16. Mackie
MACKIE
Barrett didn’t say much after Zach left.
He waited until Zach’s footsteps faded then looked at me with the face of a man who has seen too much in one evening and would like a refund on the last five minutes. “Mackinnon. Have some decorum.”
Decorum. DECORUM. Dean Barrett—of all people—is lecturing me about decorum.
I don’t have proof of anything and I’m not going to sit here and pretend I do, but I have overheard half-conversations that go silent when I round corners and one VERY specific thing my dad said about Coach B that made my mom choke on her coffee and there are RUMORS, okay, there are whispers on this team about Barrett that would suggest he is maybe not the person to be delivering this particular sermon. But sure. Decorum. From him. Got it.
I can still feel the phantom shape of Zach’s hand over my mouth and his voice rough against my ear saying things I refuse to think about right now and my godfather is standing on the basement stairs in my parents’ house looking at me like I’m the problem here and I want to scream YOU ARE NOT AS INNOCENT AS YOU THINK YOU ARE, DEAN.
“Yes, sir.” Is all I actually respond with, sounding not at all like someone whose knees still feel like jelly.
The greatest performance of my entire life and nobody will ever know.
He nodded once like that meant this was completely over, then walked back upstairs like he’d come down for a glass of water and found nothing worth mentioning.
I stood on the stairs for maybe ten seconds after he left waiting for my legs to remember how walking works, then went to the bathroom to make sure I didn’t look like I was just ravished. My reflection stared back at me like WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, MACKINNON and I didn’t have a compelling answer.
And the worst part—the thing that circles in my head the whole way up those stairs and is still circling there now, impossible to ignore—is that the first feeling wasn’t embarrassment.
It should have been. Any sane person gets caught like that and the mortification hits like a truck.
Barrett SAW us. He saw my dress hanging open and Zach’s hands on me and and I should be spiraling about that right now.
But the feeling that hit first, hot and immediate and completely irrational, was frustration. Because I had my hands on Zach’s belt and his mouth was opening to answer and I WANTED to hear what he was going to say. Then the door opened and the whole thing shattered.
I’m not upset Barrett caught us. I’m upset about when. And that scares me more than the secret does.
Now I’m on the living room floor sorting White Elephant gifts, like a person who did not just have her world rearranged, while Zach sits on the couch between Rodriguez and Brody looking like he might genuinely lose consciousness.
He’s holding a beer he hasn’t touched and every time Barrett speaks he flinches.
I want to crawl over there and grab his hand and tell him Barrett isn’t going to say anything.
I KNOW Barrett. He’s been filing things away on this team for years, the stuff he sees, the stuff he pretends not to see, and this is just one more secret going into the vault.
But my dad is three feet away and my mom is passing out numbers and Rodriguez is already arguing about the rules and I can’t exactly announce that everything is fine because we’d have to explain what everything IS.
“You can steal twice,” my mom says, handing Rodriguez a number. “After three, the gift is dead.”
“Define dead.”
“It means no one can take it.”
“But what if—”
“No.”
“You didn’t even hear—”
“NO, Rodriguez.”
My parents have been hosting some form of Christmas party for years and the White Elephant game always goes like this.
The first few gifts are unremarkable, things like nice scarf and glove sets, bottles of alcohol, some sort of fancy, appropriately bougie item, sometimes a gift card if the person has zero creativity.
Elliot opens a cashmere scarf and Brody immediately says “I’m stealing that later” and she says “try it” in a voice that makes even me a little more scared of her than I already am.
Then Rodriguez opens a weighted blanket, wraps it around himself immediately, sits back down, and declares that the game is over for him.
“Nobody is taking this from me,” he says.
“I will fight every person in this room.”
“It’s just a blanket,” Brody says.
“It’s a WEIGHTED blanket. It’s like being hugged by something that actually loves you. I have never felt safer.” He pulls it tighter around his shoulders and glares at everyone.
Brody unwraps a custom bobblehead of Rodriguez that Rodriguez clearly had made of himself. The head is enormous with a terrifying smile. It’s wearing a tiny Puckaneers jersey and holding a mini hockey stick and Rodriguez looks proud, which might actually be the most disturbing part.
“You got a bobblehead made of yourself for a gift exchange?” Brody says.
“You’re welcome.”
“This is the most narcissistic thing I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s a COLLECTOR’S ITEM. There are only two in existence. I have the other one.”
Elliot takes it from Brody and examines it at arm’s length, “The resemblance is actually spot on.”
Then Zach opens a skincare set and he’s turning one of the bottles over in his hands, reading the back with his eyebrows drawn down in a frown. “What’s a serum?” he asks, and I have to bite my tongue because his cluelessness is adorable.
“Oh, dude. Z.” Rodriguez emerges from his blanket cocoon. “Your wife in Vancouver is going to LOVE that.”
My entire body goes hot. I can feel my face turning the approximate color of my hair and there’s nothing I can do about it because redheads don’t blush, we COMBUST. Brody is laughing.
Rodriguez is laughing. My dad is chuckling and shaking his head because the whole team has been running this joke for weeks and he thinks it’s hilarious because he has NO IDEA that it’s about his daughter, who is currently sitting on his living room floor turning almost purple and pretending to be fascinated by a gift tag.
Zach’s ears are pink. “I don’t have a wife in Vancouver.”
“Sure you don’t. That’s why you brought a nice bottle of bourbon to a gift exchange. Very bachelor behavior.”
“How do you know that was mine?”
“Because it was boring and responsible and screamed ‘I have a mortgage and a family,’” Brody says, and I make a mental note to destroy Brody at the next opportunity.
Barrett hasn’t moved. He’s sitting in the armchair with his wine, watching this whole exchange because he’s the only one who knows the punchline to a joke everyone else is still setting up.
I steal the skincare set from Zach on my turn because I want it and because I can and because the look on his face when I take it from him, a half a smile he’s trying to kill, is worth every molecule of risk.
Rodriguez points at us immediately. “See? He didn’t even fight you for it.
He WANTED you to have it. That’s husband behavior. ”
“That’s not—” Zach starts.
“Husband behavior,” Brody confirms.
“I just didn’t want face cream.”
“NOBODY doesn’t want skincare, Z. That’s a two hundred dollar set. You gave it up willingly to a teenage girl. You’re either married or you’re in love with someone in this room and I don’t see your wife from Vancouver so—”
“Brody,” Barrett says. Just his name and Brody’s mouth snaps shut like someone hit a switch.
The room goes quiet for a beat and I am suddenly VERY interested in the ingredients list on my night serum because if I look up right now I’m done.
Barrett just did that. Barrett, who was standing in the basement doorway twenty minutes ago watching Zach tie my dress back together with shaking hands, just shut this entire conversation down with one word and I’m sitting here trying to be grateful while also hating him for the interruption.
Zach picks again. He reaches into the pile and pulls out a gift bag, digs through tissue paper, and pulls out a set of massage oils in little glass bottles.
Rodriguez leans out of his blanket cocoon and grabs one.
“Warming.” He grabs another. “Sensual.” He holds up a third for the entire room.
“INTIMATE RELAXATION.” And then Zach reaches back into the bag and pulls out a champagne colored silk bathrobe and even I start to giggle at the absurdity of the gifts he’s choosing because the poor guy cannot catch a break.
“FOR YOUR WIFE!” Rodriguez yells from inside his blanket.
And then Barrett starts laughing. Coach Barrett, who has barely made a sound all night, who shut Brody down with a word two minutes ago, is wheezing in the armchair and shaking his head and he goes, “You’re on your own this time, Almardon.”
Everyone else is talking over each other trying to land the funniest joke about Zach’s secret Vancouver wife but for just a second our eyes meet across the room and he gives me this little barely there smirk, and the only thing my brain serves up is an image of his massive goalie hands, working those oils into my skin while I’m wearing nothing but that stupid silk robe.
I have to look at the floor before my face gives us both up.
People leave in waves. Rodriguez stands up still wrapped in the blanket and doesn’t take it off while he hugs me. Brody shoves the bobblehead in Elliot’s purse.
Barrett is last. He hugs me at the door, holds on a second longer than normal, and says quietly against my hair, “Do not break that kid, Mackinnon.”
“Uncle Dean—”
“I said what I said.” He pats me once on the back and walks outside and I stand in the doorway watching his taillights disappear.
Zach shakes my dad’s hand and thanks my mom for dinner. She hugs him and his arms come up around her slowly, uncertain, like nobody ever taught him how to do this, and I have to look away because I can’t watch Zach receive tenderness from my mother without wanting to cry.
He catches my eye on the way out. Just for a second. Just long enough.
I wait until he’s probably home before I text him.
Me
hey
Zach
on a scale of 1 to 10
Me
don’t finish that question
Zach
97
Me
barrett’s not going to say anything
Zach
how do you know
Me
because I know him. he’s got more secrets than anyone on this team. this is just one more thing.
Zach
he LOOKED at me mackie. the whole game. he just sat there and looked at me.
Me
that’s just his face
Zach
that is NOT just his face
Me
it is. I promise. he looks at everyone like he’s memorizing them for a police lineup. it’s a coaching thing.
Zach
he walked in on us with your dress open
Me
...
okay so he knows slightly more than nothing
Zach
MACKIE
Me
but he still won’t say anything. trust me.
also you tied my dress back together while he was standing right there and that’s going to live rent free in my head forever
Zach
I wasn’t going to let you walk upstairs like that
Me
i know. that’s why i’m going to think about it forever
anyway. so. the basement.
Zach
what about the basement
Me
you know what about the basement
you were about to tell me what you wanted and then barrett ruined everything
Zach
I don’t remember
Me
liar. you just blushed. I can feel it from here
Zach
you can’t feel a blush through a phone mackie
Me
what were you going to say
Zach
nothing
Me
zachary
Zach
forget it
Me
I’m not going to forget it
I’m going to ask you again next time I see you and you’re going to tell me
Zach
genuine question. what should I do with these massage oils?
Me
save them
Zach
for what
Me
FOR WHAT, ZACH
Zach
goodnight mackie
Me
you can’t just say that and then goodnight
Zach
tell your dad his turkey was incredible
Me
IT WAS SO DRY
don’t change the subject
Zach
I know it was dry. goodnight.
Me
this isn’t over
Zach
I know.
also
you had a piece of ribbon in your hair tonight from the wrapping paper stuck there the whole game.
Me
WHAT
why didn’t you tell me
Zach
your dad was right there
Me
so you just sat there and watched me walk around with ribbon in my hair like an idiot
Zach
I sat there and watched you walk around with ribbon in your hair and thought about how I haven’t had a christmas like this since I was ten
Me
zach
Zach
goodnight mackie. for real this time.
Me
merry christmas baby
Zach
merry christmas
I plug my phone in and stare at the ceiling and my brain won’t let go of one clip. Not from tonight. From the other night. His forearm across my hip. Two words in a voice I’d never heard from him.
Stay still.
And every single thing in my brain—every spiral, every plan, every process I didn’t even know was running—went quiet. Like someone found the off switch.
Which is. I mean. That’s information I have about myself now, I guess.
I pull the covers up to my chin and close my eyes and try not to think about the fact that the two most significant discoveries of my Christmas break are that Barrett knows our secret and that I apparently become a completely different person when Zach Almardon tells me what to do.
Cool. Merry Christmas to me.