Chapter 1 #2
“Uh, it makes perfect sense. The team was pissed about everything. He’s probably nervous to talk to them again, and this is something he can do without seeing them face to face.”
Oh. Yeah. There was that.
“It’s a nice gesture. Even if he’s trying to buy his way back into their good graces, at least he’s trying,” she finished.
“Should’ve tried not to snog other girls at Juniors.”
Maddie leaned closer. “How guilty do you think he feels? Do you think we can get him to pay half?”
I snorted. “Whatever, your boyfriend has an actual job. You don’t even have to pay for gas anymore.”
She pulled her arm free with a scoff. “Uh, I filled up his truck today.”
“Because you drive it more than he does! Don’t you have a car?”
“It’s going to snow soon.” Maddie grinned and pulled me back to the cart where we caught Logan saying, “Your winger, McTavish—kid’s got wheels.”
Chase chuckled. “Yeah, he and Leduc are dynamite until they forget they’re not shooting for solo careers. Every line change is a soap opera.” He turned to Maddie, his face lighting up at the mere sight of her.
Maddie grinned. “Crystal, how about you go and help Logan with the diapers? We’ll grab the rest of the snacks and meet you at the front?”
If I thought “grab the rest of the snacks” was a euphemism for “Make out behind the water jugs on the next aisle down,” I might not have argued.
I started, “How about—”
“Hey, don’t talk back to your mom.” Logan smirked and put out an arm like he expected me to take it. As if.
I looked between the two of them. Maddie sidled closer to Chase, and Logan still looked like a butler. He had the cheesy grin and everything.
“Oh my gosh, fine.” I didn’t take his arm, but I did find it in me to apologize before Maddie had to chastise me again. “Sorry I was rude. It’s been a long week.”
“Hey, I get it,” Logan said as we turned down the baby aisle. “You’re losing both your friends.”
My breathing hitched, but I quickly recovered. “No, that’s—it has nothing to do with that. And I’m not losing them.”
Logan slowed, his eyes glazing over at the wall of colourful plastic. “Hm. Maybe not.”
That concession was worse than an argument. I chewed my lower lip, blinking against the pressure behind my eyes. Maybe not. This baby was going to come, then the three of us would be with our respective families for Christmas, and then . . . it would be May before we knew it.
Maddie was pushing full steam ahead with her new Elite League and already had offers for analytics positions from companies scattered throughout Alberta. Chase had his coaching job with the Hitmen, so hopefully that would at least motivate them to stay local.
But was I really going to go over and hang out with them as is? Single? Would we go out to dinner just the three of us? Having Shar and Rob around was better, but it was always painfully obvious that I was the fifth wheel. The loser single friend.
“What are you working on right now?” Logan pulled a pack of size Newborn diapers from the shelf and inspected it.
“What do you mean?”
“Your art. You still do that, right?”
Nothing could have surprised me more than that sentence. “You know I do art?”
Logan nodded. “Wow. So I was that big of a dick.” He handed me a pack of diapers, then pulled two more off the shelves. “Do you think two newborns and one in a bigger size?”
“It seems like a lot of diapers.”
He handed me another pack. “Don’t babies poop like ten times a day or something?”
“That can’t be true.” That weight on my chest pressed deeper. What were we even doing? We were too young for this. For any of it. My fear for Sharla ramped up another ten degrees.
He shoved two more packs under his arm and called it good, motioning toward the front.
I adjusted the packs in my arms and blew out a breath. “You weren’t mean or anything. I just didn’t think you knew or cared what I was up to.”
Logan lowered his head, blocking his face with the brim of his hat, as we passed another couple in the aisle. As much as he said it wasn’t different to play for the Blizzard, I never saw him do that on campus.
“I was a little self-centred,” he said.
“Again with the past tense.”
Logan chuckled, and a smile slipped past my ice queen defences.
“I’ve been sculpting lately,” I answered his earlier question. “Right now I’m working on a series that explores structure and collapse.”
“Ah. Obviously. The . . . stuff that holds and then . . . doesn’t.”
I snorted. “I’ll submit that as my thesis.”
“What do you want to do with it?” he asked.
“My art?” I shrugged. “Creating’s mostly for fun. I want to land a curator or gallery assistant job after graduation.”
“Does that pay well?”
I shot him a look. “Nothing pays well compared to your job.”
Logan laughed. “How much do you think I make?”
“I saw the press release.” It was all over the Calgary papers. $200k annually.
“Did the article mention agent fees? Taxes?”
We rejoined Maddie and Chase in line, their cart loaded like a small nation’s supply convoy.
“Wow, look at you using real adult words.” Maddie gave Logan a satisfied smirk.
Logan shook his head. “Man. Didn’t realize how cush it was hanging with people who think I’m cool. At least Chase gets me.”
Chase gave him a fist bump and started unloading the freezer food.
Logan sighed and dropped the diapers on the conveyor belt. “You girls will understand all that finance talk someday.”
I slugged him in the shoulder. “I’m older than you.”
He winced. “By a month.”
“And more educated,” Maddie added.
“By a month,” Logan grumbled. “Or ten.”
I wondered whether he was going to finish his degree, but didn’t ask. He hadn’t seemed all that serious about his classes at Douglas before his big break. Probably hadn’t thought twice about it.
The conveyor belt hummed, and Logan shifted the juice tubes forward with the rest of the cold items. He turned to me. “My mom’s friend is opening some kind of gallery downtown. Or maybe a museum? I can’t remember.”
My pulse ticked up. “Really?” Logan’s parents were loaded. I wasn’t sure what his dad did, but he owned a few places in Calgary, including the townhouse Logan, Shar, and Rob used to live in.
“Yeah. I’ll find out the details,” he said, pulling out his wallet. “I think his name is Marcus . . . Nieman Marcus?” Logan frowned, thinking, as my mind lit up like a neon sign.
“Norman Marcus?”
His look of consternation was replaced by a huge grin. “Yeah, that’s it. You know him?”
Did I know him? He was a legend in Calgary’s art world.
Owned Marcus & Bell, the sleek gallery on 17th Avenue where everyone pretended not to want a showing.
Rumour said he’d started as an architecture student who’d dropped out after a fight with his thesis advisor about “emotional geometry.” He’d spent a few years in New York apprenticing under a curator at the Guggenheim, then came back in the late ’80s with a Rolodex full of important names and an ego to match.
He’d been on the acquisitions board for the Glenbow Museum for five years and wrote op-eds about “the death of sincerity in postmodern expressionism.” People in the art world joked that if Norman Marcus walked into your opening and didn’t frown, you were halfway to making it.
“He’s well-known in Calgary. At least in the art world.
” I tried to play it off, but my heart was beating like a hummingbird’s wings.
If Logan’s mom had an in with him, if there was any way I could get an introduction, that would be the biggest opportunity anyone in our art department landed in years.
Of course, I’d have to do something to impress him, to earn a job—or hell, even a volunteer position—but I could figure something out.
“I’d love to meet him,” I blurted, already regretting all the crap I’d given Logan in the freezer aisle. But he was the one who brought it up. It wasn’t like I’d pushed for him to tell me all the famous people he knew now that he was an NHL player or anything.
Logan sniffed as the employee scanned our items with a string of beeps. “I’ll see what I can do.”