RAINCHECK #3
“It was nice,” he adds, but nice comes out like hot.
Or maybe like I want to fuck you. Or maybe that’s where my brain keeps going lately with him.
I do my best to shake off this haze of lust. Trying to get my bearings, I focus on why I’m here and lift my phone.
“She said there’s a no picture rule. Becca did,” I add.
“That’s true.”
Which means I’m even more confused. I cut to the chase. “Why did you invite me?”
“You didn’t like it?” He sounds genuinely hurt.
“I did. I loved it,” I say, truthfully. “I just…” I shrug. “I’m thrown off. I thought you were showing me something we could…” But I swallow the word use. It feels wrong to say that right now.
“To use?” he supplies, a hint of irritation in his tone.
“I want to help you with this project,” I say, pleading somewhat. Sure, he’s infuriating, but I truly want to improve his image. “That’s the point.”
“I want you to,” he says, curling his big hands over the boards. “That’s why I brought you here.”
I raise my hands, helpless. “I’m not getting it.”
He drags a hand through that wild, messy hair.
“You asked me who I really am. I said I’d show you.
So I brought you here,” he says, his tone stripped bare.
He blows out a breath then glances around, gesturing to the space.
“This is who I really am, but I don’t want this to be something you use.
I want this to be something I keep for myself.
I don’t do this to fix my image. I do this for those kids,” he says, glancing toward the exits, even though the children are long gone.
When he returns his gaze to me, his blue eyes hold a new vulnerability.
“I know what it’s like to be those kids whose parents worry about how to pay for a sport.
I don’t have those worries anymore. So I do this.
” He pauses for a few seconds, then adds in a quieter voice, “I know I need to be open and shit. To let people see who I am. And I get it. I dug this hole and all. I have the shitty likability quotient. And I have to fix it, so I’m trying.
But this is the one thing that’s mine. That isn’t up for negotiation. This is for the kids.”
I do understand why he brought me here. He wanted me to know this part of him.
The part he’s not going to share with the world.
My heart feels squishy in a way it hasn’t in a long time.
I hold up the phone and one by one delete the pics, but stop at the last one.
It’s a little boy skating backward, looking up at the star goalie as if to say, Am I doing it right?
I show it to Max. “Can I keep this for myself?”
“For when I’m a dick and you need a reminder I’m not?”
“Something like that,” I say.
“Sure,” he says, then nods to the exit, a sign we’re done. But instead, he says, “Flynn’s a nice guy.”
I laugh lightly. “Should I have lunch with him then?”
His smile vacates the premises. His eyes darken. “No.”
Well, that’s even more clear now. He’ll stop dates with guys he dislikes and guys he approves of. Max nods to the ice. “You want to skate?”
I shake my head. “Oh, no. I babysit hockey players. I don’t skate.”
“C’mon,” he goads.
I shake it again. “Nope.”
“One new thing to try. Say yes, Everly,” he says, and just like that I’m back in time again. Marie’s favorite words. The thing she said when she asked me to take a pole class with her on a Post-it note. She was always leaving Post-it notes around the apartment we shared.
Want to go to the movies tonight? Say yes.
Want to grab a glass of wine after work? Say yes.
Want to take a pole dance class? Say yes.
I said yes.
And then a car slammed into us when I was turning left, hitting the passenger side head-on with a horrifying crunch, sending my head snapping back, and the car fishtailing into a truck.
The sounds and the sirens and the machines and the hospital come rushing back to me, like it’s happening all over again.
The noises, the surgeries, the burns, and the news.
The awful, terrifying news.
I look away from Max, focusing on my breathing. Cataloging the surroundings.
The net is made of twine and red metal.
The ice is cold and scraped up from practice.
The metal benches have grooves in them.
The scoreboard. It’s a deep red, with home and visitors painted in bold white writing.
And there’s one more thing I can see. Right in front of me—there’s Max, with real concern etched in his eyes.
But I’m okay. I’m here. I’m alive. I’m not trapped in that car, or feeling my heart rip out of my chest as I say goodbye to the person who was like a sister to me.
I kept all her Post-it notes in a little wooden box in my bedroom.
I want to say yes to Max’s offer to skate. I said yes to the sushi. I said yes to the naked bike ride. But there are practical matters. “Yes, but I don’t have my skates,” I say, gesturing to my heels.
His lips quirk up, like he wasn’t expecting that answer. “You have skates?” The question’s asked with surprise. Maybe wonder.
“Max, I work for a hockey team. Of course I have skates.”
“Then…raincheck?”
My chest warms. “Raincheck.”