Twenty
I wake up folded in half on the pullout couch in my office, neck kinked so badly I have to lie there for a second before memories of last night bombard me.
Snowmelt on hardwood. Gabriel’s mouth on mine. My hand on his hoodie. His hand under my sweater. Me telling him to fuck off.
My eyes shut again.
Great. Merry Christmas Eve to me.
I didn’t intend to sleep here. Somewhere between $75,000 for backordered parts and thirteen days, my eyelids stopped cooperating.
Twelve days now, my mind corrects. I shove upright, every muscle protesting.
A shower would’ve been the smart move.
Making my way to the staff bathroom, I peel off my sweater and bra, tossing both in the laundry hamper. I pluck a clean washcloth off the shelf and twist on the faucet.
Hot water, cheap soap, and enough pressure to take grease off a grill. My palm drags back and forth over the spot just above my left breast.
His touch is still there. Not the pain. The pattern. No matter how hard I try to erase it.
That greedy slide of his hand under my shirt. The squeeze. The little claim built into it. The split second my body opened anyway, and then the sick drop when my brain caught up and reminded me what that feeling costs.
Our history shrinks into a blink. My stomach flips hard enough I brace a hand on the sink, but my other one keeps moving, scraping over already abused skin.
I drag the washcloth across the spot, rough and fast. Again. Again.
My reflection in the mirror looks feral—hair a snarl, eyes swollen, lips chapped from kissing him like he’s oxygen instead of poison.
My issue isn’t that I kissed him. I can live with bad decisions. I run a bar; I watch people make them in real time every night—I was overdue on initiating one of my own.
The problem is that for a solid thirty seconds, I liked it.
His mouth on mine, his hands on my skin, my back hitting the wall—I melted and leaned in to him. I let my body feel safe with him.
Right up until memory hijacked the controls.
I slam the tap off. Water hammers to a stop. I toss the washcloth into the hamper beside the bra and sweater. My chest rises too fast.
I press my fingertips to the mark, now an angry pink from the harsh scrubbing. It burns.
“You don’t get to feel safe with him,” I hiss at my reflection. “Not after that.”
The girl in the mirror doesn’t argue. She looks wrecked. Tired and raw and somehow still… wanting.
Betrayed by my own fucking physiology. Great.
I drag a clean The Penalty Box tee over my head and leave it at that. No bra. The cold air in this building is going to make that extremely obvious but I do not care.
Back in the office, dawn pushes a thin gray stripe through the blinds and cuts across the desk. I drop into Dad’s chair with my shoulders hunched, and the old thing complains under me.
I stare at the notice. The numbers are the same ones they were at midnight. I unfold it, smooth it flat. The paper softens at the creases where my thumb keeps worrying the same edge. I force myself to stop before it tears.
My mind drifts to memories of Gabriel standing at my door last night, snow in his hair and that wrecked look in his eyes.
His hands at my waist. His mouth on mine.
The way my body leaned into him like it forgot who he is.
I wanted him. Even with Calgary baked into my bones like smoke in hair that never quite washes out.
“You’ve never once looked at me like that guy was real.”
I keep replaying how his face changed when I shoved him away. The confusion. The hollow second after, when he understood. Whether it was hurt or relief behind his eyes, I couldn’t tell, and I hate that I still want to know.
I slam my hand onto the armrest instead. Skin cracks against wood in the tiny room.
No. We are not doing that. Numbers.
I focus my attention to the contents of my desk.
My phone sits beside the notice, screen dark.
Contractor lists on sticky notes smattering the IKEA desk.
Payment plans scribbled on the back of a bar invoice with a loose action plan: Sell the second freezer.
Cut hours. Call the bank. All the ugly math I can’t talk my way around.
I look at the pub through the office door like it’s an exhibit.
Dad’s hands live in everything out there.
The bar top he refinished three times because the stain never hit right the first two.
The crooked shelf behind the taps that he refused to level because “it has character.” The filing cabinet he painted Wolves burgundy the year they won the Cup, then bragged about it like he built the team himself.
My throat closes. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
I press my knuckles to my sternum, hard.
The bar has to win. It always has to win.
Reaching down, I tug the glossy Sin Bin Lounge brochure out from where it was wedged. The desk wobbles, and I smack the brochure on the flimsy wood, smoothing it flat with my palm.
Sleek black paper. Sharp fonts. Photos that look expensive. Everything polished enough to make my place look like a drunk ex.
My eyes catch on the name in the bottom corner and stay there until they sting.
“Braxton Hicks.” My nose scrunches. The name tastes like biting tinfoil.
I open a new tab on my laptop, type the name, hit Enter.
My eyes skim over the preliminary results, scrolling past articles about false labor contractions.
Finally, a professional headshot of a guy in a pale blue suit with slicked-back blond hair. Big, Cheshire cat smile with cold blue eyes. Familiar eyes. I squint, tilting my head as I try to place this face. In my memory, those eyes belong to someone older.
I hardly notice the sound of keys rattling in the front lock.
Footsteps cross the main floor—slow, careful, like the light hurts.
A couple seconds later, Delilah fills the office doorway in oversized sunglasses and a toque pulled low, clutching a Hidden Bean Café to-go cup.
“You look like shit,” I say.
“Love you too.” Her mouth twitches. She steps in and drops into the visitor chair. “What time is it?”
“Too early for your nonsense.”
“Rude.” She tips her latte toward me. “Want a sip? It tastes like lawn clippings and regret.”
I shake my head and turn the laptop to face her. “Do you know this guy?”
Delilah peels off the sunglasses and squints. She gets off her chair to lean closer, squinting harder.
“Wait.” She tilts her head. “Isn’t that Paisley?”
My spine straightens. “What?”
The hangover slips off her face, brows disappearing under her toque.
“The guy who’s been lurking around here for months.”
I look past her through the open doorway toward the bar floor, and the memories line up: A man who always sits facing the door. Who nurses one drink for two hours. Who watches people instead of the game. Who keeps his phone angled just slightly outward, always.
Delilah hooks the visitor chair with her boot heel, drags it across the floor, then reaches right over my desk and pulls the laptop closer to her.
The fluorescent light catches in the dark hair falling loose from under her toque as she angles the screen.
One hand lands on the trackpad. The other braces on the desk, holding it steady.
“Okay,” she says. “What are we looking for?”
I rub my thumb over the brochure edge until the paper starts to fuzz, then I slap it onto the desk so it flattens with a dull whap.
“I don’t know yet.” My voice comes out hollow. “I just know that name is wrong.”
Delilah glances at me once, then back at the screen. “LinkedIn first?”
“Yeah. Corporate daycare. Let’s go.”
She clicks and his profile loads: Same practiced smile, different suit.
Delilah scrolls.
“‘Strategic communications. Brand positioning. Reputation management.’” She drags the cursor along the words like they’re sticky. “Media Director—The Sin Bin Lounge.”
“Sounds like a villain’s résumé.”
“Could be a Marvel henchman.” I tap the brochure twice with my index. “Keep going.”
Delilah scrolls slower. Her mouth tightens.
“Oh. Here we go. ‘Former athlete. Capital City Crows junior system.’”
I go still, a cold bolt slithering down my spine. “What?”
Delilah glances at me. “What what?”
“The Crows…” I say, my voice coming out thin and flat. “That was Gabriel’s team.”
Her brows lift.
“No,” I say, already shaking my head. “No, that doesn’t make sense. Why the hell would Braxton Hicks be on Gabriel’s team?”
Delilah looks back at the screen. “Maybe not full-time?”
“Check the rosters.”
Delilah flicks me a quick look, then obeys. Her nails click against the trackpad. The browser hangs for a beat, spinning wheel turning.
“Okay, here we go. You want 2018-2019?”
“Yeah.”
She opens another tab and types. The search results are a graveyard: dead links, broken forum images, PDFs labeled wrong. Delilah cross-compares each broken link against the Wayback Machine’s Internet Archive.
Minutes pass.
My knee starts bouncing. I shove my palm down on it. Stop.
Then a tournament site loads. Cached page. Sideways PDF. Cheap banner graphics.
“Why do all hockey sites from that era look like they were made on a flip phone?” Delilah mutters.
I don’t answer.
She pulls up the Capital City Crows’ regular season roster first. I scan it twice. The name isn’t there.
“He’s not on it,” I say.
“I see that.” Delilah clicks back, cross-references, opens another tab.
Then, in the sidebar, I see it. A thumbnail. Red and white tournament branding. U18 Nationals. Calgary.
My pulse trips.
“That one.” I point. “Click that.”
She clicks.
For one stupid second, I think the link’s broken, because Gabriel is the first thing I see.
Front and center in the team photo, captain’s C stitched sharp on his chest, trophy balanced on his knee, grin bright and careless like the world owes him something. Younger face. Softer jaw. Eyes too sure.
My stomach flips.
“That’s the wrong page,” I say automatically.
“I don’t think so…” Delilah muses as she leans closer, squinting. Then she lifts a finger to the screen. “Back row. Far right.”
I follow her hand.