by Mae Wood
“Close. Don’t laugh.”
“I didn’t laugh at Nutty Buddy.”
“There’s nothing to laugh at with Nutty Buddy.”
“And there is in here?” she asked, pulling out a stack of composition books and flipping through them. “Poetry?”
The books weren’t diaries. It was in a way more personal and private than that. “Yeah—”
“It’s a poetry scrapbook?” She ran her fingers over an E. E. Cummings poem that I’d copied on the first page and I remembered sitting at my desk in my bedroom, in about eighth grade, and using my best handwriting to start my anthology of favorites.
“You going to laugh?”
“No. I had a collection of toothpaste caps,” she said.
I peered at her, confused. “What? Toothpaste tube caps? That’s way weirder than poetry.” I sat on the edge of my bed and nodded at her, gently pushing her to explain.
“A couple shoeboxes of them. I spent about a year collecting them. Folks who worked at von Eck would bring them to me. I think I had a project in mind at some point, but then I got distracted but I just kept collecting them.”
“Is this some sort of symbolic story about your life?” I asked with a smile. A smile for now and a smile at the image of a younger Kenzie pestering people about toothpaste caps. I would have given her all the toothpaste caps.
“Maybe. I don’t think so. I just mean that you’re talking to a girl who used to collect toothpaste caps. Anything is possible. It’s cool if you dig poetry.”
“Poetry’s my mom’s thing. She teaches English and loves poetry. Not to get all deep in my psyche or anything, but in junior high she and I were in a bad place. We couldn’t talk without getting mad at each other. I had a lot of rage about my parents getting divorced and us moving and just standard teen boy stuff.”
“I was a shithead too, with lots of toothpaste caps, but back to the poetry.”
“I don’t remember how it started. Maybe it was a school project. But anyway, she’d leave poetry books around and I’d copy down the ones I liked.”
“And you’d show them to her?”
“Oh, hell no. She’d have wanted to talk about it. I don’t even know if she knew I was doing it.”
I expected more questions, but instead, she climbed into my lap, wrapped her arms around me and kissed my cheek. Long and lush and sexy and comforting, before she rested her head on my shoulder.
“‘Twice or thrice had I loved thee, before I knew thy face or name,’” I said, dropping a kiss on her forehead at the concerned lines that crowded there, before they softened and vanished as her eyes grew round. “Don’t freak out on me. It’s John Donne.”
“Is that some sort of symbolic story about your life?” My own words escaped her lips on a whisper.
“Feels like it,” I said. I took her mouth with mine.
“Give me another,” she said, breaking our kiss.
I looked at the ceiling, forcing my mind away from the urgent need to press myself into her, trying to find a line that was right—a line that wasn’t too much, that wouldn’t show all of my weirdness. Plus, I was crap at quoting poetry beyond a line or two. “I can’t think right now.”
“I like the not thinking,” she said. “Let’s do more of it.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kenzie
I knew I’d loved him before. Knew that I loved him now, that I’d love him forever.
The words pushed up in me, scratching at my throat, squeezing my heart, heating my cheeks. I pushed the words aside to let the feelings drown them, so I could bathe in us. “More,” I said, my lips dancing upon his.
“Poetry?” He laughed and I did too.
“Everything.”
“Well, you’ll have to hold off on the poetry. I really can’t think and I’m not the best at quoting it.”
“You’re pretty damn good at everything, Ryan.”
“Say that again.”
“What part?”
“My name. Say my name when I do this.” He ducked his head and nipped where my shoulder met my neck. Tingles blazed through my body, lighting me on fire.
“Ry-annnn,” I exhaled, my voice high and shaky, the need unmistakable.
“That’s exactly what I want,” he said, his teeth grazing my neck again. “Let us possess one world.”
It sounded like a quote from a poem and I didn’t understand it, but at the same time, it was the truest thing I’d ever heard.
We ate cereal straight from the box, mugs of coffee on his bedside table. The sun was setting. I was groggy, like I’d been asleep for days, rather than the half hour-ish hard post-sex crash I’d had.
Ryan’s phone rang from the bedside table. He ignored it.
“You going to get that?”
“Nope,” he said, declining the call without looking at the screen. “Should we order in? Thai?” he asked, passing me my mug.
“What time is it?”
“Seven,” he said, playing with his phone. “You like pad Thai? Spicy shrimp? Whadya want?”
“Thai is good. What about something sweet? Do they have a mango something?”
“Lemme see.”
His phone rang again.
“It’s Greg,” he said, declining the call.
“Who?”
“Friend who crashes here sometimes. He and his girlfriend have this on-and-off thing. When they’re off, he’s usually on my sofa for a couple of days.”
“He can crash here. Totally okay with me,” I said, digging my hand through the Lucky Charms. “Did you eat all of the marshmallows again?”
“You mean, ‘Did you eat the best part?’ Hell yes. No regrets.”
“Here, take mine. I’m more of a Cap’n Crunch girl.”
“Good to know.”
When the rings started up for the third time, I snatched the phone from his hand. “Ryan’s phone,” I chirped with a smile. Ryan blanched. Greg, I mouthed at him and the color on his face returned.
“Oh. Hey. This is Greg,” came a slightly confused male voice.
“Sorry to kick you off the sofa.”
“Um … no worries. I’m on my way to meet up with my girlfriend, so it’s all good. Kenzie, right?”
“Yup. Nice to meet you, Sofa Greg.”
“Back at you. I was at fifty-fifty odds on you being real, by the way.”
“I’m definitely real.”
“Tell your boy that we need him on the ice tonight.”
“We’re ordering Thai,” I said, not knowing what to make of the ice comment.
“Hold up. Do not let him get the spicy shrimp. In fact, no spicy anything.”
I turned the phone down from my mouth and spoke to Ryan. “He says nothing—”
“Spicy, yeah, I know. Gimme the phone.”
“Bye, Sofa Greg.”
“See you in two hours,” he said.
“I have no clue,” I said, placing the phone in Ryan’s outstretched hand.
“Hey, no. I told you I couldn’t play tonight. Find another goaltender. I don’t know. Doesn’t Turner still play? That sucks.”
Ice. Goalie.
He didn’t look like a hockey player, but he was tall and fit.
“Hockey?” I asked.
“Rec league.”
I didn’t care if it was rec league or a pickup game. I wasn’t missing this. “Gimme the phone.”
“Why?”
“Gimme.” I held out my hand, palm up, and waggled my fingers and he dropped the phone in my hand.
“Happy?” he said with a grunt.
“Very,” I said with a wide-eyed nod. “Ice hockey, right?” I asked Greg.
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Ten.”
“He’ll be there.”
I ended the call and passed the phone back to him. “Thai is good. No spicy shrimp. I want to see your A-game.”
“You’ve seen my A-game.”
“Ha. On the ice.”
“I didn’t know you w
ere a hockey fan.”
“Not really. But there’s lots you don’t know about me,” I said.
“I know you like it when I bite your earlobe.”
“What else do you know?”
“That you’re ticklish right about—”
“Not the ribs! Not the ribs!” I screeched as he tickled me along my side. “Ry-aaannn,” I pleaded, tears of involuntary laughter filling my eyes. He stopped. I wiped my face and caught my breath. “You are ruthless.”
“Wait till you see me on the ice.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ryan
“How long have you played hockey?” she asked as we drove to the rink.
“Since high school.”
“In Bakersfield?”
I shook my head. “I was in Bakersfield when I was little. We moved to Orange County when I was in junior high,” I said, glossing over the whole my-parents-got-divorced bit that even twenty-some years later I didn’t like to think about. “Started playing then because my big cousin was into it. Kept playing in college.”
“Wait. You played hockey in college?” She was so excited. This was going to be a bummer. Under promise, over deliver—not the other way around.
“Hold up. I’m not good. It wasn’t varsity. Or even junior varsity. It was club, like intramurals but with other colleges.”
“Still …”
“No, there’s no ‘still’ about it.”
“Can you let me have a quick Henrik Lundqvist fantasy?’
“You know Lundqvist?”
“One of the girls in the house basically had a shrine to him on the back of her door.”
I didn’t see any hockey stuff at her place. Oh wait, house—sorority house. Yeah. That gaping hole somewhere around my stomach returned. She was twenty-two. “So, yeah, can we not—”
“Tell everyone that the ink on my diploma is still wet?” she said, but it was more of a statement than a fact.
“That,” I said with a nod, glad she was on the same page.
“Tell them that I’m twenty-two and you’re robbing the cradle?”
“That too.”
“What else shouldn’t I tell them?” The question was clipped.
“The whole work thing.” I shrugged, adjusting my grasp on the steering wheel, flexing both hands open and squeezing them shut again. The barometer was falling, and I didn’t know how to stop it.
“So, what’s our story?” She stared forward out the windshield, the streetlights sweeping across her face. Her smile was gone. The lightness was gone. She was flat. Calm before the storm.
“Kenzie,” I began. My voice was rough. I cleared my throat. “Listen, I don’t care.”
“But you do. And I care too. Maybe this was a really, really bad idea.”
“It’s not,” I said, moving my right hand over to touch her, to feel her, to feel the connection between us.
“No, really. I shouldn’t—We shouldn’t—Let’s just stop, Ryan.” She scooted away from me, getting her body as far from mine as she could in my small Honda. The chill I felt wasn’t physical.
I put my hand back on the steering wheel. There were hundreds of reasons why we shouldn’t be doing what we were doing. I’d cataloged and examined every one of them over the past few weeks. She probably had too.
“Okay. Still want to see me play?”
“Sure. Or I can get a car back to your place, get my stuff, get a hotel room.”
“That’s ridiculous. Sofa was good enough for Greg, it’s good enough for me.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.” In my peripheral vision I saw her face turn toward me. “Last night. One good send-off.”
I wanted to fight her, wanted to say no and tell her there wasn’t an end to this. But she wanted out, and I wasn’t going to try to change her mind. If there was anything I’d learned from the whole Olivia debacle, it was that I could force my way to a win with work, but I couldn’t force my way to a win with a woman. I’d have to man up.
The rest of the drive to the rink was in silence.
“Gotta go dress out,” I said, hoisting my giant gear bag onto my shoulder.
“I’m going to get some hot chocolate or coffee and sit in the stands.”
“Sounds good.”
Kenzie
The snack bar was closed, so I got hot chocolate from a vending machine and sat at the top of the bleachers to watch. I was alone in the stands. I thought there’d be other people there, but I guess the whole wives-and-girlfriends thing wasn’t a thing for rec league hockey at ten o’clock on a Wednesday night.
The players began filing in and I watched Ryan step onto the ice, giant pads on his legs, a helmet with a huge face mask under his arm. I could barely stand up on ice. Water was my friend when I was swimming in it, not trying to walk on it. He looked comfortable and graceful as he spun around on his skates. The contrast between the big, strong man and the delicate skill—Tara was right about her Lundqvist lust. I got it now. If tonight was the last night, I was going to make it count.
“Hey,” one of the guys called up at me.
“Yeah?”
He waved me down from the top row and I walked down toward the team box-thing. It wasn’t the penalty box, but there had to be a name for it. “Kenzie?”
“Yeah? Greg?”
“Your name is Greg?” A guy with longish hair laughed. “Greg. Scooter’s better.”
“Scooter?” I said, to Greg-Scooter as the guy with Samson on the back of his jersey hopped the boards and skated off.
“It’s all nicknames. Scooter. That’s Samson.” He began pointing to the red jerseys scattered on the ice for warm-up. “With the hair that Delilah hasn’t cut off yet. Cheesy Pete.”
“What’s Ryan’s nickname?”
“Here he’s Bonus. In college, he was the Saint. And that’s Elsa—”
“You’ve got a girl on your team?” I was surprised enough to not question why Ryan was either Bonus or the Saint.
“Elsa’s the best forward in the league,” he said, getting serious. “Her dad’s a legend.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat in the cool air from embarrassment. Stupid me for assuming that they wouldn’t have women on their team.
“Thanks for letting us get Ryan tonight. Goaltenders are hard to come by.”
“No problem. Not mine to share.”
“Said no girlfriend ever.”
“Not his girlfriend.” The words were firm on my tongue but acid to my heart.
“And the Saint is back. Should be a good game, then,” he said with a knowing smile. “I’m going to warm up.”
Shot after shot, Ryan kept taking it. Putting himself between the puck and the net. Who does that? Who does this for fun? I couldn’t watch at first. I cringed and curled up into a ball and closed my eyes every time the black jerseys got near him with the puck. When the buzzer sounded, marking the end of the first period, I was exhausted.
Ryan skated over to their team box-y thing. He pulled his mask off. Drank water and then sprayed his face with the bottle. I watched him wipe his face, using the same motion after going down on me—across the top of his lip, around his chin, then down his entire face. The familiarity of it jolted me. That’s Ryan, my heart said. Ryan.
We didn’t speak. Other than some nods my way, I sat there, surrounded by his scent from his thick, wool sweater he’d loaned me—that citrusy-spicy thing—caught up in the game. I didn’t need a crowd to go wild. Within a few minutes into the second period, I was on my feet, yelling encouragement at him. The other players cast glances at me and exchanged smiles. Yeah, I knew I looked like a fool, but I’d been one for him since we met. Why not revel in it tonight?
When the game got slow, I wondered about his nicknames. Bonus sounded like a good surprise. Like something you’d want. But the Saint? Maybe it was because he saved pucks like Jesus saved souls? But wasn’t there a movie with that title? Something about spies?
I’d get the answer out of him, one way or the oth
er. I sipped on my second vending machine hot chocolate, hoping he’d put up a fight, and plotting how I could pry the truth from him. I shifted in my seat as sexy thoughts about blow jobs and how he moved so strongly and gracefully on the ice rolled around in my head. He was absolutely delicious, and I was glad that we’d have one last hurrah later tonight.
The action on the ice picked back up, and I threw myself back into my silliness. The game was close in that zero-zero way. Each team was so desperate that players were taking all kinds of shots. Finally, Elsa scored. I jumped to my feet and chanted her name. El-Sa. El-Sa. El-Sa. No one joined me, but that didn’t slow me down. In fact, I went all in. I threw in a few woots and claps to make sure it was absolutely over the top.
Before I knew it, the other team took the puck and blew past Greg-Scooter, charging toward Ryan with a few sharp passes, perking up at the threat of a loss. One of their players took a shot and Ryan reached to stop it. The puck bounced out of his glove and he went scrambling for it on his belly, but he didn’t get to it before the other team did. One guy tried to flick it into the goal, but Ryan somehow was already back up on his knees, his leg stuck out to the side just in time to block it.
Cheesy Pete took control of the puck and flipped it down the ice to Elsa. The final buzzer blew, but I was already on my feet, pounding on the plexiglass. “Ry-an! Ry-an! Ry-an! Ry-an!”
The game over, he pulled off his helmet and mask and looked over at my shenanigans, shaking his head from the attention and trying to hide the smile on his face. My team—my team—high-fived each other, then lined up to pass hand slaps with the other team.
Once Ryan was in the box, I jumped to hug him, to pull him toward me. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and hauled him down for a fat kiss. “That was awesome! You were great!” I said, still bouncing on my toes with excitement.
“Thanks,” he said, squeezing a stream of water into his mouth and slinging an arm over my shoulder, bringing me in close.
“Oh my God, you stink,” I said, recoiling after I got a big whiff of him.
He laughed at me, pulling me back to him. “You’d put a hockey mom to shame there, Kenz.”