Chapter 12
TWELVE
HARLAN
FEbrUARY
Why was that car at the end of my driveway?
It was time for me to leave for a road trip to the Northeast, and a luxury SUV waited at the end of my driveway. It wasn’t blocking me in, but it wasn’t one I’d seen before.
I wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but that morning, I swore I saw something in my driveway.
I didn’t live in some gated community, because that was the life I grew up in. It was fine, but when given the choice, I picked a quiet, historic neighborhood closer to the arena. A lot of the older guys lived farther out, while Owen and the other kids were in town.
It wouldn’t be the first time I was followed. My ex, Greer, hired a private investigator to follow me when she suspected I was cheating on her.
To be clear, I wasn’t, but she convinced herself I was.
Thus, she took some of daddy’s money and had me tracked.
At first, I thought I was imagining it, just like now.
But when I reached into my car’s wheel well and found a GPS tracker, I started questioning everything.
Greer and I had been together on and off since high school, breaking up while I was playing junior hockey in Minnesota, and getting back together when the Rusties picked me up.
She was successful in her own right, working long hours for a large consulting firm.
From the outside, we looked like a perfect pair: two Columbus kids making it work close to home.
But inside, it was far from perfect. And the private investigator stunt was the thing that made me finally call it quits in November. I made it out of my driveway, but I couldn’t stop checking my rear view mirror as I drove to the airport.
I settled myself with a quick scroll on my phone before going in. The Rusties had posted the video of me and Emma, and the comments threw me for a loop.
COMMENTS (32):
So is the wedding going to be black tie or black tie optional?
Does Hallmark have the rights to this?
HIS HAND ON HER LEG YOU GUYS LOOK
I usually fast forward through this part
I ship Chef and Royce
People thought I was in love with Chef? Was it just the editing? They really made it seem like we were flirting with each other.
Inside the terminal, Chef Emma stood at her usual table, distributing road meals in handled brown paper bags.
I never took one because I usually arrived full or packed my own stuff.
It’s not that I didn’t think she could make something I’d like.
It’s that it was the last bit of control I had over what I ate before I’d be on the road, subject to the whims of what we were provided or what we could grab quickly.
Her hands rested on her back while she shared a laugh with Owen, who peeked down into the tall take-out bags.
“Hey, Chef,” I said with a wave.
“Chef,” she said back.
Owen screwed up his face. “Wait, why are you ‘Chef’ now?”
Emma giggled. “Royce joined my cooking class at the culinary school, and then he demanded private lessons.”
“No way,” Owen laughed. “And he’s still alive to tell the tale?”
“I’m a good boy. She even gave me more than four floor tiles,” I said. “Right, Chef?”
Emma’s cheeks turned a little pink and her throat worked. “Well, if you act up in your own house, I can just leave. The best I can do to control you here is limit your floor tiles.”
Owen started to head toward the plane and I walked beside him. “When are you going to start making the road meals, Royce?”
“When hell freezes over. You have to earn my meals.” I waved over my shoulder to Emma, but she was already talking to someone else.
A pathetic, shitty little pebble sank to the bottom of my stomach.
A disturbing pattern was developing: when I got Chef’s attention, I felt special.
When I was deprived of it, well, I didn’t like it.
While our travel documents were checked, Owen pulled out his take-out box.
“Have to make sure it’s not Austin’s,” he said, peeling back the lid.
As if hockey weren’t confusing enough, we had an Austin Garner and a Garner Owen.
Austin was on the team first, so he went by Garner, and Owen was fine being called Owen.
I often forgot he had a different first name. “Hell yeah. Chef rules.”
The memory of her arms around my waist on my bike made my stomach dip so hard I touched a hand to it. “Why?”
“She made my Creole caesar chicken wrap. She adds chickpeas too. We call it the 4C wrap.”
“Your wrap? You can get something special?” I asked.
“Yeah, you didn’t know that? You can ask Chef for whatever you want. She’ll make it happen.”
“Damn, I usually pack my own because I assume I don’t want whatever it is.”
Owen wrinkled his nose. “That’s crazy. I mentioned one time that I love a chicken caesar wrap but I wished it had that creole seasoning on it, and the next time we went on the road, boom, chicken caesar wrap with the seasoning.
With my favorite pickles too. She remembers everything.
” He pulled out the box. “And look. She writes fun messages.”
I read the container:
Hope you Garner some praise in Jersey!
It was cute. She must have been the only person on the team who called him by his first name. I thought of her bright eyes and bob haircut and how easily she laughed with my teammates.
My stomach twisted. I wanted fun messages. I wanted special meals. I wanted inside jokes.
“Guess I’d better start getting a chef-packed lunch.”
“Yeah, man, you’re missing out.”
Our team photographer snapped pictures while we walked to the plane. She caught Owen and me mid-conversation. I didn’t usually pay the camera any mind, but today a new thought changed my expression. What if Emma looked at the pictures?
And that thought made my face stretch into a goofy grin.
“Our usual seating arrangement?” Owen asked as we climbed the jet’s stairs.
Seats weren’t assigned, but hockey players are nothing if not creatures of habit and superstition.
Since the middle of last year, Owen and I sat together across the aisle from Cap.
Cap was the only one brave enough to sit next to Dottie.
Leroy and Sorrento took up the row behind us.
But now, with a new goalie who I actually liked and wanted to impress, things were getting shaken up.
I grimaced. “Sorry, Cordero asked first.”
Owen pouted. “I cannot believe you’re ditching me for an older man.”
“It’s not just any older man,” I shot back. “This guy was on my walls in middle school.”
He huffed. “Maybe Garner will sit with me. He wouldn’t abandon me. Garners stick together.”
I chuckled. “Does he say that, or did you come up with your little catchphrase?”
“He’s warming up to it,” he sighed. “He’ll say it someday.”
Cordero had already boarded when I got to my seat. I put my bag in the overhead bin and sat next to him.
He was digging in his take-out bag and let out an “aw” when he pulled out his container. “The chef here is so nice,” he said. “Look at this.”
I slumped into the seat next to him and read the strip of tape on the box.
Enjoy your first Rustie road trip!
“And she cut the crusts off my almond butter and jelly!”
Some dark feeling unfolded in me again. I was the only one not getting a little scrap of attention to take with me on the road. If I had her writing on a piece of tape, I’d keep it in my pocket until I could get the next one.
But I didn’t have that.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, even more dejected now. “She’s nice.”
But Harlan 2.0 wouldn’t sit and suffer, being jealous of everyone else’s fun with Chef. Harlan 2.0 would proactively pursue new friendships. I opened my texts to do just that.
HARLAN
What’s the soup du jour?
EMMA
Minestrone. A few guys wanted pasta and I had some canned tomatoes left over.
HARLAN
Nice
I didn’t know we could get special meals for the road
EMMA
Only if you’re nice.
Otherwise, prison slop for you.
HARLAN
You have no idea how nice I can be.
Am I on the prison slop list?
EMMA
Guess you’ll have to get a road meal and find out
HARLAN
Steep gamble. 50/50 odds of getting prison slop
EMMA
You’re brave enough to let frozen rubber fly at your face. You can handle it.
And I’d never set a player up for failure. Even goalies who pester the team chef.
HARLAN
I’m going to take that to mean I’m special
Delivered silently. Reply URGENT to deliver anyway
HARLAN
URGENT
EMMA
what
HARLAN
have a good day, Chef :)
She wanted nice? I could deliver nice. Game on.
“Is that Dave’s Pools and Spas?” Cordero leaned over our minimal shared armrest to look at my phone screen. “We were looking at getting one of those spas once we get settled.”
I was scrolling through the different options at the aforementioned Dave’s Pools and Spas.
“Why do you need a spa?” Owen asked. “You already have that fancy one with the rainbow lights.”
“Yeah, well, I need another one.”
“Where are you going to put it?” Owen craned his neck to look back at me.
“On my deck,” Leroy coughed from the seat behind me.
“I don’t think they can fit a spa on your tiny deck,” I said flippantly.
“Did you just make a deck joke?” Cap butted in. “Nice.”
“I’ll take a deck if someone’s handing out new ones,” Sorrento said.
Dottie leaned past Cap to join the conversation. “You need a new dick, Pickles?”
Cordero and I snapped to look at each other and shared a laugh. I tried not to let my ears get hot because I was sharing a laugh with my childhood idol. The Cordero shine still hadn’t worn off, despite my best efforts to appear not starstruck.
“I meant a new spa! I would take a new spa!” Sorrento said. “You guys are sick.”
“No, it’s Royce who’s sick,” Leroy said, sounding bored of everyone’s bullshit. “He needs somewhere to soak his deck.”
Dottie looked sympathetic. “Oh. Did you poke too many holes in your dick?”
Cordero scrunched up his face. “Wait, what?”
Sorrento peeked over the seat behind me. “Royce put like eleven holes in his dick.”
“Six,” I corrected.
“Well, there’s one on each side, right? Needle goes in, needle goes out,” Sorrento said. “So twelve.”
“I’m still confused,” Cordero said.
“I have a Jacob’s ladder,” I explained. “It’s really not that big of a deal.”
Cordero’s face had paled. “Does that mean what I think it does?”
Owen was kneeling in his seat, his head and hands poking over the back of it like he was some kind of gopher. “Each bar is a rung of the ladder.”
Cordero stifled a gag and dabbed at his hairline with his drink napkin. “No. Where?!”
“His dick!” Sorrento emphasized. “That’s what we’re trying to tell you. He has six metal bars in his dick.”
“No, but where on it?” Cordero gasped.
“The underside,” I said.
His hands flew to his lap. “Fuck, man.” He took a moment to think. “Doesn’t all that jingle around in your cup?”
I shrugged. “Kinda. I don’t know. I don’t really think about it. Girls like it.”
“We will call you ‘Jingle’ now,” Dottie said with a wide grin.
I tucked my hands behind my head. “Call me whatever you want. You’re just jealous I’m the only one in here ribbed for her pleasure.”
“That you know of,” Owen pointed out.
“Do you have something to share with the class?” Sorrento prodded.
“No. But Coach might be pierced. You never know.”
“Just my nips!” came Coach’s shout from the front of the plane.
A phone chimed, and Leroy’s voice cut through the chatter, speaking slowly, like you do to a computer. “Ask. Mara. About. Dick Piercings.”
Everyone laughed, but Owen kept his focus on me. “You still didn’t tell us why you’re buying two hot tubs.”
“Maybe one isn’t for me,” I jabbed. My ears felt hot and I hated it. This was a matter of how good of a friend Owen was to me. I felt like I’d put in the time, and here he was, subjecting me to whole team scrutiny.
“That’s nice of you to get one for your mom, Jingle, but I already did,” Dottie stated.
“Nice one,” Sorrento said.
Owen was still watching me, narrowing his eyes. “It’s Chef, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Yes, it is. She came over to your house for your little cooking lessons, and I bet you had to show off your hot tub. You always do.” Owen squinted at me. “And I saw that little video of you two online. You like her.”
“No, I don’t,” I rushed to say.
“That came out a little quick,” Cordero breathed. Great, now my childhood idol was picking on me too.
Okay, that was kind of cool.
Leroy guffawed. “Why would Chef go into your house?”
“She’s giving me cooking lessons, and she won’t let me go to her house,” I said miserably.
That made everyone relent. “That tracks,” Leroy said.
“Oh, makes sense,” Sorrento added.
“Well, my friend, you earned that. Maybe if you didn’t criticize her so much—” Owen started.
“I don’t criticize her!”
“Uh, yeah you do,” Leroy argued. “The rest of us just say ‘thank you’ and tell her how good everything was.”
“I’ve been to her house,” Cap boasted. “She hosted the girls’ night thing where they talk about their spicy books and I had to pick Violet up because they got too high on gummies.”
I had to chuckle at that as I scrolled through the hot tub listings. What was Emma like when she let loose? I got a little glimpse of it at Amarillo. That little laugh when I cracked a joke. Playing with the paper crane I handed her.
And what are you wishing for, Mr. Royce?
Maybe the guys were right and I was too hard on her. Everybody else got her soft side.
I had gotten the smallest taste of it, and now I wouldn’t rest until I got more.
Harlan 2.0 was going to unlock Emma.