Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Ski dropped the kitchen table on Leo’s foot.
“Ope—sorry, sorry, you good?” Ski was already crouching, tilting the table off Leo’s sneaker before Leo could answer. The table was oak, nicked along one edge, the kind of thing that had survived decades of family dinners and at least one move that hadn’t gone well.
“I’m good.” Leo shook out his foot. “Where’d this come from?”
“Riggs’s garage. His wife wanted it gone like two years ago.” Ski straightened up and surveyed the apartment. “That’ll go by the window. Trust me.”
Leo hadn’t asked for any of this. He’d mentioned to Gunnar last week, once, in passing at the bar, that the apartment was empty and he’d need to figure out furniture.
He’d rented out his place in Orlando furnished rather than sell it.
The lease ran through April, which was enough time for Phil to trade him somewhere bigger.
He’d packed whatever fit in the Audi, unpacked it all into the inn, and when the apartment keys came through, Jonesy had helped him move the whole pile over.
Not once had he expected Gunnar to rally the troops to make sure Leo didn’t have to sleep on an air mattress and keep living out of suitcases.
Ski had pulled up outside Leo’s building this morning with a brown corduroy couch strapped down in the truck bed.
Novo had apparently ridden across town kicked back on the couch, one hand braced against a bookshelf to keep it from sliding.
Ford was behind them in his SUV, Charlotte buckled into the back seat, a box of kitchen supplies on the floor next to her. Behind Ford, a truck Leo didn’t recognize turned out to belong to Novo’s cousin, who dropped off a set of barstools, shook Leo’s hand, and left without giving his name.
“Third floor?” Ski had said, looking up at the building.
“Yep.” Leo loved the view from his new place but felt bad about asking the guys to move furniture upstairs. He’d planned on ordering shit online and having it delivered to avoid having to deal with the stairs.
“No elevator?”
“No. Sorry.”
Ski had cracked his neck, grabbed one end of the couch, and started up the stairs.
That had been two hours ago. The apartment had gone from empty to something else—not decorated, not finished, but occupied.
The corduroy couch sat against the long wall, and when Leo pressed his hand into the cushion while Ski and Novo argued about where the bookshelf should go, the fabric gave under his palm like it had been broken in by a hundred afternoons of people falling asleep in front of the TV.
The bookshelf leaned. Not a lot, but enough that Novo tilted his head and stared at it for a full thirty seconds before saying, “Shim it.”
“With what?” Leo asked.
“Cardboard. Magazine. Whatever.” Novo wedged a folded takeout menu under the left side and stepped back. The shelf held. Novo nodded once and walked away.
Ford had brought a box that turned out to contain plates, two coffee mugs, a can opener, and a cast-iron pan heavy enough to double as a weapon. He set the box on the kitchen counter and started unpacking without being asked, lining things up in the cabinets like he’d done it a thousand times.
“The pan’s from Wheels,” Ford said. “He said don’t put it in the dishwasher.”
“I don’t have a dishwasher.”
“Then you’re all set.”
Charlotte sat on the couch with her legs straight out in front of her, testing the cushions with both hands. She bounced twice, considered the results, and looked at Leo. “It’s squishy.”
“Yeah?”
“Our couch is too hard.” She bounced again. “This one’s better for naps.”
“Good intel.” Leo glanced at Ford. Ford was putting mugs in the cabinet and didn’t turn around, but his shoulders shifted.
The front door banged open, and Ski backed through it with a floor lamp in each hand, his face red from the stairs.
“How many trips is that?” Leo asked.
“Three. Four, if you count the barstools.” Ski set the lamps down and wiped his forehead with the bottom of his shirt. “Gunnar said he’d come by later with some other stuff. Maybe a rug.”
“A rug.”
“You want to walk on bare floors all winter? Your feet’ll freeze off. This isn’t Florida, Vargas.”
Ski plugged one lamp into the outlet by the couch and the other into the outlet next to the bookshelf. Both worked.
Leo leaned against the table and ran his thumb along a deep scratch near the edge. His mother would’ve had the thing refinished before it made it through the door. He pressed his thumbnail into the groove and left it there.
A bit later, there was a knock on the door. Leo answered, and a woman stood in the doorway, tall, auburn hair pulled back, wearing a flannel that was clearly a man’s and jeans with paint on the knee.
“I come bearing gifts.” She held out a foil pan. “From Riggs’s wife. She couldn’t make it over, but wanted to make sure you guys ate.”
“What is it?” Leo asked.
The woman stared at him. Ski’s head appeared from behind the bookshelf where he’d been adjusting Novo’s shim.
“It’s hotdish,” Ski said.
“Okay.” Leo turned the pan in his hands. “What’s hotdish?”
Ski looked at Ford. Ford looked at the woman. Charlotte stopped bouncing on the couch.
“You don’t know what hotdish is?” Ski asked.
“I’m from Miami.”
“That’s not— Hotdish isn’t regional, it’s—” Ski turned to Novo, who had materialized in the kitchen doorway. “He doesn’t know what hotdish is.”
Novo blinked. “Huh.”
“It’s basically a casserole,” the woman said, taking pity. She stepped into the apartment and leaned against the doorframe. “Ground beef, tater tots, cream of mushroom soup, whatever else you’ve got. Every family makes it different. Riggs’s wife does hers with corn and cheddar.”
“It’s the perfect food,” Ski said.
“It’s a casserole with tots on top,” Novo said.
“You’re disrespecting an entire culture right now.”
“Because you’re talking about it like it’s a five-star meal.”
“You’re underselling it.”
“So,” Leo said. “Ground beef, tater tots, and cream of mushroom soup. This is what professional athletes eat up here?”
Ski pointed at him. “Don’t start.”
“My nutritionist in Orlando would’ve called the police.”
“Your nutritionist in Orlando never had Riggs’s wife’s hotdish,” Ski said. “Different rules up here.”
Leo set the pan on the counter next to Ford’s cast iron. He’d been skating with Riggs for two weeks and couldn’t have told you the guy’s first name without checking the roster sheet.
“You eat it with ketchup,” Charlotte said from the couch.
“You do not,” Ford said.
“I do.”
“She does,” Ford admitted. He closed the cabinet and leaned against the counter. “It’s a whole thing.”
The woman had wandered to the table and was frowning at it. She grabbed one end and dragged it away from the window, repositioning it against the opposite wall.
“It gets better light here,” she said, pulling out a chair and sitting to test the angle. “You’ll thank me when you’re eating breakfast and not staring at the parking lot.”
“I put it by the window,” Ski said from across the room.
“I know you did.”
Ski opened his mouth, closed it, and went back to the barstools.
Leo watched her stand. “I’m Leo, by the way.”
“Monica.” She shook his hand with a grip that matched the flannel. “I’m with Sully.”
“Keep telling you you could do better,” Ford quipped without looking up.
Monica pointed at him. “Watch it, Callahan.”
Ski was adjusting the barstools at the counter while telling Novo a story about the last time they’d helped a rookie move in.
Apparently, someone had dropped a dresser down a stairwell.
Novo said, “That was Jonesy,” without inflection, and Ski said, “Exactly my point.” Monica had moved to the bookshelf and was straightening it with one hand, texting with the other.
“You going to stare at that pan or eat it?” Ski asked, turning to Leo. “She sent enough for everybody.”
“Then why the reheating instructions?”
“In case you get three of them,” Ford said. “It happens.”
“Three casseroles.”
“Hotdishes,” Ski corrected. “And yeah. When Novo moved in last year, he got five. Froze half of them, ate for a month.”
Leo peeled back the foil. The hotdish was still warm, golden-brown tots crusted over the top.
Ski grabbed a plate from the cabinet Ford had just stocked and served himself without waiting for an invitation.
Novo grabbed a plate and helped himself.
Ford scooped some out for Charlotte and set it on the counter to cool, then took a plate of his own.
Monica leaned against the wall and ate hers standing up.
By the time Leo got to the pan, half of it was gone. He scooped a small portion onto a plate and tried it standing at the counter, still not sold on tater tots as a structural element of a meal.
“All right, what else?” Ski said through a mouthful. “You need hangers? Shower curtain? Novo, does he have a shower curtain?”
“I have a shower curtain,” Leo said.
“You have the one that came with the apartment. It’s white. It’s sad. You need a real one.”
“It’s a shower curtain.”
“It’s a cry for help, Vargas.”
Monica had finished with the bookshelf and was looking at the bare walls. “You need art.”
“He needs a shower curtain first,” Ski said.
“He needs both. But art makes it feel like someone lives here.” She looked at Leo. “What do you like?”
Leo opened his mouth, and nothing came out. His apartment in Orlando had been furnished by an interior designer his mother had hired because she said he shouldn’t waste the time he could be in the gym. Everything matched. Nothing had a scratch, a wobble, or a history that belonged to someone else.
“I’ll figure it out,” he said.
“There’s a thrift store on Second Street,” Monica said. “Ask for Dale. He keeps the good stuff in the back.”
Ford was checking his phone. “We should get going. I still need to figure out what I’m making for dinner so Charlotte doesn’t rat me out to her classmates.”
“I told them once,” Charlotte said from the couch.
“You told them Daddy was late and you had to eat cereal for dinner.”
“You were late, and I did eat cereal.” Leo pressed his lips together to keep from laughing when she stomped her little foot and glared up at her dad.
“It was granola and you also had fruit and berries,” Ford argued. It was hilarious to watch him defend himself to a kid.
“That’s cereal, Daddy.”
Ford pocketed his phone. He didn’t argue.
They left in stages. Ford scooped up Charlotte, and Monica told Leo the thrift store was closed on Mondays.
Ski made Leo promise to buy a shower curtain before the week was out, like a plain white liner was a character flaw.
Novo left without saying goodbye, which Leo was starting to understand was just how Novo was.
The quiet that settled after the door closed was different from the quiet at the Lakeside Inn.
Leo dropped onto the couch and pulled out his phone, scrolling through listings for a TV.
He needed a second chair for the table too.
Towels—he’d been using the one from his duffel for two weeks.
A bathmat. The apartment had furniture now, but it was still missing the stuff that made a place functional, and he caught himself adding things to a cart before he stopped and stared at the screen.
He was shopping for an apartment that he wasn’t keeping.
He closed the app. The foil pan sat on the counter, scraped clean. Ollie had gotten five. Leo had gotten one, and a crew of guys had eaten most of it for him. He tried not to take it personally that his fridge wasn’t overflowing with food he wasn’t even sure he liked.
He opened the fridge. A six-pack of Point beer that Ski had put there at some point without Leo noticing, and a bottle of water he’d bought himself. He grabbed a Point—not his usual, but it was cold and it was there—and put his feet on the floor that apparently needed a rug.
He pulled out his phone. A text from his mother that he’d answer later. Nothing from Phil, which was starting to feel less like a slight and more like a fact. He typed a message to Ski.
Thanks for today.
The reply came fast.
That’s what we do, bud. Welcome home.
Leo read it twice. Set the phone on the arm of the couch and took a long pull of his beer.
Home. But the apartment didn’t feel like home, but it was a step up from the hotel. But he could see himself settling in here, and that scared the shit out of him.
He finished his beer. Unpacked the last of his clothes into the closet—twice the size of the one at the Lakeside Inn and still half-empty.
Training camp started in a week. After that, the preseason.
After that, a season he’d play on borrowed time until Phil found something better or the front office decided he wasn’t a good fit for what they were building.
That was the plan, and the plan hadn’t changed, and none of this—the furniture, the one hotdish, the shower curtain lecture—changed it.
Leo pulled up Phil’s number and stared at the screen until it timed out and went dark in his hand.
He set the empty bottle on the counter and dug through the kitchen box to see what all he had. It was mostly towels and dish rags plus a few potholders. Leo put put them away and moved onto the next box.
The apartment was quiet. Not bad quiet, just still, and Leo the silence was driving him batty. He picked up his phone and hit play on an upbeat playlist.
His mind still drifted as he unpacked the boxes stacked along the kitchen wall.
Now that he had a rental car, he should head back to Milwaukee and try to get laid again.
His fixation on Dawson couldn’t be healthy.
Not once in his life had Leo been this hung up on someone who barely gave him the time of day.