Puck Buddies

by Valente, Lili

“What’s this?” Bree’s eyes light up as she spies the bottle of champagne chilling at the shady side of the bar beside two filled glasses and a large yellow gift bag.

  “For you, of course.” I try to play it cool even as my pulse thrashes in my throat. “Open it.”

  “You shouldn’t have gotten me anything. You home is all the present I need.”

  “Open it,” I insist. “It’s not expensive. The opposite really.”

  Her eyes narrow. “The opposite of expensive. Now I’m intrigued.” She reaches for the gift bag and pulls out the simple bronze frame. “A picture of a…” She shakes her head with a laugh. “What is that? Something you’ve signed?”

  “It’s a contract page,” I confirm. “Take a look at what it says.” I wait, clenching and unclenching my sweaty palms as Bree scans the paragraphs, her mouth moving along with the words until she gets to the good part and she suddenly lets out a squeal loud enough to make the champagne ripple in the glasses. “Six years! Oh my God! You’re home for six years!”

  “Home for good.” My words end in a grunt as she hurls herself into my arms for a fierce hug. “If the Badgers decide they don’t want more of me after the six years are up, I’ll hang up my skates. I’m never leaving you again.”

  She pulls back, eyes shining as she laughs. “I’m so glad. But how did this happen? Who did you have to take out to get this kind of deal?”

  “I didn’t have to take anyone out. The Badger management noticed I was bringing something special to Kansas City and reached out to see what it would take to get me back.”

  I went into my three-year contract with the Highballers committed to going all-in with my new team. Not only did I bring my A game to the ice as a starter, I stayed late at practice to work with the backup goalies, sharing everything I’d learned from Tank and my years as a Badger to give us depth at the position and ensure nothing was getting in our net.

  As a result, the Highballers had the best year since they were established as an expansion team, and I set team records for wins and goals against average. I also got a nickname, Wallace the Wall, which sounded awesome chanted by a happy hometown crowd.

  I never expected to be leaving a year into my contract. But at the end of a season in which my new team missed the playoffs by two points, I got offers from several franchises looking to add a top-rated goalie to their lineup. One of which was Portland, who was willing to lay down major bank to bring me home for six years.

  It was, of course, a no-brainer. The other offers were flattering, but Portland is the only place I want to be.

  “I’m over the moon,” Bree says, clasping her hands together. “Now I won’t need that one-way ticket I bought to Kansas City.”

  I blink. “You’re kidding.”

  She laughs. “No, I’m not kidding. I’ve been training Vivian to take over for me at the shop and told my landlord I’d be out by the end of the summer.”

  “Thank you, doc,” I say, more touched than I can adequately express with words. Knowing Bree was willing to give up Portland and everything that goes with it for me is humbling, making me even more sure we’re ready for the next step.

  Bree squeezes my hand. “You’re welcome. I was going to have to move anyway, to make room for your last incredible present, but I confess I’m glad I won’t have to figure out how to transport a hermit crab colony cross-country.”

  Last month, I purchased a fifteen-gallon tank and a colony of hermit crabs from their present owner, a sweet old guy who seemed relieved to hand the crustaceans over to a good home come August 1st, when Bree said she would be prepared to take possession of Sheldon’s new home and friends. Now I know why she wanted to delay.

  “I’m a lucky man.”

  “You’re about to get even luckier,” Bree says as she turns with a nervous laugh to dig in the giant purse she set on a bar stool when we arrived. “At least, I hope you’ll think so. I looked all over for the perfect pair, but I kept coming back to these two guys.” She pulls out something wrapped carefully in tissue and opens it to reveal a vintage salt-and-pepper shaker set, which she arranges on the bar by our champagne glasses. The salt is a fish wearing a hula skirt, and the pepper is a crab holding a top hat in one claw, and they are absolutely perfect.

  “They remind me of our beach trip.” I wrap an arm around her waist. “Of the day you told me you loved me for the first time.”

  She squeezes my bicep. “I hoped they would. That’s what I was looking for. Though, I wanted a pair that had a solid heft to them, too. I know you hate a flimsy ceramic.” She nods toward them, a gleam in her eyes. “Give them a shake, see what you think.”

  “I don’t need to; I can tell they’re perfect. And probably from the forties.”

  “No, you need to,” Bree insists. “You should give them a shake.”

  “All right.” Casting a narrow glance her way, I reach out, shaking first the salt—solid, just as I thought—and then the pepper, summoning a rattling sound from inside the crab. Brow arching, I shift my attention back to Bree. “There’s something in there.”

  “There is?” she says, feigning surprise. “I wonder what it could be.”

  “Maybe I should open it.”

  “Maybe you should.” She’s practically dancing as I turn the ceramic over and tug out the plastic stopper.

  I tip it up again, shaking until something silver falls out into my palm. And maybe it’s the heat, or the two beers I’ve had, but it takes me a long second to realize what it is.

  By the time I do, Bree is kneeling beside me, her hands pressed to her heart.

  “Shane Wallace, will you marry me?” she asks as my chest explodes with pure bliss. “I love you more than anything in the world, and considering we’re deliriously happy and adopting ten crab children together, I think it’s time I put a ring on it, don’t you?”

  “This is just like the day we played in the fountain.” I pull her ring from my pocket and hold it up next to the one she brought, making her jaw drop. “I guess that proves it,” I say, dropping onto one knee beside her. “We’re meant to be.”

  Her eyes are shining, but she laughs as she nods. “Yes. We are.”

  “So I guess I should put a ring on it, too. Since I also love you more than anything in the world and can’t wait to make you my wife.”

  Bree holds out a slightly trembling hand. “Yes, yes you should. And yes I will.”

  I slide my ring on her finger, and she slides hers on mine, and then we toast our engagement, sipping champagne as we make plans for where we want to live and where we’ll tie the knot and how soon we can transition Sheldon and his colony-mates into their new permanent home.

  By the time our friends and family join us for dinner, we’ve got a group beach campground site booked for the July fourth weekend. Over appetizers, we invite everyone to our wedding and spend the rest of the meal laughing and catching up with the people we love most.

  And then, hours later, after the last chocolate mousse has been spooned up and the final bottle of wine emptied, Bree and I retreat to our room, and I make love to my future wife, silently thanking God that I get to be her one and only, from now until the day death—which will not be from a Sperm-der, because I am nuclear protocols careful with condoms—do us part.

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  Here’s the thing about days that change your life…

  When you wake up, you have no idea you’re on the cusp of a life changer.

  Your alarm goes off at five a.m. like any other day. You yawn, curse the cold floor waiting to bite your foot as soon as you swing a leg out from under the covers, and start the usual routine.

  You chug a glass of water, trudge through the sleeping house to the back door, and run down the list: feed the dogs, water the chickens, move the mobile coops across the still damp grass, milk the cow your younger brother adopted before he moved just far enough away to make it impossible for him to milk Moo-Donna—a rescue cow with a bad attitude and unusually sharp teeth—and slam a fist on the guest house door to get your nephews out of bed because your older brother wants them doing chores while they’re staying with you, even though it would be easier to gather the eggs yourself.

  Getting teenagers out of bed is usually akin to hauling large boulders up a mountain against a gale force wind while birds peck out your eyeballs, and this morning is no different.

  “Jacob! Blake!” I shout, pounding on the door again. “The eggs need to be sorted for the restaurant orders and the extras on the stand before seven.”

  Mumbles and groans seep through the thin door, followed by a plaintive, “Five more minutes. It’s Saturday, Uncle Dylan.”

  “Which means people will be out walking the trail behind the house, looking for eggs to take home for breakfast,” I counter. “Up. Now. Go.”

  I thump the door three more times for good measure and head back to the house, thinking grumbly thoughts about the list of chores I had as a seventeen-year-old and the way things were done back in my day.

  I’m thirty-one, way too young for old-fart belly-aching, but that doesn’t stop me from growling at Rafe as I duck into the kitchen, “I should make the boys milk the cow. Let them get chewed a few times and they’ll be grateful for egg duty.”

  Rafe, who’s tying on his work boots for the first time in longer than I can remember, laughs. “You sound like Dad.”

  “I don’t sound like Dad.” I scowl harder as I grab the truck keys off the hook. “You going to be around today?”

  “Where else would I be? If I’m staying here, I’m working here.” Rafe arches a dark brow as he stands. My half-brother has his Italian mother’s dark hair and olive skin, but people still mistook us for twins when we were kids.

  But then, we are only two months apart in age. That kind of thing happens when your father has a habit of spreading the love around.

  And around…

  And around…

  Before a prostate cancer fight finally slowed him down, Dad managed to have four sons by three different women. My mom was the one he didn’t marry, the hippie he met at a music festival in Mendocino, knocked up, and saw a few times a year until she got tired of the single-mother gig, dropped me off at Dad’s, and never came back.

  I’ve been here ever since. This land has its claws in me deep, and most days I’m okay with that. Grouchy thoughts aside, I love what I do, especially this time of year, when the hops harvest is in and all I’ve got on my plate is managing the organic egg arm of our operation. Though, I am looking forward to the day when I get to keep the hops for myself, start my own brewery, and make a name for the Hunters with beer the way my great-granddad did with wine.

  I’m so close to having our debts paid, my well-oiled growing machine in prime working order, and the reins ready to hand over to Dad.

  Or, better yet, a manager I will pay to make sure Dad’s stress levels stay low and my well-oiled machine doesn’t break down. The farm was struggling when I took over three years ago, and I don’t want any backsliding.

  “Thanks for taking my ass in,” Rafe continues, crossing the faded brown tile. “I appreciate it.”

  I shake my head and scoff at his crazy. “Get out. Your house burned down, man. Like we’re going to let you stay in a hotel for months while you wrestle with the insurance company. Besides, this is your home. You’re always welcome.”

  “I know. But I also know you’ve got a lot on your plate,” he says, gaze lifting pointedly toward the ceiling. “He still giving you shit?”

  “Daily,” I say dryly. “A fresh load every afternoon, like clockwork.”

  Rafe rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, fuck that. You’re killing it, Dylan. This ship was headed for the rocks, and you turned it around. Just let Dad’s bitching go in one ear and out the other.”

  I grunt as we swing out of the back door and load into my truck for the drive into town. I know he’s right, but my father’s complaining still gets to me. Pop doesn’t care that growing hops to sell to local breweries and producing sustainably farmed eggs is making us just as much money as growing grapes ever did. He doesn’t care that diseased vines nearly cost us our land, the house, the farm, and everything our family has worked hundreds of years to build. He loves wine as much as he loves women, and I’m the bad guy who took the grapes away from him.

  The only way to get him off my back and on board with the path I’ve chosen is to get him what he wants.

  Vines.

  Vines close enough he can glimpse them out his bedroom window before he goes to sleep at night, the way it used to be when our land was acres of pinot noir as far as the eye could see. And there’s only one way I’m going to be able to deliver that. I need the three acres on the other side of the multi-use trail that runs along the back of our property.

  I need that fucking pumpkin patch.

  By rights, it should be mine. Farmer Stroker and I are tight. I’ve personally picked at least half the pumpkins on that land for years, for God’s sake. There should be no “considering other offers.”

  And there wouldn’t be if she hadn’t shown up.

  My shoulders tense and my grip tightens on the steering wheel as thoughts of her further the grouch-ification of my morning. It’s almost enough to make me turn right at the first stop sign in town. Almost enough to make me choose bitter drive-in coffee instead of Barn Roasters’ Sonoma County brew.

  Almost, but not quite.

  Even the risk of running into She Who Will Not Be Named can’t convince me to knock back third-rate coffee-flavored swill. I appreciate coffee the way Pop appreciates wine, and I will not subject my mouth to a caffeinated atrocity when there is hot, steamy, black gold waiting at the end of Main Street.

  Besides, last night I promised Rafe one of Sophie’s cinnamon rolls as a “sorry your house and shop burned down” present, and I’m a man who keeps his promises.

  At the end of Main, I roll into the rocky parking lot in front of Barn Roasters, which is already filled with mud-splattered pickups, a smattering of shiny rental cars from the wine-tasting tourists who have done their homework, and a gaggle of bicycles leaning against the faded gray planks of the old barn turned coffee house, testimony to the shop’s location just off the scenic bike trail that winds through Mercyville and into the city of Santa Rosa.

  Of course, at least half of those city-dwelling cyclists are going to be pissed that they can’t check their email while they’re slugging back a local brew.

  Cell reception is shitty in town, and Barn Roasters is rustic all the way—no wifi, no tables, no bells and whistles, just a bar twenty-five feet long where people can pull up a stool and enjoy an extraordinary cup of joe and the view across the hills through the windows.

  It’s one of my favorite places on earth. Has been for years. A cup of Sophie’s coffee is my favorite way to start the day, and I’m not going to change that, not even to avoid another unpleasant interaction with the Blonde Terror.

  “Think of the devil,” I mutter as Rafe and I open the door, releasing a puff of cinnamon, sugar, and dark-roast scented air and granting me a perfect view of a perky ponytail sidled up to the bar on my left.

  Emma Haverford, thorn in my side, salt in my wound, paper
cut in my eye, has beaten me to coffee yet again.

  She’s wearing overalls today—faded blue-jean overalls with mud stains on the cuffs over a tight red T-shirt—with a crisp red bandana tied in her hair.

  “Playing farmer dress-up again, are we?” I ask as I pass behind her on the way to two empty stools at the far end of the bar.

  She turns, smiling pleasantly, her big blue eyes wide behind her wire-rimmed glasses.

  Damn it, why couldn’t she have taken two minutes to slip in contacts? I hate those glasses. They make her look like a sexy librarian you secretly want to shush you for talking too loud…

  “Still supercilious this morning, I see,” she coos in response, lifting her espresso in a one-sided toast.

  I scrunch my brow into an exaggerated scowl. “Ease up with the big words, little lady. We’re simple folks around here. We don’t traffic in more than three syllables.”

  “Yeah, right,” she says, still grinning. “You don’t fool me Dylan Hunter. You’re smarter than you look. I bet you know at least two synonyms for patronizing.”

  My scowl falls away as my under-caffeinated synapses struggle to whip up a snappy comeback. After a few seconds—never leave smartassery unaddressed for more than five, six tops—I shrug and shoot her my “oh-hell, honey” grin, the one that’s been getting me out of trouble and successfully rounding third base since I was sixteen. “All right. Your point this time, Blondie. You’re lucky I haven’t had coffee yet.”

  She tips her head smugly, clearly enjoying her victory. “Take your time. I’ll be here tomorrow. Not going anywhere.”

  The seemingly innocent words set my teeth on edge again. Because I hear them for what they are—a threat, a promise that she’s not going to sell out like most of the Silicon Valley refugees, people who come seeking romance and adventure in wine country only to go running back to their cushy tech jobs when they realize how much hard work and risk-taking is involved in farming for a living.