28. Ace
TWENTY-EIGHT
ACE
The weather in Toronto had turned downright nasty. I could deal with the snow, but for the past couple of days, the city had been coated in rain and ice. I did everything I could to get my mind off Goldie. The runs were slippery, and I risked falling and hurting myself because I needed to get outside and pound out the frustration in my body on the pavement.
We played Montreal the next day and I couldn’t wait to throw a few body checks their way. I usually didn’t like the results when I played angry; I was able get in the zone a lot better when I was happy and didn’t have anything on my mind. But all I wanted to do was get on the ice, bash into some players, maybe drop my gloves, and fire the puck as hard as I could. Saturday couldn’t come fast enough.
Ethan picked up on the first ring. “Wanna hit some balls?”
“Dude.” Ethan sound tired. “We hit ten buckets yesterday. I think I dreamed about golf balls.”
He had been the perfect friend I needed for the breakup. We did shit together and he didn’t ask me any questions. I put on the angriest record I owned—Pantera—and cranked it as loud as my sound system would play it. It was so loud in my loft that I couldn’t even hear the blender as I made my protein shake. I stormed around the concrete box in the sky and chugged down the chalky shake. Even though I didn’t want to talk to her, I still checked my phone every twenty minutes or so, wondering if I would see Professor Hot Tits on the screen. I hadn’t gotten around to changing the name yet, and I was tempted to switch it to CFD – Coach’s Fucking Daughter.
The nights had been the worst. I didn’t deal well with the quiet. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I started thinking about the time we had spent together, and how angry I was that it was tainted. Any hockey player knew how complicated it was to date the coach’s daughter. I wouldn’t expect a typical girl to understand, but the coach’s daughter herself? She had to know she was putting me in a shitty position. Just thinking about it got me fired up. I thought about going for a drive out of the city—that would help me clear my brain—but the streets were slicker than the ice inside the arena. If Ethan didn’t want to shoot balls, I would go on my own.
As the record played, I got dressed and then tried to eat a sandwich. For the past few days, my appetite had been nonexistent and I’d lived off protein powder. It wasn’t smart; I needed all my strength for the Montreal game. I was able to choke down one bite of my roast beef on a bun before I started to feel nauseous.
My phone lit up. The music was so loud I hadn’t heard it ringing. I hoped it was Ethan and that he’d changed his mind about going to the golf dome, but it wasn’t. I froze when I saw the name on the screen. It was Goldie. My thumb hovered above the button to ignore the call, but I couldn’t bring myself to press it.
I turned down the music, took a deep breath, and then answered. Her voice was quiet on the other end of the line.
“Ace, I can explain why I waited to tell you about…” Her voice trailed off.
“Goldie, I can’t think about this right now. I have an important game tomorrow. I told you not to call me.” Hearing her voice brought up the feelings I had been trying to get out of my body. Apparently, I still had some work to do. There were still some feelings stuffed deep down there.
“I know, Ace. It’s Montreal.”
Of course, she knew. She was the coach’s damn daughter. “Why are you calling me?”
“I have to see you. It’s important.”
I sighed, but maybe seeing her was what I needed to get her out of my system. “Unless you’re going to give me one of your predictions about the game, I don’t want to see you.”
The line was quiet, but then she spoke. “I can do that, Ace. If I promise to tell you what to do to win the game, will you meet me today? Like I said, it’s important. I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t.”
She had told me that her visions were gone. Was this just a trick to see me? What kind of a game was she playing? My hockey career was on an upwards trajectory. I was the star of the Tigers now, but if we started losing, my career might be over.
“All right, Goldie. If you can tell me what shot I need to work on today, I will meet you.”
Her voice wavered and I knew she was on the verge of tears. “Thank you, Ace. Can you meet me in the training room at the arena at noon, the one I was using for my study?”
I nodded, and then realized she couldn’t see me. “I’ll be there.”
“Good.”
“Good,” I repeated.
“Good,” she replied.
“Should we keep going?” I couldn’t hide the irritation in my voice.
“I’ll see you there. Bye, Ace.”
I set down the phone and wondered what the hell she wanted to talk about that was so important. I had an hour before I had to meet her, so I spent the majority of that time banging out push-ups on my kitchen floor.
When I got to the training room, I heard voices. It sounded like Goldie was in there talking to herself. I knocked on the door and pushed it open. “Hello?” No wonder it sounded like Goldie was talking to herself; her mom was sitting next to her, and they had almost the same voice. Goldie was wearing yoga pants and a sweatshirt and looked like she hadn’t slept for two years. Her hair was in a knot on the top of her head and pieces stuck out in all directions. I loved it when she looked all rumpled and her hair was a mess, but it certainly didn’t look like the outfit of someone who was trying to win me back.
Goldie’s mom was the first to speak. “Hi, Ace. Have a seat.” Fern was wearing what looked like a tie-dyed bedsheet. Her hair was in two braids and there was a bandana tied on the top of her head. She looked like a fortune teller from a state fair. I sat in one of two chairs across from the two Swanson women.
“Hi, Fern.” I shook her hand. As much as I was angry with her daughter, I was still a gentleman. “Goldie.” I gave her a nod.
“Ace.” Her voice sounded rough. Her hands were in her lap and she didn’t make eye contact with me from behind her glasses.
“Would you like some water?” Fern poured a glass for Goldie and then held up the water pitcher.
“No. I hope I’m not going to be here very long.” I sounded like an asshole, but as much as I hated to admit it, being in the same room as Goldie was…hard. “Can we get this started?”
Goldie checked her watch and looked at the door. “In just a minute.” She took a sip of her water, and as she set it down, there was a knock on the door.
“Are you expecting someone else?” I turned, but couldn’t see who had knocked through the small vertical window.
Goldie got up and opened the door. “Come in.”
Then the last person I expected to see stepped through the door. My fucking brother. “What’s this all about?” The chair clattered to the ground as I stood up.
“Yeah. What is this all about? I thought you wanted to do our final session.” My brother crossed his arms and remained in the hallway.
Fern put a voice recorder on the table. “Gideon, please come in.” She stood and the sleeves of her bedsheet dress flapped as she gestured for Gideon to sit beside me. I picked up the chair, but didn’t sit down.
“Goldie, who is this?” Gideon’s face was its usual stony self as he stared at Fern.
A pang of jealousy shot through my body as Goldie reached out to rest her hand on my brother’s arm. “Gideon, this is my mother, Fern Lauper. She has some information I think both of you need to hear. Please. It will take less than a minute of your time. Have a seat.”
Goldie returned to the table, and Gideon entered the room and stood behind the chair. “I’ll stand, thanks.” It didn’t slip my attention that his hands were balled into fists and his jawbone was twitching.
“I’ll stand too.” I pulled the chair to the far end of the table and rested my hands on the back, ready to toss it at Mr. Punchy if I needed to.
Fern shook her head. “There’s a lot of negative energy in this room.”
“No shit,” Gideon growled. “Can we get on with…whatever this is?”
Goldie held on to the recording device and turned it in her hands while she spoke. “Gideon, over the past little while I’ve gotten close with your brother.” He glanced at me.
“Good for you. What does this have to do with me?”
Gideon can be scary, but Goldie didn’t back down. She set the recorder in the middle of the table and pointed to it. “Ace told me about Hailey.”
“You motherfucker.” Gideon lunged at me, but I shoved the chair in between us.
“Stop!” Goldie shouted. “Let me finish and then you can pound each other’s brains out.”
Gideon’s nostrils flared, but he took a step back. I kept the chair between us. “Go on,” Gideon grumbled.
Goldie pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her hands, something I noticed she did when she was nervous. It looked like Gideon’s outburst had gotten to her after all. “I want you to listen to this recording. I think it explains it better than I can.”
Before either of us could object, Goldie pressed play on the device.
There was a lot of background noise, like it was in a coffee shop, but it was muffled, like the device was in someone’s pocket.
Fern reached across the table, her dress dragging along it and she pushed the forward button. “Let’s move this to the important part. To give you boys a little bit of context, I found Hailey, the source of your pain, and the truth is here. I pretended to be an interviewer doing a piece on influencers.” She turned up the volume.
A voice—Fern’s spoke first. “Tell me, Hailey, how did you get so many followers on Instagram?”
The next voice was one I hadn’t heard in almost a year. “Hard work.” She giggled.
“It has nothing to do with your baseball star boyfriend?” Fern prodded.
“None at all. I got here on my own.” Her voice was squeaky and high like a baby. I hated her so much.
“I admire that. My editor only wants self-made influencers in the story.”
I wondered if Fern had worn her fortune teller getup to conduct the interview. Hailey didn’t sound like the brightest woman in the world, but surely she had to be suspicious of a woman who looked like she carried a crystal ball around in her pocket.
“Well, that’s me.” I could see her doing a little I’m-so-innocent shrug.
“Now, there’s one more thing I need to clear up. There are some nasty rumors online about your relationship with Gideon Bailey and his younger brother, Ace. Our readership is comprised of young women and we want to make sure we are only including influencers that will have a positive…” She paused to laugh. “…influence on young girls. Tell me, Hailey. Are the rumors true? Did you have an ongoing sexual relationship with Ace Bailey behind his brother’s back?”
My gulp was loud enough that everyone heard. Gideon glanced at me and then leaned in a little closer.
“Oh, God. No. I made that up, but can you keep that between you and me?”
“Of course, dear.” Fern’s voice was so silky smooth that even I would’ve spilled secrets to her.
“Like I said, I made it up. Gideon was supposed to take me to a black-tie event, but we had a fight and he told me he was going to take his brother. I was so mad. That event would’ve made my career even bigger than it is now. This sounds bad, so please don’t judge me for it, but I snuck into Giddy’s—that’s what I called him—house and crawled into bed with Ace. He was super wasted and didn’t even know I was there.” She paused. “Is that enough? I know it sounds crazy, but I needed to go to that event. I swore to Gideon that Ace and I had, you know, and he believed me. I went with the story because I thought the notoriety might help with my career.”
“Did it?”
I shivered at Fern’s voice. It had completely changed.
“No,” Hailey whispered. “But I didn’t care. Gideon was going to break up with me and I wanted to ruin his life. He loved his brother more than he loved me.” There was a hand clapping sound. “So I took care of that.”
There was a scraping of chairs and more muffled movement. “Wait, where are you going? What about the story?”
“May karma deal you the hand you deserve, Hailey Fleishman.”
Fern pressed stop, and a silence fell over the room. Gideon cleared his throat. “I’ve gotta go.” He turned and left the room and didn’t look back. I didn’t know if Gideon was crying, but I sure was.
“You did that for me?” I said.
Fern shook her head. “I did it for my daughter. It was easy to find the ex-girlfriend who slept with her boyfriend’s brother. It was even easier than I thought to get her to admit the truth. She is truly a terrible human being.”
“I know,” I said.
Fern handed me a tissue and I blew my nose. I took care of the tears with the sleeve of my shirt. Fern came around the table, rested her hand on my arm, and shut her eyes. It was a little creepy when her eyes started to flutter, but I didn’t pull away. “You’re going to do a slap shot from the blue line. It will be easy and will win the game for the Tigers. Your brother is going to pass it to you.” She opened her eyes and stepped away.
I took a deep breath. “Are you sure?” I glanced at Goldie and she nodded.
“My mom is good at this.”
“That play would involve my brother passing me the puck, which he doesn’t really like doing. I’ll see if I can convince him to do it.”
Fern rubbed my arm. “You don’t have to convince him to do anything. It will happen.”
I jerked my head towards Goldie. “Why couldn’t she tell me this?”
Her smile was warm, and her eyes, the same blue as her daughter’s, studied me. “Marigold can’t see things about people she loves. Give her time and maybe one day she will be able to tell you about your game.”
Tears streamed down Goldie’s face. Did her mom just tell me Goldie was in love with me? She might have repaired the relationship between me and Gideon, but I still couldn’t forgive Goldie.
“I hope that day comes soon. If she loved me she would’ve told me the truth.” Just like my brother, I turned and walked out of the room.