Chapter 12 – Kirby
twelve
Kirby
Three months later
I walk into the lobby and head straight over to the elevator. There is a man sitting behind the desk in the middle of the path leading to the elevators. He looks up from whatever is in front of him and he points at me. “Are you Materson?” He uses my last name, and I nod my head.
“I am.” I stop at the side of his desk and hold out my hand. “Nice to meet you,” I tell him.
“You guys going to bring the Cup home this year?” he asks, and I am almost tempted to roll my eyes in the back of my head.
“That’s the plan,” I politely answer, instead of answering him with the real answer. The season hasn’t even started, so how the fuck does anyone know who is going to win the Cup? “It’s never over until it’s over.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” He shakes his head. “Who would have thought Edmonton would have kicked you guys out of the playoffs.”
“Not us,” I tell him. “Especially since at Christmastime they were dead last.” I start to walk toward the elevators. “But you never know. Playoffs are a different beast.”
“They sure are.” He nods. “I look forward to watching.”
“Have a great day.” I finally break the conversation, walking over to the elevator and pressing the button to go up.
I look up at the two elevators in front of me and then the two behind me to see which one is going to get here first. When the doors swing open behind me, I turn and head into the elevator and press the button for the fourteenth floor.
I take a step back in case someone else comes into the elevator and wait for the doors to close before it starts to move up.
It stops on a couple of floors before it finally opens on mine, and I have to move around two people before stepping out into the hallway.
I step out to face the other elevators and there is an office on one side and another on the other side.
That’s it, two offices per floor. I make my way over to the office that has fourteen zero two on it before turning the handle and pushing it open.
“Hello.” I take a step into the empty office space and look around at the small space—gray carpet all around, four walls all painted a sterile white.
A couple of windows in between to give the place more natural light, but not much, and the only overhead lights are the eight square bulbs in the tiled ceiling.
“Hey,” Kylie says, walking out of one of the two offices in each corner of the room, a smile on her face. “Finally.” She makes her way to me and I give her the biggest hug.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“Relax.” I kiss the top of her head. “It’s only been three months”—she steps away from me—“and we FaceTimed at least once a week.”
“I want to say you look horrible.” She folds her arms over her chest. “But you look good. You even have a tan. I guess Canada agrees with you.” I shake my head.
After the fundraiser, I knew I had to get the fuck out of town.
That night I sent a couple of trainers messages to see who had a place on their roster and was lucky I had someone in Toronto who could take me. I booked a house on the lake.
We would do on-ice practice every single morning and then in the afternoon.
I would do my training outside in the sun, since it wasn’t a hundred and fifty degrees.
I flew back to Arizona two days ago when I took out Mrs. Visabell’s granddaughter to fulfill my part of the auction, and I was officially free of all obligations.
I didn’t even spend the night in Phoenix.
I couldn’t stomach it, so I landed in the morning and took a private plane out of there the same afternoon.
“I wish you would have come out,” I tell her. “The house even came with a boat and a Jet Ski.”
“I was busy”—she rolls her eyes—“quitting my job and then packing my shit and moving.”
“I told you we could hire you movers to do all of that.” Now that she finally caved and took up my offer to start up the foundation.
“Why are you so extra? Hire movers? Who are you, the Rockefellers?” she asks and then holds up her hand. “I don’t want to know. What do you think of the office?”
“It’s an office.” I shrug my shoulders. “I’m sure you are going to make it less like a psych ward and more like a welcoming space for people.”
She throws her head back and laughs a full belly laugh. “Yes, I have Ariella coming in tomorrow to go over some plans.”
“That sounds great, and then we need to hire a couple of people,” I tell her and she looks to the side.
“Listen, I think we should start small.” She walks to the other side of the room. “I think we should hire one more person.”
“You think it’ll be enough with just two of you?” I run my hands through my hair. “I don’t want you to bury yourself in your work.”
“One of us can call around and speak to different organizations to see where we can offer help, and the other can call around and see which corporations can donate to our little foundation.” She cocks her hip to the side. “First order of business is a bachelor auction.”
“Fuck that. We know how the last one ended.” I shake my head as the phone in my back pocket rings. “That’s my alarm; I have to get to the rink. It’s the first day back.”
“Okay,” she replies and then claps her hands and shrieks, “How exciting is this!”
I open my eyes and try not to laugh at her. “I couldn’t sleep last night thinking of the excitement.” I pull the phone out of my pocket and turn off the alarm. “Let’s have dinner tomorrow after your meeting with Ariella.”
“Sounds good,” she says, “skate bag.”
“Nope.” I shake my head. “Still not using it right.” I laugh. “It’s bag skate and it’s a term when the coach is punishing us.”
“Whatever.” She uses her hand to shoo me away. “Go and leave me with my four white walls.”
“You settling in okay at your place?” I ask her of the two-bedroom apartment I rented for her without her knowing. She would never have taken the place if she knew the real price of the apartment.
“It’s gorgeous and it has its own gym and a rooftop pool.” Her voice goes higher. “And I know it’s not twelve hundred dollars a month, jackass.”
I laugh. “I have to go. I don’t want to be late on the first day.”
“Leave me if you must.” She turns and walks into one of the offices. “By the way, I’m taking this as my office.”
I don’t even bother answering her, instead I just walk out and head down to my SUV.
I get in and put my phone in the middle of the cupholder as I head straight to the rink.
I stop at the black garage door, before pressing the sunglasses holder on top of the rearview mirror.
It falls down and I grab the white parking pass, sliding it in front of the scanner.
The garage door slowly starts to open and I replace the card before driving in.
Cars are parked everywhere and there is the valet, Clive, waiting for us.
He gets off his stool and smiles when he sees it’s me.
“Look at who decided to join us,” he jokes with me as he comes over and extends his hand.
“You look uglier than you did last season,” he adds when I shake his hand.
I can’t help but laugh. “I thought they would have fired you by now.”
“It’s day one and you are already busting my balls.” I shake my head and look around. “Got to say, it’s good to be back.”
“Yeah, I’ll remind you of that when your old ass is limping to your car in December.” I slap his shoulder as I start to walk away.
“I know you will.” I walk toward the black stainless-steel door, pulling it open.
Taking a step in, I look into the first office that has the door open, but no one is inside.
I turn the corner and see a couple of the offensive coaches in one office.
“Hey.” I smile and give a chin up. I walk into the office and extend my hand to each of them. “How’s it going?”
“How it always goes during training camp,” Zane states.
He just joined the Warriors, so he’s still green around the collar since he’s so young.
“It fucking sucks.” I laugh at them, knowing how hard it has to be to be the one who tells a hockey player that even though they probably gave their all, they are not going to make the final cut for the team.
“See you guys out there.” I turn and walk back out of the office. I stop when I see the equipment manager, Barry, putting out some of the hockey sticks. “You have mine?” I ask him and he nods his head. “I have the new one coming next week.”
“I got the email,” he replies of the brand I work with who develops my stick every single year. “I have a couple from last season and two from the two seasons before.”
“Why don’t you take those two sticks and I’ll sign them and we can donate them to whoever,” I suggest, knowing I hated the stick from two years ago anyway.
“Sounds good. I have your gear in your locker, ready for you.”
“We couldn’t live without you, Barry.” I slap him on his shoulder before walking over to the locker room.
“Holy fuck,” Knox, one of the forwards and also a veteran, says when I walk into the room.
He’s sitting on the bench right under his name, in between Stevie and Lane.
“Did you only work out on break?” I shake my head and walk over to them, slapping each hand and then fist-bumping them.
Knox gets up and gives me a hug also. We’ve been on the LA Warriors for the past eight years, and I consider him one of my closest friends.
“Did you only eat on break?” I slap his stomach and he yelps.
“I went to Italy with the family,” he mentions his wife and three kids. “What else do you do in Italy besides eat and drink?”
“You stayed in Italy for four months?” I ask him, making him laugh.
“No, but Josephine,” he mentions his wife, “took a pasta-making class and she has made pasta every single day since. I can’t seem to tell her if she makes pasta one more time, I am going to literally throw up.”
“Oh, boo-hoo.” Lane makes fun of him. “Your wife cooks for you and makes you homemade fucking pasta. Cry me a fucking river.” He shakes his head, getting up and walking over to his spot.
The three of us all laugh at him. “Thankfully, I get to eat more meals here than at home now.”
I walk over to my own side of the room and put my phone on the shelf where my workout clothes are folded.
“Look at who decided to join us.” Martin, our head coach, walks into the room wearing a tracksuit.
“You guys are about six weeks behind everyone else, so I don’t want to see anyone else dragging their asses out there.
” I kick off my shoes. “Welcome back, boys.” He claps his hands. “On the ice in ten.”
He turns to walk out of the room and stops when he comes face-to-face with Jaxon. “Why are you fucking late on the first fucking day?” He puts his hands on his hips as he scolds him in the middle of the doorway.
“I was walking out of the house”—he pulls off his baseball hat and scratches his forehead before replacing it on his head—“and I went to pick up Jagger and kiss him. When I held him over my head, he literally threw up in my mouth.” He closes his eyes and shakes his head.
“I wish I was fucking lying about that.”
Everyone in the room grimaces. “That’s fucking disgusting,” Martin says. “You have eight minutes before you need to be on the ice.”
“Got it.” He nods at him, coming into the room now.
“One minute of suicide laps for anyone who’s late,” Martin throws over his shoulder, making everyone rush to get dressed and get on the ice.
“Hey, boys,” Jaxon greets, holding up his hand and then coming over to stand beside me where his locker is.
He holds out his hand to me and I slap it, give him a fist bump, and then we go in for a hug. Both of us slapping the other on the back. “Shit, it’s good to see you.”
“Good to see you too,” I reply, letting him go. “You look fucking exhausted,” I joke with him as he puts his phone exactly on the shelf where I put mine.
“I am, fucking teething is not for the faint of heart.” He shakes his head. “Honestly, I don’t know how we would do it if we didn’t have Lexi with us.”
My head about whips off of my shoulders as I turn to look at him.
The name I didn’t let myself say in the last three months.
The name I would say in my dreams every fucking night.
The woman who I would go to bed thinking about and then wake up thinking about, but then force her out of my mind.
“Lexi?” I say her name and my stomach gets tight at the same time my chest feels like an elephant is sitting on me.
“Yeah, man,” he confirms, pulling off his shirt, “she’s been living with us for the past three months I think.”
I blink my eyes, not sure I am actually awake or maybe I’m still sleeping. Maybe this is another dream I’ve having. “She’s living with you?” I repeat the words as I stand here transfixed on him as he gets undressed.
“Yeah, she left her husband,” he explains. “I don’t know the details because I don’t really want to ask her. But she left him and Ariella offered her a place to stay.”
“She left her husband.” My head feels like it’s spinning and I have to sit down on the bench.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” he asks me and I just shake my head. “Why the fuck are you repeating everything I’m saying?”
“I,” I start to say, “I’m just.”
“Listen, you two lovebirds,” Knox interrupts, “as much fun as it is watching you fuck with Kirby with whatever it is you are saying, I do not—and I repeat—I do not want to do suicides.” He looks at both of us, dressed in his full gear.
“I don’t think I could handle it, to be honest with you two.
So can we finish whatever this is”—he uses his finger to move from Jaxon to me—“after practice, when I’ll probably be throwing up in the garbage can? ”
Jaxon laughs at him. “Don’t worry about the defense,” he assures him, looking over at me and I get up to start undressing. “We’ll be on the ice when we need to be on the ice.”
“Yeah,” I agree, still trying to catch my bearings and not freak over the fact she left her husband. I can’t help the smile that now fills my face for two reasons. One, it’s good to be back to work, and the second, she finally fucking did it. “What he said.”