Chapter 3
ARAVIND
“So Chad goes, if you want to have even a chance to be accepted, you have to put on the tutu. And of course, Braden was going to do it because he would become…what’s that word? A pyre? The pyre of his family if he didn’t get accepted. His dad was, like, the president of Delta Lambda.”
Six more days. Six more days. Six more eternal, endless, insufferable fucking days left at this job before I was free. I had one more piece to write, and then I was going to leave this place and never, not once, ever look back again.
“…so he puts on the tutu, and then Chad hands him a Batman mask and a pair of high heels.”
I turned to look over at my coworker. She was on work-study—a sophomore at the university and the poster child for her sorority, though I didn’t know which one. You couldn’t pay me to remember a single Greek letter on this fucking campus.
I wasn’t a student here. This was supposed to be a temporary job when I took it because my ex said he wanted us to work in the same building. Leon said he wanted to see my face after a long day of dealing with bullshit from students and the administration.
He said that I gave him relief and comfort.
He didn’t seem to know that it was the perfect setup for me to catch his cheating ass on his desk, buried balls-deep inside his former TA.
He didn’t tell me that after a dramatic breakup where he got to wear a full glass of IPA on his very expensive and very ruined Tommy Hilfiger shirt, I would have to endure months upon months of watching him bring new people into his office and close the door with a loud turn of the lock.
He didn’t tell me that being a rich, older white man with tenure meant he could get away with anything, up to and including fucking his TAs and probably half of his students because too many of them were willing. Too many of them were charmed the way I had been charmed.
The only difference was, they didn’t uproot their lives and their jobs to move into his condo. They didn’t believe in the forever he tried to sell them.
Never trust a white man who makes studying Japanese history his entire personality. All of my friends had warned me about him, but back then, I was so desperate to be loved, I wasn’t willing to listen.
I should have known by the way he made me microwave-in-a-bag sushi rice on our second date.
It was a hard lesson to learn, and a lot of crow to eat, but it was fine.
The reporting job was a lifeline, not a forever thing.
It was a pit stop to get me out of this hellhole, and while I still had to see Leon’s face at least three times a day when I was at my desk, at least it would be over soon.
My dad had tried to talk me into taking an interview with ESPN now that my contract was up, but that sounded like stepping from one hell right into another.
I could not and had not ever given two flying fucks about hockey.
When my dad had played, I was a kid. And when his injury took him out and he went into coaching, I had to deal with all his fucking players looking at me sideways like I was some kind of freak because I enjoyed playing dress-up in fairy wings and frilly skirts instead of goalie masks and pads.
Not all of them were awful, of course. My dad collected hockey players the way my mom collected neighborhood aunties before she died, and some of them I was even willing to consider friends. Hell, a few of the players on the PPHL were friends now too.
And okay, yes, working for the PPHL was leagues better than the NHL, but most of the players were the same type of guy.
Arrogant jocks who, even when they were queer, still looked at me like I was some kind of freak because they wanted to be picked by their bigot fans who thought I had no place in polite society.
I’d had enough of that in both high school and college, so the fact that I was still stuck in this vicious cycle felt a bit like I’d pissed off some god in a former life and this was my punishment.
Taking a breath, I stared back at the screen, to my half-finished article.
It ended with my last trip to the hospital—Tiago lying in the bed, facing what might very well have been the end of his career.
I was gone before he got any real information from the doctors, and I hadn’t heard anything since.
Sitting in my chair, waiting on some kind of update, was exhausting.
What good was being the son of an NHL coach if I wasn’t going to get special treatment or insider information?
I had a text out to my dad, but unfortunately, someone had taught the old man internet slang because all I got back was IDK with a crying emoji.
Fuck my life.
“Lunch.”
I turned to look at Clara. “Not hungry.”
“You’re so skinny though. You are going to waste away—”
“Clara, girl. We’re not doing body-shaming today,” I told her, holding up a hand. “I’m Indian, so I have, like, a hundred aunties up my ass making sure I’m being fed.”
She pulled a face at me. “Do you always have to make everything some kind of fucking crusade?”
“Yes. I have my steed and chain mail outside. Be right back, going to hunt for the holy grail.”
“I’m leaving,” she snapped.
The room emptied, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I was being hard on her for no reason.
Well, not no reason. I had a thousand reasons, and grief was the source of each one.
I regretted everything about my life except breaking up with Leon and skipping that weird white-people taco truck everyone wanted to eat at three months ago.
Some people were still shitting weird, and Leon was still a cheating douchebag, which taught me the perfect lesson: never date history or philosophy professors.
Scrubbing my hands down my face, I picked up my phone and hit my dad’s number, though I knew he probably wasn’t going to answer. It was the middle of the day in the middle of the week, smack in the middle of playoffs.
I couldn’t remember where he was, but I knew he was likely going to be pacing in front of the bench, screaming orders at his players, working up a sweat made of anxiety and fear because I knew this season was important to him.
He was taking over after a real shit-stain of a human being, and while his team could hold their own, everyone was nervous about how he was going to do. He had a lot going against him, and I knew he was tired.
But I also knew that no matter what was happening in the game, if he could pick up my call, he would.
After Mom, well…neither one of us was willing to ignore each other if we could help it.
“Aravind.”
“Everything’s fine,” I told him like I did every time he picked up a call. “I was just wondering if you’ve heard about Nadeau—”
“I don’t know how he is. I texted you this morning. Now, I have to—for Christ’s sake! Zeki, if you don’t learn to pick up that fucking pass…”
“Oookay. I’m gonna go. Talk to you later.”
“Love you.”
I took a breath. “I love you” wasn’t a thing we said to each other, but in the past few years, it was every time we hung up the phone. I didn’t hate it. I wasn’t one of those people who believed that the phrase could lose meaning by saying it too much.
But it was just another reminder that everything was flipped upside down and different now that my mom was gone, and there was no hope of it ever going back to the way it was.
“I love you too.”
“Louder. I’m going to put you on speaker so everyone can hear how my son is finally grateful for me as a dad and—”
“Bye!” I was only fifty percent sure he was joking, and I wasn’t willing to take the risk.
Dropping my phone into my pocket, I stood up, stretched my back, then decided I’d do a little investigative journalism. That was part of the job, after all, and there were a couple of guys in the PPHL who were in town after getting knocked out of the playoffs.
With a little coy smile and maybe a sprinkle of bribery, I might be able to get some information out of them and finally—finally—be done with this godforsaken project.
With nearly everyone on lunch, it was a lot easier to creep out of the office, but I only got as far as the lobby before Daryl came slinking around the corner with a coffee in each hand and a look on his face like he was running the goddamn New York Times and not the Sports Gazette.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” He was tall with short-guy energy, skinny enough to look gaunt, cheekbones that most people would die for, but they didn’t fit his face. He was always scowling, and if he wasn’t doing that, he looked like he was sniffing frat-boy farts.
Which maybe he was.
I didn’t know his business, and I didn’t want to.
“I’m taking a lunch,” I told him, and he sucked in a breath, probably to tell me that I couldn’t, so I held up a hand. “Then I’m heading out to get a follow-up on the game last night and Tiago’s status.”
He blinked his small, watery eyes at me. God, his face looked so red. Was he okay?
“You’re never going to make it in this business.” His voice was weirdly calm.
“Um. Okay? Is that supposed to be a bad thing?”
He took a step closer and set both coffees on the reception desk. “I know you look down on our little publication here. We’re funded by the college, so it’s not like we have the budget of USA Today, right?”
“Daryl,” I started, exhausted already. I didn’t know how to get him to understand that I didn’t give a single, solitary whisper of a shit about this publication. This was a job I had taken to make my shit-for-brains ex-boyfriend happy. “I don’t—”
“I hired you as a favor to your father.”
It took everything in me not to laugh. It wasn’t a favor to my father. It was an attempt to shove his too-red nose up my dad’s asshole and take a big whiff. He did it as an actual favor to Leon.
But I was pretty sure Daryl was homophobic and wasn’t going to admit that aloud.
“What is your point?” I sighed out.
His eyes flashed. “This is what I mean. Mouthy, insubordinate, pathetic…”
It stung. I shouldn’t have let myself feel the pain because I didn’t care what this guy thought of me. Why would I? I had two bachelor’s and a master’s degree, and I had already proven myself to my friends and my family.
So why let this beady-eyed, insecure jackass get under my skin?
But he had. And the pain probably showed on my face because he smiled.
“You’re going nowhere in life.”
“Now, Daryl,” came a voice to my right.
Oh fuck. Like this day couldn’t get worse. I had just enough time to brace myself before Leon’s hand touched my shoulder, and it took everything in me not to shove him off.
“You don’t need to be cruel.”
I only just managed to hold in my laugh. That was fucking rich. Taking a step back from Leon, I looked up into his face, and oh. New crow’s feet. God, had he always looked this old?
Granted, I kind of had a thing for older guys, but had I really ever found Leon sexy?
“Ara can’t help himself. He’s acting out because of his grief—”
“Fuck you.” The words slipped out, but I wasn’t going to take them back because fuck him.
“Ara,” Leon said, his patronizing tone dripping with fake empathy, “you and I both know people like you were never taught how to do things properly.”
People like me?
He was baiting me, and I knew it. I breathed through my fury.
Six more days. Six more days, and my father would be satisfied that I finished out my contract, and I could leave.
Our beach cottage was sitting in a cute little cove of Barret Inlet on Banker Island.
It would be fully stocked, and the weather would be nice, and I could soak up sun and take a week—maybe more—to figure out what the fuck I wanted the rest of my life to look like.
Because while I didn’t know much, I knew I wasn’t ever going to waste my time like this again. Not for some fucking arrogant man who had no right to feel so good about himself.
“Thank you for your opinion, Leon,” I said, removing all the emotion from my words.
Leon cocked his head to the side. “You and I both know it’s true. You were not taught how to grieve. Or how to receive love, or how to give it—”
“How to eat like a civilized human,” Daryl cut in with a laugh.
If rage were stomach acid, my throat would be on fire. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard racist bullshit about the way I ate, but coming from Daryl somehow made it worse.
“Listen, you tiny-dicked—”
“Whoa, Ara. Do you really want to lose your job over this?” Leon asked with a tiny smile.
This time, I did burst into laughter. He didn’t know that I’d already quit? I spun and offered him the sweetest grin I could manage. “Honey, my contract is up. I have six days before I’m out. And I won’t be back.”
Leon’s face did something complicated—something I’d never seen before. He looked upset. But why the fuck would he care? Every semester, he had a fresh wave of first-year grad students he could charm and fuck.
“I didn’t know.”
“It wasn’t your business,” I reminded him. “Guys who can’t keep their dicks in their pants and use philosophical arguments from cultures they don’t belong to in order to sway undergrads into fucking them aren’t entitled to my personal life.”
Leon went pale in the face. “The fact that you think you know my life—”
“Leon. You literally never shut up about your bullshit. Ever.” I swiped a hand down my face.
“Like, I know things about you against my will because you never fucking stop talking. And I’m tired, and we are over.
You cheated, you tried to tell me it was your nature—whatever.
Blah fucking blah. You said I had to take you as you are or leave. It was a very easy decision.”
“You didn’t even give yourself a chance to see things my way.”
Oh my god, was he pouting?
My stomach twisted. Nothing in my life would ever be more embarrassing than admitting I had actually liked this man enough to move in with him.
“Anyway, well, this has been fun, but I have a hockey player to stalk,” I said into the awkward silence. “Have fun with—actually, I don’t even want to speculate about what you’re up to today.” I wiggled my fingers at him, then shoulder-checked him on my way out the door.
It wasn’t until I was down the elevator and on the ground that I let everything hit me. My adrenaline dumped into my body, and my teeth began to chatter as I hurried toward the parking lot.
That was the first time I’d ever fully unleashed on him. It was the first time I’d ever been brave enough to do it. Up to now, I’d been letting things fester, making me a bitter, ugly shell of myself, and god, I did not ever want to be that person again.
All I had to do now was find some update on Tiago, write it down at the end of my article, turn it in, and then I could be done.
The beach was waiting for me.
And so was the rest of my life.