Dear Roomie

by Kate Meader

  If only letting her own worries dissolve were that easy. Kennedy needed to find somewhere to live. She’d had a nice, rent-free deal for the last few months but all good things had to crash and burn. She just hadn’t expected it to end with no notice, changed locks, and a banker’s box of memories in the trunk of her car.

  Now would be the moment to call it quits and head back out on her travels, yet she wasn’t quite ready to move on, not when she’d only arrived a few months ago to be nearer to the person who was currently not doing what she was told.

  “Edie, you’re supposed to close your eyes and assume corpse,” she said to the woman looking up at her like a cheeky cherub. “This is the time to relax.”

  “I’ll relax when I’m dead. In real corpse pose!”

  Oh God. When Kennedy had volunteered to give this class to the seniors at Edie’s residential home—had to put that yoga certification to some use—she hadn’t expected that the most troublesome student would be the woman who was the closest thing she had to family.

  Edie Dobson had moved into the senior’s home about six months ago, though to hear her say it, she was pushed headfirst by her son, who lived in LA and never came to visit. Kennedy had been in Malaysia when she heard about Edie’s health troubles, so by the time she returned to Chicago, it was a done deal. Not that she could have changed the situation but she would’ve preferred to be here to put Edie at ease and help her settle.

  Thrilled to have Kennedy back on US soil, Edie had offered her use of the house on Primrose Avenue until it was sold. Now it was and squatter’s rights weren’t a thing. Neither was Kennedy sure she could tolerate another night sleeping in her car.

  Almost five minutes had passed and the inmates were getting restless, so Kennedy raised the lights. “Okay, everyone, great session! I’ll be back on Friday but in the meantime, try to remember to stretch when you get out of bed in the morning. It really helps to keep those bones limber.”

  “Watch you don’t fracture something in the meantime,” Edie offered.

  “No one will fracture anything if you’re mindful of your body and its limits,” Kennedy called out. “Just don’t push it into anything that feels painful.” To Edie, she hissed, “I could do without the colorful commentary. You’re scaring people.”

  Edie held out a hand for a boost upright. “Let’s hit the juice bar.”

  A few minutes later, they were in the sunroom with the Jamba Juice smoothies Kennedy had brought and refrigerated in the community kitchen during the class. Larkvale didn’t have a juice bar, of course, but Edie liked to refer to their post-yoga meet-ups over smoothies as such. Adorable.

  Seated at the big window overlooking the blandly perfect garden, they took a few quiet moments to drink their smoothies and settle in.

  “Did you drive by the house on the way over?”

  “I did. They’ve already painted the front door a teal color.”

  “The red is gone?” Edie’s lip curled in disdain. “I hope it chips.”

  Kennedy chuckled. “My kind of petty.”

  Edie’s son, Louis had closed on his mom’s house a week ago and put the money in trust for her remaining days. Which was fine—Kennedy wasn’t here to claim a cut of the woman’s cash. She just wanted to be close to someone who cared. She could have taken a different route to avoid passing the house where she’d lived for three years until she was eighteen, then the last three months while she tried to get her shit together, but she had been parked on a side street two blocks over and it was the shortest way from point A to B. Also, she liked to think there was something therapeutic about driving by. Each change the new owners made took her a little further away from that time, the most heartbreaking period of her life.

  After her parents died when she was fifteen, she had moved in with Edie, her grandfather’s second wife. Papa John (yep, that’s what he went by) had passed a couple of years before, but Edie had stepped up and given her shelter. Took her into her home and her heart.

  Kennedy could never truly repay her, but since Edie’s strokes (they call them mini strokes, so not serious at all, Kennedy!), she could be here to make sure she was as comfortable as possible.

  “So how’s the new roommate?”

  “Great! But the landlord’s the worst.” Edie would freak if she knew that Kennedy was living out of her car. “Still hasn’t fixed the shower. Do you mind if I take a quick one in your room before I leave?”

  Edie waved her assent. “I’m glad you were able to find a place so quickly.”

  Kennedy kept her smile pinned on. She had an appointment with a guy she’d found online this afternoon. The place she’d looked at yesterday had a meth lab vibe. Today’s option couldn’t be worse.

  “Yeah, me, too. Pity you’re so entrenched here. We could get our own place together.” She was only half-joking. She knew that with Edie’s health concerns this was the best place for her, but what she wouldn’t give to have somewhere to cushion her fall.

  This wasn’t Edie’s problem, however. She had been on hand when Kennedy needed a place to land ten years ago, and Kennedy had no doubt she’d dip into her savings to find a place for the girl she treated like her granddaughter. But when it came down to it, Edie didn’t owe her a thing. She’d already given her use of her Ford Focus—now her castle—and Kennedy wouldn’t take another cent from her.

  Edie raised an eyebrow. “Us as roommates? And what happens when your feet get itchy? Off to Taiwan or Thailand or wherever your mood takes you? No, I was resistant at first but I like being Queen Bee here. It didn’t take long to ascend the throne and boot that Ginny van Patten off it!”

  Ginny van Patten was the head inmate at Larkvale, or had been until Edie arrived and usurped her. A fierce rivalry was born.

  “Just an idea. You’re right. I’ll want to travel again soon.” She especially didn’t want to be here during any Snowpocalypse when the wind off Lake Michigan would cut through her bones.

  “I’ve had another idea,” Edie said after a healthy pull on her straw. “For the bucket list.”

  “Oh, yeah? Spill.”

  Edie took out the notebook she carried with her everywhere. Since finishing up her rehab stint and taking up residence at Larkvale, she had been adding to her bucket list. She pointed at the last addition: See a male stripper.

  “Surely you’ve already done that.”

  “No, I have not. I was a married woman.”

  “Never stopped anyone.” Grinning, she took the list from her and gave it another eyeball.

  Go ice skating.

  Get a tattoo.

  Learn yoga.

  Do Karaoke.

  Go on a scavenger hunt.

  Solve a mystery.

  “I’d like to say you could cross off the yoga one but you’re one of my worst students.” She also suspected Edie added it to give Kennedy something to do while she remained Stateside. “Some of these are dangerous. Ice skating? You could break a hip.”

  “I’m not an invalid.”

  “I know you’re not.” But she had given Kennedy a helluva scare. Edie had always been the strongest person Kennedy knew, and it was hard to see her at less than a hundred percent. Edie was all Kennedy had left except for an uncle in Texas, who had never shown any interest after her parents died. The fire had destroyed everything, burned Kennedy’s childhood and the future of her family to ash, and her only remaining blood relative wasn’t willing to step up.

  Edie was. Edie treated Kennedy like a granddaughter.

  That was how she introduced her to everyone. Have you met my granddaughter?

  Pressing back the threat of tears—she was so emotional these days!—she refocused on Edie and her damn list.

  “There’s nothing wrong with living life to the fullest. I just want to be sure you also have longevity in there. I’ll do some research on tattoo parlors and see what I can find.”

  “You should do research on your own list,” Edie said. “Give you something to look forward to.”

&n
bsp; Kennedy’s list would be comprised of one item: live another day.

  “Bucket lists are for things you’ve left hanging.” Kennedy wasn’t even a fan of the fact that Edie had one. It had the stink of a death countdown about it.

  “For people like you, they usually involve sex.”

  Good thing Kennedy had finished her smoothie or she might have choked on it. “At my age?”

  “You’re twenty-five, hardly on the shelf just yet, honey. I’m sure there are lots of positions you might want to try.”

  “I’m going to very obviously change the subject here. Are you flying out to LA for Thanksgiving or is Louis coming here?”

  Edie screwed up her lips in horror. “Whatsherface has already told him she wants to go to Mexico.” Whatsherface was Louis’s third wife of four years, and would you have guessed that Edie wasn’t a fan? Neither were she and her son all that close.

  “I’ll be here, so I can stop by. A lot of the dog walking clients go out of town so I might have a couple of canine friends with me.”

  “I worry about you. Not settled. All these different jobs.”

  “I like my freedom. I don’t need a lot to get by.” For the last seven years she had stayed on the balls of her feet, ready to make a break when she got bored or reflective or close to anyone.

  Though that last one rarely happened. As soon as she saw the telltale signs—a softness in a guy’s expression, a tight hand caging her body in that sleepy post-orgasmic state—she was out of there as quick as her wanderlusting feet could carry her. Constant movement was an art, and now she was saving up to ensure there was always a destination.

  Edie leaned in. “I’d like to see you happy … before I go.”

  Kennedy rolled her eyes at this obvious play on her emotions. “Where are you going? The spa?”

  “I might be in excellent health now but when it’s your time, it’s your time. And I’m definitely closer to the end than the beginning.”

  “Keep up the smoothie diet and yoga classes and you will live forever.”

  “I’d mostly like to see you with a nice man. Or a woman. Whatever makes you happy.”

  Edie added a maudlin smile, the one that said Kennedy’s act might have fooled the masses but Edie Dobson was not one of them. Buddha said that attachment was the root of all suffering, and Kennedy embodied that philosophy to its core.

  That didn’t mean she couldn’t have a little fun. She was a hit it and quit it kind of girl, and used her rolling stone status to ensure no mossy entanglements. There was always some cute Australian backpacker or a nice British digital nomad type available to service her needs. These days in the Chicago burbs with that cold air whipping off the lake, pickings were slim, however, especially when you spent most of your time with the elderly, cute puppies, and entitled coffee shop customers.

  A sudden image of cheekbones and a forbidding scowl flashed before her eyes: Mr. Extra Shot Americano, or Hot Jerk, as she had dubbed him. Six-two, midnight-dark hair, denim-blue eyes.

  Kennedy wasn’t prone to hyperbole, but even she recognized the zing in the air when this guy was on the premises. “Reid D” was the name he gave, usually with a haughty arch of his eyebrow as if they should have memorized it by now. As if they didn’t see a thousand faces a day and his was the one that should rise above the ho-hum invisibility of the coffee-loving crowd.

  So what if it is was a handsome face.

  A gorgeous face.

  For Kennedy, it was ruined by the scowl of the beast.

  He rarely responded to anyone’s attempts at small talk. Half the time he looked at his phone while he placed his order, not even offering the common courtesy of eye contact. Elena, her co-worker, said he played professional hockey and had recently been traded to the Chicago Rebels, the local NHL franchise. (Traded, like he was horsemeat or a stock exchange commodity.) Color her unimpressed.

  But yesterday, Hot Jerk hadn’t lived up to his moniker. It was weird hearing him speak complete sentences in that deep-chested tone that belonged to a bass or someone who did voice overs for insurance company commercials. Like he was auditioning for Terminator, the Musical. (It doesn’t exist, you say? Someone really ought to make that.)

  When he had curled his hand around the cup, Kennedy took notice. Oh, did she. Big, strong, with long fingers. An artist’s or a piano player’s hand, she would have thought except for the athlete thing. She spent a lot of time looking at hands while modeling for an art class over at the community college.

  Shaking off thoughts of hot scowls and hotter hands, she refocused on Edie.

  “I’d rather play the field. You know, like you’re doing here.” She gave a subtle nod to one of the other residents, a dapper gentleman who paid a lot of attention to Edie any time Kennedy came to visit.

  Edie perked up as if the residential aide had swung by with the dessert cart. “All right there, George? Have you met my granddaughter?”

  “This is your granddaughter? She looks like your sister.”

  Kennedy rolled her eyes while Larkdale’s own Casanova in high-waisted pants ambled away.

  Edie whispered, “He let me have the last chocolate chip cookie after dinner last night.”

  “Go Edie, go Edie ...” Kennedy sang and did a little shimmy in her chair.

  “We’ll see,” Edie said smugly. “Looks like I have a better chance of scoring these days than you do.”

  Harsh, but as was often the case when our elders spoke, not entirely wrong.

  3

  Reid liked to get to the practice facility ninety minutes before he needed to be on the ice. Some players used that time to warm up, some for assessment by the trainers. Some liked to spend it joking around with their teammates.

  Not Reid. Sure, he suffered aches and muscle pulls like everyone else. No elite athlete went a day without nursing some kind of injury. Playing through pain was ingrained in them all. Neither was he the kind of guy who spent time in the pockets of other players. This wasn’t play, it was his job. When he wasn’t checking in for a physical, he was in the viewing stand of the practice rink for at least an hour before he needed to dress. It was quiet and Reid liked the quiet.

  His phone burned in his pocket, the message from Henri a sword about to drop, left while Reid was driving to practice. Typical from the man who liked to rant uninterrupted and enjoyed the option to leave a voice mail to do so. Then he would bemoan that Reid hadn’t picked up in the first place.

  No way to win that argument.

  Now Reid listened and tried to parse the tone, though really he knew him well enough to understand exactly what was in his head. Henri Durand, NHL legend, the Monster of Montreal, and Reid’s stepfather, wasn’t exactly a closed book.

  Neither was he happy with Reid’s play at the home game against New York two nights ago. This was par for the course. If Reid had a good game—and a good game for Henri was at least two points, preferably solo with no assists—Henri called immediately. Any praise was invariably brief, because Henri preferred to spend the call discussing Reid’s mistakes.

  Sitting in the stands with no one but the ice to eavesdrop, he decided it would be better to get it out of the way.

  “You at practice?” Henri barked when he picked up.

  “Starts in a few. What’s up?”

  “What the fuck was that on Thursday?”

  “I can’t control what Coach does. He’s experimenting with the lines, switching me up with Foreman.”

  “If you were making more of an impact, he would be putting you in more. You know that.”

  Reid gripped the back of the seat in front of him and watched dispassionately as his knuckles popped white against his skin. One, two, three …

  Henri crashed through Reid’s answering silence. Something about Coach Calhoun being an asshole, the incompetence of the Rebels management—what did anyone expect with a team run by women—and Americans not knowing their asses from their elbows. The usual.

  “You want a multi-year contract, don’t yo
u?”

  What a stupid question. Of course he did. He hadn’t made enough of an impression to stick with any team, and the Rebels was his fourth in five years. But did he want to be in the same city as Bast, constantly compared to his more talented brother, always falling short? The goldfish bowl was more pressurized here.

  He grunted in response.

  “How much gym time you getting in?”

  Reid went through his regimen, though Henri knew it off by heart.

  “That’s more than your brother. Careful you don’t overdo it.”

  Reid’s fingers made dents in the seat back. Asking him to take it easy now was a little like pulling the steak away from the rabid, starving dog. He was a product of Henri’s masterplan.

  When Reid was eight years old, he had to decide whether to make hockey his life. Bastian was six and already committed but Reid was still unsure. He didn’t take the same joy from it as his brother, not that it would have made a difference. Reid had never been the kind of person who needed one hundred percent satisfaction in everything he did. Happiness was never guaranteed so if you could be good at something, could make people proud of you, then maybe that would be happiness of a kind.

  Henri had asked him back then, “You want this, Reid? Because you’ll always need to try harder than your brother. You have to want it because it will never come as naturally to you.”

  Reid had looked up at the man who married his mother when Reid was two years old, who had thrown him on the ice when he was five, and now was hoping to have sons who followed in his legendary glide. This man was as tough as old skate boot leather. If he was unhappy with you and your effort levels he let you know. If Reid didn’t want to play, Henri would have accepted it but something fragile would have broken. The tentative thread of father and almost-son. Reid didn’t want that to happen. He might not be as good as Bastian, Henri’s biological son, but he could be if he tried.

  Today he repeated what he had said nineteen years ago on the practice rink Henri built ten miles outside of Grenville, Quebec. “I don’t mind working hard.”

  Henri chuckled darkly. “Yeah, anything to beat your brother, right?”