Chapter Six Ingrid and King
“Wow! You’re walking a lot better already. You must be a good student,” I praise with a little laugh.
“Yeah. Kev said that if my ‘abnormally tall self can learn to run at thirty miles an hour across ice with knives strapped to my feet, I could learn to hop on one leg with big sticks under my arms.’”
I have to laugh at his sighing explanation and comically mournful expression.
“That’s one way to think of it. I can’t skate, but I’m a whiz at crutches.
Broke my ankle skiing when I was a kid, and then reinjured it the year after with a bad slide in softball.
Spent two summers on crutches,” I boast.
Am I boasting, or am I rambling?
I can’t tell. Even though I’m thirty-four and all that petty, self-conscious stuff should be gone... It’s not. It’s still considered odd if hot guys like girls who look like... well, like me.
For some reason, even though King is hot on the outside, I feel like I can see underneath the handsome veneer—a little.
Like overhearing one phone call let me peek under a corner of the arrogance blanket he drapes himself in.
There’s a mess on the inside, and a jerky one at that.
I tell myself that even though the old me would have adored a hot hockey player showing interest, mature me has the strength to look beyond how ripped he is, how gorgeous that jawline is, and say, “I wouldn’t want someone like that to be interested in me.
” It’s a weird confidence boost, but I’ll take it.
“Softball and skiing. Quite the athlete.” King looks me up and down, and I bridle.
“Fat girls can be athletes.” And why the fuck did I just call myself a girl? I’m almost thirty-five. I’m a strong, confident, independent—
“Fat?” King looks like I cursed him out.
I mean, I’m close, but...
“Or—Our women—the women where I’m from are all built to last.”
“I’m not a truck,” I grind out as we march and hobble to the exit. King has to lurch and jump to keep up with me, which is not doing his knee any good, but I don’t care.
“Big and muscular, or small and thin—that doesn’t matter. But being well-padded and full of gorgeous, soft, round curves wouldn’t make anyone think you weren’t athletic. Or attractive.”
There’s a note of lust in his voice under all the pleading.
“You shouldn’t talk that way to people you barely know,” I snap, but I’m a tiny bit mollified.
“Sorry.”
“Where are you from? What do you mean, our women?”
“Scotland. I mean, I was born here, but I lived there back and forth from the time I was four until I was in high school. Then I stayed here, and my parents went back.”
I stop short. “Your parents left you here? Do you have a lot of family in New York?”
“Well... No. I’m distantly related to the Fenclans. You know, the folks who own the coffee shop in town?”
“Oh, The Pine Loft! Love them. Georgia’s your...?”
“Like ninth cousin, or something.” King gets outside and freezes. “Shit.”
“What?”
“I got dropped off. I told my friend I’d get back to him about when I needed to be picked up. I don’t have a way to get to the restaurant.”
Don’t let a strange man in your car. Do not let a huge, strange man in your car.
“I’ll drive you there and home,” I say, because apparently, I don’t listen to my own good advice.
“Hey! Hey!” Kev comes careening out of the suite that makes up the PT zone of the outpatient building. “King, you’re going to need this.”
“No, I don’t!” he snaps, and he grabs for the papers Kev is waving at him.
“Is that your exercise regimen?” I demand, snagging the papers before he can, because I’m faster (at least at the moment). “You absolutely need—” I stop short when I unfold the paper.
Meal Train for King Silverbow
Password: ALLSTAR
Organizers: Kev and Marina Bailey.
While King is recovering from a serious fall on the ice, he struggles to stand without crutches, which will make cooking difficult. Please—
I stop reading when King grabs the papers and crushes them into a ball in his fist.
“I told you, I can order out,” King snarls. “I told you, I don’t need to be a burden on anyone! I don’t need help.”
“And I told you that your choices around here are limited to five restaurants, epic though they are. You need good nutrition to heal tears and breaks. You’d have to order like seven meals a day to fill you up!” Kev gestures to the sheer size of the man beside me. “You’d go broke!”
“I’m still getting paid!”
King stops. Breathes hard and deep, like an animal, enraged, but trapped.
I know why. He can’t be sure he’ll play again. Can’t be sure he’ll keep getting paid. And he has no family here.
Don’t do it, Ingrid. No softening towards Mr. Hot Young Hockey Hunk.
“Just for two weeks. Look.” Kev pulls out his phone and shows it to him.
“Minegold’s already bringing you a brisket on Wednesday.
And tomorrow, Ian and Farrah Fenclan are bringing.
.. Damn, man, they’re bringing wild boar, rice pilaf, apple crumble and custard, red wine, and some of Farrah’s lemon balm salve.
In the notes, it says that’s to rub on your knee, not to eat.
” Kev glares at his patient. “Shit, can I be injured, too?”
King looks shocked. “You only put this up ten minutes ago, right?”
“I did it while you were complaining about doing butt clenches. So about twenty.”
I try very hard (and fail very badly) not to laugh.
“People care about you,” Kev whispers gently.
“They care about the team’s All-Star.”
Hm. He might be right. He’s arrogant enough for people not to like him, just what he can do.
Or... Wait. Maybe he became arrogant because he didn’t have friends, just admirers, people who.
.. only liked him... for what he could do.
So what he could do, what he’s good at, became his whole personality.
And now he’s afraid he can’t do it. And if he doesn’t have family or real friends here, and if the admirers desert him, then. ..
Yep. Softened like butter in an Arizona heatwave. “That’s very sweet.”
“I don’t need it,” he repeats, voice quiet. “I could get by.”
“Save your strength for getting back on the ice!” Kev says with a big, encouraging smile. “They just want you to rest up, heal up, and get back out there, champ!”
King’s face twitches.
I think I was right.
“Um. Yeah. Well, if you say it’ll help, you’re the doctor. Wild boar?”
“Who brings wild boar?” I mutter, kind of envious. Sounds very rustic, yet gourmet.
“Real popular with Orcs—Orkneys! The Orkneys. In the Orkneys!” Kevin practically shouts, looking panic-stricken.
“The Orkneys are islands off the coast of Scotland. My people hunt and fish, and live off the land more than a lot of others, but we come from the Scottish Highlands and Outer Hebrides,” King finishes with a dark glare, smoothing out his papers. “The Orkneys are a completely different area.”
Kevin mouths, “Sorry,” and I know there was something funny about that whole exchange.
Something about King. Or his family.
“When Ian says he’s bringing wild boar, I half expect him to bring the whole thing on a spit. Probably not, but it’ll still be a lot.”
“You’ll have leftovers.” Kev shrugs.
“Why don’t you and Marina, and you, Ingrid, come over and help me eat it?”
“I’ve never had wild boar,” Kev says. “Ingrid probably has. She loves to travel.”
“Never had that, though. I’d like to try it.” Not necessarily with King, but if Kev and Marina are there, it should be safe enough. “Okay.”
“Good. Now, let’s get your big green ass in Ingrid’s little car. We’re going to need a shoehorn.”
“Green?” I mumble, trailing after them. I see King hiss something at Kevin, but I don’t quite catch it. King isn’t even wearing green.
Is Kev color blind?
Ingrid has a little blue car. It’s actually not little, just little to me.
It’s a full-size SUV, and it’s covered in dog hair.
There’s a stretchy mesh divider between the front and back seats, the latter of which is covered in beach towels, covered in even more dog hair.
“You have dogs?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
“Two surrendered German Shepherd mixes. They look like purebreds, except for Chip’s ears.
Chip and Daisy.” She taps the picture clipped to her sun visor.
It’s taken in a different car, but it’s a selfie with her in the front seat and the dogs sandwiching her headrest from the back, their tongues lolling and mouths open in big doggy grins.
One of them has ears that flop over at the tips.
“I can’t stay out long. I have to get back to them. I usually run home on lunch, but I didn’t today,” she says firmly as I wriggle into the car, butt first.
I immediately put my seat back, trying not to scream with pain when my knee had to bend and shift sideways to get in the car.
Kev puts my crutches in the back. “Be good, kids. See you on Wednesday. Keep off that leg! Ice and elevate. Read your instruction manual.” Kev pats a sheaf of papers into my chest with a no-nonsense look. “Don’t be a tough guy, okay? Get better so you can get back on the ice.”
I swallow. I should have asked this earlier, but it’s all so much, so fast. It’s like a car wreck, but I keep telling myself what happened could have been so much worse. I might not even need surgery. No one died. No one else got hurt.
It’s not a car wreck, except it feels like my life got smashed.
“Do you think I’m going to get back out there?” I ask, looking dead into Kev’s dark brown eyes.
No one but an Orc or other supernatural species would smell the sudden whiff of fear and the twitch around his eyes.
“Sure! You might not be playing for a while, but skating... I mean, sure. Eventually.”
“How long is eventually? The end of the season? Next season?” I demand.
“That depends on a lot of factors, the first one being your ability to listen to your medical team. Eat right, rest, do your exercises, stay off that leg!”
Kev slams the door, and Ingrid starts the engine.
I’m helpless, and I hate it.