6. nick
NICK
AS A COUPLE WE MAKE SENSE
Everything about my rental car pissed me off. I’d paid a hefty price for a Thunderbolt, because I’d figured by the end of the flight, Tallulah would’ve wanted my passenger seat. Wishful thinking. I had to fuck up and ruin everything with her.
I was in heavy traffic, muttering to myself that I’d paid so much money for a goddamn car that I’d barely drive since the Everett Center was so close to the house I was staying at.
“Moron.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Stupid. Fucking stupid.”
I’d never been in this position before. Girls literally threw their panties at me when I did interviews. They wanted me to sign their ass. I had actual stalkers back in Minnesota. I could count the girls who’d rejected me on one hand!
How was it that the one girl I wanted was the one girl who didn’t want me back?
I took a sharp right at the Everett Center. It wasn’t the biggest hockey arena in Toronto, but it was a great downtown location. A lady with an earpiece was happy to direct me to the locker room where a stall had my name on it.
She gave me complimentary gear for the Toronto Blades and waved a paper in my face. “Do you have your schedule?”
“For the games?”
“No, your schedule.”
The double-meaning rang in her words. With a sigh, I took it from her and glanced down the list. There were dinners for Joe Tomasini’s various foundations, meetings with various companies he owned, and…
“What’s all these gray boxes?” I frowned.
“Tomasini will put something there. Don’t treat it like he’ll forget and it’s free time; he’ll have something for you to do.”
Great. No doubt whatever Tomasini had for me would be boring and shitty and long.
“You’ll be working fifty-five hours a week,” she reminded me. “To start.”
I grimaced. “That’s what I volunteered for.”
She snorted and I finished signing the last of the paperwork when my phone rang.
Please. I wanted it to be Tallulah. She had my number. There were a few times she texted me to ask about emergency hockey stuff when she wasn’t able to get a hold of Fridge.
Of course, it wasn’t her. It was my team captain from Marrs—Denali Maddox.
Denali was an uptight dude who took his captain-y duties a little too seriously. I liked hanging out with Denali, you know, the guy on my team, not “Captain Maddox.” Especially since his girlfriend, Zariah, left for the summer, leaving him extra anal.
I groaned, answering the call.
“No solicitors,” I told him. “If you’re calling me, we’re talking about how we’re kicking Fridge’s ass at Noped this Thursday. Gaming topics only.”
“Have you talked to Tomasini?”
“I just touched down,” I said, passing my signed documents across the desk. “I’m not even out of the airport.”
“Don’t lie. You’re at the Everett Center.”
I glanced over my shoulder, convinced that my pasty-faced captain was right behind me. “Are you tracking me?”
“Yeah. It’s part of the group chat.”
I was so flabbergasted, I didn’t know what to say. Over the line I could hear my teammates shout their hellos. It was chaotic as Denali brushed them away, repeating his question.
A pang of homesickness hit me.
I joined the Gladiators last May, and I missed those dumb motherfuckers. A lot more than I thought I would.
“Tomasini’s running the league as an advisor, he’s not my actual coach,” I told Denali, leaving the Everett Center. “I doubt he’ll even be here. Well, hope he won’t be here. Knock on wood for me.”
“Go talk to him.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Talk to him about moving the Gladiators to the USAC,” Denali pressed. “That’s your mission. You don’t get to decline it.”
“I will, okay?” I lied.
Tomasini was a fucking asshole. Even if the Gladiators were trophy winners for the Gulf Coast Championship, he’d never let us into the major college hockey conference.
It was something Denali couldn’t understand.
Because he didn’t know what Tomasini was like, only the rumors, and even those were tame.
Regardless of Denali’s anal nature, he was still one of my best friends. My lips curved for a smile. “Uptight prick.”
“Miss us?” another teammate called through the line.
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Don’t cry too much while I’m gone. I’ll be back in August to carry you guys through another championship.”
My jokes were pretty tepid, but none of the guys noticed my poor mood. They were too busy asking me questions about Canada until Fridge interrupted. “Would you leave Nick alone? He just got off the plane!”
The call with Denali ended, and Fridge took over.
I grinned. “Yeah, keep me away from those animals.”
We chatted about our upcoming gaming session while I drove towards the house. The expansive brick house was four floors with huge windows, and a garden that was way nicer than what hockey players could be expected to keep up. The one perk of becoming Tomasini’s pack mule.
I blinked, shutting the car door behind me. “Fuck, this house is enormous.”
“Enormous and an OSHA violation?” Fridge asked. “Or enormous and nice?”
“This place is so nice. It looks like a murder mystery house. You know what I mean? Some Southern detective is going to ‘I declare’ stroll in here. Patriarchs die in a place like this.” I whistled, walking up the pretty pathway.
“Toronto’s paying the rent. Or I would’ve had to sell my liver to stand on the lawn. ”
“You can’t live without your liver, Nick,” Fridge corrected me, chuckling.
“It’d be a happy death. This place is pretty fucking cool.”
He laughed again. There was no bad blood between us. Fridge was my best friend. I didn’t agree with how he handled his relationship with Tallulah, but him and her not ending up together was how it was supposed to be.
Fridge wasn’t the right guy for her. I was.
Inside, my new teammates were congregated around the kitchen island. They waved, pulling me in for half-hugs and gesturing to the bean dip on the counter.
The Toronto Blades was a minor team, cobbled together by Tomasini to take advantage of the Olympics crowds.
It was a downgrade from college hockey. My teammates back at Marrs had been shocked when I signed on for the summer.
The big difference was the team itself. Most of the guys on the Toronto Blades couldn’t play in more competitive leagues.
They’d handled one too many injuries or aged out of the lineup.
I was the youngest by about ten years and the only one with all of my teeth.
Which was kind of good. My new teammates and I had never hung out in the same circles, I’d never stepped out of line with any of their girlfriends, sisters, or moms. No bad blood here either.
I was directed to the second floor where I found a door with my name taped on it.
The bedroom was huge, a gigantic four-poster bed, all wooden furniture, heavy as shit.
There was even a connecting bathroom. I left most of my stuff by the bed and unzipped my suitcase, pulling out toiletries, when Fridge’s question made me pause.
“How was Tallulah?”
I hesitated, my shaving kit frozen midair. “Uh…we sat close to each other, but we didn’t really talk. I don’t know her like that.”
“I can’t believe she’s going through with it,” he admitted. “I thought she would’ve dropped the whole thing.”
“What thing?”
“Canada. She’s doing this to prove me wrong.”
“I don’t think that’s why Tallulah took the internship.”
“No, it is. Tallulah had this great plan to intern for a Houston congressional leader. And then she found the Olympics trip. I told her she couldn’t do it.
Because she can’t—she’s not that kind of person.
What she doesn’t realize is that I’m right.
” He sighed. “I messed up trying to explain it to her. Her parents are worried. This is my fault.”
For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. Fridge was a great guy, way smarter than me, loyal, thought things through, yet he could also be…
Our main enforcer, Elijah, called him a ‘self-righteous asshole.’
Sometimes, I couldn’t argue.
Maybe Fridge’s words had factored into Tallulah’s decision. I didn’t know. I couldn’t say. I just knew that wasn’t the main reason she’d flown thousands of miles from home.
And the way Fridge said that sounded…belittling?
Maybe?
I shook my head, dropping to my knees to store things under the sink. “That blonde from the bar didn’t work out, but what do you say we get you back out there?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Tallulah’s moving on. You should too.”
“Uh, no.” He chuckled again. “We’re getting back together.”
The hairs on the back of my neck rose. “What?”
“Once she’s done with the Canada thing, we’ll date again,” Fridge said, like he was mentioning the weather instead of making my heart stop. “As a couple, we make sense.”
“Make sense?” I repeated, my words hollow.
“Comparable economic background, our parents have a similar dynamic in their marriages, so we have a good basis for our relationship. We’re both only children.
Career-orientated. We don’t fight, we don’t argue, our goals are aligned.
We’d have a guaranteed stable future.” I could almost hear his shrug over the phone, nonchalant. “We’re dependable people. Reliable.”
I stared at the bathroom tile, fighting that sick feeling inside.
What if Fridge was right?
Tallulah was so intelligent. You could always see her working out problems behind her soft brown eyes. She was great at analyzing things, at breaking things down. She excelled at school, the student newspaper, everything she put her mind to. While I barely passed my classes with minimum effort.
And what about our families? Her parents didn’t like me, and my parents’ relationship was complicated in a way that I didn’t think Tallulah would understand.
Not to mention, nobody would ever call me dependable or reliable.
Tallulah and I didn’t make sense.
What if Fridge was right and I was just an obstacle in their relationship? A pothole on their journey?
Hurt seeped in like lemon juice on an open wound. The pain never dulled. Never faded.
“I have to—uh—let you go,” I lied. “We have a meeting for the house rules.”
“Sounds good,” he said cheerfully. “Talk to you Thursday.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Talk to you then.”
My steps down the stairs were heavy.
I didn’t have practice until tomorrow afternoon, and all I wanted to do was turn off the lights, haul myself into bed, and throw the blankets over my face. I wanted to be alone with the pain, like I’d been for months.
Because Fridge was right.
“Kurosawa!” one of my new teammates, Gordo, sang out. Minnesota and Toronto had a pretty close relationship, I’d never played with him, but I’d known him for years.
He offered me a beer. “Good to see you, bud. What time do you want to hit up Saturday’s party?”
I popped off the top. “I’m good.”
“You’re not going?!” he gasped in mock-surprise. “You need to party now before Tomasini shackles you to Everett!”
“I’m not in a party mood.”
“I’ve never known you not to—hold on—” He grabbed a flyer off of the fridge. “It’ll be fun! Cocktail attire, free liquor with the Olympic folks, it’s like a mixer for them—”
“Olympics?” I glanced at the flyer. “Like the people working for the Olympics?”
“Oh, sure, but I can’t wait for the Olympians themselves.” He winked. “Those girls have muscle. My favorite kind. If a woman can’t bust my skull with her thighs, I don’t want her. Some of them can toss me around—”
“The love of my life is a wrestler on the Ukrainian team,” another teammate piped up.
“Is that the one you proposed to and she said no?” another snickered.
“Yep. She’s flying in and told me to stock up on Plan B.” He sighed wistfully. “She said if I proposed to her in public again, she’ll block me for real. But I still have the ring. Just in case. A man can dream.”
At the bottom of the flyer, there was an address for a guy’s house. The details promised unlimited liquor and a party that’d go until four in the morning.
Would Tallulah go to the party?
If I asked Fridge, I knew what he’d say. It’d be an immediate no. This wasn’t Tallulah’s scene. Tallulah wouldn’t go to something like that.
The longer I gazed at the flyer, the more I considered it.
Maybe Fridge didn’t know Tallulah as well as he thought he did.