7. Dean
DEAN
One week. It’s been a week of first lessons for Soleil.
A week of Coach Barrett dropping her off and introducing her to me.
The past couple of times, he’s given me a friendly punch on the biceps.
I took it to mean Thanks for not bonin’ my daughter, kid.
Keep it up. And by that I mean, keep it in your pants.
We switched over to skating at the rink in Kincaid Arena on April first. Every day she blushes when she shakes my hand.
Every time her dad leaves, she asks me to skate around the rink so she can see me in action.
Every time I drop her off, she thanks me for the first date, gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, and I die a little inside because every cell in my body aches to reach for her before she pulls away.
Every night she’s all I think about. It makes me happy to remember the day until I remember she’s probably already asleep and forgetting me.
But it doesn’t make the day any less special. If anything, it makes it more so.
But it’s been fascinating to watch her progress, because every time she steps out onto the ice she has more confidence than the last. Each time, she’s more impressed with how good she is.
Her muscles definitely remember. I have to wonder if her lips do too.
I can’t stop wondering if and when her brain will remember.
Anything. Me. The accident. I’ve been mentally preparing for the day she finds out about the accident and the memory loss, like it’s the playoffs.
Emotionally, it has felt like I was eliminated at the end of every day.
But I’m ready for the next step, whenever, whatever it is.
Her forward skating is solid and reasonably smooth.
She has increased body awareness on the ice.
She can do a basic snowplow stop. She’s attempted a hockey stop every damn time we’ve been on the ice together.
The first three times she stumbled and I caught her and it was my favorite part of the lesson.
The next few times she didn’t fumble it quite so significantly, but I still caught her.
She gets so cocky and impressed with herself because she thought it was the first time.
What I don’t tell her is that even the first time she tried it I could tell she was going to attempt it thirty seconds before she did it.
I could read it in her posture. See it in the way her head tilted forward.
I was already moving faster before she started to fall.
I was ready. I’m always ready. She just doesn’t know it.
I’m just getting in from lunch with the guys when I hear my phone ping with a notification. Even before I pull my phone out, intuitively, my stomach drops and I know it’s not because of the Tree Hugger veggie burger I ate at Locally Forked.
It’s from Coach Barrett: Come to my house ASAP. She found out.
This is it.
It’s Go Time.
I check my wallet to make sure the USB drive is in there, grab the extra Fluicer box, and ten minutes later, I’m pulling into the Barretts’ driveway.
Soleil’s older brother, Noah, is pacing back and forth on the path leading up to the house next to the driveway.
He’s definitely waiting for me, but I can’t tell if he’s upset or not.
I met him earlier this week when we played against his team in Beer League.
He seemed like such a fun guy before and after the game, but he was a beast on the ice.
There’s a fifty-fifty chance he’s going to try to castrate me.
He’s younger than me, and I respect that he’s protective of his little sister, but I can take ’im if I have to.
I get out of the truck and approach him, carrying the Fluicer.
He stops pacing and stares at the box. “The fuck is this?”
“It’s for juicing citrus fruits. It’s an inside joke between me and Soleil. That she doesn’t remember. Or at least she doesn’t know she remembers, but I think on some level she does.”
“You better not be angling to ‘fluicer,’ bro. You barely know ’er.”
“Back off, Brother Bear,” Coach Barrett says from the front door. “He’s one of the good guys.”
“Thanks, Coach.” Lowering my voice, I ask. “What happened? Is she here?”
“She’s in her room,” Coach tells me.
“Crying,” Noah adds. As if I’m the one who made her cry.
“Jessie’s in there with her; I called her first. But I think she’s ready to talk to you.”
“Is she okay?”
“No, she’s crying, numb nuts,” Noah snaps.
Coach smacks him in the pec. “After she got back from the skating lesson today, I think she wanted to call you. She figured out the combination to my safe to get out her phone. And she found all the journals I’ve been hiding in there.
The ones she’s written in since we brought her back from the hospital,” he says.
“We explained everything. Jessie came over to tell her about that night, February sixteenth. She’s been really upset.
Even more upset than she was every day at the hospital.
But it sounds like she’s settling down in there.
She read all of her journal entries. She asked if you knew about her condition.
I told her what you told me a week ago and what we’ve been doing every day since. She said she wants to see you.”
This is a relief. This is better than her finding out in the morning, I think. “Can I go in and show her the video, then?” Coach knows that I’ve been preparing for this.
“Yeah. Now’s the time.”
“What video?” Noah asks.
“You’ll see, Tiger. Simmer down.”
“Shit, I forgot to bring my laptop.”
“You can use hers. It’s out of the safe now. Digital Detox Week is officially over.”
I follow Coach B inside the house. Wait for him in the hallway when he knocks on her bedroom door.
He goes inside first and then comes out, along with Soleil’s best friend.
Jessie’s eyes are all puffy, but she’s smiling.
She pats me on the shoulder and gives me two thumbs up, which is encouraging, I guess.
Coach gestures for me to enter her room and makes a point of leaving the door open a crack.
Soleil is sitting cross-legged in the middle of a double bed, surrounded by notebooks.
The skin around her bright, blue eyes are pink and puffy, like Jessie’s were.
But she seems calm. Not too sad. She’s changed out of the clothes she was wearing this morning.
She must have showered after I dropped her off.
Her hair’s up in a ponytail, and she’s wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants. No makeup.
I slowly approach the side of her bed, holding the Fluicer box, waiting for her to speak first. She looks so pretty and young and innocent. She looks up at me and sniffles. I expect her to say something that’s going to break my heart.
But what she says is “Have we had sex yet?”
The word yet is interesting.
I hear Noah mutter, “I will punch him in the nuts if he’s—”
“Get away from there,” Coach calls out to him.
I can hear Noah grumbling as he walks off. “We have not,” I say, loud enough for her brother to hear. “But we’re getting to be pretty good friends. And we have a lot of chemistry. And you’ve kissed me on the cheek every day for the past week.”
She smirks. “I read about that.”
“How are you holding up?” I ask, placing the box on an empty space atop her dresser.
“Oh, you know…” She makes a pile of some of the journals so I can sit on the bed with her. “I was kind of hoping you’d tell me I left out the part about us having sex in my journals.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” Lowering my voice, I say, “It really didn’t seem appropriate.” I reach for her hand and stroke her fingers with my thumb. “But I think about you all the time.”
Her eyes well with tears and her lower lip quivers. “You’ve really been teaching me to skate every day for a week?”
I nod. “Yeah. And I saw you several days before that too.”
“Why do you keep coming back? Even though I always forget you? You’re so hot—you could be with a woman who remembers you in the morning.”
I pull a small red USB drive from my pocket and hold it up to show her. “I tried to explain everything in a video I’ve been putting together for the past few days. Where’s your laptop?”
She reaches for the laptop on a side table and hands it to me. When I wake up the monitor, I see my face and a few candid images of me in sweatpants all over the screen. She grins at me, sheepishly. “I Googled you and your butt. Shut up.”
I click on the video file, increase the volume, and turn the laptop so she can see the screen.
“I’m gonna leave a note for you to watch this video every morning, okay?
” I was always the guy who’d edit together videos for my friends when they had birthdays or if a coach was retiring or a player was traded to another team.
The video nerd. That skill has come in handy for this particular situation.
After a brief opening title introduction with royalty-free music I purchased and edited in, my voice comes up as I talk to the camera.
“Good morning, Soleil Barrett. Or good afternoon, if you’ve slept in.
I’m Dean Rafferty, and I first met you on March twenty-fourth this year.
I was in Whisk It Good, looking for some kitchen items when you walked in.
You were the prettiest woman I’d ever seen, and we had a lot of banter.
” I then act out our conversation about the slapper and the thermal slab and the Fluicer for her in the video.
“I wanted so badly to date you that I bought two Fluicers. You can have the other one. I don’t need it.
I really only need to see you every day.
That’s what I want anyway. The problem is you probably don’t remember me.
And I’m going to throw it over to your best friend and your dad to tell you why. ”
I got Jessie to film herself explaining what happened on the night of February sixteenth and Coach Barrett to explain everything thereafter and edited it in.
Then I come back on and say, “I’m really sorry this happened, Soleil.
I wish my contract with the team in Calgary had ended sooner so I could have moved up to Kenton sooner and I could have met you sooner so you’d remember me from before the accident.
Or, to be honest, I’d like to think that if I’d met you before Valentine’s Day, none of that would have happened.
Because I would have taken you out on Valentine’s Day and every night since then.
No offense, Coach and Noah, if you’re watching.
But I would have been determined to show you guys it was okay for me to date Soleil.
However, in case you’re wondering, we’ve just been skating together. ”
Then I edited in the video footage Jessie shot of Soleil skating with me. I watch Soleil’s wet eyes light up. “Wow, I look hot skating!” she exclaims.
“Yes, you do.”
“My butt looks amazing.”
“It’s a ten.”
The skating footage ends, and then I say to the camera, “So that’s what’s up. I’ll make a new video for you if anything changes or progresses… I’ve met a lot of women in my life, Soleil, but you’re the one I can’t forget. You’re the one I want to see again. Every day.”
She sniffles, and I watch the tears cascade down her cheeks. She pulls the laptop into her lap and lowers her face closer to the screen, smiling at my image.
“I’ve enjoyed every minute I’ve spent with you,” I continue on-screen.
“Even when you say or do the same thing over and over, it’s incredible—you still surprise me.
Every time. I’m choosing to spend as many days with you as I can.
To make new memories with you. I hope you choose to make new memories with me too.
And we’ll figure this out together. One day at a time. ”
I reach over to wipe the tears from her jaw with my thumb.
Watching me, she turns her head and presses her lips against the tip of my thumb.
Then, she leans in to kiss me on the mouth.
Soft and sweet, but she tastes salty from the tears.
I don’t pull away. I cradle her face in my hands and kiss her back, parting my lips for her eager tongue.
Her laptop slides to the carpet. Her hands grip my shirt. The tiny animal noises she makes into my mouth are so urgent you’d think she’s been waiting as long as I have to kiss me like this. There’s no way I’m a total stranger to her. She has to remember me on some level.
This is not how you kiss someone you’ve only known for a few hours.
This is how you kiss someone you want to kiss for the rest of your life.
I don’t even know if I believe in reincarnation, but this is how you kiss someone you’ve known for lifetimes.
This kiss is making me believe in everything.
“Way too quiet in there!” Noah yells from down the hall.
I can’t fucking believe that guy, though.
She laughs into my mouth before pulling away. That laugh. It’s inside of me now. It’s in my blood. It’s going to keep me going long after she forgets this kiss.
“I have to show you something,” she says quietly. Her tone would suggest that she’s about to show me her boobs, and while I would not have a problem with that, I would prefer if it happened when her family wasn’t just down the hall.
Soleil reaches for one of the notebooks, a pink one, and opens it.
“This is dated February seventeenth,” she says and then shrugs.
“They all were. But this was on top when I found it in the safe. So I think it was from yesterday. All the other journals had entries where I wrote at night only. This one I wrote in the morning. I wrote, ‘Had the most vivid dream about a guy. Tall. Light brown hair. Hazel eyes. Dimple in one cheek. We were standing side by side at Waterfront Park, looking out at the view across the lake. The view I painted for the mural festival. He kept glancing over at me. I don’t think we were talking; I just know he made me so happy. And I felt safe. I wanted to kiss him, but then I woke up…’ And I sketched this picture of the guy from my dream. ”
She turns the notebook around so I can see the sketch. It’s clearly me. She used colored pencils. Excellent shading. She really captured my irresistible smirk. And the look of love in my eyes.
“You dreamt about me yesterday?”
She nods. “Seems that way.”
I kiss her again. She snakes her arms around my neck. “What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know. But it has to be a good thing.”
“Will you take me out?” she whispers into my ear. “Today? On a real date?”
“I’d love to. You think your dad will be okay with that?”
“He feels really guilty about everything, so even if he isn’t really okay with it, he’ll be okay with it today.” She plants another kiss on my cheekbone. “And I think you’ll make sure he’s okay with it tomorrow.”
“You got that right, sweetheart. Let’s spend the rest of the day together.”