, not what society, or my family, or the town wanted of me.

  Thermos in hand, I ran to the door.

  “Leo.” She had followed behind me.

  “Take my car.” She pressed the keys into my hand. “And the dog, too.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Faith

  I was speeding, but I didn’t care. If a cop pulled me over, I could explain what was happening and perhaps somebody would take me seriously. The scenery on the way to Corstead was some of the most spectacular in the state, but I didn’t notice. I looked at the empty passenger seat and cursed myself for believing in Leo.

  A thought struck me as I reached the five-hour mark of the drive. Gunnar had been right. Leo the Lion only cared about himself. Maybe I should have chosen Gunnar. My face was sore from wiping the tears that wouldn’t stop. I drove in silence after all the radio stations dropped into static.

  The conflicting emotions made me want to puke. My hatred for Leo was outweighed by the fear of the unknown. What if it wasn’t my dad? What if he really did have a new family? What if he didn’t want to be found? I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I’d always assumed that he’d just been lost and couldn’t find his way home.

  What if he didn’t want to come home?

  As I neared Corstead a radio station crackled to life. I punched the saloon gas station address into my phone and crossed my fingers that it was the right one. I had left the name on the notepad in the suite with that asshole.

  Butterflies had been creeping into my guts, but they weren’t the good kind. These butterflies were pissed off. I pulled to the side of the road and threw up in the ditch. Back in the car, I tuned to a classical music station so I didn’t have to listen to anything with words and hyperfocused on all of the gas stations as I neared the edge of town.

  A gas station with a faux western façade appeared and I knew in my gut that it was the right one. A man with a long grey beard and glasses stood next to a dark blue pickup truck.

  I pulled into the parking lot and waved at the man. He returned the wave and I rolled down my window. “Are you Slim?”

  He patted his potbelly. “Sure am.”

  I parked my car next to his truck, but before I got out I took a deep breath. My hands were shaking on the steering wheel. I was about to get into a truck with a stranger and drive out into the bush to look for another man, who might also be a complete stranger. I steeled myself and got out of the car. I’d come this far, I wasn’t stopping.

  “Get in,” Slim shouted as he stepped into the driver’s seat.

  I jogged around the back of the truck to get to the passenger seat but there was already someone in it.

  “Moofie.” I paused with the door open. “What are you doing here?”

  Moofie hopped into the back seat and sat next to Leo. Slim backed the truck out of the saloon parking lot and answered the question before Leo could. “Your friend beat you here by a good twenty minutes.”

  Leo gave me a meek smile. “I tried to call you.”

  I didn’t tell him that I’d almost veered off the road while trying to block his number. “Where are we going?” I asked Slim.

  “Off Highway Twenty-five between the two big oak trees, just past Stamps Pond.” Slim rattled off as he navigated onto a smaller highway.

  “Slim owns a non-profit organization that takes care of homeless people.” Leo’s voice shook. He was clearly nervous and choosing his words carefully.

  “This guy, he didn’t tell me his name. Sometimes I don’t ask. Most of the time they give me a fake one anyway. But this guy doesn’t seem homeless. I’m taking him to get some supplies so he can head further into the bush on a hunting trip.”

  “Did he seem out of it?” I asked.

  Slim chuckled. “No, this guy is sharp. He’s different than most of the people I deal with – like Reggie. For starters, he’s got a watch that works and it looks like he’s right on time.”

  Two oak trees loomed on the far side of a small pond. It was my dad. I knew it without a shadow of a doubt. I felt Leo’s hand on my shoulder – he knew it too.

  Slim pulled to the shoulder of the road and the man approached the car. “Let me.” Leo got out before I could protest.

  “Leo!” My dad yelled and threw his arms open wide. “What are you doing out here?”

  When my dad took Leo into his arms and hugged him, I spilled out of the truck. “Dad!” I shouted.

  “Faye.” He headed toward me and I sprinted and threw myself into his arms. “Whoa, honey. Easy there.”

  “Heya, Slim.” Dad waved at Slim, who was still in the driver’s seat. “Cute dog.”

  Dad was wearing his plaid jacket and canvas work pants. His boots looked completely worn out, and his beard was long, grizzled, and grayer, but he seemed exactly the same. He looked at me and Leo. “It’s nice to see you kids, but what are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you, Dad.”

  He seemed oddly calm and looked at us like we were crazy, not the other way around.

  “I’ll be home on the weekend. You didn’t have to come way out here. I haven’t gotten a deer yet.”

  Leo looked at me and then looked at my dad. “Mr. Dawson, you’ve been gone for over a year.”

  Dad screwed up his forehead and then let out a huge laugh. “What are you talking about? I left last weekend. I told Mel that I’d be home when I got a deer. She knows that. Ask her.”

  I took my phone out of my purse and pulled up a news article. “Look at this.”

  “What am I looking at? I don’t need any stock market advice.”

  “Dad.” I pressed the phone into his hand. “Look at the date.”

  He pulled a pair of scratched reading glasses out of his pocket and studied the article on the phone. Then he looked at me, and back at the phone. “That’s not possible. Faith, is this some kind of joke?”

  The tears were streaming down my face. I shook my head. “It’s not a joke. We thought you were dead.”

  Dad took a deep breath. “I don’t understand.”

  “Me neither.” I threw myself into him and he wrapped his arms around me. “ This doesn’t make any sense.” He buried his face in my neck. I held him tightly and didn’t want to let go of him.

  “Mr. Dawson,” Leo’s voice interrupted our hug. “How did you get that cut on the back of your head?”

  My dad reached his hand to inspect his head. He was thinning at the back and it was easy to see there was a big cut that had healed.

  “I’ve seen movies where this happens, but I didn’t think it could happen in real life,” Leo said. “Bruce. I think you’ve been living the same week over and over again for the past year.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Faith

  The fluorescent lights of the hospital room buzzed overhead. I hadn’t noticed how thin he’d become when he was in his hunting clothes. Lying in the hospital bed now, my big, strong dad looked frail.

  Thanks to the Laketown Otters and the many National league players who called Laketown home, the hospital had a top-notch traumatic brain injury facility. My dad had been diagnosed with a rare kind of cyclical amnesia. The prognosis was good, and after just a week’s worth of hyperbaric chamber treatments, his brain scans had already shown improvement. He remembered everyone and everything, except the period between when he fell
off his ATV and wandered five hundred miles into the bush.

  “Can I get you anything?” I asked.

  “I’m fine, sweetheart. I think you should go home and get some rest.” Mom and I had spent every night at the hospital, while Amber had held down the fort at Mel D Designs.

  “I’ll stay.” I sat in one of the chairs that had doubled as my mom’s bed.

  “No, really. Why don’t you go and get some rest. I could use some alone time with your mother. It has been over a year, you know.”

  It was his first joke and I couldn’t help but be both overjoyed and grossed out at the same time. It meant he was getting better, but even though I was a grown woman, I still didn’t want to imagine my parents getting it on in a hospital bed, or anywhere else.

  “Bruce.” Mom smacked him on the arm. “Smarten up.”

  “Faith, I’ve got a surprise for you.” Mom pointed to her purse. “Open the file in the orange folder.”

  “I think I’ve had enough surprises for this week.”

  “Just open it,” Mom ordered.

  Inside the folder was the deed to the retail space. It was in my name. “Mom?”

  “If you’re putting roots down here, the best place to start is with your own real estate.”

  It felt like the room had tilted and I held onto the arm of the chair to steady myself. “But I can’t…”

  “You’re going to pay me back and take care of all the expenses. But the accountant and I went over the numbers, and the revenue from the retail location should more than cover the mortgage.”

  Dad coughed and then smiled. “I always knew you had a good eye for business, Faye.”

  “I can’t believe it.” My hands were shaking.

  Mom shooed me out of the room. “The key is in the lockbox. Go. Go check out your new building.”

  I clutched the folder to my chest, kissed my dad on the cheek and then bear-hugged my mom.

  “Now get out of here before I say something inappropriate like your father.”

  The first thing I saw when I pulled up to the building was the sold sign in the window. I still couldn’t believe that it was mine. The second thing I saw was Moofie leashed up out front. I had driven home from Corstead alone with my dad. Leo had come to the hospital every day and we were civil, but I still didn’t want to talk to him.

  “Hi. Moofie.” He strained at his leash as I approached. “Where’s your owner?”

  “Hi, Faye—Faith.”

  I looked to my right and Leo was leaning up against a brand-new truck. He was wearing a pair of Carhartt pants and a blue t-shirt. “Whose truck is that?” I asked. “Did the wheels finally fall off yours?”

  He chuckled, but it sounded sad. “Yeah, actually, one of them did.”

  I walked past him and punched in the code to the lockbox. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be chasing pucks around the ice right now?”

  He cleared his throat and leaned against the building. I removed the key from the box and slipped it onto my keyring.

  “I’m off the team,” he said quietly.

  “Oh. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s alright.” He kicked the curb with the toe of his boots. “Mel D told me that you would be here. And I have to explain something to you.”

  “Right.” I opened the door and stepped into the building. Even if Leo was there, ruining my moment, exhilaration rippled through my body.

  Leo followed me into the building. “Faith. Let me say what I have to say. Then you can tell me to fuck off and I’ll never bother you again.”

  I turned, crossed my arms, and tilted my head. “Go.”

  “I love you.”

  It hurt like a sword to the chest, but I couldn’t say it back to him. “So what?”

  He leaned against the counter that was going to be part of the show kitchen. “I’m sorry for the way I handled things at the hotel.”

  “It was shitty.”

  “I know.” He studied his work boots. “My whole life I thought that I had to make it to the National League to save my mom.”

  “What? I thought that you wanted to be the next, um…” I couldn’t think of any famous hockey players off the top of my head.

  He sighed. “That’s what every kid in this town thinks they want. Until the thing they really want shows up.”

  I could feel the ice starting to melt from my heart, but I wasn’t ready to let it show.

  “Winning the skills competition meant that my mom would be okay, at least that’s what I thought. I spent my whole life worrying about her, that I never noticed she’s totally capable of taking care of herself. She doesn’t need her kid to take pity on her.” He laughed. “Those were her words, not mine.”

  He shuffled his feet but didn’t look up. “Faith, I like hockey, but I love you. I would give it up in a heartbeat if it meant I could be with you.” He looked at me for the first time since he’d stepped into the building and there was a shimmer in his eyes.

  I bit my lips together to try to stop myself from tearing up, to hide the emotion that was bubbling at the surface. To Leo, I must have looked like a cold hard bitch.

  “I’ll go now. That’s all I had to say.”

  His footsteps echoed through the building and I thought that he might look back before he opened the door, but he didn’t. I saw his shoulders rise and fall and then he stepped out into the summer heat.

  “Leo,” I shouted, but the door had already shut behind him.

  Shit. I threw the file folder on the floor and ran to open the door. “Leo.”

  Moofie barked and Leo turned around.

  “I forgive you.” The tears were flowing freely down my face as we met in the middle of the sidewalk. There was only a moment of hesitation before he wrapped me in his arms. “I love you,” I sobbed into his chest. He held me there until my tears stopped. Neither of us cared that pedestrians had to walk around us. Moofie sat on guard at our feet.

  I peeled my face from his shirt and Leo brushed the last tear from my face. “Leo?”

  “Yeah?” He smiled.

  “It might be too soon, and it might be a crazy idea, but move in here with me.” I hadn’t planned on uttering those words when I saw him that day, and even as they came out of my mouth, I was shocked to hear them.

  “Yes.” He kissed me gently. “It’s too soon, and it’s crazy, but I’d love to move in with you Faith Dawson.”

  Epilogue

  August

  * * *

  “Who still reads the newspaper?” I batted at the paper while Leo sat at our temporary plywood island. Moofie was at his feet.

  He folded the paper to the sports section. “I’m just catching up on the local sports scene.”

  “Anything interesting?” I knew the big news, but I was going to let Leo read it.

  Leo cleared his throat and put on a ridiculous English accent to read the sports section. “Gunnar Lockwood has been traded to the Bobcats.”

  “Good riddance.” I leaned over Leo’s shoulder to see if there were any photos. “Dylan Moss is the new captain of the Otters, and here it is… Leonardo Rocci has been hired as the new assistant coach.”

  He looked at me and asked, “Are you sure you’re not embarrassed to be with a coach instead of a pro player?”

  “Leo, I’d be happy if you took Andy’s job. I love you – not what you do.” I kissed his cheek. “As long as you’re happy,” I added. “Coach Covington said he’d vouch for you and try to get you back on the team. You can still go for the National League if you want it.”

  He turned and wrapped his arms around my waist. “For the longest time, I didn’t know what I wanted. Now I’ve got it. And, I’m pumped to be a coach. It’s going to be awesome.”

  After Leo had no-showed on the skills competition, the owners had kicked him off the team. He’d taken a job working for a local construction company and joined the board of directors at the Bad Dog House. Moofie was their spokes-dog, and a few of the local celebrity players had taken an inte
rest in promoting the shelter.

  “What time are we picking up your mom?” I asked.

  “Shit.” Leo jumped up. “Now.”

  Moofie let out a low growl and barked at the door. “What is it boy?” Leo rubbed his neck.

  Leo opened the door and shouted, “There’s a parcel for you.”

  “I’m not expecting anything.”

  Leo handed me the package and the knife he kept in his pocket. My address was written in meticulous block letters, but there wasn’t a return address.

  I used the knife to slice open the packing tape and opened the flaps on the box. “Oh my.”

  “What is it?” Leo looked over my shoulder. “Wow,” he chuckled. Nestled amongst a pile of crumpled newspaper sat my missing shoe. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  “Me, Neither,” I said. There was a note at the bottom of the box. I unfolded the paper and read it out loud:

  * * *

  Here’s your shoe.

  I’m sorry for being a jerk.

  Leo is a good guy.

  G.

  * * *

  “He’s no poet.” I shook my head and set the shoe back in the box.

  “I’m not surprised he came around.” Leo folded the knife and put it back in his pocket. “Being a dick didn’t suit him.”

  Leo held out his hand. “Come on, we don’t want to keep Mama Rocci waiting.”

  I folded the note and took Leo’s calloused hand.

  When we pulled up to the house, Maria Rocci was waiting on the front step with a casserole dish. Killer, the Corgie, sat beside her. “Are you sure your parents are okay with the dogs coming along?” she asked as they got in the car.

  Leo jerked his thumb at Moofie, whose nose was pressed against the back window. “They better be. We’re bringing that oaf.”

  My dad had been out of the hospital for a week and this was their first dinner party. When we arrived, the house felt alive again. James Taylor was playing in the background, and the kitchen smelled like freshly baked bread.