43. Part of This Group-Type Thing
The Denver gamewas two days ago, and Brant has been distant ever since. He says he puts defeats behind him as soon as the final horn sounds, but I”ve never known any athlete really able to do that. You don”t make it to an elite level if you don”t care about winning and losing. So when ”good night” was the only text he sent me that night, I understood. I missed our usual teasing, but I knew he was upset.
I watched the game in the dressing room. That Denver player was almost as fast as Kayden, but Brant was ready. I had no doubt he would stop the shot. It”s what Brant does. But then he went still just long enough for the other player to change direction. He seemed distracted. Like his thoughts went somewhere else. And I knew right away it was because of me.
I”m the reason he was up all night before the game. I should have gone for Chloe by myself. I know how much his comeback means to him. I know how much the Denver game meant. But I still let him drive all night. I”m the reason he lost. I”m the reason he”s not talking to me.
But when I woke up this morning, I decided I was also going to be the reason he comes out of whatever funk he”s in. I set my alarm for a ridiculous seven o”clock and rush through a quick shower. Brant isn”t the only one who can do apology donuts. But if I don”t make my way to State Street soon, the good ones will be picked over by the Monday morning office workers. Just as I fasten my seatbelt and apologize to Sebastian for getting him up so early, my phone chimes.
Brant: It”s supposed to be seventy today. Do you and Chloe want to do something after morning skate?
My shoulders grow lighter as I read the message. Does this mean he”s done whatever mourning or soul searching he needed to do?
Me: What do you have in mind?
Brant: Bring a bikini.
Me: Yeah, not happening. It”s going to be seventy, but it”s still November. What should I bring?
Brant: I suppose I”ll wait until summer for that. Just bring Chloe and Silver. I”ll take care of everything. See you after practice, Jams *kiss emoji*
He”s planning to see me in the summer? After the end of the season when I”ve moved back to Denver?
I message Chloe the instant I finish reading Brant”s texts for the thirty-sixth time. I want to give her plenty of time to plan, and I also really need something to keep me from reading them for a thirty-seventh time.
Chloe surprises me by not saying yes right away. She wants to know where we”re going and who is going with us first. And that knocks me back down just a little. I know she needs time and lots of work with the therapist Michael recommended, but the Chloe that was here over the summer—the girl I got to know before she went back to her parents—would have said yes without asking a single question. She would look for any excuse to get out of the shelter for the day, especially if it meant spending the day with a famous hockey player. There”s no way she would have missed out on that. Finally, though, she says yes, and I tell her I”ll pick her and Silver up after practice.
A practice which goes forever.
Coach called for light contact today. Light contact usually means there aren”t many injuries to take care of afterward. And that means I can usually get out sooner than on a normal practice day. Usually. Today, though, Coach refuses to let them stop. He”s obviously angry about the Denver game, and the way the players don”t utter a single grumble no matter how hard he pushes them, means that they”re angry about it too. Practice is supposed to end at eleven, but it”s almost one when Coach finally blows the whistle and the players walk toward the dressing room.
Brant looks at me for the first time all day as he gets to the tunnel. ”Hey.” He smiles.
I smile right back. ”Hey.”
”Come to my house once you pick up Chloe?”
I nod. ”Tell me where we”re going.”
He cocks an eyebrow. ”It”s not about the where. It”s about the what.”
His voice is way too sexy for a man who just spent hours punishing his body on the ice, and my heart starts fluttering as if I”d had a four-pack of energy drinks. ”Then tell me the what.”
He shakes his head, but it”s Coach who answers. ”Leave the girl alone, Morrison. Flirt on your own time, not hers.”
”Yes, sir.” Brant gives a mock salute to Coach and leaves me with an air kiss that makes me gasp.
I flail my arms, wrists snapping wildly. It probably looks like I”m desperate to clear away a smell before anyone realizes it came from me. But Coach stops me with a stare. ”I already know all about it, Richards. Anyone who comes within two-hundred feet of you two knows. I”d tell you about the value of a little discretion, but it”s way too late for that.”
My stomach falls so far, I think it settles in my shoes. ”Coach, I”m so sorry. We didn”t mean anything—I didn”t mean for… We can stop. We will stop.”
”The only thing I care about is getting these knobs to win games. I don”t give a shit who sleeps with who as long as we get those points. So you”re not stopping anything on account of me, you hear me?”
I nod.
”Morrison”ll never admit it, but the last woman he was with was a minus. She was always taking away from him. I think you”re the opposite of that.” He taps the plexiglass beside me and heads down the tunnel, and I blow out the breath that I”ve been too scared to breathe.
I practically dance through the after-practice checkups. There are just a few nagging injuries that we”re keeping track of but nothing serious. Nothing new today. My mind is free to wander, and it wanders to a world where maybe this relationship can be more. He knows about me—even the parts that always made Tyler uncomfortable—and he”s still here. He”s talking about a future. Only as far as the summer, but seven months away. I know this isn”t forever. Guys like him don”t marry girls like me. They go for the models. The singers. But I”m not just a fling. I”m so far past a fling.
I spin as I walk to the cabinet to put away a roll of tape. When I turn around, Sammy is standing at the door, smiling. ”Someone is in a good mood.”
”Someone is in a great mood.” I correct him.
”So Branny did it then?” His smile gets so wide it takes up the entire lower half of his face.
”Did what?”
And just like that, it”s gone. ”Nothing. Just made you happy. That”s all. Makes me happy that he made you happy and that you make him… yeah. That. Just that. Um, my mom”s waiting outside, so I have to go.”
I”m pretty sure he”s from Michigan, so I don”t buy the line about his mom. And that means something is going on, but what? Brant and I aren”t at the stage where he would plan big surprises for his girlfriend, are we?
Oh my god, am I his girlfriend?He”s never said the word, and we”ve never discussed it. That has to mean I”m not, right? I don”t know how this works. Even after Tyler moved in with me, he never called me his girlfriend. Em always told me that was a giant red flag, but she”s never dated the same man for more than a month. What would she know? Do adults even label these things? Isn”t that kind of middle school to declare someone a girlfriend or boyfriend? I don”t know. But I want the label.
Once I have everything put in its place, I hurry to Bridges to pick Chloe up. I hope for a chance to talk to Michael alone, so I can really find out how Chloe is doing. We”ve talked on the phone, and she”s tried to tell me that she”s fine. But she”s not. Unfortunately, she”s waiting on the porch with Silver when I pull up out front. She”s at the side of my car as soon as I come to a stop. I”ll have to text him later to talk about her.
”Ready?” I ask, even though the answer is obvious.
She opens the back door for Silver and then takes the passenger seat beside me. ”I guess. We”re not going to be gone all day, are we?” She”s trying to act disinterested, but I know her well enough by now to see that she”s looking forward to this. And that makes me even happier.
It was so hard seeing her shattered the other night. I know it”ll take a lot of time and work, but I want her to be herself again. The new version of herself. I”ve learned that you can never go back once you”ve been broken. But you can rebuild yourself and be just as good, or even better, than you were. I don”t know exactly what my relationship is with Chloe—friend, mentor, role model—but I”m going to be here for her to make sure that she comes out of this stronger than before. I”ll be here for her like my dad was for me.
Chloe doesn”t say much on the ride to Brant”s, and I don”t press her. It”s enough for her to know that I”m here, and that I”m never giving up on her. Besides, replaying my conversation with Sammy over and over doesn”t leave a lot of mental room to force a discussion.
When we pull into his driveway, Brant already has his SUV backed out of the garage, and he”s sitting on the bumper waiting for us. ”Are you two secretly related?” I ask Chloe.
”I wish. I wish I was related to someone with hockey money.”
”Chloe!” I hiss at her. ”Things shouldn”t be about money.”
She rolls her shoulders. ”Maybe not, but money is nice. I mean, just look at his car versus yours.”
”Chloe Alaina! Don”t you dare insult Sebastian! You”ll hurt his feelings.”
”And he”ll do what? Make the glovebox pop open onto my knees again? I”m just saying that his car is nicer than yours.”
I rub my hand over the top of the steering wheel. ”Don”t listen to her Seb. She doesn”t mean it.” I try to elbow Chloe to force her to apologize, but she”s already half out the door.
Brant barely says hi to us, and only gives Silver one treat—a record low for him—before he herds us into the car. He still won”t say where he”s taking us. Not even when Chloe asks him over and over. She words it just a little differently each time, as if that might get him to slip up and tell us. But he doesn”t crack.
Every couple of minutes as he drives, Brant looks at me and then at Chloe in the backseat and he gets just a hint of a grin. It”s really just a twitch in the corner of his mouth. If I didn”t know him, I might not even notice it. But I do.
After about fifteen minutes of this, and at least six or seven of the hidden grins, we pull into a parking lot. ”Little Dell Reservoir?” I ask when I see the sign. ”What is this?”
He turns to me as he shuts the car off. ”Little Dell Reservoir,” he imitates the narrator of a PBS documentary, ”was constructed in the middle of the eighteenth century by some of the earliest Mormon migrants to the area. It has always been a prized source of water for Salt Lake City, and even today provides nearly sixty percent of the drinking water for the metropolitan area.”
”How do you know this?”
”I don”t,” he says. ”I just made all that up.” Chloe snorts in the backseat, and I glare at her. ”I don”t know what it is. I just know it”s always really pretty, and I wanted to take my girls here on what might be the last warm day before spring.”
His girls?His smile is so broad, the creases at the corners of his eyes are just starting to show. What will they look like in twenty years or thirty when they become wrinkles? Will I be with him to see them? Oh my god, I want to be with him then. I think I”m going to hyperventilate.
”That was a good one, Brant,” Chloe says, oblivious to the walls that are shattering around me. ”You can always get her on stuff like that. Come on, Silver. Let”s go pee in the city”s water supply.”
”You will do no such thing, young lady!”
Chloe laughs. ”See what I mean? Too easy.”
I bury my head in my hands, pretending I”m embarrassed, but really, I need to hide my face from Brant. I know what he”ll see if he looks at me, and I”m very much not ready for that. I force myself to exhale. ”That girl,” I say.
”That girl is great,” Brant says. Chloe is already out of the car, so she doesn”t hear him say it. But she needs to. She needs a life full of hearing that.
”She is great.” I take one last breath and look up, hoping it”s been enough. ”You”re pretty alright too.”
Brant gapes at me in mock surprise. ”Wow, that is glowing praise from someone who once told me that Shakespeare is overrated.”
”Oh, shut up.” I slap at his arm, but he catches my hand. ”That was a text in the middle of the night, and I was half asleep. Besides, have you ever tried to read his stuff?”
”I have. His writing”s genius. So beautiful.” He raises my hand and presses his mouth to each knuckle. My heart pounds louder with each kiss until I”m sure he can hear it.
”We should…”
”Yeah, before she really does…”
”Yeah.”
”And technically, no dogs are allowed here, so I should be out there to clean up any mess he makes before we get into trouble.”
”Brant, we could have left him at the shelter. Michael would have watched him.”
He shakes his head like the thought never even occurred to him. ”Silver needs to be here. He”s part of this fam—um, this. Part of this group-type thing.” He hurries out of the car, but not before I think I see red rising to his cheeks. Was he going to call us a family? ”I could use your help setting up if that”s okay.” Brant”s door is still open, but he”s facing away so I can”t see his face anymore.
”Sure.” I answer weakly. Family? No.
By the time I get to the back of the SUV, Brant has the rear door open, and his face is emotionless. I must have misunderstood. Or I”m projecting my own feelings onto him. ”I packed a picnic. Probably overpacked. This thing is heavy,” he says as he lifts it like it weighs less than a beachball. ”You get the blanket and spread it out for us, yeah?”
I follow him down a short trail that leads us to the shore. Chloe and Silver fall in line with us. Small mountains rise from the other side of the reservoir. Their mottled brown greens are mirrored on the still water. It really is pretty. Once they have snow on their peaks in a couple of weeks, it will be gorgeous.
I spread the blankets in a small clearing a few feet from the water. Brant sits and motions for me to sit next to him. I do, leaving a small gap between us. A gap he apparently doesn”t want because he pulls me over until we”re touching. ”First things first.” He takes out a small bluetooth speaker and looks at me as he unlocks his phone. ”You told me you love the sound of the ocean. Eventually I”ll take you there in person, but for today I hope this is good enough.” He presses play on his phone and the sound of waves rolls out of the portable speaker.
I”m not going to cry. I”m not. But when I close my eyes to hold in the tears, I see Dad right beside me on that San Francisco beach. It”s the first time either of us has ever seen the ocean, and we”re overwhelmed by its power. God, I miss him so much. I slip my arm through Brant”s and find his hand as I rest my head on his shoulder. ”I think I might like you.”
”Oh, I bet you say that to all the boys who bring the ocean to you.”
Everything inside me feels folded over, and I need several breaths before I can speak. ”I mean it.” I open my eyes and see that he”s staring at me. ”I really like you. Maybe more than like, but I”m too terrified to say it.”
”I think you just did.” He kisses the top of my head. ”And that leads to the real reason I wanted to bring you two out here.”
”You”re going to murder us and dump our bodies in the reservoir instead of chopping us up in your basement.”
”Ew, Lily, you”re gross.” Chloe sits across from us and crosses her legs. Silver circles around on the blanket half a dozen times, trying to find the exact right angle to lie down.
Brant reaches back into the cooler that I suspect might not have much food in it after all and pulls out a jersey. No, two jerseys. ”I want my girls to wear my name.”
”Are you kidding?” Chloe jumps up and takes the jersey he”s holding out for her. ”A real-life Brant Morrison jersey? I”ll wear this every freaking day. Oh wow, this looks just like the real thing. Can you sign it for me?”
”It is the real thing, just smaller for you two,” Brant says. ”And yeah, I can sign it, but you realize you”re getting ready to eat lunch with the real-life Brant Morrison, right? Shouldn”t that rank a little higher than a jersey?”
”Maybe. But it”s not as high as a signed jersey,” Chloe teases. It makes me feel good to see her personality beginning to come through again.
”What about you?” Brant turns to me. ”I mean, you don”t have to, but…” He draws in his lower lip, and I feel like a wave rolls over me. ”I asked Coach and the other players if it would be okay for you to wear this on game days. They all said yes right away. Princeling even suggested that all the support staff could wear jerseys with their own names on them instead of the usual polo shirts. I thought that might be a good idea.”
”So Sammy knew?” This is what he was talking about earlier today.
Brant nods. ”The jerseys the other staff wear wouldn”t be special, though.”
”This jersey is special, is it?” In the corner of my eye, I see Chloe slipping on the jersey, but I”m looking directly at Brant now. At his green eyes reflecting the color of the scattered spruce trees on the mountains opposite us.
”Very special.” He cups my chin and leans forward until our noses touch. ”This one has my name on it?—”
”And signature,” Chloe says. ”Make him sign yours too.”
He smiles and shakes his head. The tip of his nose tickles mine. ”This one would show the world that I maybe more than like you too.”
”You…” the rest of the sentence dies in my throat, but Brant nods like he understands anyway.
”It”s not a maybe. I spent the last two days thinking a lot about what”s important to me, and I do more than like you. One day when you”re not scared to hear it, I”ll tell you.” He doesn”t wait for me to respond. He kisses me, and I open myself for him. His tongue slips against mine, and a thrum builds inside me.
I work my lips and tongue to make this kiss say everything I”m unable to express in words. You”re not like any man I”ve ever known. I would be proud to wear your name on my back. I love you. I want to tell everyone. I want you to tell everyone. You don”t have to be embarrassed to think of the four of us as a family. I don”t know what that means or what it looks like in the future when my year is up. That”s for later. But sitting here right now, feeling your heat flowing into me, feeling your jersey on my lap, feeling this, every part of me feels that we”re a family.
”Is this blue cheese?” Chloe asks. Brant and I break apart, both smiling as we turn to where she”s rummaging through the cooler. ”God, you”re both gross.”