Keane’s phone vibrated on the table, interrupting the moment. “It’s Con, I should take this,” he said to Bono, more than happy for his best friend’s subject ruining call. “He wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important.”
“Ask him if he wants to grab beers with us tonight,” Bono said. “Maybe we can talk more about what’s distracting you.”
As if he’d ever. But Keane put the phone on speaker and instead of saying hello, asked, “Wanna grab a beer after work? And why are you calling me?”
“Yap, I’ll take that beer if you’re buying,” Con answered, still sounding as Wisconsin as ever, despite living in Boston longer than he ever did on whatever dairy farm he grew up on. “But I’m calling about this new black kid who showed up for the first day of hockey camp…”
“Pavel Rustanov? Yeah, could’ve told you that kid would be topflight. Nikolai Rustanov’s his dad.”
“No, I’m not talking about Mount Nik’s kid—though he’s great, too, just like you’d expect. But we got this walk-in. Like the Dad literally paid for the day this morning and the kid just walked in off the street. Real pretty boy. I almost told him we didn’t accept girls. But you know all these kid players got phones these days, and all they wanna use them for is selfies and recording coaches saying shit like that. Plus, Bono’s always saying…”
“Watch your mouth around the kids,” Keane recited right along with his longtime friend, glaring at his sensitive younger brother. But then he scowled into the phone. “Time’s money, Con and I already did a fundraiser for the academy last Friday. Get to the point.”
“Keane, this kid is only nine, but he’s fucking amazing. I put him on a mixed-tracks team, opposite Pavel for a scrimmage, and he held Mount Nik’s kid for zero shots on goal. Except for the size difference you wouldn’t have known who was the twelve-year-old and who was the nine-year-old. In fact, I’m thinking I’d better go ahead and let him start practice with the summer camp travel team today. He’s too good for the regular day pass kids. Most of them are still trying to learn to skate.”
An unexpected stillness blanketed Keane’s mind. The kid was that good, huh? He remembered giving zero fucks about going up against players twice his size when he was a kid, too.
“You say he’s just here for the day?” Bono pulled out his own phone. “What’s his name?”
“Maximillian Grover. And if you’re planning to look him up, I already had the girl at reception do just that. No internet records she could find, even though he plays like he was born in skates with a hockey stick in his hands. But he says he’s here visiting for the summer from California, so you know what that means…”
“Private coach,” Bono guessed.
Keane immediately became a little less interested. “Probably some rich kid then, being groomed for somebody else’s elite pee wee team.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, but when I asked him about coming back tomorrow, he said today was all his parents would let him get away with.”
“What does that mean?” Keane asked, frowning into the phone.
“I dunno. But I want this kid for our summer travel team, Keane. I want him bad. And I know you’re busy, but I was thinking if this kid’s parents were anti-hockey or whatever, maybe you could talk to them. Convince them to enroll him in the summer camp track.”
“Sorry, no can do,” Bono said, shaking his head even though Con couldn’t see him. “This kid sounds great, but we have meetings all afternoon, so—”
“He better be good,” Keane said, cutting his brother off. “See you in fifteen.”
With that, Keane hung up and grabbed his suit jacket, ignoring his brother’s protests. No, going to see some kid play shouldn’t be his priority number one right now. But something strange had happened during that conversation with Con about the mysterious California kid. The restless energy…it had let up all of a sudden. Stopped, as if something he’d been looking for had been found.
And that sure as hell was worth investigating.
Keane didn’t make it to the center they completely rented out every summer for the hockey camp in fifteen minutes. He made it in twelve. And the kid wasn’t nearly as good as Con described…he was incredible.
His footwork, speed, and agility were better than skaters twice his age. And if that wasn’t impressive enough, he skated with a confident aggression you just couldn’t teach. Most kids his age tried to get to the puck. This Maximillian kid commandeered the rubber disc, snatching it from other players with his stick, like they’d taken something that had belonged to him all along.
Keane had only meant to give this side trip a few minutes of his very valuable time. But he ended up staying through the whole afternoon session, watching as some of their best summer camp players threw their sticks, pissed at being bested by a little kid.
No doubt about it, if the NHL took hockey anywhere near as serious as the Russians, this kid would already be on several scout’s radars. But his own check of the kid’s unusual name had brought up the same whole lotta nothing, which frustrated Keane even more as he watched the young boy whip teenage ass on the ice.
“If this is the work of a Private Coach, we need to recruit that son of a bitch right now, too,” Keane said, as he watched the new kid joke around with Pavel Rustanov. Pavel was skating royalty and it had taken several personal calls from Keane to his overprotective father to convince his parents to send him east this summer at the age of 12. But even he seemed impressed with the unexpected nine-year-old phenom.
“Too?” Con asked hopefully. “That means you’ll talk to the parents?”
Tall order, but Keane jammed his index finger and thumb into the sides of his mouth and let out a sharp whistle. “Hey California, come talk to the coach and me.”
Kudos to whoever’d trained this kid, he skated over immediately, which was something they usually had to drill into the younger players. Con was right about him being a pretty boy, though, Keane noted when he pulled off his helmet. He had long lashes and delicate features that put him in mind of how Disney princes used to look back in the early days, and he was really tall for a nine-year-old. Those features with his light brown skin and a mop of sun tinted curls on top made for a killer combination. He’d definitely be getting a lot of love from the ladies by the time those balls dropped, Keane predicted.
Just like me, Keane realized, thinking back to his own taller than most pre-puberty days.
The pretty kid slowed when he got closer to the man who’d called his name from the other side of the rink.
Surprise and awe lit his expression. “Oh my God! Are you serious right now? Are you Keane? Like, the Keane from the ‘What’s Stopping You’ billboard?”
“Yeah, I’m Keane, and I hear your name’s Maximilian. That’s some handle.”
“Call me Max. Everybody calls me Max—I can’t believe I just told Keane to call me Max!” The kid doubled over and put his hands on his knees, like he needed to get closer to the ground to keep from passing out. “Oh my God! Oh my God! I can’t believe I’m actually talking to you!”
Keane and Con exchanged a look over the kids lowered head, and fuck his brother’s PC edicts, Keane had to tell the kid, “It’s Mr. Keane. And look, I’m not down with all that hyperventilating like a girl shit. Either talk to me natural or skate on out of here since you’re only here on a day pass.”
Con kept his face neutral, but Keane could practically hear his old friend screaming, “But what if he calls our bluff?”
Lucky for them, the kid adjusted that attitude really quick. At Keane’s words, he stood up straight like a soldier, deepened his voice and said, “Hey Mr. Keane. Name’s Max. Wassup?”
Con lost it and laughed when the kid had the nerve to give him a chin up nod, but somehow Keane managed to keep his face set to serious as he told the kid, “So let’s talk about getting you signed up for our real summer camp.”
Chapter Five
“No, no, do not place those in the food pantry box! They do not
expire for two more years. I can eat them at home!”
Lena rubbed her forehead as she put the several boxes of Hostess Cakes, she knew her father would never eat back on the shelf. Then she threw a rueful look at the scant ten out of thirty boxes she’d managed to pack for the Boston Gives Food Pantry, with her father shadowing her every move. She’d flown out here three days ago, thinking it would only take the weekend to help her father clear out the store. But here they were on Monday, not even halfway done.
“Abba, the people who bought the shelves are coming tomorrow. You can’t keep changing your mind about what goes there.”
“I never said we would give away the Hostess.” Her dad frowned, his brown face creasing with wrinkles that hadn’t been there the last time she came to visit. “Those are a very popular item. Along with the several varieties of Cheetos you tried to insert into that box.”
“Yes, and you know what else Cheetos and Hostess have in common?” she asked with an irritated huff. “You’re never going to eat them!”
Her rail thin father jerked his head back, putting her in mind of a dowager from a PBS show, who had just been outrageously insulted. “Salena Grover, you will not speak to me in this disrespectful tone. I am your father.”
Yes, he was, and he was driving her crazy. As much as he’d complained about having to work in a convenience store as opposed to attending medical school after he was unexpectedly thrust into the role of single father, he sure was dragging his feet about saying goodbye to the store and hello to early retirement.
But instead of pointing that out, she fell back on her old trick of listing all the things her father had done and sacrificed for her so as not to wring his skinny little neck. He’d worked sixteen hour days at this EasyStop instead of finishing med school…he’d let Vihaan stay with them the summer his mom had kicked him out…he’d given up three more hours of sleep to drive for Uber in order to help her pay for her first and only year of med school…and he’d never asked for a penny of that money back, even though she’d eventually gone back to grad school for a doctorate in psychology instead of an M.D after Max was born.
By the time she finished her list she no longer felt stabby, just guilty. Still not a great emotional state, but at least that anger suppression allowed her to keep her voice calm as she pointed out, “I want to help you finish packing up the store, but I don’t think we can haul all these things you’re asking to keep back to the house in your hatchback. Plus, the food pantry is coming to pick up tonight.”
“Tell them to come back tomorrow instead.”
“I already moved the appointment once, Dad,” she gently reminded him. “And my training apprenticeship with the Institute for Better Boys starts tomorrow.”
Dad made an aggravated sound in the back of his throat. “Pah! That Institute again. I don’t know why you are bothering. If you were so keen to become a mental health worker, you should use your degree to work at a hospital. I was reading an article the other day about how understaffed the hospitals are, and what do children need with therapists anyway? This is a silly endeavor if you ask me. What does Rohan say about this?”
Another pang of guilt, because though she was eleven years older than the last time she’d kept a change in her relationship status with Rohan from her dad, she once again found herself in the position of not having the heart to tell him she and his top pick had broken up. Much, much more spectacularly this time. Like, the divorce had been finalized last Christmas and she’d already legally changed her name back to Kumar spectacularly.
“I have been thinking. Perhaps after this summer I will move back to California and live with you, Rohan, and Max. I know he has been having a hard time accepting Max’s choices, and perhaps having another man there to advise him will help.”
Oh God, she had to tell him. And she supposed now was as good of a time as any.
“Dad, there’s something I need to tell you…”
The phone rang before she could finish. And she sighed when she pulled it out to decline the call, so that she could have this tough conversation. But then she saw it was Rohan. Better take it. He hadn’t fought her much on the divorce, but Rohan could get snitty when she ignored his calls. It was easier to just answer it.
“I’m going to take this outside,” she mumbled to her father before rushing out the door.
It was still early June, but Boston was already hot and sticky in a way that made her not miss the place even more than she had when she’d been living in L.A.’s relatively dry heat. “Hi, Rohan,” she said, answering the phone.
“There is a charge I don’t recognize on one of the old cards we agreed not to use per or our divorce agreement. Something about hockey….”
She closed her eyes. Ugh! She’d thought she’d cancelled all the recurring payments for Max’s hockey stuff back in Pasadena, but apparently something had gone through.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’ll take care of it tonight, and if I can’t get the charge taken off, I’ll Venmo you.”
A beat of silence. “Max is playing hockey now?”
Max had actually been playing hockey for two years, but Rohan had been so immersed in his work as a pathologist, that it had been easy to sneak around behind his back. “Yes,” she answered, not wanting to get into an argument, but not knowing how else to answer.
“You should not be encouraging this wild phase by letting Max play that idiotic sport.”
“Mmm,” she answered non-committedly.
Then like a lifeline sent down from the Divorced Mom heavens, the call-waiting beeped with her son’s number, cutting off her disapproving ex. “Sorry, Rohan. This is Max on the other line. I have to take it.”
She hung up on Rohan without further explanation. “Hey, sweetie, everything okay?” she asked. “I thought the Better Boys summer camp didn’t let out for another hour.”
“Mom, don’t be mad, okay?” Max answered sounding strangely out of breath. “Just don’t be mad.”
“Be mad about what?” she asked, several alarm bells going off in the back of her head.
“Front desk just texted. California’s mom just arrived,” Con told them, walking up to the set of bleachers, where Keane was writing out a set of stick skill drills he used to practice on his own to keep his puck from getting stolen.
Normally he wouldn’t have bothered teaching pro maneuvers to a kid this young, but as far as Keane could see it was his only weakness. And he remembered feeling frustrated about not being able to keep a puck on lockdown as he skated across the ice when he was Max’s age.
The kid had been into the lesson, but he went still as a wood dove as soon as Con made the announcement.
“Is she mad?” he asked Con.
“Front desk didn’t say,” Con answered.
“But I bet she’ll calm down when we tell I’m giving you a scholarship to go here free for the entire summer,” Keane assured him. “Right, Con?”
However, Con was too busy squinting at something in the distance to answer. “Holy shit, is that…?”
Before Keane could follow the direction of Con’s stare, Max jumped up, completely blocking Keane’s view.
“Mom, I can explain!” Max rushed out to the woman Keane couldn’t see.
“How can you explain lying to me?” she countered, her voice getting closer and closer. Keane frowned. The voice rang a familiar bell, but he couldn’t quite figure out from where. “Or putting yourself in danger? I cannot believe you took a bus without telling me. In a city you barely know.”
“Grandpa said you used to take the subway and the bus all the time.”
“That was different.”
Keane waited for Con to step in and introduce him, but for some reason, he was just gaping at the unseen mom, like he didn’t know what to do.
Figures. Con had always been awkward with the ladies. There was a reason why he’d never had more than a few scattered hook-ups in high school, despite his hockey god status. And why he remained on the incel side of single now t
hat he was a coach.
Time to deploy his devastating good looks and money to deescalate this argument between the kid and his mom, Keane decided.
“Let me talk to her,” he said low in Max’s ear, before placing a hand on the kid’s shoulder and standing up. “Ma’am, I know you’re upset, but…”
The words that were supposed to come after the “but” never arrived. They jammed in his throat, car wrecking the entire explanation about how her kid was a potential star who needed the training and guidance only his elite academy could provide.
The kid’s mother…she wasn’t some California hipster who’d only been taking her son to hockey practice on a lark. She was a ghost.
One he’d been trying not to think about for three days.
Lena… Lena Kumar stood at the bottom of the steps. Which meant….
He turned to look down at the kid, who despite his background and racial make-up had reminded him so much of himself.
Chapter Six
Lena couldn’t breathe. She could sense her lungs trying to work as they normally did, but they had nothing to work with. Every major organ in her body had frozen over when Keane stood up. She hadn’t registered him at first. But when she did, he became all she could see. For seconds…minutes…eternities on end.
“Mom…mom….”
Somebody was calling her name. Somebody important. Even more important than Keane.
She raised her eyes to the son she’d chosen over her previously easy marriage to Rohan. Without thinking twice.
And in that eternity moment she chose him again.
Blinking, she wrenched her attention from Keane to the son who meant more than anything to her. “Max,” she said, using all of her fierce love to shore up the voice box that had collapsed at her first face-to-face sighting of Keane in over ten years. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
Keane: Her Ruthless Ex: 50 Loving States, Massachusetts Page 7