Hank
Weekends when Brody isn’t staying with me are the roughest. My home feels too quiet, the sound of silence cranked up to full blast. It’s as if I’m constantly creeping around a haunted house right before a jump scare.
Every creak of the stairs, every time the heat kicks on, every cough that comes out of my mouth echoes through the empty rooms.
Brody isn’t loud when he’s here. He reads, he studies, he does who-knows-what on his laptop, he watches TV. All normal things at normal decibel levels. But his presence somehow quiets all the deafening silence.
I guess I’ll have to get used to this silence permanently once he’s off to college. You spend all this time, energy, and effort raising a child into an adult, and then one day they just leave. Pretty cruel, if you ask me.
When it’s quiet, that’s when the lonely thoughts seep in.
The thoughts that make me question if I’m destined to be alone forever.
What happens to the funny best friend after the main couple get together?
Do they ever find love? Sure, I don’t want a spouse because of how my marriage ended, but I also don’t want to live out my days haunted by all these silences and echoes.
I promise, my thoughts make perfect sense.
To beat back the quiet, I try to spend my weekend with people as much as I can.
I go sledding with Griffin, Jack, and Griffin’s daughters.
I order in Thai food and watch Four Christmases with Mitch and his husband Charlie.
Charlie boasts that he was in elementary school when this came out.
I tell him if I’d flunked a few more tests, I also would’ve been in elementary school when it came out.
The funny best friend is there to provide punchlines and good spirits to his coupled friends.
On Saturday night, after Mitch and Charlie leave, the deafening silence is at a fever pitch. I turn on The Holiday, another Christmas staple. I flop into my recliner and text Nick, the glow of my Christmas tree lighting up the living room.
Hank: Nervous about tomorrow?
Nick: Very much so.
Hank: You’re going to crush it!
Nick: My legs are still sore from our practice.
Hank: Keep icing them. Keep stretching.
Nick: I hope I don’t make us lose. Your teammates will hate me.
Hank: No, they won’t. You’re too sweet to hate.
Was that a flirtatious comment? I feel my face. Am I red?
Hank: We’ve all messed up a play that’s cost us a game. Losing sucks, but it’s something every team has to go through. No player has a perfect record.
Hank: Plus you learn more from your losses than your wins.
Nick: You’re quite the optimist.
Hank: I just have experience.
On TV, Cameron Diaz is singing the most offkey version of “Mr. Brightside” in history, yet seeing her use a CD player makes me nostalgic.
Hank: So if The Holiday was never released, do you think Airbnb would exist?
Nick: What?
Hank: I was switching topics.
Nick: Doesn’t switching topics require a segue?
Hank: How do you segue when you’re texting?
In my mind, one of the signs of a comfortable friendship is being able to jump around topics in a text chain because you trust the other person gets you enough to keep up. Even though I’ve only known Nick for a few days, topic switching already feels completely natural.
Hank: I’m watching The Holiday. Have you ever seen it?
Nick: I have not.
Hank: It’s a good thing we met. The Holiday is a classic about two ladies who go on holiday, which is British for vacation.
Hank: But not with each other.
Hank: We’ll watch it sometime.
My heart flutters at getting to watch a movie with Nick. I instantly picture us curling up on the couch together, something I don’t do with my friends.
Nick: Sounds good!
Was that a blowoff or a genuine “sounds good”? Nowadays, you need a degree in codebreaking to figure out text message meaning.
Nick: What’s Airbnb?
Hank: Are you serious?
Nick: I’m looking it up now.
He has to look up what Airbnb is? I thought that was something everyone knew about. Something about Nick does strike me as a little aloof in a way I can’t put my finger on, so I can see him being completely unaware. Or perhaps people from Maryland are staunch hotel users.
Hank: It’s a website that lets you rent out your house to travelers. Like what the ladies in The Holiday do. Technically, they swap.
Hank: Kate Winslet’s cottage in it is very cozy but totally impractical to live in.
Hank: You’re really not a movie person?
Nick: I haven’t seen much. I don’t always have the time.
Again, something about this admission is odd but not a total surprise. Nick doesn’t seem like a couch potato.
Nick: I watched Home Alone 2 today with my cousin’s kids.
Hank: And?
Nick: Honestly? I was disturbed.
Hank: I started to feel bad for the robbers by the end.
Nick: Me too! I started to think, All they did was rob a store. Nobody got hurt. The storeowner is likely insured. Do they really deserve having bricks thrown at their head and being set on fire?
Hank: If I was those robbers, I wouldn’t have chased down Kevin. I would’ve taken the money and run.
Nick: Without the cheery music, that last half-hour would be a snuff film.
Hank: How is Kevin cleaning up all that? The construction crew must’ve come in Monday morning and been like WTF.
Nick: And am I mistaken, or is there a scene where a ten-year-old boy talks to sex workers on the street? Quite the family holiday classic.
I imagine his piercing eyes crinkling at the corners while laughing, his gleaming teeth biting at the corner of his lip.
Hank: The thing I find most unrealistic about the Home Alone movies is that in a house full of children, everybody’s sleeping in? There isn’t one kid who’s up at six watching cartoons?
Nick: Now that I’m sharing a house with three rambunctious boys, I have to agree. There’s usually some commotion and someone’s crying by seven.
Hank: Maybe they need to talk to some sex workers.
Nick doesn’t strike me as the type to say LOL, but I picture him laughing all the same, and it makes me warm inside.
Nick: I should get to bed. Important day tomorrow.
Nick: I’ll make sure to set my alarm, just in case.
Hank: Well, if you ever want to come over and cross another Christmas movie off your list, let me know.
Nick: I’d like that.
Nick: Night, Hank.
I lay across my couch on my stomach and gaze at our text conversation. My cheeks are sore from smiling this much, the deafening silence muted for now.
In the locker room, Bill puts on a 2000s mix to get us into game mode. Rihanna’s “SOS” blasts from the speakers. Some guys do a little dance as they get suited up, while others are focused and seem to block out the music.
Nick sits on the bench, changing into his gear, his face absolutely white.
“Hey, pal.” I rub his shoulder. “Don’t be nervous.”
“I don’t think one can choose to not be nervous.”
“Yes you can. It’s all mental.”
“Don’t be nervous,” Des says as he puts on his jersey. “The future of this team is merely riding on your shoulders, Nick. No pressure.”
“Des, now is not the time for sarcasm.” Derek punches him on the shoulder. “You’re going to do great out there,” he tells Nick.
“Just think, no matter what happens, in a few hours, we’ll be drinking beers and laughing about it,” Tanner says. I can always rely on him to say something nice. Sarcasm is not in his blood. How he wound up falling for Des is still a mystery. Love is strange.
“We got your back.” Mitch gives Nick a wink of support. I don’t think I’m cool enough to pull off the wink.
“We got your back, but also, don’t fuck up,” says Bill.
“That’s Bill being supportive,” I whisper.
Nick cracks a slight smile. Something about his full lips make me want to keep staring.
“We’ve been practicing. He’s really good. He’s a natural. He has goalie hips,” I tell Bill.
“I’m going to use the bathroom one more time before I’m fully in my gear,” Nick says.
“Smart.” I nod.
Once he goes, I notice that Bill continues to stare—borderline glare—at me.
“What? Do I have food in my teeth?” I ask.
“You sure he can keep up?” Bill takes the empty spot on the bench. He dials back his sternness a notch.
“Yes. And Bill, try to remember that this isn’t the NHL. We’re here to have fun.”
“I know that. I do have some self-awareness,” he says. He scratches at his beard. “But I hope this guy doesn’t completely wipe out on the ice. It’ll be mortifying for him. He could quit on the spot.”
“Shit.” Nick could be so bad out there that he’ll never want to return. He’ll want to forget this whole thing happened. He’ll never want to see any of us again.
A lump grows in my throat.
“We’ll do our best to keep the puck away from him,” Bill says. He stands up when Nick returns. He bangs his fist (lovingly) on Nick’s helmet and returns to his cubby.
“Whatever happens, Nick, just do your best and have fun. Let’s do a quick breathing exercise to get calm. I’ve seen guys do this. We should try it.” I turn to straddle the bench and face Nick. He does the same. “Inhale. Exhale. Deep breaths. Visualize blocking goals, stopping the puck.”
Nick’s chest lifts and lowers with each breath. His eyes close, lips pout with breath. I open one eye and watch him, watch the calm come over his face.
His beautiful face.
What would it feel like to run a hand over his neatly trimmed beard? To feel it burn against my cheeks as we kiss?
Nick’s eyes flutter open and stare back at me, and it’s like a lightning bolt. All I want to do is look at this man and listen to his voice and decipher the sparkly patterns floating in his irises.
For the first time in years, the shroud of loneliness around me begins to fade away.
“I think that worked,” he says in a low voice. “I’m ready.”
For one of the rare times in my life, I’m speechless. He gets up and joins my teammates as they head onto the ice. And I…I can’t help but wonder what it would feel like to press my lips against his.