Chapter 37
Nick scored a Gordie Howe hat trick in the game against Philadelphia—a goal, an assist, and a fight. Dave Taylor cross-checked Jakub Cermak in the neck, and as soon as Taylor was far enough from Jakub’s prone body, Nick took a swing at him. In a second it was a full scrum, one big fight and little side fights. Their goalie came out and stuck his giant mitt over the face of one of the Philly players, effectively taking him out of the melee. It was a good technique. Nick wasn’t the best fighter in the league, and he wasn’t even close, but if you smacked your stick over his teammates’ vertebrae, he was coming for you.
He got in his second fight of the night when Alyssa called while he was on the bus on the way to the airport. She was pissed about the ad, and he’d had to take the call in front of his teammates—who had dropped everything to come help him get the ad shot. It was embarrassing.
The next day he had a purple abrasion on his cheekbone from the fight with Taylor. Too bad he didn’t have a therapy appointment. Dr. Williams would ask about it, and it would get them talking about hockey, which was the right thing to talk about. He didn’t want to talk about the argument with Alyssa.
He ordered flowers for his Grandma Sorensen’s birthday and considered returning his overdue library book, but he didn’t feel like it, and the fine would help support the library. He was a bad boy and a virtuous citizen all in one. He yawned, stretched his arms overhead, and flopped onto a sunny spot on the floor. Cats knew what they were doing. He’d already lifted weights that morning, and now he just felt lazy. No need to do anything until practice except avoid vengeful librarians.
He rolled his head and looked at his naked Christmas tree. His parents had always made putting the tree up a big deal. He suspected it was because he was an only child and they’d never wanted him to feel like he was missing out on big family moments. Nick hadn’t made a big deal of it since he’d been on his own, but he and Sammy had always put a tree up. They’d skipped the wassail and carol singing that Nick’s parents thought were an integral part of bringing a fir inside. Although he and Sammy almost didn’t get a tree one year when they couldn’t find one without any low branches. Sammy had wanted to be able to have sex under it—he thought that would lend some seasonal gaiety to his carnal activities. They finally found a tree that Sammy thought would do—but he was wrong, because he and a blond barista had brought it down.
Nick hadn’t planned to put a tree up this year, but then the apartment was so fucking depressing without one that he caved. He knew he’d miss it if he didn’t. Dr. Williams had been delighted, and it was almost worth the trouble just to see her look so happy about it. He’d come to really like her. Still, Nick wasn’t sure he wanted to decorate it. Alyssa would probably have great ideas for what to do with it. She’d have coordinating decorations and a color scheme or something. What he had was a shoebox of ornaments from home, mostly penguins in Santa hats from his childhood penguin phase. Alyssa would find his ornaments deficient.
Nick sighed, rose effortlessly from his cat sprawl, and retrieved a string of lights from the coffee table, unspooling it as he walked around the tree. Then he opened his box of ornaments and pulled a penguin in a sleigh out of the tissue paper. Last year he and Sammy had decorated their tree together. Sammy also had a cardboard box that his mom had sent his first year away from home. Neither one of them had bothered to pick up anything more. Had his mom hung those ornaments on her tree this year, or was the box in a spidery corner of their basement?
His phone rang and he answered it with the sleigh dangling from its hook on his finger. The caller ID said “Stacey’s Interiors.” He was looking forward to this conversation.
“Sorensen.” That usually threw people off. It was a good way to answer the phone when it wasn’t going to be a friendly call.
“Hi, Nick. I saw your ad.” Stacey didn’t sound as upset as he would have liked, but she’d probably gotten herself together before making the call.
“What did you think?”
“Looks like you throw boring parties,” she said. He raised his eyebrows and lifted the ornament off his finger. Stacey had come out swinging.
“We cut the footage of Jakub Cermak,” he said. “He violates FCC standards.”
“I don’t know who he is, and I don’t care,” Stacey said. “But I’m bringing a cameraman out this afternoon to get my commercial, as planned.”
He pulled his head back and stared at his phone for a moment before returning it to his ear. Was she stupid? “I already made a commercial. I beat you.”
“You developed an interest in your apartment, sugar. Now I get to film a better version and make it clear that the work was performed by Stacey’s Interiors. And since Alyssa Compton no longer works here, you’ll be getting a cease-and-desist letter on airing your ad.”
Had she actually called him “sugar”? He wanted to say “You can’t be serious,” but she clearly was. He yawned into the phone. “Today’s not good.”
“Be there or I’ll have the landlord let me in. I have a letter from an attorney to wave in front of his face.”
Nick thought for a moment. You scored by sheer speed or by faking out the goalie. Sometimes you needed to do both. “Four o’clock?”
“One,” Stacey said. “On the effing dot. Per our agreement.”
Nick laid his phone down and thought for a moment. Then he retrieved the shells from the top of the living room bookcase and carried them back to the safety of the closet in Sammy’s bedroom. “Hey, buddy. I gotta do a thing. I can’t let this woman beat me. You would understand.” He looked around the empty room, gave the doorjamb a single pound, and walked out.
Nick pulled everything out of his kitchen cupboards while he called his landlord. “Javier? Nick Sorensen. You got any open apartments?”
Forty-five minutes later his first teammate showed up, answering his second emergency text in a week. It was Leif. “You’re a spontaneous guy, Nick.” He clapped Nick on the shoulder. “You decided to move? Before practice?”
“Yeah.” Nick raked his hand through his hair. “That building two blocks north? My new apartment’s in it. I haven’t actually seen it yet.”
“You …” Leif shook his head. “I saw movies, ja, in Sweden? But they didn’t prepare me for Americans.”
Nick grinned. “The landlord’s waiting over there with the keys. How ’bout we take something big on the first trip so we clear some space?”
Leif blew air out. “How ’bout we leave the big things for the defensemen? You have boxes yet?”
“No, Devin is going to pick some up. Shit, I didn’t ask him to get tape. You think he’ll think of it?”
Leif shrugged. “He’s captain for a reason.”
“Because he thinks of tape?”
“We’ll find out.” The goalie swept Nick’s toaster and fancy ass coffeemaker off his counter and headed out the door. Nick threaded a couple of dining room chairs over each arm and followed him, pulling the apartment door shut with his foot as he left. By the time he’d met with the landlord; signed the lease without reading it because he trusted the guy, who rented to several Red Wheels—and because Nick obviously had not learned a thing; dumped the chairs; and walked back to his apartment, four other guys were there.
Leif explained the situation. “Nick is having an American moment. He is moving to a new apartment because the frontier is closed, and he has a restless spirit.”
“Yippee-ki-yi-yay,” Nick said.
“You’re moving on an emergency basis because the frontier is closed?” André said.
Nick shot Leif a look. He’d have to insult herring later to even the score. “You want to grab one end of that sofa?” he said.
“Yeah, okay,” André said.
By noon everybody who could come was there—ten guys, an assistant coach, and the locker room manager. They’d moved the living and dining room furniture and decided that the most efficient way to move small things—dishes and books—was in boxes that they passed from one guy to the next. They weren’t close enough together to just hand them over, but it was easy to walk a box a few yards to the next guy and get back in place before another box got to you. When they passed the Christmas tree from hand to hand, the guys sang “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”
In Nick’s old apartment, Devin looked up from where he was taping the bottom of the last box he’d brought. “Should I run out for more? I forgot how much more stuff you have now.”
That was Alyssa’s fault. “Yeah, there’s still a bunch of books.”
The assistant coach walked in, waving two empty boxes in front of him. “The boys in the new apartment are unpacking. They said you can rearrange later if you want, but for now you’ve got fresh boxes.”
“Well, that solves that,” Devin said. “Perfect timing.”
Nick took the boxes and dropped them on the kitchen floor. “You guys are all right.”
“We’re actually pretty amazing,” Devin said.
“And gooood-looking!” André called.
The apartment emptied quickly. His teammates could do to a closet what they did to a buffet. When their Czech rookie walked out with a floor lamp gripped in his fist, the place was empty. Nick turned slowly. Was there anything lonelier? At the same time he could see the desolate white hole it had been before Alyssa, as well as the elegant space she’d created for him. He stepped into his bedroom and ran a thumb down the soft butter wall. He wasn’t ever going to forget her painting this room. That was a good night. He walked back out, checked the balcony lock, and thought of Alyssa trapped out on that balcony when he’d gotten home from a road trip. He wouldn’t mind stepping out of the shower again and finding her trapped out there, rapping lightly on the glass. But that wasn’t going to happen.
He walked into Sammy’s room, crossed to the window, and rested his hand on the sill. He addressed the middle of the room. “I’m moving, Sammy. It’s a two-bedroom, but I need to tell you I’m going to use the spare bedroom as a studio. You can hang out there if you want.” He fell quiet for a moment. “I hope you’ll come with me, but I got to be honest. I didn’t feel you over there. In the new place. Maybe ’cause there were guys there you didn’t know.” He took a couple of breaths. “Anyway, if this is goodbye …” He blinked and hit the windowsill with his knuckles, trying to hurt them so he wouldn’t feel. “If this is goodbye, I love you, man.”
He walked to the closet shelf and took down the shells. He had large hands and could handle three shells. Besides, he needed to get over to the new place to thank the guys. He stepped into his empty living room with its soft moss walls. Shit, he really didn’t want to leave this place.
Devin popped his head around the corner. “Hey, we’re having a team meeting at four thirty.” He picked up on Nick’s mood, and his head disappeared, the sound of his footsteps trotting down the steps hollow, as though the whole building were empty. Nick just needed to thank the guys and hand his landlord the old key, and then he could find out what this meeting was about. Probably their penalty killing. That had been weak.
Nick grabbed all three shells and stepped into the hall, pulling the door shut with his foot. He was halfway down the steps when he caught sight of the landlord at the bottom, letting Stacey in the door to the lobby. The same cameraman trailed her and shot Nick an apologetic look. Nick trotted down the rest of the stairs, cradling the shells tight to his chest.
“I’m here to film my commercial,” Stacey said triumphantly. Her upper lip, puckered with wrinkles that channeled her lipstick, pulled up in a sneer.
“Have fun,” Nick said. “Also, screw you.”
Stacey clucked her tongue against her front teeth. “Such a mouth on this one. But your apartment is going to make me money.”
“Ooh,” Nick said, feigning confusion. “You’re in the wrong spot if you want to get into my place. I don’t live here.” He cocked his head. “Of course, you don’t have any right to enter my new place because nobody from your firm decorated it.”
Stacey gave him a hard stare and then stalked upstairs and pushed open the door to his old apartment. She stared into the empty space and then wheeled. “You’re willing to move to avoid a tasteful commercial that features your living space?”
“I’m willing to do about anything to win.”
She stared at him, her jaw tight. “Does he still have a lease for this space?” she asked the landlord.
“He does not,” Javier said cheerfully. “And I can’t tell you where he lives now. Tenant confidentiality.” He smiled broadly.
Stacey hissed and began to descend the staircase, trailing one finger on the railing. When she spoke, it was to Nick. “You are a deeply disturbed man.”
“You have no idea,” he said. He nodded at the door, and Javier opened it for him. Nick strode off, cradling the shells. Stacey had fired Alyssa and cost him a chance with her.
Without all this Stacey crap, he knew he would have had a chance. They were good together, and not just in bed. Alyssa wasn’t only gorgeous, she was fun, and she’d cared enough to confront him about his coffeemaker. She’d tried to pull him into a better place—had literally given him a better place to be. But she’d been clear at Devin and Vanessa’s party—she wouldn’t go out with him because of what had happened with the design firm. He’d gotten her fired.
He turned at the small fountain with a bench, behind his new apartment. It was the kind of landscaping no one would ever use, but it made the space more attractive. Maybe he should try painting it sometime. He wasn’t very good with water. Monet had him there, although he’d never admit that to Alyssa.
And then he looked up, and there she was.