9. Calvin
CALVIN
Sweat rolls off me as I lift weights heavier than I’m used to.
I’ve already done my rehab at the arena today, but it’s not enough.
If I’m going to keep my spot on the roster, I can’t let things slip.
My leg might be out of commission right now, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of me shouldn’t be in better condition than ever.
Sure, to really make that happen, I might need to start looking at my diet again. Night after night of takeout and beer isn’t helping the cause. But a guy has to have some vices, especially when his life implodes. Right?
My music cuts as the sound of my front doorbell erupts.
“Fuck,” I grunt as I drop the dumbbells to the floor and push to my feet.
I grab a towel from the side and wipe my face as I hobble across the room.
My knee screams at me for overdoing it, but I can’t help it. Sitting around doing nothing only leads me to a dark place. At least while I’m in here, some kind of progress is happening.
Throwing the hand towel over my shoulder, I make my way to the front door, expecting it to be my elderly neighbor who needs help with something. As long as she doesn’t want the batteries in her smoke detector changed, or anything else that involves me getting on a stepladder, we should be good.
But as I peer through the peephole, I discover that it isn’t my small, gray-haired neighbor, after all.
In a rush, I pull the door open, gawping at the person standing on my threshold.
“Sienna?” I blurt, eyes wide with shock.
I’m not about to tell her, but she looks rough. Her eyes are bloodshot, the shadows beneath them dark. Her skin is pale, almost gray, but her cheeks are flushed red, and beneath her massive hoodie, her chest is heaving.
Instantly, my eyes lift, searching for the reason she might be standing here in the middle of the night, looking like she’s just outrun her biggest fear. But any fear she might have had is swallowed by shock.
“Killer?” The nasally sound to her voice clues me in a little as to what’s going on.
“You’re sick,” I state. You know, just in case she hasn’t noticed.
“Yeah, I’m fucking sick. So if you could stop with the constant fucking noise, I’d really appreciate it.”
I frown. “W-what?”
“The noise, Calvin. The music. The banging. I haven’t been beneath you for two weeks yet, and it’s driving me crazy.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I rest my shoulder against the doorframe.
“I think I’d remember if you’d been beneath me for two weeks, baby.”
“Ugh. You’re infuriating,” she snaps, although the tears that begin filling her eyes take the heat out of her words. “Will you p-please just be quiet? I have to go to work tomorrow and—”
“You can’t go to work when you’re this sick,” I tell her.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Since when did you think you have a say in what I do with my life? Do you even know what my job is?” she sneers, letting me know that she’s unaware of just how much attention I pay to anything that involves her.
“You’re the manager at the Bea Hive, Bea’s beauty salon,” I state confidently. “One of your therapists is currently off with the flu, and this week has been hard going, and it’s about to get worse, it seems, because you’ve got it too.”
“You’re an asshole,” she mutters under her breath.
I can’t help but smile at her.
“Can I get you anything?”
“Silence. I need silence.”
I nod once. “I can do that. Have you got medication? Have you eaten?”
“I didn’t come up here because I need a nurse. I just need quiet to rest.”
“Consider it done.”
“Thank you,” she breathes, before spinning on her heels and shuffling away.
I watch her go, shock still ripping through me.
She’s almost at the elevator when I remember how to speak.
“Sienna?”
“Yes,” she hisses over her shoulder.
“When did you move in?” I knew that she was moving. Rett mentioned that we should help if we could, but the date clashed with their road games. And I would have been…well, fucking useless in a house move. But still. How the fuck did I miss that she’s my new neighbor?
“The day before the game against the Blackhawks,” she says, before the elevator doors open and she disappears from my sight.
“Shit,” I hiss once the doors have closed and she’s taken back downstairs.
Slipping back into my apartment, I close the door as quietly as I can—which is a joke, because my music had started back up while we were talking.
I race to my gym and hit pause on my cell.
The apartment falls into silence. The only thing I can hear is the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears.
Sienna Wentworth lives downstairs.
Like an idiot, my gaze drops to the floor as if I’ll be able to see through it.
Obviously, I can’t see fuck all, but I do the best I can, imagining her shuffling through her apartment and crawling into bed.
Fuck.
Sienna Wentworth lives downstairs.
I spent years convincing myself that I’d never see her again, that she was only going to be a distant memory. But now, all these years later, she’s literally within touching distance.
The only problem is, she doesn’t exactly give off the vibes that she wants me anywhere near her.
A smirk kicks up the corner of my lips.
Challenge accepted.
I lie awake for hours thinking about her.
I flick between wondering what she’s doing right now, if she’s getting the rest that she needs, and drifting back to memories of that summer.
It feels like a lifetime ago now. I’m not sure about her—I haven’t had the chance to spend all that much time with her—but I know that I’m a very different person to the boy she met back then. I guess it makes sense that she doesn’t recognize me. Fucking hurts, though.
I eventually drift off to sleep, but it’s not all that much different from being awake, because it’s full of dreams of her, and I wake up both frustrated and concerned.
Since the first moment I saw her in the club that night, all I’ve wanted is an excuse to get close to her. I guess I got my wish—she let me dance with her for a bit. But she made it more than clear it wasn’t going any further.
Fuck, was I jealous of Rett that night. I’d have given my left nut to take Sienna out the back and get a taste of what I wanted all those years ago.
A bitter laugh spills from my lips.
Even if I had the chance, I never would have done that. She deserves so much more than a drunken fumble in a club. A woman like Sienna deserves the world—more than me, or possibly any man alive, could give her.
I wasn’t good enough for her before, and I’m not good enough for her now. It’s not gonna stop me getting close again, though.
Even if it’s just to get her to remember.
I need her to look at me like she did back then.
Like she thought I was something special.
Like I had something to offer her. I didn’t; I had fuck all.
But that didn’t matter to her. She wanted to hang out with me exactly as I was.
It was a head fuck, considering I was trying to live a life where I didn’t fit in.
I was like a square peg that was being forced into a round hole, and it just didn’t work.
But with Sienna, I was just me. It’s been a long fucking time since someone has looked at me like that.
Now, everyone wants something from me. Money, fame, a night to brag about.
It’s exhausting, and despite loving my life and my accomplishments, I crave the easiness of that summer with her.
It was one of the best times of my life.
Despite only having a few hours’ sleep, I’m awake before my alarm, just like every other morning.
Years of conditioning to be up for training sessions have left me unable to sleep in.
Well, unless I’ve been drinking heavily.
Then, I sleep like the dead. But while I might have been hitting the alcohol recently, I haven’t been wasted.
At least, not as much as I would like to have been.
I throw the covers off, my knee aching before I even put any weight on it, a reminder that I’ve been overdoing it.
With a pained groan, I press my foot to my thick carpet and limp toward the bathroom to take a leak and freshen up.
It’s while I’m making my morning protein shake that an idea hits me. I gulp my breakfast down in record time before getting dressed and heading out.
Sienna was insistent that she was going to work today, and despite my suspicion that she’s going to be too sick to do so, I may be wrong.
I don’t like to admit it, but it has happened in the past. Only once or twice, though.
She might wake up this morning right as rain and already be getting ready for work.
I might be able to tell her what she does for a living, but I’m no stalker.
I have no idea what time the salon opens, or when she likes to get there.
Aware that I’m on the clock, I move faster, my knee complaining every step of the way.
Thankfully, I don’t need to go too far, and thirty minutes later, I’m walking back into our apartment building, wishing Harold a good morning, seeing as he came on shift while I was out, and heading up to her floor.
There are four apartments on the level below mine, two of which take up the expanse of my floorplan. I stand between the two front doors and weigh my options.
One of them has a battered doormat outside and nothing else. The other has a pretty welcome mat and some fake flowers on either side. Even before I mentally work out which apartment is beneath my gym, which I assume is where all my noise comes from, I know exactly which one belongs to Sienna.
Standing between the flowers, I lift my hand and knock.
Silence greets me, and I worry that I’ve already missed her.
I try again, hoping that I’m not waking her.
“Shit,” I hiss when there still seems to be no movement from inside.
I should leave. Return to my own apartment with my tail between my legs and pretend this never happened. I should be getting ready to head to the arena.
I—
The click of the lock has my heart lurching into my chest.
“Bea, I told you that I didn’t need—Oh, it’s you.”
My brows shoot up, but not because of the comment, which I’m going to pretend I never heard, but because of how sick she looks.
Lifting the bag that’s hanging from my fingers, I say, “I brought you breakfast.”
Her expression hardens. “I don’t need breakfast. I need to get ready for—achoo.”
She sniffles before bringing a tissue to her nose.
“Ready for—a-a-achoo.”
“You’re not going to work,” I state, stepping forward and giving her little choice but to move aside and let me in.
“What the hell are you doing?” She tries to shout, but her voice just gets raspier before she begins coughing.
“Jesus,” I mutter. “There’s no way you can treat clients like that. Sit down,” I demand, pointing at her couch. “Let me take care of you.”
“Why?” she wheezes.
“Why?”
Because you’re the only girl I’ve ever cared about. Because I want to spend enough time with you that you remember me. Remember the time we had together.
Thankfully, those thoughts stay firmly in my head. “Because you’re sick.”