5. Chapter 5
Chapter 5
After the boys weekend at JJ’s family cabin, I head home for a quick minute and then head out to the family ranch for Sunday supper.
Pulling into the long dirt path we call a driveway, I feel the sense of peace I always do the moment I spot the chocolate-colored porch that wraps around my childhood home. After all these years, nothing has changed. I’ve seen pictures from when the house was first built, and it still has the same white exterior, solid wood door, and black shutters framing every window of the two story farmhouse. Other than a fresh coat of paint or stain every few years, nothing has changed in the last fifty years.
I spot my dad’s tall frame and dark head of hair out by the riding ring that sits to the right of the house. He’s watching my younger sister, Sadie, slowly work her horse Lovely around some barrels. The girl might not skate, but already at sixteen she has universities sending offers; the girl can barrel ride like no one’s business. Parking next to my mom’s blue SUV, I send a wave to Sadie and my dad knowing that they didn’t even hear me pull in—too concentrated on their training. Shaking my head with a smile, I skip the first step of the porch knowing it’s still wonky, even though my mom has been telling my dad to fix it for the past three years. I swear he hasn’t done it yet just to get a rise out of her. My dad always says, “ Get a woman who you can get a rise out of here and there . . . the minute you can’t anymore you know you’ve lost her. ” To which my mom would most likely react. But I guess he’s right, because they’ve been happily living together for twenty-four years and counting.
My parents are high school sweethearts. They met on their first day of high school and had me two years later, at the age of sixteen. My dad said he knew she was the one the minute he spotted her long jet-black hair and green eyes. He always says, “She’s the most gorgeous woman I’ve seen.”
The fact that they now own a cattle ranch is crazy to me. After I was born, they both finished high school. My mom actually went to college too and became a teacher, while my dad started working on his uncle’s cattle ranch. Eventually he inherited the land and business.
Still smiling, I walk into the kitchen seeing my mom cutting vegetables for a salad. If you didn’t know she has a twenty-three-year-old son, you would never guess she was old enough to even have a sixteen-year-old daughter. She still has her jet-black long hair—not a gray hair in sight. She swears she doesn’t dye it, but my dad has his suspicions.
Once I’m standing beside her, I grab an extra cutting board and knife before leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, baby, how was your weekend with the boys?” she asks, passing me the tomatoes to cut.
“Good. Relaxing. It’s always fun to hangout with the boys. The cookies you sent didn’t even make it past the first night.”
“I figured; they never do,” she says laughing, making the smallest wrinkles appear around her eyes; the only giveaway that she’s older than she appears. “Is Levi coming tonight?”
“No. He has a new roommate.”
“Again?” Raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Who is it? Someone on the team again? That boy cannot live alone, can he?”
“An old childhood friend this time, or so he says. His older sister’s best friend, Hannah, I think her name is, needed to start over, and Levi offered her his spare room.”
“Well, isn’t that interesting,” she says with a smirk.
“I know, right! I told him I thought it was weird, but he said it was nothing, that she’s like a second sister. I’m calling it right now. He's going to have a permanent roommate before the next season starts.”
“And when are you going to have a permanent roommate?” my mom asks, pointing her knife at me.
“When I meet someone as annoying as you.”
“Watch it!” she says in what is her attempt at a stern voice, but the glimmer in her green eyes shows me she’s joking as she throws a piece of cucumber that hits me on the cheek and falls onto the counter.
“What? It’s the truth. Once I find someone I like to annoy more than I like to annoy you, I’ll bring her over for supper,” I say, popping the piece of cucumber into my mouth.
“I’ll hold you to that,” she answers with a smirk as she makes her way outside to the grill.
Shaking my head, I keep cutting the vegetables for the salad. Why would I want to settle down? I’m twenty-three, making millions a year between my hockey contract and my endorsements, and trust me when I say, I have my fair share of girlfriends. Bedmates may be a better description, since I don’t tend to share much of my life or myself with these girlfriends. The way I see it, it’s a win-win. The cute little co-eds get to say they’ve dated an actual NHL player for a few weeks or months, and I can have sex with no strings and a date when I need one.
I know that sounds cocky, but my mom always said that the truth would get me farther than lies. The truth is I have everything I need: money, family, a hot date on my arm when needed, and easily accessible sex whenever required. What twenty-three-year-old, red-blooded, straight man, wouldn’t enjoy that?
And again, those girls, they know what they’re getting into with me. They want what the media shows them . . .
Would I like to have what my parents have? Or what JJ and Ellie have? If I'm honest with myself . . . Sure . . . maybe . . . one day. One day when I’m done having my fun. One day not in my near future. Since my short conversation with Levi at the cottage, the thought of having someone by my side has crossed my mind more and more.
“I can see the little hamster in your head running twenty thousand miles an hour. I thought you would be more relaxed after your weekend with the boys. What’s going on?” my mom asks in a concerned tone. I was so lost in thought I didn’t hear her rejoin me in the kitchen.
“Nothing, just thinking about something Levi said.” Letting me sit in my thoughts, she just keeps chopping vegetables. “He said I was an asshole to women,” I finally say.
Setting her knife down and turning towards me, she wipes her hands on her flowery pink apron and looks at me to say, “I don’t think you’re an asshole to women. Do you think you’re an asshole to women?” Shaking my head, she continues, “I’m sure all those women know what they are signing up for. I think you’re being an asshole to yourself. I think you’re not being true to yourself; I think you’re scared and you’re dealing with it in an unhealthy way. Not every woman is Alex. Not every woman is going to turn somewhere else when life gets hard, honey. Not everyone is going to break your heart or your trust. I know that she hurt you, but stop feeling guilty and punishing yourself for her actions by not getting attached. You did nothing wrong. You’re following your dream, your passion. You’ll find someone who will celebrate that with you instead of holding it against you.”
Like always, my mom isn’t shy to throw the truth in my face. She’s right. I haven’t even considered a relationship, not since Alex. Fuck, that girl did a number on me.
“Any plans now that the season’s over?” my dad asks once we’re all sitting down eating the salad and burgers mom and I prepared.
“Not really. I wanna work on my speed, but apart from that I might go enjoy the beach house. Maybe I’ll bring the mistake to enjoy the ocean too,” I say, quickly glancing at Sadie as she sticks her tongue out at me between bites.
“If anyone was a mistake it was you, loser,” Sadie sasses back with an eye roll. “When are you gonna bring a girlfriend home?” Ignoring my eye roll, she continues, “I mean the least you could do is get me a sister-in-law since I have to deal with your presence in my life.”
“Did I not just say I was going to bring you to Florida? Do you want to be stuck here all summer?” I ask, knowing she probably does want to stay home. She travels enough with her horse shows that when she has some free time she likes to stay home.
Completely ignoring me she continues. “I did your horoscope the other day, and you’re gonna have to stop whoring around . . . Oh, don’t look at me like that, I’m sixteen and I know how to read, I see all the tabloids. All. Of. Them,” she says with a look as I choke on a piece of salad. “As I was saying, I did your horoscope. You, my dear brother, will fall in love by the end of the summer.”
“Don’t hold your breath. I’m not falling in love this summer or any summer in the near future. You’ve been spending too much time with mom, stop listening to everything she says,” I say pointing my fork to my mom.
“I think he protests too much,” my mom adds with a wiggle of her eyebrows as she takes a sip of wine and encourages Sadie to continue.
“Dad, help me out here.”
“Son, I love you, but I live with them full time. I’m not getting on their bad side tonight,” he says with a serious look on his face, telling me I’m on my own.
“How about we make this interesting?” Sadie adds on.
Taking the bait. “What are you proposing?” I ask, sitting back in my chair knowing she loves a good bet.
“If you fall in love by the end of the summer, you need to buy my plane tickets to New Zealand when I graduate high school.”
“And since that won’t happen, what do I get at the end of the summer?”
“I will come over to clean your house once a week for eight weeks.”
“That confident?”
“The horoscope doesn’t lie, big brother.”
“You have a deal,” I say, extending my hand across the table for her to shake.
Little did I know, she was right; the horoscopes don’t lie. The little shit.