Chapter 10
Halle
With my dad zonked out and fast asleep on the living couch and Lenni asleep in her own bedroom, I have a quiet moment to call my best friend, Carmen, and tell her all that’s happened in the last week. Especially what transpired today in my office and at the arena tonight.
“Oh my God, Carmy. The way he looked at me, though… and that wink… I don’t know what that was about, but it was intense.”
Carmy snorts loudly and rolls her eyes at me. I swear, she always wants to video chat just so she can practice that obnoxious move.
“Girl, what I saw in that Sports Night replay clip was flat-out eye-fucking. Holy shit. The entire sports world got an eyeful of that, honey.” She fans herself with her notebook as she walks down the street toward her apartment in Edmonton.
Carmy is my oldest and closest friend. We have known each other since childhood, and she was there every step of the way when I learned I was pregnant with Lennon.
The tough part is the huge distance we face now that I’m in BC and she’s attending law school at the University of Alberta.
Carmy is the closest thing to an auntie that Lennon has had, and she misses her desperately. So do I.
Carmy is also well aware of my previous relationship with Dane since she was around that winter, and she understands the reasons I have chosen to withhold the information about Lenni’s paternity.
Although she initially pressed me to contact Dane to tell him about Lenni, she never judged me for deciding not to.
She didn’t agree with it, but she respected my right to protect my daughter.
Or was it myself that I had been protecting?
All the lines have become blurry now that Dane and I have run into each other and he’s met Lenni.
“I think he hates me.” I turn away from the screen and say the words in barely a whisper.
Carmen obviously heard it because she tilts her head to the side and gives me that judgey look of hers, her dark eyes glaring into the camera.
“Hate you?” she scoffs, squinting as if the sun’s too bright, even though she’s now inside. “Hal, I’m not sure what erroneous narrative you’re telling yourself, but my vast legal training tells me that that man has some very big unresolved feelings for you, and hate is definitely not one of them.”
I stare down at my hands in my lap, picking at one of my nails that Lenni valiantly and with the precision of a four-year-old repainted pink tonight. The polish is messy and clumpy, chipping off around the cuticles already. But I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world.
My little girl loves to play dress-up and salon with me and anyone else who will be patient enough to let her. I think she inherited those genes from my mom, who would probably have her own YouTube channel dedicated to beauty tips and product use if she were still alive.
Those interests, sadly, apparently skipped a generation. The most makeup I’ve ever used on the regular is mascara, when I remember to put some on, and a lip balm to keep my lips from cracking in the middle of Calgary winters.
I remember the breakfast Dane and I had many years ago when I was dumbfounded why he would pursue me over all the other girls who would’ve killed to go out with him.
We had been in a booth at Smitty’s eating breakfast after he practically hijacked me in my car after his morning practice and I’d asked him outright, “Why me?”
I wasn’t looking to date anyone at the time, especially not a hockey boy.
Two weeks after the Christmas and Boxing Day holidays, I was setting off to Montana State for my first semester of college.
I’d delayed my start to earn some more money and take care of my brothers while my dad was on the road, but it was my turn.
I didn’t have time to date, and I didn’t want to leave yet another person behind when I left for the States.
That day, Dane proved to me in words and deeds that he was a stand-up guy. Sure, he was extremely full of himself, arrogant beyond belief, but he was also charming and sweet. And he saw something in me that, honestly, I had never seen myself.
His response was a simple statement. He said, “You have something the other girls don’t have.”
That’s all it took to hook me. After that, we began our month-long romance that was the closest thing I’ve ever had to a relationship. Since then, I haven’t had time or the inclination to date anyone, and now I have Lenni to consider.
Carmen brings me back to the present with her next question.
“What are you going to do about him, Hal?”
I adjust myself against the pillows of my bed in my small yet functional bedroom.
I’ve yet to unpack any of my things beyond some of the clothes that hang in the closet.
My room can wait for me to organize. It was the kitchen and Lenni’s things that were my priority.
I wanted to make her feel at home as quickly as possible because I knew it would be a difficult transition once my dad left.
At least, I think it will be, and I’m planning for the worst, hoping for the best.
Maybe I’m projecting my own fears and anxieties about life on her.
I sigh and wrinkle my brow. “I honestly don’t know. I’m struggling to figure out what the right thing to do is in this situation. It’s so freaking complicated.”
“Yeah. Adulting sucks.” She sticks out her tongue, and I laugh.
Carmen always knows how to cheer me up and put me in a better headspace.
I guess that’s what friends are for. She would’ve been here to help me with the move, but she’s right in the middle of exams and couldn’t take the time away, which is exactly as it should be.
I’m proud of her for the effort she’s given to pushing through this tough second year of law school.
“How’s school going?” I ask, realizing we’ve spent all this time talking about my problems and I haven’t asked her about her life. “Oh, and how’s Vincent?”
Vincent is her boyfriend, even though she says they aren’t “labeling things”—unless it’s when she’s calling him her fuck toy.
She hoists a coffee mug in front of the camera and takes a drink, shooting me a wink. She always wears a wicked little gleam in her eyes.
“I’m drinking coffee at eleven o’clock on a Friday night. The fuck toy has already come—literally—and gone, and that should be some indicator how the rest of my night is going to go.”
I chuckle. “So, your boyfriend isn’t spending the night?”
“Pshh… not a chance. I told him the first time we fucked in the back of the library that he was never going to sleep in my bed. I have no room for that in my life. Only his dick. Coffee and his dick. That’s all I need.” She gives me a broad smile.
“How about a shot of Canadian whiskey? You got room for that in your coffee?”
“Good point. But I think I’m out. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a grocery store.
I better go check.” She makes a face and takes another swig, setting the cup down somewhere in front of her on her desk.
Then she stands up from her chair and walks into the tiny kitchen in her studio apartment on campus.
She adjusts the phone so I can get a glimpse of the countertop, where she plucks the top off a bottle of wine instead and takes a swig right from the bottle.
“Ahh,” she says, followed by a belch that would rival ones from my younger brothers.
Recapping the bottle, she looks back at me in the camera.
“Not hard liquor, but it will do. Ya know, five years ago, we would’ve been together, getting fucked up and laid at a party.
Now look at us. We’re both boring and sober and home by eleven. ”
I laugh. “Riiight. You are never boring, my friend. And I was the good girl back then if you recall.” I hold my hand up under my chin and bat my eyelashes like some na?ve child.
It is the truth. Carmy was always the more rebellious and adventurous of us.
I was far less into parties and guys and more into studying.
I had the responsibilities of taking care of Zack and Drew, and I wanted the scholarship advantages that good grades could get me.
Carmen came from money and knew she’d get to where she was going regardless of her social life in high school.
I never had the time to indulge, and nothing much has changed except that I’m now in a different city and in my own place.
She laughs loudly and then tsks with a wagging finger at the screen. “Innocent, my ass. Remember, girlfriend, I know exactly what happened in my guest room the night of my holiday party.”
I can’t help it, I blush. It’s ridiculous to be embarrassed over that rite of passage, the night I slept with Dane and lost my virginity.
That was the night I fell for a hockey player, and it changed my life.