The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

by Mariana Zapata

  It only took a few moments before Christian threw his arms out to the sides and took two steps toward the man I was married to. His stance became confrontational even before he pulled his helmet off and threw it, his feet taking him the two other steps between him and Aiden.

  The big guy stood tall, his hands minutely flexing at his hips. Maybe no one else would notice the movement but I did. Christian’s face was visible on the screen, his cheeks turned red, his mouth getting wider as one could only assume he was yelling.

  And then it happened.

  Christian’s fist flew forward and Aiden’s head jerked back just slightly. The big guy took a step backward as his hands fell to his sides.

  Christian hit him again.

  The man known as The Wall of Winnipeg dropped his helmet on the ground almost casually. His big hands flexed and stretched wide at his sides shortly before he lunged. That huge fist went up and connected; Christian’s head flew back. Aiden hit him again with that dominant left hand, his big body up and towering over the smaller man’s by that point so that the only thing visible after the second hit was Christian on the ground just as players ran up to them.

  Aiden let them push him away as he backed up, his attention staying focused on the wide receiver on the ground as they became surrounded by other players and staff.

  Zac tapped his thumb against the screen, turning his head to give me a wide-eyed look.

  I could only stare at him with my mouth just slightly open. We both only managed to blink at each other.

  And the two of us said the same thing at the same time: “Holy shit.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Diana’s horrified face warned me about what she was going to say before she actually vocalized it. “Get inside before anyone sees you,” she practically hissed.

  I made sure she watched me roll my eyes as I brushed past her into her apartment. Yeah, I knew I had about an inch of my natural hair color peeking out from my roots, but I didn’t really care. The only reason why I hadn’t dyed it back to its normal reddish brown was because I’d texted her for the first time since Thanksgiving to ask what box of dye at the pharmacy she recommended, and gotten:

  You’re already on my last nerve. Buy it and I’ll kill you.

  Which was why I found myself driving an hour to go visit her on her day off a couple of weeks after Thanksgiving, putting up with the sneer on her face as her gaze roamed over my hair again. I swear she might have even shuddered a little.

  Her repulsion wasn’t enough to keep me from kissing her on the cheek and giving her butt a slap in ‘hello.’ It had been way too long since we’d last seen each other. She’d pretended to be mad long enough.

  She gave me a parting smack in return as her eyes wandered over me briefly. “Besides your hair, you look really good.”

  I felt really good. “I’ve been running four days a week and riding a stationary bike once a week.”

  Diana eyeballed me again. “You should probably buy new clothes soon.”

  “Maybe.” I shrugged and looked her over, not so subconsciously looking for finger-shaped bruises on any of her exposed skin. I didn’t find any, but I did notice the bags under her eyes. “You look tired.”

  The fact she didn’t flip me off when that would have been her normal reaction didn’t hit me until much later. “I am tired. I’m glad you noticed.” She knew better than to wait for me to apologize. “I’ve been working doubles, I’m not getting enough sleep. I’m turning into you.”

  “A successful, hardworking woman. I think I’m going to shed a tear.”

  “Oh, fuck off. Go into the kitchen and take your shirt off,” she cracked up. I didn’t even get a chance to make a joke about her wanting me to strip before she stopped me with a hand. “This isn’t Striptease. I’m not giving you a dollar or taking you out to dinner first.”

  “Fair enough,” I muttered and made my way into the kitchen where I peeled my T-shirt over my head.

  “So… how have you been?” she asked slow and purposely awkward.

  I used the same dull tone. “I’m fine. And you?”

  “Good,” my robot-voiced best friend replied.

  Our eyes met and we both smiled. She shoved at my shoulder and I tried to pinch her stomach. “Are we fine now?” I asked with a laugh.

  “Yeah, we’re fine. Now tell me everything I’ve missed.”

  We spent the next hour talking. I told her about Thanksgiving and going to Aiden’s game. Twenty of those minutes consisted of us going over the day of my little brother’s game, how Susie had showed up, what Aiden had said to her husband, and then explaining the hatred on the big guy’s face as he’d stared at my sister. I told her about him helping me with the Christmas tree and lights. How he got into a fight with Christian, whom she remembered clearly from that night at the bar because she’d threatened to kick his ass after I told her what had happened.

  By the end of it, she had me under a helmet that looked like something out of the NASA space program, and she looked dazed.

  “Jesus,” she said twice.

  “I thought I was over this stage in my life.”

  “No shit. It’s like something out of those novelas my mom watches.”

  “The same ones we used to watch with her,” I pointed out. It was how I’d learned Spanish.

  Diana laughed from the spot she’d taken in front of me, sitting with her legs crossed. “We would run home after school and watch them, didn’t we?” She made a wistful noise. “It seems like forever ago, huh?”

  It really did. I nodded. They were some of my fondest memories before I’d been moved across town and never experienced them again. While living with my mom had left me with a handful of good memories and a dozen terrible ones, it had still been everything I’d known.

  Di seemed to brush off whatever distant memory she was thinking of and asked, “What are you gonna do then?”

  “With what?”

  “With your husband. Who else?”

  She could have been talking about my sister. Smart-ass. “Nothing.”

  Diana gave me this expression that said, ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’ “Don’t ‘nothing’ me. You’re still goo-goo with him. I can see it.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her I wasn’t goo-goo over anybody, but she did her hand thing again, stopping me.

  “You’re really gonna try and lie to me? I can see it, Vanny. Hello. You can’t sneak anything by the master.” I’d snuck my marriage by her, but why bring that up? “Seems to me like he likes you too. I don’t think he’d spend so much time with you if he didn’t.”

  All I could do was let out a restrained grunt.

  “You’re gonna be together for the next five years. Why not make the best out of it?” she brought up.

  I wanted to mess with my glasses, but I kept my hand lowered. “We made a deal, Di. This was supposed to be business. It isn’t his fault I’m an idiot.”

  “Why are you an idiot? Because you want someone to love you?”

  “Because he doesn’t love anything. He doesn’t want to. How awkward would it be if I did or said anything? I’m not going to back out on our deal now. He cares about me, but that’s all.”

  If there was anyone in the world who knew me almost as well as I knew myself, it was her. And what she said next confirmed that. “Vanny, I love the hell out of you. You’re my sister from another mister, you know that, but you have a messed up conception of what you’re willing to work for and risk. I don’t know if he’s capable of loving you or not, but what’s the worse that will happen? You guys are married. He isn’t going to divorce you now.”

  What was the worse that would happen?

  I’d lose my friend.

  Diana reached forward and tugged at the hem of my jeans. “Do whatever you want. I only want you to be happy. You deserve it.”

  I scrunched up my nose, not willing to talk about Aiden any longer, every time I did, especially when it was with the L-word in the subject, it made my
entire body hurt. I’d loved enough people in my life who didn’t love me back and didn’t bother hiding it. So I guess Diana was right—there was only so much risk I was willing to take.

  That was depressing.

  Clearing my throat, I pointed at the Christmas tree behind her, ready to talk about something else. I couldn’t believe the holidays were less than a week away now. When I’d worked for Aiden, time had gone by fast, but since I’d quit, it went by even faster than before. “When are you leaving for your parents?”

  “I’m leaving Christmas Eve. I have to be back at work on the twenty-sixth,” she explained. “Are you staying here?”

  Where else would I go?

  * * *

  “I’m takin’ off,” Zac said from my doorway a few days later.

  Spinning in my chair, I blinked over at him before coming to my feet. “Okay. I’ll walk you down.”

  “Aww, you don’t have to.”

  I rolled my eyes and pushed at his shoulders when I was right in front of him. “I want to give you your Christmas present.”

  “In that case, lead the way, darlin’,” he said even as he took a step back and let me walk ahead.

  The Christmas tree lights were turned off when we got downstairs, and I pushed the gifts underneath it aside to find Zac’s. Picking the two perfectly wrapped boxes out from the corner where I’d stashed them, I handed them over. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Can I open them now?” he asked like a little boy.

  “Go for it.”

  Zac ripped the paper off each box and opened them with a grin on his face. Inside were sleep pants and slippers. What do you get a man who had everything? Things he really liked, even if he had a dozen other of the same stuff.

  “Vanny,” he gurgled, holding his arm wide with one gift in each hand.

  “You’re welcome,” I said, stepping into his embrace.

  He squeezed me and rocked me from side to side. “Thank you.”

  “Sure.”

  He took a step back and put his things into his bag before shoving half his arm in and yanking out what looked like a card. “For you, my girl.”

  I took the card from him with a big smile on my face, touched that he’d gotten me one. I tore it open and pulled the card out, opening it to find a gift card inside for one of the local sporting goods stores. But it was the horrible scrawl inside that really caught my eye.

  To my closest friend,

  Merry Christmas, Vanny. I don’t know what I would’ve done w/o you the last few months.

  Love you

  -Z

  “I’m not good at buyin’ presents, so buy yourself some new shoes for the marathon, ya hear? You better have ‘em by the time I come home. Don’t go buyin’ somebody else somethin’,” he prattled.

  “Thank you,” I muttered, giving him another hug. “I promise I’ll buy myself something. When are you getting back?”

  “I’m gonna stay through New Year’s. My PawPaw hasn’t been doin’ so well, so I wanna spend some time with him.” He winked. “And this real sweetheart I used to date in high school messaged me a few days ago to see if Big Texas was gonna be in town.”

  I snickered. Big Texas. There was no way she was referring to him as a person. “What happened to that girl you were talking to here?”

  Zac made a noise. “She was cuckoo.”

  “Have fun back home then.”

  “I will.” He leaned down and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Go visit Diana if you get lonely, hear me?”

  “I’ll be fine.” This wouldn’t be my first Christmas spent without a big group. I knew I would survive. I slapped him on the butt when he turned to head to the door. “Drive careful and tell your mom I said hi.”

  Zac grinned at me over his shoulder, and just like that, he was gone and I was home alone.

  * * *

  I shut the garage door with a slight smile on my face, Aiden’s Christmas present in hand, torn between feeling pretty lousy and slightly excited about the little treasure waiting for tomorrow morning.

  Going for a ten mile run earlier had exhausted me, but not enough. I’d baked sugar cookies shaped in trees, candy canes, and stars took my mind off of everything for a couple of hours, and then the doorbell had rang and the post office delivery person presented me with four different boxes labeled to me. I’d opened them up like a little kid.

  My foster parents, Diana, her parents, and my little brother had all sent me gifts in different levels of wrapping. I’d gotten a pack of water colors, colored pencils, several pairs of new underwear—from the only person who would buy me that—a pretty watch, and pajamas.

  Miss u, a card in my little brother’s gift said. He was spending the holidays with one of his teammate’s family in Florida.

  I’d sent them all gifts two weeks before, even sending my mom and her husband a gift basket. Luckily, I hadn’t been expecting a present from them, otherwise I would have been sorely disappointed. The gifts served to make me feel loved and lonely, and I wasn’t sure how the hell it was possible to feel two such conflicting emotions.

  Aiden had been home since noon, and I could tell he was in a strange mood. He’d been awfully quiet, spending his time working out and also working on a puzzle in the breakfast nook while I’d made cookies, and then he’d headed upstairs saying he was going to take a nap. I stayed downstairs only long enough to make sure Aiden was asleep; then I’d taken off to pick up his present. Luckily, he’d still been asleep when I got home, and I set his gift up in the garage, confident that Aiden wouldn’t be leaving anywhere and spoil his surprise. Inside, I turned on the television to drown out any possible noises that came from the garage, then sat on the floor and used the watercolors my foster parents had sent me.

  I kept checking the garage every hour since then. Nearly all the lights in the house were turned off when I made my way through the house with the package in my hand, my back aching from so much time hunched over. At the bottom of the stairs, I listened for Aiden, but there wasn’t a peep. Why would there be? Despite it being Christmas Eve, he’d had to wake up early and report to team headquarters to check in with the trainers because his lower back had been giving him trouble the last couple of weeks.

  In the laundry room, I set the carrier down. I’d already put two blankets inside, refilled the water bottle mounted to the door, and put food into the small bowl that attached to the door too. I’d let the little rascal out on the front lawn and waited until it pooped and peed. The cute face peeked out at me through the grate and I stuck my fingers in there to give its nose a rub.

  While the garage was well insulated, and I knew it wouldn’t be cold, I hated the idea of leaving him in there. Taking it up to my room was out of the question because I had a feeling it would bark. I left the light on for him and made my way back to the kitchen where I cracked open the container of sugar cookies I made and inhaled two of them.

  I turned off all the lights except the set under the kitchen cabinets, filled a glass with water, and headed upstairs. In my room, I grabbed clothes to take a shower, feeling downright off. I stayed under the stream longer than I usually would have and climbed out of the tub, telling myself to quit being such a party pooper.

  I had just opened the bathroom door when I heard, “Van?”

  “Aiden?” Okay, that was a stupid question. Who else would it be? With my dirty clothes under my arm, I walked down the hall. His door was open. Usually when he went to sleep, he closed it, and I guess I hadn’t glanced over when I’d come upstairs.

  Sitting with his back propped up against the headboard, a bedside lamp illuminated part of the room. Half of his body was under the covers and the other half was unfortunately covered in a T-shirt by one of his endorsers. Aiden gave me a speculative look.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, resting my shoulder against the doorframe.

  “Yes,” he answered in such an earnest, easy way that I didn’t know what to do with myself.

  Huh. “What are you doing?” The televi
sion wasn’t on and a book was set on his nightstand.

  “I was thinking about the game last week, and what I could have done differently.”

  Of all the things in the world, why did that just happen to reach straight into my ribs and grab my heart? “Of course you were.”

  Aiden lifted one of those big, brawny shoulders, his eyes going to the super, sexy long-sleeved button up flannel pajamas I had on. “Are you going to sleep?” he asked, even as his gaze raked its way back up to my face.

  “I’m not that tired. I’ll probably watch some more TV or something.”

  Even in the dark light, I could tell his cheek twitched. “Watch it with me,” he suggested easily.

  Wait. What?

  “You’re not tired?”

  “I took a long nap. There’s no chance I’m going to sleep soon,” he explained.

  I smiled and rubbed my foot along the edge of where the hardwood floor hallway met the carpet of his bedroom. “Are you sure you don’t have more plays to think about?”

  Aiden gave me a sour look.

  He was inviting me to watch television with him. What other answer was there besides, “Okay”?

  By the time I got back to his room after depositing my dirty clothes in the hamper in my room, the big guy had scooted over to one side of the bed and turned on the forty-something inch television propped on one of his dressers. With his hands linked behind his head, he watched me as I came in, feeling just slightly awkward.

  I gave him a tiny smile and kept eye contact as I pulled the comforter up and slipped under it, waiting to see if he’d complain. He didn’t. There was about two feet of space between us on the California King. I moved the pillow against the headboard and settled in with a sigh.

  “Van?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Tugging the sheets up to my neck, I blinked at the ceiling. “Nothing.”

  “Don’t make me ask you again.”

  And that only made me feel bad. It was easy to forget how much he knew about me. “I’m fine. I’ve just been feeling pretty mopey today for some reason, maybe it’s hormones or something. That’s all.” I wrung my hands. “It’s dumb. I love Christmas.”