by Pippa Grant
It’s unsettling to have an audience over breakfast. Or possibly it’s unsettling to have this audience. Venting on the light-rail downtown isn’t the same, because that’s not for an audience.
That’s for entertainment while everyone looks around trying to figure out who’s singing to themselves.
I press Ares’s coffee probably two minutes too soon and spill some onto the counter when I try to pour it into a mug.
“Hungry?” I ask him as I put his mug within reach. Swear on my Gammy’s ghost, he smells like her lemon pound cake this morning. “I have avocados for toast, or I could put some oatmeal on.”
I’m not fluent in Ares-ese, but I’m pretty sure the look he’s giving me is a request for raw meat. Do monkeys eat meat? I assume not. Loki might like throwing hockey bobble heads and eggrolls, but I can’t picture him hunting down a gazelle and tearing its flesh from its body.
Plus, if Loki could do that, Kami would’ve warned me last night.
Nice to have a friend who’s a vet when a monkey moves in.
Yes, yes, I did just think that.
There’s something wrong with my life.
“Tofu?” I offer.
Ares holds me captive with his gaze long enough for butterflies to sprout in my stomach. Reminding myself he’s just an injured athlete and I don’t need to apologize for eating vegan doesn’t help. Also not helping? The weird creaky noise from upstairs. Though it does distract him enough for his eyes to leave mine and drift toward the ceiling, where Gammy’s ancient teardrop chandelier is swaying.
“Wind,” I say.
He doesn’t answer, but when the chair squeaks again, he grabs the crutch and rises to his feet, extending his body to its full six-feet, nine-inch height.
I could also tell you how many goals, assists, and penalties he has, and pretty much any other stat you’d like to know.
The crutch—which is about three inches too short, even fully extended—groans under his weight.
He scowls.
Ares has a truly terrifying scowl. He could probably scowl Gammy’s ghost out of her own house.
“Or we can hit a drive-thru on the way to work?” I say, and I try to act like it’s natural for my voice to come out high and tight.
He grunts once more and nods, which I assume means yes, please, and thank you.
I let my Lucy voice answer while I spin away. “Great. I’ll finish up my breakfast, and we can go.”
One more long stare. I’m hiding in the fridge, pretending I’m looking for food, but I can feel him watching me. The heat from his gaze touches the back of my head, then my neck. My shoulders twitch, and a shiver races down my spine.
When goosebumps sprout on my ass, I look back at him.
He shoves off the wall, grabs the coffee cup from the table, and turns to angle through the doorway once more. He wasn’t staring at my ass…but he wasn’t not staring at it either.
Having a quiet housemate who might be the ticket to my dream job should be a good thing.
But seriously—does the man ever do anything other than grunt?
3
Ares (aka an ape who just wants to get back on the ice)
Grunt.
4
Ares
Kidding. I got words.
Not as many as she does.
But I got enough.
Also not a dumb enough puck to miss the signs I’m making her nervous, so I’m out of the kitchen, looking for another place to park without having to go up the stairs.
Don’t want to make her nervous.
I test the old lady couch. Broke enough chairs in my life—happens when you’re a big-ass mother pucker—so I try not to sit without checking what I’m sitting on. Seems solid enough, doesn’t groan, so I settle in and prop up my foot on the flowery armrest like a good boy.
Loki scoots out from behind the thin lace curtains with a grin and a jar. Small monkey. Furry white face, big brown eyes, weighs about as much as my knee.
I crook a finger, and he dashes over a matching chair to climb up and sit on my shoulder. I pull a bag of dried mango out of my pants and trade him for the jar.
Cinnamon sugar.
Huh.
He points at my foot and chirps before digging into breakfast.
Yeah.
Fucking foot.
It’s hockey season. I’m supposed to be on the ice. That’s how it works. Hockey season, I play hockey. Playoff season, I hope I’m still playing hockey. Off season, I hang with Zeus, and we hook up with chicks he finds for us. Just like old times.
Except Coach put me on the IR because the doc said I can’t skate on my foot.
Bullshit.
I can skate just fine.
Just need enough tape.
The shelves of bobble heads watch me while I chug the hot black juice and the scent of oat slop mixes with the flowery perfume smell in the room. Murphy’s sister is chattering away to herself and Loki’s chirping and eating on my shoulder while I check my phone. Missed call from Ma. Gif texts from Zeus and his girl. Voicemail from Chase, my bro from another mo. Text, email, missed call, and voicemail from my sister. More texts from my teammates.
All ask the same thing.
You okay?
I text Z back with a gif of a cartoon penguin slapping its own ass and ignore the rest. My twin’s older than me by four minutes. Knows better than the rest how much being benched sucks. Until we were both drafted, the two of us were never apart more than a day.
Usually with Chase.
Whole town back home called us the triple terrors.
Fucking miss being a kid sometimes.
Miss hockey more though, and I’ve only been benched a few days.
Next week, I’ll be off the IR and back on the ice. Until then, I’ll watch Murphy’s sister like he asked me to, and Manning’s monkey like he asked me to. Can’t go to California—team’s not paying for my travel if I’m not getting on the ice, and they want me to see the doc every day—so I’ll do the only other thing I’m good at.
Feed a monkey and grunt around like a thug to scare away the bad news ex.
I know the only difference between dumb and stupid—for me anyway—is a hockey puck, but I don’t get why chicks hook up with dicks.
Don’t have half a brain, but even I know that’s a no-brainer.
Felicity’s still talking to herself. The high-pitched voice. Something about turkeys in space. And now a deeper grumpy voice answers.
Funny woman.
Talks too much, and she’s so off-limits I can’t even think of her as a girl, but she’s funny.
She comes into the room with a plate of food. “Toast and fruit,” she says without moving her lips. Sounds not perky, but not grumpy either. “To hold you over.”
She puts the plate, fork, and napkin on the coffee table without looking at me. Loki leaps at the apple slices, and Felicity tenses.
“Nick says you don’t have to be at the arena today, so I was thinking you might want to go to work with me. I’m in clinicals at a sports rehab clinic for my PTA—physical therapy assistant degree. We see a lot of teenagers. They’d flip out if I brought a real NHL hockey player in, and I know how much the team loves you guys to get out in the community, so…”
She trails off and glances at me.
Pretty face. Round cheeks, bright eyes, full mouth.
Hair like gold, kissed by the sun, with some Irish in it too. Reddish.
Magic.
There are two kinds of women in the world.
Women I can sleep with, and women I can’t.
She’s in the can’t column. Like my friend Gracie—she’s Manning’s, having his baby—my sister, my brother’s girl—also like a sister, though she’s scary too—and anyone on staff for the team.
But when Felicity tugs on her simple earring with slender fingers, my junk gets hot and heavy.
Pretty doesn’t mean attractive. Known lots of pretty girls who weren’t attractive. But Felicity?
Prett
y, funny, smart, kind.
She’s the four-leaf clover.
Know she doesn’t want me here, but she’s feeding me and giving me coffee anyway. Giving me a show too, talking with her mouth shut.
“If that’s not enough food, I have tofu, a bunch of nuts, some dates, and more bread. Nick didn’t give me much warning. Or say anything about what you like to eat. Though I really will go through a drive-thru if you want. But you should eat good food to get better.”
I nod to her and pull the plate closer. Loki steals the last apple, then hands me the toast.
I nod to him too.
Yeah, I know.
Say something to the shamrock girl.
But one, she’s way too smart for me. And C, silence tells you a lot about a person.
Like if she’s feeding us and asking me to go to her job because she wants to, or if she’s asking because Murphy told her to babysit me.
Just because I’m dumb doesn’t mean I’m stupid.
I squish my toast into a ball because she’s watching, then toss it all into my mouth at once. Loki chirp-laughs and nibbles on his apple.
She winces while she shifts her weight from foot to foot for a minute. “I need to leave in twenty. You don’t have to change or shower or anything, but we should probably leave Loki home. He’s okay at home, right?”
He might be. Don’t think he’s ever been alone.
“Guess we’ll find out then. So. Twenty minutes. You want me to set a timer on your phone?”
I can set a timer on my phone. Can do a lot of things people assume I can’t. But if she wants to do it for me, I’ll let her do it for me.
I hand her my phone, and she takes it without touching me. Even accidentally.
Her long fingers tap over the screen quickly. She’s giving it back when it buzzes.
We both look down.
Z’s replied.
It’s a gif of some monkeys on a stage doing an Irish jig.
Funny shit.
Loki claps, chirps, and throws his apple.
Felicity’s face pinches up. “Look, about your monkey—” she starts.
Blood surges south of my belt the same time a shiver slinks down my spine. I cut her off by lifting a finger, and I swivel to look outside.
Car’s been sitting out there running as long as I’ve been on the couch. Engine running. Don’t even warm cars up that long back home in Minnesota in the dead of winter, and it’s not that cold out today. Only November. Not cold at all.
She moves toward the window. I swing my foot down, the fucking boot crashes against the coffee table and shoots pain up to my knee and out my toes, but I crunch my teeth together and force myself to stand.
Black sports car at the curb. Can see it through the light curtains. Can’t see the dude inside.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she mutters.
“Who?” I ask.
“Nobody.”
Loki screeches.
Like I said, I’m dumb, but I’m not stupid. I limp across the carpet to the door in four steps, lightning shooting up to my knee every time I step down on my bad foot.
“No, don’t—” Felicity grabs my wrist when I reach for the door handle, and there’s more lightning.
Different lightning.
The painful she’s off-limits kind of lightning.
Fuck, she’s pretty.
She jerks her hand away like she took the shock too. “You’re going to hurt yourself worse. Sit. The boot’s no good if your ankle’s so swollen you cut off blood flow to your toes.”
Ankle’s fine. Tape and a brace is all I need. Played through worse. Just wearing the damn boot because she’ll tell on me if I don’t and Coach will keep me out for another week. I point at Loki. Stay.
He pouts, but he hunkers down on the half-done knit blanket on the couch.
I step outside. Chilly today.
I like chilly.
Like chili too.
Might be second breakfast.
No more rain today, but the wet cookies are still there, melted and crumbled. Waste of good cookies.
“Ares, seriously. Please come back inside before you hurt yourself.”
I ignore her, only partly so I don’t get ideas about her caring about me, take the steps one at a time, and walk around the mounds with her on my heels.
“Ignore him.” She grabs my wrist again, her hand hot in the cold morning, and more sparks dance over my skin.
I keep walking. Even if she wasn’t my teammate’s sister, she’s too smart for me. Four degrees, Murphy told us once. Graduated high school at thirteen. First college at sixteen. Had her second degree before he was drafted, and she’s his little sister.
Smart girls don’t go for puckheads like me.
Learned that lesson a long time ago.
Fuck, girls don’t go for me in general.
Not for me. For my size or my game, yeah. For me?
They don’t look that close.
Always knew that was my lot in life. I’m the quiet one. The weird one. The one nobody wants to make eye contact with.
Found something else to live for. Might not come with a wife and kids and the traditional American family dream, but I have hockey.
That’s my life.
Easier to accept what I can have and move on than wish for things that will never be.
Like Murphy’s sister.
I don’t want her, I tell myself. She likes to talk too much.
Reminds me of Z.
He talks a lot too.
Different kind of talking, but he talks a lot.
Miss my brother.
I’m almost to the car when it shoots away from the curb with squealing tires. Catch sight of a dude flipping us the bird.
Yeah. That’s the other thing.
She apparently likes dicks.
I fucking hate dicks.
Snap a picture of his car. Just in case.
“Please let’s go back inside,” Felicity says. But it’s not her voice. It’s the high-pitched happy voice.
I peer down at her. “He’s bad.”
She rolls her eyes. “If Nick wouldn’t taunt him, this would be fine.”
There’s nothing fine about a guy sitting outside his ex’s house. Ever.
But I don’t like to waste my breath—rest of the world does enough of that—and she wouldn’t listen anyway—no one ever listens enough—so I keep my mouth shut.
I do give her a long, hard stare until she looks away though.
Need to find out where he lives.
So I can solve this my way. And get back on the ice as soon as my week on the IR is up.
Don’t want to be here.
But since I’m here I’ll watch her.
Like she’s my sister.
5
Felicity
Take A Tank To Work Day does not go well.
First, every time I set Ares in a room to elevate his ankle and get some ice on it, he disappears. I have to leave a therapy session to ask him to not use the five-gallon water jugs as curling weights and convince him to sit back down. He snuck Loki in with him—in his coat or his pants, I don’t know—and while the monkey’s charmed everyone he’s met, my boss for this rotation is clearly not happy with the situation. Then I re-order everyone’s lunch after Ares eats three of the five pizzas Dr. Ricci had delivered for the whole staff. When I take a break to grab my own lunch from home—my favorite sweet potato chickpea salad with lemon tahini dressing—I find him building a fort in the corner of the kitchen out of Dixie cups, which Loki is happily smashing by throwing ice packs.
And I don’t want to talk about Ares stealing a wheelchair and using it to log some miles on a treadmill while giving the stink-eye to a college-age patient who asked me if I was free for dinner.
Also, that’s not even the strangest thing Ares does today.
No, the strangest part happens when I pull my car into Gammy’s carport off her alley.
For the record, I drive a six-year-old Corolla. The only
way we can get Ares comfortably into my car is to pull the passenger seat as far forward as it will go and recline it all the way back so he can sprawl out in the back seat with his booted foot propped into the front seat.
And now that we’re home, he’s passed out cold, head tipped back but held up by the car roof, Loki sprawled across his chest, also sleeping, while Ares mumbles about spider cookies.
Yes.
Spider cookies.
Of everything I ever expected from Ares, talking in his sleep about spider cookies never would’ve ranked on a list.
While I sit in the car debating if—and how—I should wake the two of them, I text my brother, who’s probably on WiFi on a plane somewhere over middle America right about now since the team’s heading to the west coast for a two-game rotation against LA and Arizona.
Felicity: I need to borrow your Jeep. Ares doesn’t fit in my car.
Nick: Use his car.
Felicity: He has a car?!
Nick: Yeah. Brand new Escalade. Sweet ride.
Felicity: WHY DID YOU NOT BRING HIS BIG CAR?
Nick: Didn’t think about it. Or maybe he doesn’t want a woman driving it.
Felicity: I’m telling Gammy’s ghost you’re a sexist asshole. Watch yourself next time you’re over here.
Nick: That reminds me. You owe me rent. It’s half my house too.
I send him a gif of Liv Daniels—the actress—dressed like an alien and flipping off a mechanical bull in some movie she was in last year, then turn and look at my passengers.
“Spider bunny eight ears,” Ares mumbles.
Almost seven feet of power and drive on the ice, 350 pounds of complete mischief at the clinic today—yes, my professor did call to chastise me about bringing friends and pets with me to clinicals, and wasn’t that fun?—yet now he’s passed out cold after a twenty-minute drive through traffic, muttering about bunnies while his head bobs and lists on his neck, cuddling a monkey, a smile teasing his lips.