Blindsided: A Moo U Hockey Romance

by Victoria Denault

  “Hey.”

  “Hey. So was Bennie suspicious? He looked like he thought something was going on with us,” Maggie says, her tone uneven from nerves.

  “Nah. Bennie didn’t suspect anything,” I sigh.

  “Then why do you sound so down?”

  “He just made me feel like shit about not re-hiring him and then he brought up Hank,” I tell Maggie.

  “Well, he’s not the one making you feel like shit there,” Maggie replies swiftly. “You tense up every time his name comes up, and you get this guilty look on your face.”

  “That’s because I do feel guilty,” I tell her as the rain drops get bigger and faster. I’ll likely be drenched by the time I get home. “Now can we talk about something else? Let’s get back to that earlier conversation about tonight. Your place or mine?”

  I hear her laugh and then she says, “How about you go have a conversation with Hank and then we can decide on the simple stuff, like where I’m going to fuck your brains out.”

  “First of all, I can’t just walk up to him and start small talk. I’ve avoided him for months,” I admit. “And second don’t talk about fucking, you’re making me hard as I walk down the street.”

  “Go to the Biscuit, ease that guilt weighing you down and then—and only then—you can come by my place and I’ll deal with your agreement violation.”

  I smile at the last part, but not the first. Still, I know she’s right. Not that I’ll give her the satisfaction of hearing that though. “See you in a little bit.”

  “Text me first, so I can make sure the coast is clear,” Maggie says. “And if you don’t go see Hank, then don’t come see me.”

  She hangs up before I can argue.

  “Bossiest woman on the planet,” I mutter and shove my phone back in my pocket. And once again, she’s right. I need to face Hank and deal with any resentment he rightfully has toward me. So I find myself turning left instead of right and the next thing I know, I’m opening the door to the Biscuit and dripping all over their floor. It’s too early for the dinner rush and too late for the lunch crowd, so they close weekdays between three and six. Still the one waitress inside greets me with a smile.

  “Hi there. We don’t open for dinner until six but I can make you a reservation for then.”

  “I’m actually here to see…” Hank’s big frame lumbers into view. He’s carrying a tray of glasses toward the bar. “Him.”

  Hank locks eyes with me and freezes. He doesn’t look happy but he doesn’t look pissed either. His face is Switzerland. “I got this, Carly.”

  The waitress nods and disappears somewhere in the back of the restaurant with a tray of empty salt shakers. Hank gently puts the tray of glasses down onto the bar top and then leans on the polished oak beside it. “I put on a pot of coffee if you want some. And I got my usual afternoon snack of a couple of oat muffins in the back.”

  “Stop,” I say with a small shake of my head. “Stop being so nice to me.”

  Hank blinks and then chuffs out a silent laugh. “I don’t hate you for letting me go, Tate. You had to do it. I just think less of you for then cutting me off like I was just some nameless employee. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to forget my manners. Then I’ve let you alter my morals and ethics and I lose.”

  “You were always too damn philosophical for a high school dropout,” I say with a small smile so he knows I’m just kidding. “And also extremely on the nose.”

  Hank grins. “Sit down, asshole. You still take cream but no sugar because it’s hockey season.”

  “Yeah, exactly.” I sit down on one of the red leather stools. He goes about making me a coffee and slides the mug across the polished bar top when it’s ready. I give him a grateful smile. “So…you like it here?”

  “It’s decent,” Hank says as he starts to make a coffee for himself. “You know me though, I need to work outdoors, so while this pays the bills, I’m looking for something else.”

  “You know if we can ever hire staff again, full-time or even part-time, I am calling you,” I say before taking a sip of coffee.

  “Actually no, I didn’t know that because you haven’t told me,” Hank says as he stirs a heaping amount of sugar into his coffee, and I watch with jealousy. Then he heads toward the swinging door into the kitchen. “You haven’t said jack shit to me since you had George let me go.”

  He comes back a minute later with a bag from the bakery, which he puts on the counter and tears open with his weathered hands. Two perfect muffins lay exposed on the counter and he grabs one and motions for me to take the other. “Go ahead. I didn’t have time to poison it or anything.”

  I huff out a small, weak laugh at that, and I guiltily take the muffin. I shouldn’t because I’ve been an ass to him and don’t deserve any charity from him, but I’m starving. I take a huge bite. “There’s got to be other farm work around.”

  Hank finishes chewing his own bite and nods. “There is. But I’ve been thinking of maybe a fresh start somewhere new. There’s nothing really tying me to Burlington anymore. Maybe I head out to like Georgia or North Carolina. Or Wisconsin or… I don’t know.”

  The idea that he’s been thinking about leaving makes me irrationally upset considering I’ve been ignoring him. “You’ve got friends here. And that lifelong crush on Daisy Todd will be hard to maintain from across the country.”

  Hank laughs and scratches his shaggy dirty-blond beard. “You hate that I have a thing for her.”

  “I did, yeah. But I’m an asshole, so who cares what I think?” I reply and shrug.

  After a belly laugh, Hank takes another sip of coffee and cocks a thick eyebrow. “You know they offered me a job.”

  “Who? The Todds?”

  Hank nods. “Billy, Ben and Bobby came in here about a week after I started, after you let me go, before Billy’s stroke, and they said that they were going to be expanding their businesses in the next eighteen months and that they’d have work for me, full-time, if I wanted it.”

  Huh. Maggie hasn’t mentioned anything about that. Expanding their businesses, or that they tried to hire my dear friend and former employee. What the hell else are they planning to do? They have so many goats and then the bee hives at the back of the property that I don’t know what else they would have room for over there. Their land isn’t as large as ours or as diverse.

  “I don’t know exactly what they were talking about expansion-wise, but they said my job would involve farm work and some light construction,” Hank replies because he sees the look of confusion on my face. “And then Billy had one too many pints, and later that night asked me if I thought you guys would be foreclosed on this year or next.”

  I blink. Hank’s face loses its usual passive, gregarious expression and he seems unnaturally serious. “I think that they might be looking to buy your place if you lose it.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, I mean Daisy comes in here a lot lately and she always makes a point of chatting me up,” Hank says and a tiny smile hits his mouth, but it’s wistful. “I ain’t dumb enough to think she suddenly realizes what a perfect ten I am. Especially because she always swings the conversation around to your family farm too.”

  I shake my head. “No. I mean… I would know that.”

  “Why because you share a booth with them at the market every weekend?” Hank says and shakes his head when I look shocked he knows that. “It’s Burlington, buddy. That’s premium local gossip.”

  “Nah. Not just that. Because…” I glance over my shoulder. No one but Carly the waitress is here and she’s still off somewhere in the back. I lower my voice anyway. “Because Maggie and I are…involved.”

  Hank doesn’t react at first. He just keeps chewing that last bite of muffin he had popped into his mouth. But then, as his eyes level with mine, his chewing gets slower. And slower. And then he swallows whatever is left of that muffin, and it must be too big because he starts to choke.

  I lean over the bar top and attempt to slap him on t
he back. He turns away, coughs into his hand, and when he regains his composure he turns back to me, a look of pure disbelief across his face. “You’re what? Like involved…in a cult? A class project? A Wiccan ritual? Because all of that would be more believable than the other form of involvement that springs to mind.”

  A gust of air shoots from my lungs in a sheepish laugh and I nod. “Yeah. I know. But if what sprung to your mind was romantic involvement—naked involvement—then your first instinct was right.”

  Hank swiftly leaves the bar area and marches over to the plate glass window at the front of the restaurant. He turns to Carly as she walks out of the back with a tray of full salt shakers. “Carly, can you make sure we have enough canned goods in the back to get us through the apocalypse? It just started.”

  “What?” Carly says blinking.

  “Ignore him, Carly. He’s a better barback than he is a comedian,” I call out, and Carly shrugs and heads to the other side of the room. I turn back to Hank. “So, dickhead, can you be serious about this for a minute?”

  “I can but it isn’t easy because it’s so surreal I almost think it’s got to be some kind of practical joke,” Hank admits as he walks over and drops down on the stool beside me. “Jesus, Tate, the last time we talked you thought the whole Todd family was scum.”

  “I think a few of them still are. Especially Clyde,” I reply and then stare at my coffee mug for a minute. “But things with Maggie… I don’t know… Somehow I started seeing a different side of her. She’s a good person.”

  “Is this just your fucking dick talking?” Hank counters frankly, which isn’t at all like him because he’s not someone who throws around words like dick or fuck, like ever. So I know this news has him rattled. “Like, do you mean the different side of her you’ve seen is the naked side and are you confusing good person with good in bed?”

  “She’s great in bed, but no I’m not confusing anything,” I reply and find myself holding a breath. “I mean I don’t think so. She hasn’t really mentioned a new business to me though. And she definitely hasn’t mentioned wanting my family to lose our farm so she can buy it. But we have talked about the farm stuff, and how hard it is for me and… Fuck.”

  I wrestle internally with the idea that maybe Maggie wasn’t actually making small talk or getting to know me. Was she pumping me for information? My heart is furious that my brain would even entertain that thought. But even more furious that it might be true. Hank watches the war of emotions vying for control of my expression, and then he clamps a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it for just a brief second. I look up at him. “Are you here for my trusted, blunt advice?”

  “I don’t know,” I reply honestly and run a hand through my hair before cradling my head in my hands, elbows on the bar. “All I know is that this thing with Maggie is new and crazy stupid but also exactly what I need. She makes me feel good. Inside. Where it counts. She’s the one who convinced me to come here and face you. To tell you that I feel bad we had to let you go and it’s my own humiliation that has kept me away, not anything you’ve done, and I’m a dick for putting that before our friendship because you’re the one who lost a job and needed support. And instead I end up blurting out this secret and so now asking you for advice seems even more like a selfish dickhead thing to do.”

  I don’t have to look up to know how he is reacting to that big chunk of emotional vomit because he squeezes my shoulder again. “Jesus, Tate. I knew you might break from all the pressure of trying to keep the farm from sinking while keeping your school and hockey going strong, but I didn’t know it would be like this. Sleeping with the enemy and melting down over muffins.”

  I lift my head and shoot him a sarcastic smile. “Why, exactly, does she have to be the enemy again?”

  Hank shrugs. “You know I’ve never understood that myself. I don’t think there’s a lot of people that know the true origin of the feud, but it’s very real. I don’t think anyone on either side of it will ever approve of you and Maggie. Like ever, dude. And honestly, I appreciate her sending you here, and everything you just said. But I have to wonder if she has ulterior motives when it comes to getting close to you. Like Daisy does with me.”

  I shake my head. “She isn’t just chatting me up and batting her eyelashes, Hank. She’s sleeping with me. She also saved my ass when someone from my part-time job recognized me at the market. She made sure I wasn’t outed.”

  Hank nods. “Hey, look, I’ve never personally hated the Todd sisters. I don’t think they’re bad people at all, which is why I have a not-so-subtle crush on Daisy. And I’m not against you and Maggie having some fun. But honestly? I don’t think any Todd can ever be with an Adler, like long-term or even seriously entertain the thought. And Maggie is smart enough to realize that too, even if the Adler is as handsome and charismatic as you.”

  I roll my eyes and then Hank seems to realize something and his face grows serious in a blink. “Wait. Does she know about your job? You told her about Manly Maids?”

  “No. She found out. It’s a long story, but I trust her to keep it a secret,” I reply and he looks doubtful. “Maggie and I aren’t going to hurt each other. No matter how this ends.”

  How this ends. Ouch. As soon as I say it out loud, my heart feels like it’s wearing a jock strap two sizes too small. I don’t want things to end but they’re going to—and that’s not a stupid cliché, the truth really does hurt.

  “Look, Tate, I’d be worried if I were you about her knowing that potentially devastating fact,” Hank says frankly. He scrubs his beard with his palm again. “And I would talk to her about the farm. Tell her I’m the one who thinks they want you to fail so they can buy it. I don’t care if Daisy stops talking to me.”

  “Yeah you do.”

  Hank chuckles. “Yeah I do, but if she is only talking to me to steal your farm, then I’d rather go back to admiring her from afar. And you should be the same way with Maggie. Except you’d go back to the whole loathing her from afar thing you used to do.”

  I nod. But deep down there is no way I can allow myself to think that she’s just sleeping with me to convince me to let the farm go. She isn’t that girl. She wouldn’t. I just…can’t believe that. Hank walks around the bar and pours himself another coffee, holding up the pot to offer me one too, but I shake my head. “I got to get home and get some protein in me. But…are we cool?”

  “We were always cool, Tate,” Hank says with his trademark easy smile. “Just don’t be a stranger anymore, okay?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Okay.”

  I give him a smile and head out the front door. As I make my way back to the hockey house, I have my face buried in my phone drafting an email to Maggie, but by the time I reach my front door, I discard the draft. I’m going to see her later, so I’ll just talk to her face-to-face. It’s the only way I’ll know for sure if Hank’s suspicions are right. Because Maggie isn’t great at poker face and I’ve gotten incredibly good at reading her like a book. God I hope there’s nothing to read tonight.

  15

  Maggie

  I have the entire apartment to myself tonight—completely unexpectedly—which is why I texted Tate immediately and told him. That “your place or mine” dilemma solved itself when my roommates decided to go to a frat party and my sister went back to the farm to do laundry and texted me to say she was spending the night. Tate had responded with a thumbs up sign, but that was almost two hours ago, and there is no sign of him.

  Is he still with Hank? Is he doing hockey stuff? Should I text him again? Is that desperate? Why do I feel desperate? Ugh.

  I head into my bathroom and decide to take a long, hot shower. I turn on the water in the tiny stall and start to undress while the water warms up. If he doesn’t come by tonight, a hot shower is the only way I will be relaxed enough to sleep and not stare at my phone all night.

  I open the glass door and step into the shower, closing my eyes as I dip my face under the stream, careful not to get my hair wet, which I twiste
d into a messy knot on top of my head.

  I’m squeezing my favorite body wash onto my poof when the shower door opens. I open my mouth to scream but a hand covers it so I swing, clocking my attacker in the gut. “Kopf!” I blink the water out of my eyes in time to see Tate double over and crash into the sink.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” I whisper-scream. “Are you okay?”

  “You invited me,” Tate gasps and groans, still doubled over. “And you have one hell of a left hook.”

  “But how did you get inside?” I hiss and he looks up at me with a “really?” expression.

  “Your downstairs neighbor opened the main door. He thinks I’m a maintenance guy. And you have a key under your front door mat,” he says. “Which is really dangerous and stupid, Maggie.”

  “Caroline and Jasmyn do that when they go out drinking so they don’t have to worry about losing their keys and don’t wake the rest of us up,” I reply. “Do you know Caroline lost her dorm keys four times last year?”

  “Do you know you could get murdered?”

  “Are you here to murder me?” I ask coyly and shiver. “Because if your method of choice is hypothermia, you’re doing a bang-up job.”

  “Sorry to keep you from your shower,” Tate replies and his eyes sweep my naked body which I don’t bother to cover because he’s seen it up close and personal anyway. “Do you want me to leave?”

  “No,” I say without a moment of reflection. I want him here. I have been dying to be alone with him since I came home from class and found all those chrysanthemums, asters and pansies on my balcony.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asks as he finally straightens up to his full height and his hand falls away from his abdomen. His eyes sweep across my naked, wet body again and it makes the butterflies in my belly go crazy and my nipples harden. His eyes seem to darken.