14. Monty
CHAPTER 14
Monty
D ean Hathaway, captain of the Edge, held a Back-to-Hockey gathering the Saturday before training camp started each year. All the players, prospects, coaching, medical, and front office staff were invited to his mountainside resort of a home outside Denver.
Nana’s house was bigger and more tastefully decorated, but I digress.
Per our arrangement, Tasha attended as my plus-one. Xavier and Penny waved to us from a bank of six lounge chairs on the upper deck on the far side of the pool. I followed Tasha around the perimeter and up the steps, carrying all of our stuff, as Zaki Marsh, one of the alternate captains, welcomed everyone from the mic at the DJ’s booth.
“This party almost didn’t happen,” Zaki was saying. “Our GM wanted to lowball our captain, and that’s not right.” A boo went up from the guests. “I couldn’t let that happen. Mostly because I don’t want to host these parties. Luckily, he and I and Dex have the same agent, and since we all have more money than we could ever spend, we settled for team- friendly contracts to keep him here for another year.” Zaki swept his sculpted, tattooed arm in an arc in front of him, gesturing to all the guests. “You’re welcome.”
He bowed theatrically to the applause and cheers, but he wasn’t done yet. “On Dean’s behalf, I’d like to say—hey!”
I turned to see what had interrupted him. Dean’s wife had taken the mic. “Dean can talk for himself, when allowed.” She smiled and shook her head at the younger man. “Welcome to our home, everyone. Have fun, be careful, and if you need anything, ask this guy.” She poked Zaki in his bicep. “Now, let’s give a big cheer for Cappy, my man and everyone’s favorite forward!”
While Dean gave his welcome speech and preseason pep talk, Tasha and I reached the upper deck. Noel and Gabby had arrived a beat before us, taking chairs next to Xavier and Penny and leaving two chairs open on Gabby’s other side. Tasha pulled her sundress over her head, revealing an apple green tankini, and tossed her dress on the lounger adjacent to her cousin’s. She shot me a look that was hard to read. Was it a reaction to the way I was looking at her?—I hoped not—or was it a stick-it-to-me for forcing me to an outside chair instead of the one next to my former partner?
I set our bags down, shook off my slides, and pulled my FireVolts tank over my head.
Time to remind us both that we were supposed to hate each other.
I padded to the edge of the decking. There was about four feet of brick pavers jutting out below.
I could make it.
After making certain the deep water was clear, and any potential child copycats weren’t paying attention, I walked back to my chair and spun on my heel. “Watch this,” I said to Penny.
With a wink to Tasha, I hopped in place, ready to execute a move she was familiar with from years past.
“DO. NOT,” she warned. “This is not a diving platform!”
I shrugged. “It can be.”
With that, I was off and running. I cartwheeled into a round-off and vaulted myself off the deck and into the air, revolving into a full twist before I hit the water feet-first.
I surfaced to loud cheering and waved to the unsuspecting audience.
Ryleigh Spencer, Trask Emerson’s stepdaughter, dove into the pool and swam up to me. “Can you teach me how to do that? I play hockey now, but I cheered when I was little.”
When she was little? The girl was maybe fifty pounds soaking wet and, at most, eight years old.
“Please?” she pleaded. “You see that boy over there?”
I followed the trajectory of her finger to a kid about her age standing, arms crossed, with other boys at the side of the pool.
“Yeah, I see him. Friend of yours?”
“Nope. We used to be teammates, but he moved up to the U10 team. I’m still in U8.” She said it like it was the worst thing in the world.
“Are you even ten?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. But neither is he. I’m eight, and he’s nine. But his birth year is the one before mine. Stupid December birthday. Mine’s in the spring, so he moves up first. So unfair.”
I loved her competitiveness. Too bad she didn’t cheer anymore.
“Can you do a round-off back handspring?” I asked .
“And a standing back tuck,” she said proudly.
I was impressed. That was a big skill for an eight-year-old.
“Okay,” I said, and she brightened. “But only if your mom says it’s okay, only on the lower deck, and only if you let me spot you.”
Ryleigh nodded and held out her hand for me to shake. “I agree to your terms!” I shook her tiny hand lightly, and she swam away, leaving me shaking my head and hoping I wasn’t breaking any big rules by offering.
I swam to the side and pulled myself out of the pool. A scrap of fabric landed on my head. I pulled it off and looked up.
“You’re scaring the children!” Tasha adjusted her hat as she leaned over the side.
I grinned and pulled the tank over my head. “You just can’t take all of this!” I flexed my biceps and ran my hands in the air down the sides of my body.
“More like I can’t take your blinding paleness!” she retorted.
I snorted. I wasn’t pale. I spray-tanned year-round, and she knew it.
Now things felt back to normal. “Can you toss down my towel?”
I caught it just before it landed on my head and laid it at the edge of the pool, smoothing out the air pockets and wrinkles so Ryleigh would have a non-slippery spot to launch from. But first, I’d stand on it and toss her in, just to make sure she was capable of doing everything she claimed.
“Mr. Monty?” I turned to find her at my side. “Mommy said yes, but Daddy Trask said if I get hurt, he’ll body-check you so hard they’ll need to find another new Ridgie.”
I glanced over to her parents. Trask was bouncing her two-year-old brother on his knee. He lifted the baby’s sippy cup in the air with his good arm and grinned. Poor guy was just out of a sling from fixing his torn rotator cuff. Well, I was happy to throw his kid around until he was up to the task again.
I waved and bent down to Ryleigh. “Well, it’s a good thing that’s not going to happen. Trask is one tough guy.”
She set a hand on her hip and appraised me from head to toe. “You’re bulkier. You could take him.”
Bulkier? I loved this girl. Delivering insulting compliments like a pro.
“Let’s start with a standard backflip into the water.” I linked my fingers together and squatted down to her height. She placed her hands on my shoulder and counted down from three. I tossed her up, over the water. On her first attempt, she circled fully around and her feet slid into water like a pro diver.
She was back at my side in seconds. “Can I try the twist now?”
I nodded and explained the technique. She managed to twist 180 degrees on her first attempt.
“Not bad,” I said, holding my hand out for a high five. I gave her another tip to straighten out her form, and the second one was perfect. Next, I talked her through the round-off on a wet surface, making her promise not to try this without a trained professional in a controlled situation. After one round-off back tuck into the water, I determined she was ready for the twist.
“Let’s get you some extra height on this one.” I glanced over at the boys, who’d stopped laughing and pointing and were now watching with their mouths hung open. “Put it all together. Do you think you could round-off into my hands? ”
“I was waiting for you to ask me that! Let’s do it.” She turned away to take her mark for the running start, tossing a glance at her adversary on the way.
Ryleigh was a natural. “Why did you quit cheer?” I asked after her second—and perfect—dive.
“Mommy said I had to choose ’cause she’s only one person and club hockey and elite cheer are both full-time jobs.”
I laughed. “That is true. What about tumbling in your spare time? I could help you perfect the full twist, add a kickout or whatever else, and by next year you can really wow those guys.”
Her eyes widened. “I like that idea!”
“Great. Tell your mom to call the gym and we’ll get it scheduled.”
“Cool!” She tipped her chin toward the boys, who were now cannonballing and whatever else into the pool. “Can I go one more time?”
“Sure,” I said. Most of the other kids of impressionable age were near the zero-entry end of the pool or using the waterslide. “How about two more times?”
“Yes!”
Off she went. As she swam back to the side, I caught a familiar accented voice above me.
Vlad.
I stiffened as I listened to him greet Tasha, Penny, and Gabby. Then, instead of talking about hockey—or anything else—with Xavier and Noel, he commented on me.
“He is good with the children, no? Makes a good bear.”
“ So good,” Penny replied. “Not only has he coached kids at the gym, but he’s visited the kids’ cancer wards in local hospitals for years. ”
Good ol’ Penny. If I ever needed encouragement, I knew who to call.
“One more?” Ryleigh called.
“Definitely,” I said, leaning in conspiratorially and dropping my voice. “They’re looking again. Make it good.”
She nodded. “It’s not hard. They look like a bunch of kids playing around compared to me.”
I laughed. That was exactly what they were.
She set off and this time twisted a perfect 360 degrees on her way into the water. I shook my head. There was so much confidence and natural talent in that little frame. I hoped she did take me up on my offer for tumbling coaching. She reminded me so much of Tasha at that age.
Ryleigh waved and swam toward the waterslide. I turned toward the stairs and did my best to overhear Vlad, but he was speaking too low. From his perch at the foot of Tasha’s chair, he regaled her about his summer overseas.
Chump.
I flopped into my chair and made a show of digging my earbuds out of my bag, making sure he noticed me putting them in.
I didn’t turn them on, though.
Was that wrong? Probably.
But someone had to look out for my roommate. She was doing a terrible job of it herself, and her family didn’t even seem to notice. I adjusted my chair and leaned back.
“Your date is giving me—how you say it?—the evil eye,” Vlad observed. His upbeat tone and stilted English grated my nerves further.
“Oh, him? He’s not my date.” Tasha glared at me.
I winked at her .
“Then, what? You were at a wedding with him. You are here now.”
“I danced with you, remember. Monty and I are just friends.”
Friends, huh? Progress!
“Friends who date?”
I coughed. Tasha glanced over at me before shaking her head vehemently. “We’re not even friends, really. We just work together.”
Ouch.
“And live together,” Vlad observed.
“Temporarily.” The word was spoken with emphasis.
“He is quite a showman, no? And handsome.”
Right on both counts, Vladdy. Was he really that thick he had to beat the subject like a dead horse? Tasha had made it perfectly clear she had zero feelings for me.
Tasha smiled sweetly at him. “I promise you, there is nothing-nada-zip”—she popped the P —“going on between me and Monty, now or ever.”
Yes! She called me Monty.
Out loud. In public!
And she didn’t refute my good looks like she was prone to do.
“Well, that is good. Because Vlad does not like to share.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. He was referring to himself in the third person?
How tacky. I wished I’d thought to put my sunglasses on so I could hide my eye roll.
But Tasha was giggling like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.
Vlad had charm, I’d give him that.
“So then—it is okay I ask for your number? ”
I could actually hear the breath she sucked in.
Give. Me. A. Break.
“Fine by me,” she squeaked. Vlad’s mouth widened into a smile. For someone who’d claimed not to know a lot of English only two months ago, he sure had the pickup convo down.
Tasha pulled her phone out and handed it to him. He took it and tapped the screen. Gabby looked over, and I caught her gaze, then inclined my head toward Vlad, who was now asking Tasha to accompany him to the buffet.
Gabby frowned as Vlad stood and offered Tasha his hand. When their backs were to us, Gabby slid over to Tasha’s chair. “What’s that about?”
I shrugged. “It’s time she dated again. But that guy?” I shook my head. “He looks like an untanned Ken doll, and you can barely understand a word he says.”
“Xavier likes him. Noel hasn’t decided yet.”
“Well, I think he’s a chump.”
She laughed. “Monty, you’ve thought every guy Tasha has ever dated was a chump.”
I shrugged. “That’s cause they were.”
“ All of them?” she challenged.
“All of them,” I confirmed.
She settled back in the chair. “I’m going to need more than that. What was wrong with Sam?”
“He chose baseball over her.”
“Marner?”
“Let her split the check.”
“That was probably her request.”
“A real man would have found a way to pay the whole bill.”
She rolled her eyes. “Rafael? ”
“How can you take anyone seriously who was named after a Ninja Turtle?”
“We don’t know that for sure. His parents are artists. That all you got?”
“He had a unibrow. Bugged her to no end.”
Gabby snorted. “I remember. And he said he’d never pluck it because society wasn’t going to tell him how to groom himself.”
“See?”
“Okay, what about DJ?”
“I didn’t have a problem with him. Until they started dating.”
“Broke the Bro Code, eh?”
I whipped my head around to her and scowled. DJ had been my so-called best friend from prep school. He began dating Tasha following our falling-out. “No. We would still be friends if I didn’t have to hear all the sordid details of their dating life. Ew. She was like a sister to me.”
“Uh-huh.” She swatted me with her magazine. “Keep telling yourself that.”
I would.
I had to.
Or I’d go crazy.