by Sarina Bowen
“It’s…I…” My dignity is taking hits all over the place tonight. “I’ll find a way.” It sounds petulant coming out of my mouth, but I mean it. Even if my parents won’t help me, there has to be a way.
“There must be other programs,” Mom says, recovering from the shock. “Cheaper ones. I’ll help you look.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. But I have looked. Master’s programs are pricey. And if I’m going to do this, I want to do it right. “There are loans.”
She makes a face. It’s the face of a mother who thinks her daughter won’t follow through. “We’ll think of something.”
“No, I’ll handle it,” I tell her. “It has to be me.” I can’t keep running to Mommy to fund all my ventures. Not this time. With a little advice from Dyson, I know I can figure it out. And the only way to show my mother I’m serious is to be serious.
“Jess?”
I look up into the eyes of the least serious person on earth. Then I shiver because Blake Riley is that attractive in his suit. His roomy shoulders are like a ledge where a girl could rest her head in comfort. And a lock of his errant hair falls across his smooth forehead.
Blake is attractive, all right, but he’s totally wrong for me. He’s a big, playful guy. And the next year of my life won’t be about playing—it’ll be all about goals and how to reach them.
“Are you ready to head back to your apartment?” He gives me a broad grin that is not at all innocent.
“Let me give you my key,” I say, making a decision. “Here.” I grab my clutch purse off the table and rummage around. My house key is on a removable ring of its own, so it only takes a few extra seconds to do the right thing. I hand it over. “Make yourself comfortable,” I say firmly. “I’ll be a while.”
His puppy-like head cocks to one side. “You sure? Anything I can help you with here?”
“Thank you, but it’s under control.”
The key bounces once in his hand. “Okay. I’ll leave a light on for you. Goodnight, Cindy. Lovely party.”
My mother beams at him, then gives him a hug and wishes him a good night.
When he walks away, I don’t look back. Later, I’ll insist on crashing at my parents’ house tonight, to make it that much easier to take Jamie and Wes to the airport tomorrow morning.
Blake will spend the night in my bed. But I won’t be there.
8 Verbal Impulses
September
Blake
I trudge into the locker room after practice, all jazzed up. We killed it out there today. Everyone was gelling. Skating like champs. Just…clicking. Even Coach was smiling by the end, and that dude never smiles.
We’re winning the Cup this season. Mark my words. Hell, we could’ve done it last year if we hadn’t been hampered by so many injuries during that first playoffs series. I’ve never won a Cup before, and I wonder if the trophy is as heavy as it looks. Forsberg won one with Chicago a few seasons back. Said it weighs a ton, but I think he was just fucking with me.
By the locker next to mine, Wesley strips out of his sweaty jersey and pads and flops down on the bench wearing nothing but his hockey pants. His chest has a sheen of sweat, and his hair is a mess as he drags one hand through it. It’s his left hand, and I burst out laughing when I notice his ring finger.
“Dude, when’d you get that done?” I grab his hand and pinch just under the knuckle, where he now has a wedding ring tattooed on his skin.
“Ouch,” he gripes, shoving my hand away. “It’s still sore, motherfucker. Got it done last night.”
“Too cool to wear an actual ring?”
“No, I was tired of having to take it off for practice, and I can’t keep it on ’cause I don’t like the way it feels when I’m wearing my gloves.”
“Bad move, dude,” Eriksson calls from the other side of me. I turn to see the horrified look on his face. “You got a permanent wedding ring? Jesus! Have fun explaining that to whoever you date after the divorce.”
My jaw drops. “Bro,” I say in warning. I mean, that was really uncalled for. I get that Eriksson is going through a rough time, but Wesley and his man are still newlyweds. Did the fucker just hex their marriage?
But Wesley is unfazed. “That word doesn’t exist in my vocab,” he says cheerfully. “Canning and I are forever.” He strips out of his pants and disappears bare-assed into the shower area.
I scowl at Eriksson. “So not cool.”
“I know.” He has the decency to look repentant, rubbing one hand over his overgrown beard. Has he not shaved since the wedding? Sure looks like it. “Fuck. I’ll go apologize. It’s just…Kara filed for sole custody this morning.”
Shit.
“Shit,” I say aloud.
“I get it, all right? My schedule doesn’t really let me be a full-time dad, but sole custody? We could’ve had joint custody. The girls could’ve stayed with me when…” He stops to think, and I might be a wee bit slow, but I can see his thought process clear as day.
When would his twin girls stay with him? A couple nights a week when he doesn’t have games? Or when the team is playing at home? Maybe, but that’d mean leaving them with a sitter those evenings he’s at the arena. Off-season, then? A few weeks in the summer?
I hate to say it, but maybe his soon-to-be ex-wife has a point about the sole-custody thing.
“Whatever,” he says abruptly. “My lawyer will deal with it. I need to shower. I stink.”
He charges off before I can respond. Man, I feel bad for him. Can’t be easy dealing with a divorce at the start of the season. It’s still pre-season, though, so maybe he’ll get his head on straight before October.
“Really? Nobody has the balls to tag that? Well, I will,” a smug voice drawls from the other side of the room. “The girl is smokin’. Like, fuckable to a whole other level.”
“Quit it with that,” someone else mutters.
“Lemming hears you and you’ll have his fist in your jaw,” our captain Luko warns, referring to our other teammate who’s also going through a breakup right now. “Exes are off-limits, newbie.”
The newbie—Will O’Connor—just scoffs. “I’m not gonna keep my mouth shut just because of some archaic bro code. I fucked two of my teammates’ exes in Nashville and look—” He pats his chiseled jaw. “—still in one piece.”
Yeah, then why aren’t you still in Nashville? I want to call out. But I keep my trap shut, because I’ve already had several run-ins with the fucker, and they all almost ended with my clocking him a good one. Me, a pacifist! I don’t hit peeps off the ice. I don’t even think about hitting them.
But this guy… This guy. O’Connor is young, cocky and a total pain in the ass. He says shit without thinking, and that’s gonna get him in big trouble one day. Hell, it already has. There’s a reason he keeps getting traded, and it’s not because his former teams are collecting draft picks.
“Back me up, Riley,” O’Connor says when he catches my eye. “Lemming’s ex. You’d tap that, right?”
“Nah, I like my nose where it is—on my pretty face.”
The dark-haired newbie rolls his eyes. “Whatever. You guys are all pussies.” He strides past and ducks into the showers.
Luko and I exchange a grim look. “Trouble,” our captain murmurs. “Got a lot of growing up to do, that one. Keep an eye on him, will ya?”
Damn. I knew I shouldn’t have accepted that assistant captain patch. Seems like O Captain My Captain is always giving me the shit tasks.
I make my way to the showers, smack Wesley’s ass as I come up beside him and dunk my head under the hot spray. O’Connor is across the steam-filled space, soaping up his dick and ignoring everyone. I guess he’s pissed that nobody wants to tag-team Lemming’s ex with him. Christ, I hope he doesn’t make a move. Claire and my teammate were together for two years before she left him. Lemming will shit a brick if our newest manwhore puts his grubby hands on her.
“What are we having for din-din tonight?” I ask Wes. One of the perks of being
his upstairs neighbor is that I never have to eat alone. All I gotta do is ride the elevator down five floors and I’ve got two willing dinner companions waiting for me.
Well, maybe they’re not always willing. Sometimes they’re reluctant. Sometimes they try to kick me out, but it’s all in good fun. Wes and Jamie would cry buckets if I stopped being their friend.
“You’re on your own tonight,” he tells me. “Canning and I have plans.”
I brighten. “I love plans. Where we going?”
He rinses the shampoo out of his hair, then glances over. “You’re going home,” he says dryly. “And we’re going to play moving men.”
“Sounds kinky.”
He snickers. “I wish. If anything, it’ll be a total pain in the ass. Have you ever tried lugging boxes through one of those super-narrow dormitory hallways?”
“Dormitory?” I wrinkle my forehead as I drag the bar of soap over my body. “What, you friends with a college freshman or something?”
“Sort of. Jess is starting nursing school this week, so—”
“Jess?” I interrupt. “Which Jess is this?” I only know one. But she can’t be in Toronto. I would have sensed a disturbance in the force. A hot, sassy, blond disturbance.
“My favorite sister-in-law.” Wesley snorts. “She just got off the waiting list at Toronto Nursing College. Big stuff. She got the call four days ago. Had to sell her car and pack some things into a few cartons, quick-like. It’s a better school than the community college where she was supposed to start next week.”
“Oh. That’s cool,” I hear myself say. But it isn’t really. After the wedding, Jess went full-on Amish and shunned me.
We were totally going to bone down in June. She wanted it. Like, wanted it bad. I made her come so hard she couldn’t move, for fuck’s sake.
And then she bailed on me. Gave me the key to her apartment and never came home that night. I couldn’t stick around the next morning because I had a flight to catch, and my ma would’ve murdered me if I didn’t make it home on time. It was my sister’s birthday. Nobody misses a Riley birthday and lives to tell about it.
I’d texted Jess from the plane. She didn’t text back. I’d texted her throughout the summer. She didn’t text back, not even when I sent her the best dick pic ever taken. I experimented with lighting in order to emphasize both length and girth, and she couldn’t be bothered to comment on how great Snake Riley looked?
Wesley shuts off the faucet. “Anyway, we’re gonna grab dinner in Jess’s new neighborhood. I’d invite you, but I’m not sure how long the move will take and I don’t want you waiting around.”
I can help with the move, I almost say, but I bite my tongue. It’s rare, but sometimes I am able to control my verbal impulses.
Jess obviously doesn’t want me around, otherwise she would’ve told me herself that she was moving to Toronto for nursing school.
Whistling to himself, Wesley towels off. I shut off the water, too. But I’m moving slowly, trying to process this turn of events.
“You have a sister in Toronto, Wesley?” O’Connor says from underneath the towel he’s using to dry his hair. “Is she hot? Can I have her number?”
Wes growls. “Touch Jess and die. You hear me?”
O’Connor chuckles, and the sound climbs up my throat like bile. Somehow, fists are clenched at my sides. Jess and I aren’t together, and we never will be, and yet I feel like grinding the newbie into dust just for joking about calling her.
Weird.
Must be time for dinner.
9 One Butt Cheek
Jess
I’m freaking out. But who wouldn’t be, right?
Five days ago I was moving back into my parents’ house to save money and enrolling in a community college nursing program. It wasn’t ideal, but I was determined to do whatever it took.
Then I got the call.
The Toronto phone number didn’t clue me in, because that’s where Jamie and Wes live. I came this close to answering the phone with, “Whassup, Jamester?”
Some benevolent force in the universe caused me to answer “Hello” like a normal person. And a few seconds later I heard something that changed my life.
“There’s a place for you here in Toronto.”
Suddenly, I was no longer slumming it in the only local program that had a last-minute spot for me, but flying out to a top-notch nursing program in a new city. In a different country.
I thought that I’d be easing into this whole back-to-school thing. It’s been five years since I took notes or studied for a quiz. Frankly, I was already terrified. And that was before I won a probationary scholarship that requires me to get good grades. If I do poorly, I’ll lose the funding.
So here I am in this tiny room in a cinderblock dormitory, with its two twin beds and two tiny desks. At twenty-six, I’m starting over.
I tuck my pillow into its pillowcase and lay it on the bed as my brother carries the last bag through the door. “This is it?” Jamie asks, smiling. “I thought we’d be here for hours.”
“Not so much.” All I’d brought to Toronto were two suitcases full of clothes, a box of reference books, my laptop, my teddy bear and an empty bank account. “I still appreciate the help,” I tell him. Moral support is just as important as arm strength today, and I’m not afraid to admit it.
“Your roommate sure is organized,” Jamie remarks, peeking at the books lined up on the other desk. There are at least twenty important-looking medical texts. “What’s radiopharmacology?”
“Uh…” I give a whole body shiver. “I’ll have to get back to you.”
He chuckles. “Let’s eat dinner. Wes is putting some more change in the meter. Want to scope out the falafel joint we saw two blocks down?”
“That place is disgusting,” someone sneers from the doorway.
Jamie and I both turn to see an angular, dark-haired girl stride into the room. She marches over to the desk and slaps four more textbooks onto its surface.
“Hi,” I squeak. “I’m Jess Canning, and this is my brother Jamie.”
The thin creature turns her face my way, the lenses of her narrow glasses glinting in the fluorescent light. “Violet Smith. Pleasure to meet you.”
Something about the way the girl said “pleasure” makes me wonder if she knows what that word means.
“I’m a first-year nursing student,” I tell her, all the while comparing our two desks. Mine has only two postcards propped up on the book ledge. One is a picture of JJ Watt, which my brothers insist is blasphemous because I’m not allowed to root for a non-Niner, but I don’t care because he’s hot. The other reads Keep Calm and Pour the Wine. Hers looks like a medical school bookstore.
“I’m a first-year, too,” she says with a shrug. “Let’s start with some ground rules, shall we? I need quiet time between six p.m. and six a.m. No music, no speaking. Those are the really valuable study hours, and we’re going to need to hit the books hard just to stay afloat the first trimester. Oh—and no food in the room, because this building has had trouble with ants.”
Did she just say six p.m.? And on my budget, granola bars at my desk are likely to be a main staple of my diet.
“Do you have anything to add?” she prompts.
“Um…” I look to my brother for help, but he’s staring at Violet in fascination. “I’ll let you know,” I finally say, the urge to flee overtaking me. “Jamie? We were on our way out?”
“Right.” He gives me a salute, but I’m already aiming at the door. “Jessie? Don’t forget your keycard. Don’t want to climb through the window on your first night, like you did at State.”
“Jesus.” Violet’s lip curls.
I grab the card off the bed where I’d left it and eject from the room like a fighter pilot whose jet has taken fire.
An hour later I’ve almost calmed down. The vodka in my bloodstream has helped.
Jamie, Wes and I just finished eating at Tonic, a slick new restaurant that’s recently opened in their neig
hborhood. I couldn’t afford the place, but Wes insisted on buying dinner to welcome me to Toronto. We’d meant to investigate the neighborhood around my new school, but I didn’t object to the change of plans when Wes said he was in the mood for something nicer.
The food had been awesome, too. Now, as I step outside and feel the breeze off Lake Ontario brushing my face, I can almost convince myself that I’m on a mini-vacation in a pretty city. Then I look up the street toward the streetcar stop and feel a new twinge of trepidation.
“Aw, Jessie.” Wes grabs my shoulders and hugs me. “It’s going to be okay. The scary roommate probably has first-day jitters, too.”
“You didn’t meet her,” I point out.
“She was a piece of work,” my brother agrees. “But so what? Even if she wins a Nobel Prize by the second week of school, it doesn’t mean you won’t do well.”
“Of course she’ll do well,” Wes scoffs, releasing me from the hug. “She’s a Canning, and Cannings are smart. They’re smart enough to drink a beer with me right now and watch the first Monday Night Football of the season. Your Niners are playing.”
I hesitate. I’d planned to re-read the schedule for the first week of school and memorize the campus map. But their apartment is just a few steps away, the semester hasn’t even started yet, and my team is playing.
“All right. I’m in.”
A few minutes later, I’m holding a beer and wondering where to sit. It shouldn’t be a tricky question. Wes and Jamie have claimed opposite ends of the sofa, sitting sideways with their legs casually intertwined. All their focus is on the screen.
The screen I can’t see from the counter stool where I’m perched right now.
“Shit,” my brother groans, pointing his beer at the screen. “Jessie, do you believe this?”
I walk behind the couch to catch the replay of the interception our QB shouldn’t have thrown. Nobody was open, damn it. He should’ve just tossed the ball out of bounds. “Oh, man. That is just wrong.”