The Man in the Cottage

Chapter Two

Travis

I knew she was coming today.

Mrs. Dawson's granddaughter. The one in all the photos, the one she talked about every time I came by to fix something or check on her or just sit with her on the porch because neither of us had anywhere else to be.

Kelly this, Kelly that. Kelly's so smart, Kelly works too hard, Kelly needs to slow down and find herself a good man but don't you dare tell her I said that.

I'd seen the pictures. The little girl with the gap-toothed smile holding up a fish. The teenager in a graduation cap. The woman in a sharp blazer at some work event, smiling a smile you give when someone points a camera at you and you're too tired to argue.

I thought I was ready.

I wasn't ready.

She screamed when she saw me, which I probably deserved. I've been watching the driveway on and off all day, knowing she'd show up eventually, and somehow I still managed to walk out my front door at the exact wrong moment. Classic.

Now I'm sitting on my couch in the dark, coffee gone cold in my hands, thinking about the way she looked at me.

Suspicious. Confused. A little scared, though she tried to hide it.

She's smaller than I expected from the photos—not short, just...

compact. Like she's learned to take up less space than she's entitled to.

Natural hair pulled back, dark eyes that don't miss much, a face that probably looks friendly when she's not staring down a stranger in her dead grandmother's backyard.

She let me stay.

I don't know what to do with that.

I should've left months ago. When Mrs. Dawson got sick.

When she stopped coming outside. When the hospice nurses started showing up and I had to make myself scarce because I wasn't family, wasn't anyone, just the guy in the cottage who fixed the gutters and pretended he wasn't hiding from the entire world.

I should've left when she died. Packed up my truck and driven somewhere else, anywhere else, started over again the way I've been starting over for the past year. But I couldn't make myself do it. This place felt like the last thread connecting me to something real, and I wasn't ready to cut it.

My grandmother would've called me a coward. She would've been right.

I set the coffee down and lean back, staring at the ceiling.

The cottage is quiet. It's always quiet here, which is the whole point, but tonight the silence feels heavier.

There's someone in the main house now. Someone moving through the rooms, touching things, learning the shape of her grandmother's absence.

I know what that's like. I know how it hollows you out.

I wonder if she's found anything yet. Mrs. Dawson wasn't the type to leave things messy, but she also wasn't the type to explain herself.

She let me stay here for six months and never once asked what I was running from.

Just looked at me with those sharp eyes—Kelly has her eyes, I realize now, that same way of seeing right through you—and said, "You look like you need a place to be quiet for a while. The cottage is empty."

That was it. No questions, no background check, no lease agreement. Just an old woman who saw something in me I'm not sure I see in myself anymore.

My grandmother sent me here. That's the part I never told Mrs. Dawson, the part that felt too raw to say out loud.

They'd been friends for decades, the two of them, met at some church conference in the seventies and kept in touch ever since.

Letters at first, then phone calls, then emails when my grandmother finally figured out how to use a computer at age eighty-two.

When I told her I needed to disappear for a while, she gave me this address.

"Eleanor will take care of you," she said. "She doesn't ask questions and she doesn't judge. Just be useful and stay out of trouble."

I tried. I did everything I could think of—fixed the gutters, patched the roof, painted the cottage trim, cleared brush from the back of the property.

Anything to earn my place here. And Mrs. Dawson let me, never making a big deal of it, just nodding when a job was done and occasionally leaving a plate of cookies on my porch.

I hope she told Kelly something. Left a note, maybe. Some explanation for why there's a strange man living on her property. Otherwise tomorrow's going to be an interesting conversation.

I don't sleep well.

That's nothing new. I haven't slept well since everything fell apart—since the cameras and the headlines and my agent's voice on the phone telling me to lay low for a while, let things blow over, as if what I did was the thing that just blows over.

I keep seeing that photographer's face. The way he smiled when he said what he said.

The way my fist connected with his jaw before I'd even decided to throw the punch.

The flash of his camera hitting the pavement, the crack of the lens, the look in his eyes shifting from smug to scared in half a second.

I'm not proud of it. I'm not sorry either. That's the part I can't explain to anyone, the part that makes me sound like exactly the person the headlines said I was.

NHL enforcer assaults photographer outside hospice facility.

They didn't print what he said to me. They didn't print that my grandmother was inside that building, dying, and he'd followed me there from the arena because he wanted a shot of me looking sad.

They didn't print that he asked me how it felt to be losing my season and my grandma at the same time, if I thought God was punishing me for something.

They just printed the video. Me, grabbing him by the collar. Me, swinging. Me, standing over him while he bled on the sidewalk and screamed about lawsuits.

I settled out of court. The team suspended me indefinitely. My agent said it was the best outcome I could hope for, given the circumstances.

I drove south until I ran out of highway, and I ended up here.

I'm awake before the sun comes up, the way I always am.

The rink doesn't open until seven, but I like to be there when they unlock the doors.

First one on the ice, last one off. It's the only thing that still makes sense to me, the only place where my body knows what to do without my brain getting in the way.

I pull on sweats and a hoodie and lace up my boots, moving quiet out of habit even though there's no one to wake up.

The main house is dark when I step outside, no lights in the windows, no movement.

She's probably still asleep. City people sleep late, or at least that's what Mrs. Dawson always said.

Kelly especially. "That girl works herself to the bone and then wonders why she's tired all the time. "

I load my gear into the truck and sit there for a second with my hands on the wheel, looking at the house. I should introduce myself properly. Explain things. Tell her who I am before she googles me and finds out for herself.

But what would I even say? Hey, I'm Travis, I used to play hockey professionally until I beat up a photographer and became a cautionary tale. Your grandmother let me hide here because she was kind and I was desperate. Nice to meet you.

I start the engine and pull out of the driveway. The conversation can wait. Everything can wait.

The rink is a twenty-minute drive, a squat brick building on the edge of town that's seen better days.

Longshore Ice Arena, according to the sign out front, though half the letters have burned out and no one's bothered to fix them.

It's not much—one sheet of ice, ancient boards, a Zamboni that sounds like it's dying every time it runs.

Nothing like the facilities I'm used to, the gleaming practice arenas with their perfect ice and their trainers and their cameras everywhere, always watching, always recording.

But the ice is good and the owner doesn't ask questions. He knows who I am. I saw the recognition in his eyes the first day I walked in, the slight pause before he shook my hand. But he just handed me a schedule and told me the morning sessions were usually empty if I wanted privacy.

I've been coming here every day for six months.

Skating drills, shooting practice, the same routines I've been doing since I was fifteen years old.

Some days there are kids here, youth league teams running plays while their coaches shout instructions.

I stay out of their way and they stay out of mine.

A few of the dads have recognized me—I've seen them whispering to each other, pulling out their phones, probably googling to make sure they're right.

But no one's said anything. Small town courtesy, maybe.

Or maybe they just don't care about hockey down here the way they do up north.

Either way, I'm grateful for it.

The suspension is supposed to end eventually.

That's what my agent says, anyway, every time he calls to check in and I let it go to voicemail.

The league is "reviewing the situation." The team is "evaluating their options.

" A lot of words that mean nothing, that translate to: we don't know what to do with you, so we're going to wait and see if everyone forgets.

I don't think they're going to forget. I wouldn't, if I were them.

I park in the empty lot and grab my bag from the back seat. The cold hits me when I step out, sharp and clean, the cold that wakes you up and makes you feel alive. I breathe it in and let it settle in my lungs.

Whatever happens with Kelly, whatever she decides, at least I have this.

Two hours on the ice where I don't have to think about anything except the next drill, the next shot, the next lap around the rink.

Two hours where I'm not the guy who threw his career away.

I'm just a body in motion, doing the only thing it knows how to do.

I push through the doors and head for the locker room.

I get back to the cottage around ten, sweaty and sore and feeling more like myself than I have in days. The main house still looks quiet, but there's a light on in the kitchen now, and when I pull into my usual spot by the cottage, I see her.

She's on the back porch of the main house, sitting on the steps with a mug in her hands, watching me.

I kill the engine and sit there for a second, trying to decide what to do. I could wave and go inside. I could pretend I didn't see her. I could walk over and have the conversation I've been putting off since yesterday.

She makes the decision for me. She lifts her mug in a small wave, not quite a greeting but not unfriendly either. An acknowledgment. I'm here, you're here, we might as well deal with it.

I grab my gear bag and get out of the truck. She's still watching me as I walk toward the cottage, and I can feel her eyes on me the whole way. Assessing. Trying to figure me out.

I stop at the edge of the yard, keeping some distance between us. "Morning."

"Morning." She takes a sip of her coffee. "You're up early."

"I run in the mornings." The lie comes out easy, automatic. I've told it so many times it almost feels true.

She nods slowly, like she's filing that information away somewhere. "I found a note from my grandmother last night. About you."

My stomach tightens. "Yeah?"

"She said to let you stay. Said you needed somewhere to be invisible for a while." She's watching my face now, looking for a reaction. "What does that mean?"

I should tell her. Right now, standing in the cold morning air with her grandmother's words hanging between us, I should just say it. I'm a hockey player. I'm suspended. I did something I can't take back and I've been hiding here ever since.

But the words stick in my throat.

"It means I needed somewhere quiet," I say instead. "And your grandmother was kind enough to give me that."

She holds my gaze for a long moment. I can't tell what she's thinking—her face is hard to read, guarded in a way that makes me wonder what she's protecting.

"Okay," she finally says. "I'm not going to push. But if you're going to stay here, I'd like to know who I'm living next to. Whenever you're ready to tell me."

It's not an ultimatum. It's an invitation. And somehow that's worse.

"I'll think about it," I say.

She nods and looks away, out toward the tree line. "There's coffee in the kitchen if you want some. Pot's still hot."

"Thanks."

I head into the cottage and close the door behind me, leaning against it for a second with my eyes closed. She's going to find out eventually. They always do. And then she'll look at me the way everyone else does—like I'm someone to be careful around, someone who might snap at any moment.

I should tell her myself before that happens. I should be the one to control the story.

But not today.

I push off from the door and head for the shower, stripping off my sweat-soaked clothes as I go. The hot water feels good, loosening the muscles I pushed too hard at the rink, washing away the tension that's been sitting in my shoulders since yesterday.

I'm toweling off when I hear my phone buzz on the kitchen counter.

My agent. Of course.

I almost let it go to voicemail like I always do, but something makes me pick up this time. Maybe it's Kelly's face in my head, the way she looked at me like she knew I was hiding something. Maybe it's just exhaustion wearing down my defenses.

"Travis." Dave's voice is too loud, too cheerful, the way it always is when he's about to deliver news he thinks I won't like. "Good, you're alive. I was starting to wonder."

"What do you want, Dave?"

"Straight to business. I respect that." He pauses, and I hear papers shuffling on his end. "So. I just got off the phone with the team. They want to talk."

My hand tightens on the phone. "Talk about what?"

"About your future. The suspension review is coming up next month. They're making decisions." Another pause. "They want you back for practice. Just practice, for now. See how it goes."

I don't say anything. I can't.

"Travis? You there?"

"Yeah." My voice sounds far away, even to me. "Yeah, I'm here."

"This is good news, buddy. This is what we've been waiting for."

Is it? I look out the window at the main house, at the kitchen light where Kelly is probably still sitting with her coffee, trying to figure out who I am.

"When?" I ask.

"Two weeks. They want you back in two weeks."

"I'll think about it," I say.

"Think about it? Travis, this is your career. This is everything you've worked for."

"I said I'll think about it."

I hang up before he can argue and set the phone down on the counter. My hands are shaking. I haven't noticed them do that in a while.

The quiet I've been hiding in is about to get very loud.