Heartless King

by Hughes, Maya

  A kid sped by and clipped me on his way down, landing with his legs sliding in opposite directions. He bit it hard. Imo and I winced at the thunk of his head against the floor. He lay there, staring up at the disco ball decorated ceiling like the floor would open up and swallow him.

  “It happens to everyone.” Tugging on the leg of my pants, I clenched my jaw, waiting for the shooting pain through my knee. But none came as I crouched beside him, and my skates cooperated and didn’t send my ass to the ground. There wasn’t any pain, only tightness like an old creaky gate that needed oil. It was like the pain was a habit, my natural expectation that overwhelmed this lesser feeling.

  “Is she looking over here?” he whispered out of the side of his mouth.

  “Who am I looking for?”

  “She’s wearing a pink sweater with a bow on the shoulder and she’s got black hair like the night’s sky.”

  This kid had it bad. Imogen stood beside me trying to hold in her laughter.

  “The night sky, huh?” I scanned the girls along the wall. One girl’s gaze kept darting toward our road kill impersonator.

  “She looks worried about you, but she’s trying to play it cool.”

  The entire top half of his body shot off the floor. “She is?”

  I dropped to my ass on the floor, blocking their view of each other. “She was, but you can’t spaz out and run over there. You were trying to impress her with some tricks.”

  He drew his knees up, wrapping his arms around them. “I thought if I could skate fast around the whole rink and beat the eighth-grade boys that she’d notice me. Now she probably thinks I’m a loser.”

  Hadn’t we all been there? “She doesn’t think you’re a loser, but if you’re trying to impress her, maybe you should talk to her. Throw out that night sky line. Ladies love it when you don’t care what anyone else thinks and especially when you compliment them.”

  “They do?” He looked from me to Imogen for confirmation.

  She bent at the waist, bracing her hands above her knees. Her skates wobbled. “They definitely do.”

  The kid bounced back up and dusted himself off, peering around me to check on whether the coast was clear.

  We skated side by side, keeping the steady pace to the beat of the 90s music blasting through the speakers.

  “You’re pretty good with kids.”

  I shrugged. “I had to be. You try herding ten girls at a sleepover after someone suggested playing Bloody Mary. Or being the chaperone at a school trip to the aquarium with the known runner from the class.”

  “Liv was lucky to have you, growing up.”

  My shoulders did their involuntary thing. “Someone had to do it, but that’s not me anymore. I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

  She zoomed ahead and spun around, skating backward.

  “Show off.”

  Her lips twitched. “What do you want? Because the crazy guy in a bathrobe routine you were pulling didn’t scream ‘living his best life.’”

  “There’s a lot of sh—” We passed the middle schoolers sitting along the rink wall, kicking their skates against the concrete. “Stuff going on.”

  “All the boozing, sleeping, and not showering is taking up most of your time? Let me see you do another lap.” Her body swayed as she took the turn like she’d been on skates her whole life. She raised her arms over her head and spun in a circle, shaking her hips from side to side like she was trying to show me what life had to offer. The whole physiotherapist-therapist act was getting on my nerves. Every opportunity to bring up what had happened between us was shut down immediately.

  “It’s been an adjustment—not playing.”

  “A temporary blip. You’re making great progress after only three sessions. Imagine what would be possible if you’d sprung for more?” Her eyebrow lifted and she switched from in front to beside me.

  And that worried me. If I was completely recovered, as much as you could be with the repaired bone, regrown cartilage and muscle with screws holding it all together, then what excuse did I have? If I ran out of excuses, she’d have me in the parking lot of the practice rink with everyone staring at me expectantly as I puked behind the garbage cans at the entrance and destroyed the last bit of dignity I had left.

  Walking in here had been a test of my abilities.

  20

  Imo

  The keys jingled as I tugged them out of the front door. Walking into Colm’s house felt as natural as walking into my own apartment now. His threats to find my set of keys hadn’t been followed up with anything. We crept toward an uneasy truce even though neither of us was sure where the line was. There were landmines everywhere—not just his, but mine too.

  Every so often, I’d call him out for pushing everyone away. That always seemed to sour his mood.

  And he’d hone in on my lack of social life or snipe when I brought up Preston, like the comment was an ugly reminder of something he’d rather forget.

  One that soured the mood for both of us was talking about the future. Our interactions were rooted firmly in the present.

  Colm’s footsteps thudded on the carpeted stairs.

  “What the hell did you do?” I kicked the door closed behind me.

  He froze mid-step with his eyes wide, looking down at his legs. “Nothing?”

  “Then why are you walking like that?”

  “Like what?” He came down the last two steps.

  “You’re pulling your gait to the right. When you came down the steps your body was angled.”

  He ducked his head.

  “Downstairs now.” I pointed toward the door off the kitchen.

  After session four he’d revealed he had a full gym and physio set up in his basement.

  The room didn’t smell stale like the first time I’d come down here with him. It was warmer and the distinct smell of sweat hung in the air. He’d been working out.

  “Hop up on the table.” I patted the blue padded table before going to wash my hands.

  “Really, I’m fine.”

  “Easy way.” I grabbed a paper towel drying off my hands. “Or the hard way.”

  “The joy you take in inflicting pain could make you some serious money, if you didn’t have an aversion to black leather.”

  “How’d you know that’s how I get my dates?” Overall, our time together had gotten less contentious, and we could make jokes. He was cooperating more and my stomach no longer knotted before each session preparing for the wrath of Colm. But in some ways that made things harder. When we slipped into this easy teasing banter, the whole reason we were spending time together got harder to remember.

  Help him recover. Get him back on the ice. Get Terry her donation. Move to the shore.

  “Had many lately?”

  I wrapped my hands around his calf, bending his leg at the knee and pushing it toward his chest.

  “How many what?” His movements tracked tight to one side. Too much stress could force overcompensation and strain, if I didn’t work that out.

  “Dates.”

  A huff of a laugh burst free from my lips. “No, definitely not.”

  “You’re more of a love them and leave them type, huh?” He maintained his teasing tone, but there was an edge to those words.

  “There’s always a lot going on. I’ve been helping Fern and Charlie with the Surf Shack. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for a social life. What about you? Are you feeling up for dates?” I rotated his hip, keeping my gaze trained on his knee and not the basketball shorts with a wide open view of his package.

  “Dates haven’t been on my list of shit to do for the past few months.”

  “Why not? Now that we’ve gotten you out of your house, you should try to get back to normal. Go out and have fun. Not too much fun though. Roll onto your side.”

  He rolled over, breaking his unrelenting gaze. Now that it wasn’t filled with animosity and defiance, it was harder to meet it.

  Those feelings I’d thought were a fluke or a work o
f my imagination came roaring back when he looked at me like that. The same way he’d looked at me on the beach and the same way he’d looked at me before I’d drifted off to sleep during our night together. This Colm was dangerous to the tidy plan of my life.

  “Make sure your brace is tight enough the next time you do the leg presses. You’ll overcompensate and get the stiffness you’re feeling now.”

  “I figured it was soreness because I’d been sitting on my ass for the past few months.”

  “A little of both, but you need to make sure you’re protecting it. Next time you work out, maybe we can video chat to check on your form.”

  “Or you can come over the next time. If you’re not too busy. Nevermind, that was—”

  “Of course I will. As long as it’s after six during the week. And my weekends are freer now that the Shack is officially in renovation and repair mode.”

  “How about tomorrow night?”

  “That’s a perfect idea. Although—if you’re dead set on working out, we can do that, but there’s this club I thought you might like.” I’d push this baby bird out of the nest and back into his life if it was the last thing I did.

  His head snapped up and he nodded before I finished. “A club? What club?”

  I steered the conversation away from specifics I hadn’t figured out yet. I’d have to make some calls, but he didn’t seem opposed. That was progress. “Favorite album?” Colm grunted as I drove my elbow into his thigh. The muscle had seized up. Not-so-gentle pressure was a way to release that tension, and keeping him talking without time to think about it would help.

  “Don’t laugh, but it’s the live version of John Mayer’s first album. I probably gave my computer thirty viruses to get an actual copy of that one. What about you?”

  “The one they aired at like 11am with the white Christmas lights?”

  “Yes.” He winced when I was a bit overly enthusiastic with my fingers. “No one ever remembers that one.”

  “He had an infectious energy.”

  Colm’s list of favorite albums matched up well with mine. All the emotional stuff Preston had listened to for my sake, Colm had no trouble admitting he’d crank up the radio and sing it out in the car while drumming on the dashboard.

  Our conversation drifted from one place to another.

  “You don’t have an issue driving all the way down there once a week in shore traffic?”

  “I’m used to it at this point. I’ve been doing it for almost four years. When I went back to school it was easier because I only had one class during the summer to speed up my graduation. It’s a little trickier juggling it now.”

  “So why do you do it?”

  “Fern and Charlie are family. They need me.”

  “You guys are that close, even after…”

  “We were close, even before. When my parents died freshman year of college, I was a zombie for a bit. They helped me figure out all the financial stuff. Met with my advisors and handled the funeral. Not many eighteen-year-olds know what the hell they’re doing when it comes to choosing their classes, let alone burying two parents.”

  “I’m glad you had someone there for you. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to go through it alone.”

  “I wasn’t. I had Fern and Charlie.” They’d stepped in as my surrogate parents immediately, never asking for anything in return. “And Preston.” He’d been there to hold me when I felt like the world was turning upside down, and to show me that I hadn’t died along with my parents. No one had been there to hold me after he was gone.

  “It sounds like they were the perfect team to get you through that.” His fingers brushed against mine. It wasn’t an accidental touch. There’d been more of those lately. Picking a piece of lint off my scrubs, even invitations for a drink after we finished a session, but that danced tantalizingly close to a line I didn’t want to cross. He was a temptation unlike any I’d met before, and I couldn’t let myself entertain the thought of giving in.

  “Yeah, they were. You had your own power team too.”

  This connection between us was hard to keep at bay. Our lives kept intersecting, bringing us to one another when we needed each other most. I wasn’t sure what that meant. And I wasn’t sure where we went from here. We’d gone from our night together to what we were doing now, and then there was the question of what came after, if anything even did. If everything worked out as I’d planned, I’d be moving. He’d be on the road playing hockey. Maybe all we were meant to have were these brief path crossings when we truly needed them.

  “The guys were great.” His jaw tightened. “Especially Ford. He helped a lot in those early years. His mom too. They were my surrogate family.”

  I wouldn’t push the topic with him. He needed to fit those pieces together and let go of this box he’d put Liv in. It was the only way their relationship could be mended and his friendship with Ford put back on solid ground.

  “How’s your leg feeling now?”

  He straightened and bent it. “The muscles hurt like hell, but it’s not tight like before.”

  “It’s my superpower.”

  He looked at me with his hands braced on the side of the physiotherapist table. “It’s not your only one.”

  “Enough chit chat, let’s get going.” I clapped my hands together, rubbing them. “Do you want to try the treadmill?” Innuendo dodge success.

  His jaw ticked and he nodded, grabbing the skates off the shelf. The specialty treadmill made for hockey players had blown me away when I’d first stepped into the gym. It was a behemoth, outfitted with a specialty tread to allow the user to skate like they were on the ice.

  After nearly an hour of drills on the treadmill sweat was rolling down his back, but there wasn’t a huff or puff from him. “You’ve got great stamina. It looks like you could do this for days. How do you feel?”

  “It feels like old times.” His smile turned my knees into jelly.

  “Let’s get you off.” My cheeks flamed and Colm tripped on the treadmill, grabbing onto the metal bars to steady himself. “Off the treadmill,” I shouted way too loudly in the basement gym. “And see how you feel after a short break.” I tapped at the buttons on the display screen to bring the treadmill to a crawl with my entire face lobster red.

  Colm side-stepped off with no problems, teetering on the blade of his skates before sitting on the bench beside it with his gaze trained on me the whole time.

  Deflect and avert. “At this rate, you’ll be back ready to go in a couple weeks. Hell, now. We can call Bailey.” I was almost giddy in anticipation of him skating again. Really skating, not this basement approximation. Once he was beside the guys on the ice with the crowds cheering his name, he’d see how far he’d come.

  We’d done it.

  Mopping at his forehead with a towel, he dropped it down beside him. “I can’t skate.”

  “Colm, we just proved it.” I held out my hand toward the treadmill he’d dominated for an hour. “You can. You’re as close to one hundred percent as you can get without dragging out a microscope and inspecting your individual cells.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to.” He hung his head. “I can’t.”

  “When you say can’t—”

  “I mean anytime I try to enter a rink, I start shaking and feel like I’m dying and puke—in the nearest trashcan if I’m lucky.”

  Everything clarified like slipping on a brand new pair of glasses. 20/20 vision. He hadn’t been avoiding the ice at all. “You’ve been trying to skate?”

  “Every couple weeks I’ll think, maybe I’m good now. Maybe I can power through. And then I end up with my head in a trashcan covered with chewed gum and cigarette butts.”

  “Have you tried—”

  “I’ve gone to different rinks. I’ve gone at different times of day. I’ve eaten something before. I’ve not eaten anything before. Let me tell you, dry heaving isn’t fun. Good for the abs, but not fun. I’ve gone stone cold sober. I’ve taken a taxi and gon
e blitzed out of my mind. Every time it’s the same damn song.”

  My heart ached for him. It wasn’t that he was being a stubborn asshole, at least not in this area. He’d been trying. I couldn’t imagine wanting something so badly, trying it over and over, and failing every time at the one thing your life has revolved around for so long.

  “Do the guys know?”

  He met my gaze with an ‘are you fucking kidding me’ look.

  “Stupid question.” I lifted my hand to touch his shoulder, but pulled back at the last second. “Why don’t you tell them?”

  “That I’m so fucked up in the head I can’t even get on the ice?”

  “What do you think they’d do, if you told them?”

  “Anything they could to fix it. But what if they can’t? What if no one can?” The words were small and full of anguish.

  I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, not able to stand by and do nothing as he revealed something so painful and raw. “If you don’t try, then what? What’s the alternative, Colm? What regret do you want to live with? That you did everything in your power to make it happen and it didn’t work, or that you never tried?”

  He turned his head, his lips inches from mine.

  A shuddering breath rippled through me. The memory of those lips on mine flashed through my mind. I dropped my arms and stepped back.

  Why was touching him all over to work on his problem areas so easy? Digging my elbow into his upper thigh until he groaned or setting his knee on my shoulder and pushing his leg forward with my body weight, no problem. But a hand on the shoulder for comfort or a hug, and my body coiled like a snake ready to strike. Like one non-professional touch would be the kerosene-soaked rag on the embers of the attraction between us.