22. Ace
TWENTY-TWO
ACE
As soon as I was back in Toronto, I went for a long run. Sitting on the plane all morning had left my body feeling stiff. Our next game wasn’t until Saturday, and Coach had given us a couple of days off. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
After pounding the pavement with my shoes, I realized I needed to get out of the city. After my shower, I wrapped a towel around my waist and rushed to call Goldie. The phone rang and I was preparing to leave a message when a man’s voice answered. A voice I recognized. I took the phone from my ear and stared at the screen, wondering how the hell I’d called my brother.
“Hello?” the voice repeated.
“Is this Goldie’s phone?”
“It is. Do you have a session with her today or something?” Gideon’s voice was icy cold; he definitely knew it was me on the other end of the line.
“I have an appointment. I need to talk to her about it.”
There was some shuffling in the background. “Hold on.”
After some quiet murmuring that I couldn’t decipher, I heard Gideon ask Goldie if she was okay to talk on the phone. There was more shuffling, and I wondered what the hell was going on. Why was my brother answering Goldie’s phone, and why wasn’t she able to talk to me?
“H-h-h-hello.” Goldie’s voice was quiet. It sounded like she was in another country, not just up the street.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Everything is fine.” Then in the background she said it a little louder. “Everything is fine. Can I have some privacy please?”
The background noise disappeared. “Sorry about that, Ace.”
“What’s going on, Goldie?”
“I must have stood up too fast and passed out. The team medic was here and your brother pulled the defibrillator off the wall. Luckily, I regained consciousness before he zapped me with the damn thing.”
My legs felt shaky and I sat on the edge of my bed. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“It’s okay, Ace. Really. Everyone is making a big deal out of nothing.”
“Which medic was it? John?”
“Yes.”
“Good. He’s the best one. Tell me exactly what he said.”
“He said I’m fine. My blood pressure is fine, my vitals are fine. I’m fine.” She sounded a little agitated. “Why are you calling during work hours?”
“I was thinking about getting out into the country for a day or two. Would you and Morton like to come with me?”
She let out a long sigh. I didn’t imagine it. “Ace. There are a few things we need to discuss.”
Shit. That didn’t sound good. “Can we discuss them on a drive?”
The line was so quiet I wondered if the call had been dropped. “Goldie?”
“Sure, Ace. We can go for a drive and have a talk.”
We made arrangements for me to pick her up. She was taking the rest of the day off and tomorrow too.
After the call disconnected, I told myself not to worry about the edge in her voice. What could’ve changed in the last twenty-four hours? As I tossed some clothes into a duffel bag, the answer hit me like a check from behind. Gideon. My brother had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Could he have said something to Goldie to turn her against me?
My truck started right away and I gave it a couple of minutes to warm up. The radio was tuned to the country station and it crackled in the background as I tried to make sense of what had just happened. There was no way Gideon knew that Goldie and I were seeing each other. He wouldn’t have a reason to poison her opinion of me. It didn’t make sense. Unless that bastard wanted to get with her. Was he that conniving? Would he say bad things about everyone in the study to get into Goldie’s pants?
I put the truck into gear and crept out of the garage. With my large tires, the radio antenna hit the pipes in the ceiling of the underground parking, and if I wasn’t careful, so would the roof of my truck.
When I emerged into the sunny day, I put all the shitty thoughts behind me. Gideon hadn’t said anything, and Goldie wasn’t angry with me. The poor girl had just fainted and here I was, making up all these stupid scenarios.
Luke Bryan’s latest song came on the radio. I turned it up and headed to the east end of the city. If Goldie was up for it, I’d booked us an Airbnb in Muskoka. It was only two hours north of the city if we got the hell out of dodge before rush hour.
She lived in an area called the Beaches. All the houses on her street were old and full of character, and had to cost millions and millions of dollars. Before I could even put the truck into park in Goldie’s driveway, Morton bounded out of a small building at the rear of the property. Goldie followed behind him.
When I wrapped my arms around her, she stiffened, but hugged me back. “Nice truck.” She walked away before I could kiss her.
Something was off.
I jogged ahead of her to open the door. Morton hopped into the cab and Goldie set her large purse on the floor and grabbed the handle to get into the passenger seat. It wasn’t technically a passenger seat, but one long bench. “One of you can take the middle seat.” I tried to keep my voice light.
“I think that Morton has already called it.” Finally, there was a hint of a smile on her face.
After we reversed out of the driveway, I headed to one of the main highways that would take us out of town. “Can I stop to get you some water? Do you need some electrolytes? I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch of Gatorade in the back of the truck. It might be frozen though.”
“I’m fine. Everyone needs to stop fawning over me.” The irritation was back.
“I think that means people care about you.”
She sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. There’s a lot on my mind.”
I didn’t want to ask the question, but knew it was the right thing to do. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”
Morton was in between us, and I couldn’t get a good look at her face without swerving off the Don Valley Parkway.
“There’s a rumor going around.”
That bastard. “What rumor?” I played dumb. I knew exactly what rumor she wanted to talk about.
“Did you sleep with your brother’s girlfriend?” She picked up her bag from the floor and took out a water bottle. She opened and closed it a bunch of times, but didn’t actually take a drink.
“No. I didn’t.”
“Why does he think you did?”
My knuckles started to turn white as I gripped the old notched steering wheel. “Did he say that?”
“No.” Goldie finally took a sip of her water. “The rumor is that you slept with his girlfriend, and he hates you, so obviously he believes it.”
I knew I had to answer her question, but I couldn’t quite grasp what Gideon had or had not told her. “He really didn’t say anything to you about it?”
“Why would he say anything?”
I was confused and frustrated, but I needed to set the record straight with Goldie. The incident with Hailey, Gideon’s ex, was before I’d ever met Goldie, and shouldn’t interfere with our relationship. But Goldie was a good person, and probably wanted to be with a good person. A good guy didn’t sleep with his brother’s girlfriend.
The tires of the truck hummed on the highway, as she waited for a response. “Can I have a sip of that water?” I asked.
She unscrewed the lid and handed it to me. I took a sip and gave it back to her. “I was visiting Gideon. He had this girlfriend named Hailey. Nobody liked her. I mean nobody. I thought she was a shallow and boring bunny. Our parents thought she was a gold digger. She was likely a little bit of both. Actually, she was probably a lot of both.”
“That doesn’t sound like the kind of girl your brother would go for.”
I forgot Goldie had spent hours talking to nine of my teammates. Obviously, she’d had time to form opinions about everyone. “I think he liked her because she didn’t challenge him. It was easy for him to be with her and still focus on the game.”
Goldie rested her hand on Morton’s back. She rubbed his fur and stared straight ahead at the lanes of traffic. “I guess that makes sense, but it still doesn’t explain how she ended up in bed with you.”
“I wish I could explain that one, Goldie. I really do. Gideon and I had gone out with his team. Hailey was pissed off that he wouldn’t take her out with us, and they’d had a huge fight before we left.”
“What were they fighting about?”
“She wanted to go to the Chairman’s dinner with him. It’s a big fancy event put on by the team he was playing for at the time, South Carolina.”
“I’ve heard of those events. They are quite exclusive. It’s like the Met gala for hockey.”
“Right.” I sped past a line of cars. “Gideon told her he was going to bring me as his date, not her. I guess that didn’t go over very well. She stormed out and I’m pretty sure Gideon forgot about the entire thing as soon as we left his house.”
“Was he going to take you with him?” Morton curled up into a surprisingly small ball between us, and Goldie looked me in the eyes for the first time that afternoon.
“I doubt it.” I chuckled. “I don’t think that I would look very good in a gown. I think he just wanted to get her off his case. I think he was planning on breaking up with her before the event; he just didn’t have the time to do it between practices and games.”
“So what happened next?” The razor edge to her voice was gone.
“We went and got blackout drunk with the guys from his team. When we came home, I passed out in his spare room and when I woke up, it was morning, and Gideon’s fist was the first thing I saw. The second thing I saw was a naked Hailey in the bed.”
“Wait, how did she get into his place? I thought she left.”
“We did too. I guess she had a key or something. Listen, Goldie. I told Gideon I didn’t know she was in the bed with me —hell, I was still wearing my clothes. I was also so wasted there was no way I could’ve gotten it—”
She held up her hand. “I get the picture.”
“The problem is, Hailey swore we had been together. She also told him it wasn’t the first time. I’d never seen Gideon so mad. He called me Loki, and kicked me out. I was so hungover, I left without putting up a fight. I couldn’t believe he’d take her word over mine, and he couldn’t believe I would betray my own brother.”Why would she do that?”
“I wish I could get into her fucked-up brain and figure it out, Marigold. It was probably something as petty as the fundraiser. If she couldn’t go as Gideon’s date, she made sure I couldn’t go either. Maybe in her warped mind, she thought he would take her instead.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.” I took off my hat. The cab of the truck had finally heated up, and suddenly felt more like a sauna. “None of it makes sense. I called Gideon. I showed up at his place a couple of times. He refused to see me or speak to me, and then—voila!—both of us were traded to the Tigers.”
“I’m shocked that Gideon believed her.” Goldie’s eyes shone as she looked at me. My stomach had been clenched the whole time, and I let out the breath that had been trapped inside my body. Goldie believed me.
“Me too, Goldie.”
She bit her lower lip and instead of stroking Morton, she slid her hand past the dog to hold on to mine. “The only person who can clear your name is Hailey.”
I scoffed. “I tried that. She’s sticking to her story.”
“What a cunt,” Goldie whispered. “Sorry. I don’t like to use that word, but it sounds like Hailey might be an actual contender for it.”
“A total see-you-next-Tuesday,” I replied. “She ruined my relationship with my brother.” My throat constricted and I tried to gulp down the tears. “I idolized him, and he believed…her.”
“Oh, Ace.” She squeezed my hand. “He’ll come around.”
“That’s what Mom said too.” Usually, if I blinked hard enough, I could stop the tears from falling out of my eyeballs. It didn’t work. Goldie unbuckled her seat belt, leaned over Morton, and kissed the tears from my face. “Why don’t we pull over and get a coffee?”
“I’m fine.” Another goddamn tear, a hot one, streaked down my cheek.
“Ace.” Her voice was soft. “Pull off the highway.”
There was a donut shop on the side of the road and I pulled into the parking lot. It was too cold to turn off the engine, so Goldie ran in and returned with two cups of coffee and a box full of donuts. There was even a plain donut hole for Morton. We sat in the parking lot drinking coffee and sampling the box of donuts. By the time we were done, we’d each taken a bite out of every single one. “They’re all terrible.” She laughed.
“I don’t know, I kind of like this one with the sprinkles. I can really feel the sugar grinding into my teeth with every bite.” I chomped on the multicolored sprinkle one to show her the sound it made.
“That’s the worst one of the dozen.” She cozied up to me and I fed her a bit of the sprinkle donut. When we kissed, there was a hint of chocolate and sprinkles between us. “I knew it couldn’t be true.” I wasn’t sure whether she was speaking to me or to herself.
Morton and Goldie had traded spots, and she rested her hand on my leg.
“Thank you for believing me.”
“Thank you for taking me for a drive. You haven’t told me where we’re going yet.”
I sipped my coffee, put it in the cupholder, and then got back on the highway. “I’ve rented us a cabin on Lake Muskoka for the night.”
“The night?” Goldie seemed shocked. “I thought we were just going for a drive. Ace, I didn’t bring any overnight clothes.”
“Shit. I didn’t tell you?”
“No.” She laughed. “You failed to mention that small detail.”
“Well, that’s easy enough to fix.” The GPS on the phone instructed me to exit the highway at Bracebridge. “There’s got to be at least one store in this small town. Get ready for your montage scene.”
Goldie’s eyes sparkled. “You don’t have to buy me anything. Can’t I just wear your clothes?”
The idea of Goldie in one of my T-shirts, and only my T-shirt, made me insta-hard. She pointed to a variety store. “I will need a toothbrush though.”