by Pippa Grant
She recovers first. “Can I see your tattoo?” she whispers reverently.
He goes pink in the cheeks, grunts once, and grabs our bags. I have to rescue his credit card, and he’s already three shops down when I catch up to him.
The sky’s a fuzzy blue today and the temperatures are hovering in the low forties. I’m in a big winter coat.
Ares is in jeans and a T-shirt that proclaims him Matser of the Versicorn with an arrow pointing to his left bicep.
“Tattoo, huh?” I ask as we wait for the light at the corner to change so we can cross the street.
“Snake.”
“Liar.”
His lips twitch up, but he doesn’t look at me.
“You talk to the team doc yet today?”
“Bees.”
When Nick was out for two weeks with a groin strain last season, he was in with the doc and physical therapy team every day until he was back on the ice. Ares needs the swelling to go down before he can start physical therapy. I’m positive the team’s medical staff wants to see him regularly to monitor how he’s doing.
And Nick might’ve mentioned in a text this morning that he told Dr. Santiago, the team’s head physician, that Ares was hanging with me.
I know Dr. Santiago. We’ve met on a few occasions.
Okay, once.
We met once.
When Nick was injured, and I’d just been turned down again for the Zamboni job—that accident was not my fault, but it went on my driving record anyway—and I just happened to be at Mink Arena before a game with my parents when Dr. Santiago walked by and heard my dad mention his worries over my finances.
Which are fine.
But my parents worry. And Dr. Santiago got an earful about young, inexperienced, poor life choice-making Felicity…
I’m twenty-seven. Intellectually, I understand I’m young, because average lifespans mean that I’m basically only a third of the way through life. Emotionally, I’m processing the weird turmoil that sprouted in my chest last night when I realized Ares Berger has his entire life purpose figured out, and I’m on my fifth attempt at a career with nothing but a string of bad boyfriends in the rearview mirror, still lunging for the same goal I’ve failed at attaining for the last eleven years.
Educationally, I’ve been reincarnated a few times and should be an old soul.
No, I don’t like to talk about my high school or first college experience. Not because they were painful—no more so than you’d expect of a kid going through puberty while surrounded by a bunch of people at least five years older who could smoke, drink, and vote to their hearts’ content—but because I don’t like how it gets me boxed.
Nerd. Geek. Video game player. Watches Big Bang Theory for the physics. Into manga. Can recite all of the Marvel Universe movies by heart. Does cosplay on the weekend.
All. Dead. Wrong.
I wouldn’t recognize Captain America if he walked up to me on the street and offered to let me lick his hammer. Or whatever it is Captain America carries.
I don’t fit in that stereotype, and I’m more than my brains. And some days, despite the four college degrees, I don’t think I’m very smart at all.
See again, Felicity doesn’t know her mission in life.
Beyond wanting to work for the Thrusters.
Which feels further and further away some days.
But at least my parents add the part about being proud of me for being talented in other ways. Which can’t pay the bills, but being well-rounded is important.
Yeah.
Got that memo in high school.
Have the signatures in my yearbook to prove it.
Wow, Felicity, you’re so smart. You’re really going places.
Thanks for letting me copy off you during geometry tests.
Hi, I don’t know you, but everyone else signed that you’re smart, and I’m signing everyone’s yearbooks, so nice job at being smart.
That last one was from Kami, former head cheerleader, former prom queen, and the only student at Moss Baker High ever voted Most Likely To Die From Being Too Happy.
I like to pull out that yearbook when we have too much wine and taunt her with her high school popularity points.
To be fair, we only went to high school together one year, when I was finishing senior credits as a thirteen-year-old and she was a freshman, so I didn’t actually see the popularity points she racked up, but my point is, when I crossed the stage at graduation with my valedictorian ribbon on, nobody knew who I was.
They knew my name and my GPA, but they didn’t know who I was.
I didn’t know who I was, and I was keenly aware of it.
And now, fourteen years later…I still don’t exactly know who I am.
But I have enough degrees to have options for jobs, a patent and a copyright here or there that I might’ve sold for a small fortune, terrible taste in men, and friends.
And Ares Berger. Who smells like strawberry shortcake today. Not the doll, but the actual dessert.
In case you were wondering, since there’s a difference.
We push into the clinic, the new crop of patients in the waiting room all gape at Ares—some with whoa, that dude is big expressions and some with holy shit, that’s Ares Berger expressions—and Melba at the desk holds up a note for me. “Didn’t you break up with that Doug guy? He called and said he could meet you for dinner tonight to talk about things.”
I keep a pleasant smile on my face, even though Doug can go fuck himself, and take the note. “He called here? Sorry about that. And thanks, Melba.”
“He still have your puppet?”
Ares growls.
It’s a small noise, and no one else seems to hear it, but I feel it reverberating through my bones.
“No big deal,” I say.
Melba frowns and pulls her glasses down. “I thought you said you accidentally left Harold at his place.”
I’ve been here for a rotation for two of my designated four weeks, and they all know about my puppets. One of the PTs on staff here recognized me from open mic night at The Laugh Track on my first day. “You know Harold. He can take care of himself.”
He’s a puppet. He can’t take care of anything by himself. But he’s a grumpapotamus puppet—seriously, he’s a hippo with the grumpiest face you’ve ever seen, so freaking adorable—so there’s a chance.
I smile and wink at Melba.
Her uh-oh, she’s gone off the deep end brow wrinkle smoothes out, and she laughs with me. “You are too funny, Felicity. Mr. Berger, here, on the other hand…”
“Needs to go put his foot up,” I say. I drop my voice and pretend I’m Ares. “I promise, no more writing on the walls today. And I’m sorry about the paper airplanes. Thank you for letting me sit in your waiting room.”
I glance at Ares.
He’s watching me with a straight-on, no-blinking, you need help look.
Why, no, that wasn’t a shiver racing down my spine. It was clearly a small furry animal that dropped out of the ceiling and dug its way under my shirt. Because if it was a shiver, that means I’m reading Ares’s expressions, and he’s getting protective, and I don’t need another brother, but nothing about him feels brotherly. No, that’s all hero and champion and protector, with a side of holy shit, he’s kinda hot when he’s growly, thank god he’s not in his hockey uniform and holding a stick too, which means everything suddenly feels incredibly complicated.
“Ice,” I stammer. I shoo Ares back to the staff room, which is just behind the receptionist desk, and I follow to make sure he’s going. “Now. You can eat with ice on your foot.”
“Her parents told me she always was a smart girl,” Dr. Santiago says as we enter the room.
Yeah, that look Ares is giving me now also makes a shiver slink down my spine.
Because I’m pretty sure that’s his I’m going to kill you and use your arms for hockey sticks to bat your head around the ice that’s soaked in your blood look.
Because being six-nine and three hundred-som
ething pounds of pure muscle isn’t enough. He has to have the glares to go with it.
I square my shoulders and smile at the Thrusters’ head physician, who’s chatting with my boss in the break area. “Hey, Dr. Santiago. How’s Brianna?”
“Terrifying.” His eyes twinkle as he pulls out his phone, though he’s clearly not letting Ares out of sight. “She’s at the exact right height to bang her head into the countertops every time she comes running into the kitchen.”
He passes me his phone, and I ooh and aww over pictures of his three-year-old daughter, because while I’ve only met him once, I’ve got the man’s number. Her dark hair is long enough for adorable curly pigtails now, and her big brown eyes are the stuff of heartbreakers.
Once Ares has taken a seat at the other table, propped his foot up on a second chair, and started pulling out his first burrito, I hand the phone back. “Put her in a helmet. Gotta run. Patients waiting and I take my clinicals very seriously.”
My clinicals supervisor stands as well. “Me too.”
Ares is glaring at me as I shut the door.
“You thinking you want to stay in sports rehab when you get your degree?” Dr. Ricci asks quietly as we leave Ares to his doom.
“Sports are in my blood,” I say, because it’s noncommittal-ish and I don’t like to jinx things.
“We always have room on staff for people with good connections,” he muses.
I keep a smile on my face like it’s not irritating and embarrassing that I’d get a job offer just because I have connections. My other degrees are in accounting, computer science, marketing, and bowling industry management—long story, and no, I don’t want to talk about what happened with that bowling ball on my last day of my last job, which was also my first and only day on that job—so this is the first time networking has had the potential to play into my future.
“Oh, I don’t know that I’d do you any good,” I say brightly as I check the board to see who I’m assisting this afternoon. “They won’t even hire me to drive their Zamboni.”
“Hm.”
Yep, I know that look too. The well, you are a woman driver look. Coupled with the glance back at the staff room door.
He’s going to weasel up to Ares. Use the man to try to get in with the Thrusters and score himself some hockey patients.
I’m forcing a smile when I join back up with the PT I’m shadowing today.
But I don’t feel happy.
I’m off-balance.
Because I’m no better than Dr. Ricci is, am I?
9
Felicity
Ares is gone.
Again.
“Did he say where he was going?” I ask Melba as she’s locking the front door.
“Does he ever say anything?” she counters.
She has a valid point.
I head out to my car, which has gotten a flat. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” I vent in my Harold the Grumpapotamus voice.
“Language,” I vent back in my Lucy voice. “This is an opportunity to practice tire-changing!”
Melba and Jordan, the main PT I’ve been shadowing during clinicals, pitch in—not because I’m incapable of putting on a spare tire, but because they were there—and a sick sensation slithers down my spine as I look closer at my flat.
I’d almost swear someone took a screwdriver to the wall of the tire.
The clinic is right at the edge of the Mulvaney Hill district in Copper Valley. Middle-income residential neighborhoods, low crime, lots of office buildings, and a charming district center with a smorgasbord of international restaurants, a jazz club, twenty-screen movie theater, two-story library, and boutique shops. Random tire slashings aren’t common.
Maybe I got hit by a rock on my way in this morning.
I call Kami before I leave the parking lot, and she confirms Ares picked up Loki, so that’s something. She also says I should stock up on fruit and seeds, and that she’d really like to know how old he is, because once he hits monkey puberty, he might get aggressive.
“I can’t say for sure, since we don’t know enough about his history,” she tells me, “but I checked him over, and I’ve been doing some research, and as much as Loki clearly loves Ares, it’s really not feasible to keep him as a pet. Especially not for a hockey player. Can you imagine the monkey going on the road?”
“Did you tell Ares?”
“I did. I offered to call the zoo for him, and I got the impression Ares isn’t too keen on giving up the monkey while there aren’t any problems. But if you could talk to him too, and maybe see if the prince can get more information about Loki’s age or pedigree…”
“Sure. Is he okay for a while? I mean, while Ares is on the IR?”
“Probably. But he’s a wild animal. Just be careful, okay?”
Wasn’t that the advice of the day? “Yeah. Did Ares say where he was going?”
“He didn’t actually say much of anything at all.”
No surprise there.
I drive home to Gammy’s house and find every light on and way more people hanging out than is normal for a game night, because fuck yeah, we all hang out and watch the Thrusters play on TV when they’re away. Maren and I almost always watch the games together, usually with Kami and Alina, but it’s too early for all of them to be over—the game doesn’t start until ten since the Thrusters are in LA—and none of them drive the Jaguar parked in my carport.
No, that’s my mother.
Who’s currently in the living room showing baby pictures to Ares and a couple I don’t recognize.
On the plus side, Ares has come back to Gammy’s house and is sitting obediently with his foot iced and elevated on Gammy’s prized Turkish ottoman, Loki nibbling on sunflower seeds on his shoulder.
On the negative side, my mother apparently knows I’ve moved in. And is showing complete strangers my baby booty.
“I didn’t know what to expect from a girl after having just Nick for three years,” she’s saying. “This one here, at the hockey rink, she was bent over, peering between her legs, asking if she could have hockey lessons too once her—”
“Mom! Hey! What a surprise!” I immediately switch into my Lucy voice, because Mom loves her the best. “Let’s put the baby book away and pretend like we’re normal people who don’t discuss their daughters’ fascination with getting a penis with strangers.”
“It’s okay,” the woman I don’t know says. She has blue eyes and brown hair so light, it borders on blond, and she’s looking at me weird, which I’m used to, since most people don’t expect the ventriloquism on first introduction. “I wanted to know when my penis would grow in too, after growing up with these three lugheads. Hi. Ambrosia Berger. Call me Sia.” She pronounces it See-ah, which is kinda cool, and points to the handsome dark-haired guy on the floor next to her. “This is Chase. And I don’t know why grown men still snicker every time I say penis.”
Chase swallows his snicker. Ares isn’t smiling, but he’s not frowning either, and I wonder if his ankle’s hurting him again.
Probably.
It’s a high ankle sprain. By definition, it practically has to hurt.
“You’re reinforcements?” I ask her, assuming that by these three lugheads, she’s including Zeus, who’s clearly not in the room, since invisibility cloaks aren’t real and he’d be hard to miss.
Ares scowls.
She nods. “For tonight. We flew in from New York and brought Rock Band.”
Ares scowls harder.
I can almost see the resemblance, but she’s so much more normal-sized that it’s easy to miss.
“And I dropped by because your brother’s worried about you,” my mom says. “You didn’t tell us you broke up with Doug. That’s good, though, honey. He was too clingy. I can wait another year or so for grandkids if you’re going to find someone a little less clingy and snooty next time. And how lucky am I that you had friends here to open the door. Gammy would be so happy to see her house getting good use.”
She st
ill has my baby book open to the page of me dropping trou at one of Nick’s first skating lessons. Something creaks overhead, like perhaps Gammy’s expressing her opinion of her house guests. “Sounds like Gammy’s still happy,” I say in my Tim the Goat voice.
Mom tilts her eyes upward. No plaster’s falling off the ceiling this time, because Gammy always did like Mom the best.
Even though Gammy was Dad’s mom.
“Just don’t spill anything on the carpet,” Mom says. “You know how much she loved this carpet.”
We all look down.
The carpet used to be beige. And fluffy.
I’m almost positive.
Thirty years ago. When it was new.
Now, it looks like a muddy poodle donated all its fur to cover the living room floor, but it was two ears too short to do the whole job even after a steamroller went to town flattening and stretching it.
It’s possible Gammy’s eyesight was going long before we realized it.
“So you’re a physical therapist,” Sia says brightly to me.
Chase sucks his lips together like he’s trying not to laugh. When he turns his head, something sparkles in his chin cleft. Weird, but I’m well used to weird and getting more used to weirder by the day.
“Finishing my PTA degree. Physical therapist assistant,” I say.
“She could’ve been a doctor,” my mom tells them. “She was reading at two. Valedictorian of her high school class at thirteen. She was accepted to Harvard but stayed here for Thomas Kelly University since she wasn’t old enough to drive yet. At least, not for her first degree.”
“I could’ve gone to Vassar,” Sia says.
Chase ducks his head. Ares growls. Again. And this time, Loki makes a distressed noise, throws his seeds at Sia, and hugs Ares around the head.
Sia grins. “But I turned out fine without it, and it looks like Felicity’s doing just fine too.”
Yeah, me moving into Gammy’s house to live with her ghost and picking up random hockey-playing and monkey roommates while I try to find myself at twenty-seven is totally doing just fine.
Working for the Thrusters is the dream.
Not the specific degrees.
I haven’t had as much passion in all five of my chosen fields of study combined as what Ares has in his passion for playing hockey.