5. Ryan #2
I’d been there about ten minutes when Griffin came through the door with Maren behind him.
She’d changed out of her staff gear into jeans and a black tank top that hugged every bit of her.
She looked like she’d been out in the sun all day, warm-cheeked and easy, and I took a drink of my beer and told myself I hadn’t been watching the door and it was nothing but a coincidence I’d caught her arrival.
Cole clocked her in half a second.
“Callahan.” He was moving toward Griffin, a playful smirk forming. He was about to fuck with Griffin. “You didn’t tell us your sister was—”
“Finish that sentence,” Griffin said pleasantly, “and I will make your life very difficult.”
“I was going to say so clearly a Callahan.”
“You were not going to say that.”
“She has your eyes, man. It’s a family resemblance observation.” Cole extended a hand to Maren with the full-wattage grin. “Maren, it’s wonderful to see you. Can I get you a drink?”
Maren seemed surprised by the offer, raising her eyebrows and grinning, but as I looked around the room, I could tell more than half of them wanted to be the guy to get her a drink. Jealousy I had no right to feel roiled in my stomach.
“She’s my sister,” Griffin said with a sideways glare. “Remember that.”
“Constantly on my mind,” Cole said, already moving on, but he added a wink in Maren’s direction which caused her to let out a light laugh. She knew the game being played here.
Theo, nearby, had been watching with his arms crossed. He turned to Maren, then to Griffin, then back. “Your brother is a good goalie,” he said. From Theo, this constituted both an introduction and the highest possible praise.
“He’ll be thrilled you think so,” Maren said.
Theo nodded once and returned to his drink and his conversation with one of the rookies.
I was watching from about eight feet away, something happening in my body I didn’t have a name for yet, but it was clearly adjacent to want. Griffin was my best friend and she was Griffin’s sister and the guys chirped because that was what they did, and none of it required anything from me.
I took another sip of my beer and peeled at the label with my thumb.
It was nothing. I just didn’t have anything else to focus on. Not that I wanted to focus on anything but her. Ugh.
I was mid-conversation with Novak when Griffin materialized at my elbow with Maren behind him, still in the Sidewinders hat she’d been wearing at the arena.
“You know my sister,” Griffin said, gesturing to Maren.
“I do,” I said. “How are you, Maren?”
“I’m good, thanks.” Silence fell between us. “Good assist.”
“Thanks. Sorry about the loss.” Sorry about the loss? Like it was a personal affront to her? What the fuck am I saying?
“It’s game one.” She said it with easy certainty, someone who’d grown up in a hockey household and understood what that meant. “Griffin cried after game one of his first NHL season.”
“I did not cry,” Griffin said.
“He cried.”
“I had something in my eye.”
“Both eyes,” Maren said, “at the same time, for twenty minutes.”
Griffin pointed at me. “Don’t listen to her. She’s a liar and she always has been.” Someone called his name across the bar. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said to her, and disappeared into the crowd.
Maren studied the space Griffin had vacated and rolled her eyes before turning her attention back to me.
“He does that,” she said.
“Every time.”
She turned back and the noise of the bar came back around us and it was easy between us the way it had been since the beginning. The corridor, the treatment room, the Sunday dinner table, the kitchen. Always easy. That was part of the problem.
I’d been trying not to think about Sunday.
I’d been failing at it for days, replaying the moment in the kitchen like I was watching game film.
The coffee maker beeping. The small kitchen.
The way she’d raised her eyes to me and waited.
I’d been close enough it would have been a choice and I’d known exactly what I was considering and I’d made the right decision, the correct professional and personal decision, and Griffin had yelled from the garage and confirmed it.
I still wasn’t convinced it had been the right decision. That was also part of the problem. Kissing her in her parents kitchen while everyone was home was not a good idea. But there were other places…
My phone buzzed.
Anna: Good assist. Also who is the woman on the bench you keep looking at
Ryan: That’s the Director of Sports Medicine
Anna: Ryan
Ryan: She’s staff. She’s Griffin’s sister. She’s a colleague
Anna: You looked at her three times during warm-ups. I counted
Ryan: The camera was doing warm-up coverage?
Anna: Of your face. Looking at someone. On the bench. Three times
I put my phone in my pocket.
“Everything okay?” Maren asked.
“My sister. She watched the game.” I shook off my sister’s comments and brought my full attention back to Maren.
“That’s sweet.”
“She’s not being sweet.”
Maren’s expression was curious but she didn’t push. Something I noticed about her. She opened doors and waited to see if you walked through them, and she’d been doing it since we had spent time together back in college.
I noticed her glass was almost empty. “You want another?”
She glanced down at it. “One more.”
The bar was packed three deep and I put my hand lightly at her back to guide her through, and she stepped into the space beside me without hesitation, close enough I could smell her shampoo or perfume or something over the noise and the beer and the September heat still coming off everyone’s skin.
I flagged the bartender and ordered without asking what she was drinking because I’d been paying attention and I already knew.
She noticed. She didn’t say anything about it but ducked her head and smiled, and I filed it away with everything else I wasn’t supposed to be keeping.
The drinks came. I paid.
“Come on,” I said. “There’s a spot in the back.”
She picked up her glass and followed me.
The crowd was thick enough that I reached back without thinking and she took my hand for the three seconds it took to get through the worst of it so we wouldn’t get separated, and then we were through and I led her to the table, brushing my hand at her lower back one last time when I pulled the chair out for her.
It was a stolen touch.
I didn’t care.
She didn’t seem to mind either. Yet another thing to file away.