by Chloe Liese
Willa’s as au naturel on the inside as she is on the outside, and that is my kind of person. The people I get along with typify a “what you see is what you get” mindset, and in that way, Willa’s very like my two good friends in LA, Annie and Lo. Making friends doesn’t come easily to me, but I feel like I’m becoming friends with down-to-earth, cheeseburger-loving Willa Sutter.
Ryder grins at her, making Willa’s smile widen. I drop my burger to my plate with a splat and drag a fry through ketchup. “Good grief. Just kiss already.”
Ryder laughs. Planting his lips softly on Willa’s temple, he then turns back to his conversation, a half circle of men made up of Ren, Rob our captain, François our goalie, and Lin, a promising rookie defender.
“Sorry about that.” Willa’s cheeks turn bright pink as she sips her lemonade. “We’re still in that I-really-like-you-and-always-want-to-jump-your-bones phase.”
I wave it away, fry in hand. “I’m the one who should apologize. My brain’s an unfiltered place. Most of what it thinks tends to come barreling out of my mouth. I didn’t mean to be rude. You’re in love and happy. Nothing to be sorry for.”
Willa smiles as she picks up her burger. “Thanks. I mean I used to find it gross when I saw people in public looking so in love. I always thought, ‘Is it that hard to keep that kind of hanky-panky for home?’” She takes a big bite of burger and says around it, “Then I met Ryder and realized, yeah, with the right person, it’s that hard.”
My burger catches in my throat. What a terrifying possibility, to find yourself so attracted to someone you can’t help but love them. I try to smile to show her I’m okay, but I’m incapable of an involuntarily grin. Every time I try, I end up giving the impression that I’m about to throw up.
Willa laughs. “You look like I just told you that’s dog shit between your hamburger bun.”
Bingo.
I finally clear my throat and stare down at my food. “I, uh…” My stance on relationships is hard to explain. And while I like Willa, it’s not something I’m ready to get into with her.
She nudges me. “Hey, I’m just teasing you.” Tipping her head, she stares at me for a long minute. “You’re not a relationship gal?”
I shake my head, then take a bite of food. “No, I’m not. No knocks against them. They’re just not a good fit for me.”
“Yeah. I was very against them myself when I met the lumberjack.” She throws a thumb over her shoulder to the group of men where Ryder stands. Ren laughs at something he says, making Ryder laugh, too.
They’re nearly twins in profile, except that everything about Ren just screams at me to look at him. Unruly russet waves, long nose, and sharp cheekbones. That playoff beard he somehow keeps neat, so I can still see the hint of full lips that twist in wry amusement. His eyes crinkle when he laughs, and he has this habit of clutching his chest and bending over slightly, like someone’s capacity to amuse him goes straight to his heart.
So happy. So carefree. What’s it like to live like that? To be so unburdened?
I have no clue. In past relationships, I’ve been the burden. A set of issues to be handled, complications to be managed. Back home, people treated me like a problem, not a person. And so, I came to two conclusions. First, it was time to move away, and second, for the sake of protecting myself from repeating that humiliation, my heart is best left alone, safe under lock and key.
So I wear black. I don’t smile. I hide behind a heavy curtain of dark hair and a mile-long to-do list. I welcome the witch metaphors, walk around with a frown, and grunt in response whenever possible. I don’t make friends with the neighbors or attend team picnics. I stay safe in my solitude, cold and untouchable.
For damn good reason. I will not be treated how I was ever again.
Willa pats my hand gently, then pops a fry in her mouth. “Want to know what made me change my mind?”
I glance up at her. “No.”
That makes her laugh again. “Ah, Frankie. You’re a keeper. Rooney’s going to love you.”
“Rooney?”
“My best friend from college. She’s at Stanford now. Biomedical law.”
A rare feat for me, I manage to bite my tongue and not mention my own plans for law school. Yes, I sent my application to UCLA months ago. Yes, I obsessed and slaved over my application, and I’m practically positive it’s perfect. But I haven’t received my acceptance letter.
I keep my mouth shut and suck down some root beer.
“One of the Bergman brood will inevitably have a birthday soon,” Willa says. From what I can remember of what he’s said about his family, Ren has a daunting number of siblings, most of whom live nearby. He’s one of those rare athletes who got drafted by his hometown and never wants to leave it. Which, to this ex-New Yorker who deliberately moved cross-country, is mind-blowing.
“Ziggy, is it?” Willa stares up at the ceiling, going through some sort of mental calendar. “Yeah, I think Ziggy’s next. Once Ry and I got together, especially once we moved to Tacoma, Rooney started coming to all the Bergman family parties to have the most time to see me and catch up. She’s an extroverted only child, so she fell in love with the big family, and now she’s an honorary Bergman. Come to Ziggy’s party, and you’ll meet Rooney then.”
I choke on my soda. “Uh, I don’t know why I’d be there.”
Willa pats my back gently. “Because I just invited you. I need solidarity at these things, Frankie. All these Bergmans, Rooney, too—none of them are surly or maladapted enough. Not like you and me.”
“Thanks?”
“I need a kindred cantankerous spirit. Seriously, come next time. You and Ren are friends. His mom’s always nagging him to bring a lady. I bet he’d love to have you come along.”
There are so many stupefying components to what she just said, I’m coming up short of words. I blink away, shuffling my fries around my plate.
Willa picks up her food but pauses before she takes a bite. “Also, from one crotchety soul to another, should you ever find someone who makes you want to reconsider your stance on relationships, I’m here for you, okay? Just say the word.”
Frankie
Playlist: “How to Be a Heartbreaker,” MARINA
Before I have a chance to respond to Willa’s unsettling offer, Matt, The Master of Douchical Mischief, drops next to me at the bar. I can smell beer on him.
Reaching right over me, Matt offers Willa his hand. “You’re the soccer star. Renford’s sisler-in-law,” he slurs.
“Not quite. Just Willa.” Shaking his hand, she quickly releases it, then wipes her palm on her jeans beneath the bar.
Matt’s arm lands with a hard thud around my shoulders, nearly knocking me into my food. “Frank. Frank, Frank, Frank.” He sighs. “When are you gonna stop with the ice-queen act?”
I straighten and try to shrug off his arm, but he just locks it tighter. “Frank,” he says. “We both know there’s something here—”
“Matt. Get your arm off of me before I crush your nuts with the Elder Wand.”
The Elder Wand is what I named my cane.
Yeah, I’m twenty-six, and I use a cane. It looks like smoke glass, but instead it’s acrylic and totally badass. It’s also great for smacking dweebs like Maddox in the nuts.
Matt drops his arm and frowns. “I don’t get you. You’re so hot and cold.”
“No, I’m not, Matt. I run as consistently frigid as a high-end freezer. Don’t put this on me. Just because I’m a female who’s regularly in your vicinity and not fangirling over you like the many troubled souls who buy your jockstraps on eBay does not mean I secretly desire to screw you into next week.”
Matt frowns. “You don’t?”
“I don’t.”
“What the hell, Frank?” he yells. Loud enough that everyone in the private room we’re in stops talking for a second and glances over at us.
“Matt, I think you should order an Uber now.”
“I drove,” he growls, signaling Joe.
Matt curses under his breath. “Did you just shut me off, Frank?”
“Yes.” I turn and smile apologetically at Willa as I otherwise ignore Matt. Tipping my cup, I take a drink of root beer.
“Frank.” He grabs my wrist, which sends the root beer flying from my hand and landing with an ice-cold splatter all over my shirt.
I hiss at the shock of it. “Jesus, Maddox.”
Suddenly a large hand grabs the back of Matt’s shirt and wrenches him off the barstool so violently, he tumbles to the floor. Ren bends, sweeping up my blazer, which fell too, and immediately throws it over my shoulders. When he straightens, my mouth falls open.
Ren Bergman is really not smiling.
And not-smiling Ren Bergman is a whole new animal. No, man.
Move aside, Erik the Red. There’s a new enraged ginger Viking come to slay, and Lord help me, cinnamon sexpots are my weakness. I’ve been relying on the fluorescents we work under to dull Ren’s hair to burnished bronze. I tell myself every time I see him that he’s not actually a ginger god of ice hockey glory. He’s a brassy blond god of ice hockey glory. It helped. Marginally.
But now I have to face the facts: Ren’s hair is the gorgeous copper of a fading sunset, and the anger radiating off of him is equally breathtaking.
I gape at him, Ren the Red, vengefully sexy, and command my jaw to snap shut. It’s time to find my inner feminist. To bolster my walls. Ren throwing down on my behalf should not be affecting me like this. Especially given my history.
Archaic male demonstrations of protectiveness are not sexy. Archaic male demonstrations of protectiveness are not sexy. Archaic—
Dammit, this is sexy, and my body knows it. I can’t deny it any more than I can deny my Harry Potter panties are now as wet as a rainy day at Hogwarts. Ren swivels his pale eyes, a stunning wintry blue gray, right on Maddox. They’re cold fury as they glare at him, then return to me.
“Joey, a towel, please.” His voice holds a tone of command I’ve heard Ren use on the ice countless times before, but never in any conversation involving me. My belly does a somersault as I watch a towel fly his way, before Ren immediately sets it in my hands. “Here.”
“Th-thanks,” I mutter stupidly, dabbing my shirtfront. I’m already shivering from this cold-as-balls wet shirt plastered to my skin.
Abruptly, Ren lurches toward the bar. I glance up and realize it’s Matt who slammed into him.
“Maddox,” I snap. “Stop!”
Ren shoves him off, spins, and deftly grabs Matt by the throat. “You fucking torture her. It’s enough. Leave her alone.”
Wow. Ren never swears. Well, not like that, at least not in public or with the team. Elizabethan oaths are more his speed. Hugger-mugger. Malignancy. Canker-blossom. He’s subtle about it, muttering them under his breath, but I have exceptionally good hearing, and since I caught the first one, I’m always craning to listen when I’m around him, hoping I’ll overhear another.
The worst part? He’s good at it. Like, I have to feign a coughing jag every time he uses them, or I’d run the risk of laughing, maybe even smiling, and then my reputation as resident ice-queen hard-ass would be shot.
Ren’s still throttling Matt. Perhaps it’s time to intervene before our most valuable player gets himself benched for misconduct.
“The chivalry’s unnecessary, Bergman,” I tell him. Standing slowly off the stool, I swallow a groan as my hips scream in disapproval.
We don’t like barstools, Frankie, my joints holler. You know this.
I wrap my hand around Ren’s forearm and try to ignore the soft fiery hairs beneath, the powerful tendon and muscle flexing under my grip. “Please, Ren. He’s drunk. It’s pointless.”
“Oh, there would be a point.” Ren glares at Matt and shakes him by the windpipe. “He’d learn a lesson if I beat his ass.”
“Hey now.” Rob slides in.
I sigh in relief. “Where’ve you been?”
“I had to take a leak.” Rob manages to pull Ren’s hand away from Matt’s throat. “Can’t a guy piss and not come back to the kids trying to kill each other? Ren Bergman, resorting to violence. Never thought I’d see the day. I’m sure Maddox deserves whatever you were about to do, but let’s handle this like adults.”
Matt leers at him. “Bergman’s just jealous.”
I rub the pounding spot between my eyes. “Jealous would imply he has something to envy between us, Maddox.” Or that Ren even cares who does or doesn’t hit on me. Why would he?
“Now, Matthew.” Rob cups his hand around Matt’s neck and pulls him aside. “You’re catching an Uber home. You’re going to sober up. Then, tomorrow, at practice, you’re going to apologize to Frankie.”
Rob catches my eye and furrows his brow. The first few times he did it after I started working for the team, I thought he was angry at me. That’s because I suck at reading facial expressions.
How, you ask, does someone with that kind of interpersonal hang-up work in social media? She watches lots of sports interviews and sitcoms to memorize the context and meaning for as much human behavior as possible, that’s how. But sometimes even that’s not enough, and I find myself in the dark. That’s when I simply have to ask. Which is what I had to do with Rob. Now I know that this particular expression is a nonverbal check-in.
“I’m okay,” I tell him.
He nods and yanks Matt away. Ren’s still glaring in their direction as they disappear down the back hall. When he turns and looks at me, pinning me with those icy eyes, a shiver rolls up my spine.
“Are you all right?” he asks quietly. His voice is deep, warm.
“I’m fine, Ren.” Except for my soaked Harry Potter panties. And my shredded emotional boundaries, after seeing his pissed-off, fiery alter ego that’s made forgotten corners of me blaze to life.
Leaning against the stool, I reach for my purse and signal to Joe that I want to square up. Ren’s still watching me. I feel his gaze like sunshine, heating my skin. “You’re staring at me.”
Ren blinks away. “Sorry. I’m just…concerned.”
“Concerned?”
“He grabbed you, spilled your drink all over you.”
“Thanks.” I sweep a hand down my drenched front. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Raking a hand through his hair in frustration, Ren tugs at the wavy ends. “He could have hurt you.”
I slide my card across the bar toward Joe and stare at Ren. People normally assume that I’m helpless, let alone when a handsy, oversized drunk athlete throws himself my way. Here’s Ren, referencing that physical vulnerability. This is when the usual embarrassment and anger should arrive.
But it doesn’t come.
Because as Ren looks at me, as I process his words, I can’t recall a single moment Ren’s ever acted or spoken like he thinks I can’t take care of myself. He’s never hovered behind me like I’m going to take a tumble. He doesn’t talk to me like I’m an invalid. Saying that Maddox could have hurt me isn’t a reflection on my weakness. It’s an indictment on Matt’s misuse of his strength.
Ren’s eyes lock on mine. My heart pounds against my ribs, and my throat dries up.
It’s too much. I blink away, and when I glance back, Ren’s gaze has finally shifted to my mouth. A jolt of heat sears my lips, slides down my throat, and lands, warm in my belly.
Someone’s hand rests on my back, breaking the moment. I don’t know Willa well enough to read her face, but thankfully she speaks before I’m left wondering any longer. “I was hoping you’d get to use the Elder Wand,” she says. “You okay?”
“You’re not the only one who’s disappointed. That guy’s overdue for a dick smacking.” I thank Joe when he returns my card and receipt, which I sign with a flourish. “But, yeah, I’m okay. Just tired. I should head home.”
Not that I’m sure how that’s happen
ing. Normally, I drive myself everywhere and burn through audiobooks to pass the staggering amount of time I spend in LA traffic. But my car’s “check engine” light was on yesterday, so it's in the shop. Rob drove me to Louie’s and would I’m sure gladly drive me home as well, but he’s still handling Maddox, meaning I have to wait or catch a ride with someone else. I don’t do late-night taxi rides alone.
“Frankie,” Ren says. “Let me drive you.”
I glance up at Ren and commence a Frankie-stare for the books. His eyes are luminous, gray as fog, the kind that blots out your world but for a few feet in front of you, that makes you question what’s up or down. So many times, I’ve had the unsettling feeling I could get just as lost in them.
“Let him drive you,” Willa says. She smiles while threading her arms through her jacket. Ryder steps behind her and helps her get it up over her shoulders, giving her arms an affectionate squeeze as he plants a kiss on top of her head. A small, intimate gesture brimming with so much love, I feel like I just saw something I shouldn’t have.
“I may be a little rusty on my LA geography,” she says, “but Hawthorne’s on the way. We’re staying at Ren’s for the night, and he’s driving us, too. It’ll be a dance party in the new van.”
My attention snaps to Ren. “You bought a van?”
Ren’s cheeks redden, but he stands tall. “Heck, yes, I bought a van. There’s no shame in owning a Honda Odyssey.”
Willa clears her throat and grins, while Ryder’s shoulders shake with what sounds like laughter. He hides it behind a cough into his fist.
I recognize Ren’s posture as signifying defensiveness and immediately feel bad for opening my mouth. This happens sometimes. I ask a question, and people hear…more than a question. They hear criticism or judgment or teasing. I’ve given up trying to explain that my brain isn’t wired for that subtlety, that I couldn’t imply those kinds of layers of meaning if I wanted to, because one too many times, people haven’t believed me. They hear excuses, rather than context. So, I stopped trying, and told myself to quit caring when I’m misunderstood.