Carried Away

by P. Dangelico

  “So, Gray, you have a girlfriend?” I ask after we discussed that he wants to focus exclusively on online sports media. It seems everyone in his generation wants to be the next Barstool Sports. “A boyfriend? Both?”

  His full lips kick up on one side. “Neither.”

  “Why do I feel like I’m not getting the whole story?”

  “Reporters, man…” he says shaking his head, a big grin spreading across his boyish face.

  His dark brown gaze drops to the dark wood tabletop. He rolls the empty take-out cup between his hands. “There is someone I’m interested in…but…she’s not interested in me.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. How do you know?”

  “How do I know what? That I like her?” He makes a face. “I know. Trust me, I know.”

  I can’t help but laugh. What a terrible job of acting coy. He’s more than interested. He has a major thing for someone.

  “Does she actually know you like her?”

  “Like…have I asked her out?”

  “Yeah, Gray. Dating. I know you’re only twenty-two, but tell me you’ve dated before.”

  In a lot of ways he reminds me of me at that age. I was just starting to figure it out as well. Unsure of myself but willing to try only to backpedal later when the opportunity presented itself.

  “Yeah…I mean, not a lot. Some.” He fidgets in his seat. “A few times.”

  “Let me give you a little advice,” I say, leaning forward conspiratorially. “God knows I’m no expert on dating myself, but I do know something about women having been one since birth…”

  I have his complete attention. Unblinking, he stares at me as if jewels are about to drip from my lips.

  “Women are attracted to confidence. It doesn’t matter how old, tall, rich, or handsome you are. If you can sell the confidence without being cheesy or gross, you’ll get the girl eventually.

  “I’m not saying bravado. That’s not it. I’m saying the confidence that comes from believing in yourself. From within. You believe and other people will begin to agree with you…and when your chance comes, make sure you take it.”

  “Confidence…” he murmurs, his gaze directed out the cafe window and faraway. Then he snaps out of it. “Let’s post your column on Facebook and Twitter.”

  “Why the face, kid?” Nan asks from her chair near the fireplace, her trusty feline companion at her feet.

  She’s working on her needlepoint. Comfort Cottages is famous for it. The hotel has been selling her signature needlepoint trimmed pillows and duvets for decades. And making a tidy profit too. When I saw the balance sheet, I thought it was a typo.

  I’m restless and grouchy and I can’t seem to find anything to hold my interest. Presently, I started and DNFed two books and started and scraped a new column. Unlike Elvis who has an unhealthy interest in his privates.

  “Elvis is licking his balls again.”

  “Everyone should have a hobby,” Nan replies without missing a beat.

  I came home from my coffee date with Gray to find out Jake went out of town without a word. Maybe that has something to do with it. But it’s not like he owes me an explanation. I have no right to be bruised about it. We shared a couple of kisses. Big deal. Were they fantastic kisses? Definitely. The best I’ve ever had? You bet.

  And still that means nothing. I’m a big girl now, playing by big girl rules. And the rules of courtship these days are no one owes anyone anything. Double that sentiment if the person in question is a super famous sports star. One with a star a touch tarnished, but a star nonetheless.

  “Did Jake say where he was going?”

  I give her a look. “Nan….we’re not talking about Jake.”

  “So he didn’t tell you.”

  Leave it to my grandmother to pour salt on a wound and kick it across the room.

  “No. We’re barely friends. He doesn’t have to explain himself or tell me when he leaves town.”

  “Is that what you kids call it these days?”

  I glance back up at her and find her rapt attention on her needlepoint, a soft smile of her face.

  “It’s pointless anyway…I’m going back to California as soon as possible. This place…is not for me.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Nan.”

  “A place is what you make of it.”

  “I’m going out,” Dad announces, stepping into the doorway dressed and shaved.

  It’s eight. My father is usually sleeping in his chair in front of the TV by this hour.

  “Out?” I feel the need to affirm. “As in, out with company?”

  “Meeting the guys for a beer.”

  “Have fun,” Nan chirps and we both turn to get a better look at her. Very odd.

  Dad gives me a beats me too look and waves.

  By nine, I crawl into bed, defeated. No Jake. No friends. Even Gene is out. My father has a better social life than I do. I did not see my life going this way. For half a second, I contemplate going to Regina’s but she’s likely busy working and I’m not going to be the sad chick at the end of the bar nursing a soda for three hours. I refuse to be that girl in this story.

  I do the next best thing, I call my sister to complain. “He didn’t say a word. Just mauled me in the pantry and left the next day.”

  “How big is he?”

  Pregnancy has turned my mild-mannered sister into a gutter rat. “Are you serious?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You expect me to tell you how big the guy I have an unhealthy crush on is?”

  “What’s the big deal. You want me to tell you how big Charlie is?”

  “No! Don’t ever have another kid. Pregnancy is turning you into a crazy person.”

  “Oh, Charlie’s home. Time for sex. Love you.”

  After Jackie hangs up on me, I’m still not tired so like the high school loser I am, I Google him…again.

  A YouTube video of his last Stanley Cup win pops up and I press play. On skates, Jake is poetry in motion. Fast, graceful. Erotic. The change in him is so obvious now. Watching him play with so much unbridled energy, so many emotions crossing his face, he barely looks like the same person. It makes me sad, actually. I have to wonder where the guy laughing with his teammates in this video has gone.

  Something catches my eye. I stop the video and rewind it. A jarring hit one of the Penguins defensemen lays on him. A guy even bigger than Jake slams him into the wall. But what makes me gasp is not the crush of bodies when he’s upright. It’s when he hits the ice head first and gets knocked into the boards by the scrum of players fighting over the puck. His head caught in the middle of all that violence.

  I watch him get to his feet a little wobbly, his bleeding face making it all the more gory. Then he skates off the ice.

  I watching that forty second clip three more times and make a mental note to ask him about it next time I see him.

  That is, if I ever see him again.

  My phone keeps chiming with notifications. Unlocking it, I stare at my screen. 5630 Twitter notifications. I’ve blocked so many accounts I’ve gotten them down to almost zero so this alarms me. It’s possible someone took a screenshot of my tweet and circulated it again.

  Reluctantly, I open Twitter and start to read. Then, I scream.

  Chapter 13

  Music, bluesy with a hip hop edge, lures me into the bar. After bouncing around ideas for the next column with Hal and Gray, I decided to walk home instead of calling an Uber. I should be ecstatic. I should be celebrating. And yet I’m not. I’m pining…again.

  My article was retweeted by a very famous daytime host whose name starts with the letter E. It has garnered thousands of likes. Twenty five thousand to be exact. That’s a lot of eyeballs.

  But back to the music. The Tri-Lakes has gone through a cultural revolution of sorts since I left for school, the music scene exploding, and most bars have one night a week they devote to showcasing local bands on the rise.

  As big as the bar is, with
its exposed red brick and industrial beams and pipes, it is packed. Both with locals and a large share of out-of-towners, the latter easily distinguishable by the designer clothes.

  I cut through the press of bodies and head toward the back, where the band is tuning their instruments getting ready to play another set.

  By sheer luck, a group of girls at a table located against the wall is about to leave. One looks at me and asks if I want it. I don’t, as a general rule, hang at bars by myself. But I can’t bear to be alone tonight, and the music seems to be the antidote for whatever I’m feeling––which is sorry for myself.

  So he left without saying goodbye or anything. Not even to tell me where he was going. I can’t hold it against him. That wouldn’t be fair. We have nothing but mutual attraction and a few scorching kisses between us.

  Nodding, I take a seat and thank them as they leave. Layer after layer of clothing gets peeled off: Jackie’s Ralph Lauren Navajo coat, my hat, gloves. We’ve had a snap of cold weather lately and even a few flurries. I don’t care if it’s May, I’m freezing, and it’s safe to assume that I’ll probably be freezing until sometime in August.

  A waitress takes my order and quickly returns with my vodka cranberry. I rarely drink but this is one of those nights. All around me people are laughing and living their lives while I’m stuck in standby, waiting for something to break loose and set me free.

  “To me,” I mutter, raising the cocktail to my lips. “And Ellen.”

  As the cosmo and music work their magic, soothing my weary soul, a prickle of awareness runs across the back of my neck. Without thought, I glance over my shoulder and catch sight of a familiar tall figure pushing through the crowd.

  Head tipped back, eyes scanning the room. In his hand a beer bottle and the sleeve of thin black sweater pushed up his forearms. His dark blue gaze lands on me and he stops, staring for what feels like forever. Meanwhile my stomach does that funny thing it’s not supposed to do whenever he looks at me.

  “Hi,” he says, reaching the table. He takes a seat.

  “Hi,” I say, confused by the swing of emotions I’m feeling––happy to see him and equally terrified that I’m feeling this way. “How was your trip?” God, did that come out snarky? Hopefully it’s too loud in here for him to have noticed.

  “Good…it was good.” He looks away, over my shoulder, face tight with heavy thoughts. An awkward silence falls and I try to fill it, as I often do.

  “Are you here for the music?”

  His gaze returns to me, wanders over my face. The crease in between his brows disappears. “I was on my way to the paper and I saw you walk in.”

  “You did? I mean, you were?” I’m a bundle of nerves. Is he saying what I think he’s saying?

  “I went to see Karen––Mike’s wife.”

  No, apparently he’s not. Disappointment washes over me. He doesn’t have to explain himself. We are nothing to each other. He owes me nothing.

  “Is that…is that hard for you?” I take a big sip of my drink and feel it burn my throat.

  He pauses, mulling over how to answer. “She’s seeing someone and wanted to tell me in person.”

  He doesn’t look okay with it. The sinking sensation in my gut stages a comeback. “I’m…I feel like I lose Mike more and more each day.” His gaze drops, directed at the condensation on the beer bottle he’s wiping away with his thumb. “Ask me. I know you want to.”

  It’s been hanging there between us. Do I think people make honest mistakes? Yes. But this is bigger than that. So, heart pounding, I ask, “Were you drinking the night of the accident?”

  Looking me squarely in the eyes, he says, “No.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Not that night. I’ve used my fair share of painkillers, but that night I took over-the-counter.”

  The relief I feel is overwhelming.

  “Are you mad at her for moving on?”

  He shakes his head and exhales deeply. “No. No, I’m happy for her.”

  Now I’m the one exhaling deeply. I don’t know what I would’ve done if he said yes. I’m past the point of denying that I don’t have feelings for this man.

  “I was coming to find you…I––”

  A guy knocks into our table going backward, pushed by his buddy. Not a local. He’s dressed top to bottom in designer clothes. The two-thousand-dollar Yeeze Nikes make my eyes roll.

  “Sorry, yo,” he says to us when he almost winds up in Jake’s lap. Had Jake not grabbed the bottle fast enough, the beer would’ve spilled all over me.

  Seeing Jake’s expression, the dude laughs. He’s high or drunk or both probably. “Easy, yo. It was an accident.”

  Then he flips his long bangs to the side. His friend steps up behind him and checks us out. And if guy number one is Dumb then this one is Dumber. Dumber has the oversized muscles of someone who feeds on a steady diet of steroids.

  “I know this guy. You’re Jake Turner. Amirite?” He turns to his idiot friend who’s standing way to close to our table for our comfort. “The hockey player. the one that killed the other guy––Bresler.”

  “Yo, I loved Bresler,” Dumb says, expression stricken. “Damn, this is the guy that killed him?”

  Listening to these two so cavalierly speak of Mike Bresler and Jake makes my blood boil. “Excuse me?” I say to both of them. “If you’re done, can you move please.”

  “Whatever,” one of then claps back.

  “What did you say?”

  “Don’t,” I hear in a soft rasp.

  I glance sideways, mainly to assess Jake’s mood––I’ve never known a man to have as many moods as this one does at any given moment––and find him totally chill. It’s almost peculiar. “Why not?”

  “Because you don’t bring a squirt toy to a gun fight.” He tips his chin at his arm resting on the table. My gaze follows his lead, and when it lands on his bicep, he flexes.

  Oh please. I’m ready to flatten his overinflated ego with a well-deserved quip when I glance up. Only one small problem––I lose the power of speech. Whatever I was about to say drains out of my head because for the first time ever, Jake Turner, Scrooge of the Adirondacks, smiles. And it’s not one of his evil little smirks. Or one of his teasing ones. It’s the genuine article, the real deal. And the stunning part? This rare breed of smile reveals two perfectly matched dimples.

  Somebody get the oxygen.

  “Bresler was ten times the player you’ll ever be, Turner.” The guy’s voice is louder this time around, his speech more slurred. I see this going badly.

  “You’re a loser, man!”

  “Okay, that’s it––” I can’t contain myself anymore. I’m not prone to violence or temper tantrums, but listening to someone disparage him is doing strange things to me. A sense of protectiveness I never knew I was capable of pushes me to act, the feeling not a pleasant one or one I can ignore. “Punk ass kids…”

  I get to my feet, the stool scraping loudly against the wood floor, and feel a big hand gently clasps my arm. We’ve had our ups and downs since meeting on that fateful night almost three months ago. I’ve gone from gratitude, to dislike, to physical attraction, to…to frankly really liking him. But this…this feels different. This feels bigger than all those other stages combined.

  While I examine the strong tan fingers wrapped around my arm, he tugs me closer. I’m close enough that I can see the scar across his top lip and three rogue freckles on his left cheekbone. Close enough that my heart starts racing as I watch his heavy-lidded gaze focus on my lips.

  “Leave it be,” he quietly tells me.

  For a second, I get lost in the moment. The band hasn’t started playing again and the volume in the bar has dialed down enough that it sounds like he and I are alone in the room.

  “Someone needs to defend you if you aren’t going to do it yourself.”

  His lashes lower as his eyes roam my face. “You wanna defend me, Carebear?”

  “Somebody has to…and don’t call me that.
” There’s less than zero conviction in my voice, but I’m not ready to admit that I like it. That I like the way he says it. That I love the sound of my nickname in that deep, rough rasp.

  It feels like defeat in a way. In fact, I sound embarrassingly breathy and I do not get breathy. And yet I do in the presence of an ex-hockey player with a penchant for frowns and primary colors.

  “Yeah, listen to your bitch, Turner,” declares the steroid abuser.

  The smile drops and the dimples disappear. And the disappointment I feel at the loss of them is reason enough to give these two yahoos a beatdown.

  Jake stands, and acting quickly, I lunge for his arm. Suddenly, I’m an accessory, dangling off of him. I’m 5’6” and he’s 6’2” and he’s literally wearing me.

  “What did you say?” he murmurs at Dumb and Dumber.

  “Turner, Turner! Leave it. Come on. I need to get home. How about you walk me? C’mon.” He takes a step forward and the two idiots square up. Everyone else around us, finally taking notice of the kerfuffle, make room for the imminent barroom brawl. “I said leave it––this guy is a winter weather advisory.”

  That gets his attention. He stops and looks down at me, his lips quirking. “A what?”

  “A winter weather advisory––one to three inches.”

  The dimples are back, his face slowly stretching into an ear to ear smile, white teeth showing and everything. One thing is clear, however. Smiling obviously does not come naturally to him because it looks like he doesn’t know what to make of it.

  “Come on…” he says to me a moment later, placing me back on my feet. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Pulling a hundred-dollar bill out of the back pocket of his jeans, Turner stops one of the waitresses. He tells her to settle his tab and to keep the rest, her eyes lighting up when she sees the bill.

  “Fucking chump,” we hear one of the Dumb and Dumber twins say. Ignoring them, Jake wraps a steady arm around my shoulders and guides me toward the door.

  I have to give credit where credit is due. I’ve always assumed hockey players were hotheads, lacking self-control and quick to pick a fight. Jake is no such thing. In fact, his self-control is something to admire.