32. nick
NICK
FROM A CRACK IN THE SIDEWALK
Living with Tallulah was a dream come true.
I molded my schedule around hers. Every weekday, I woke up early to eat breakfast with her at a coffee shop down the street.
In my free time away from Tomasini, I built in lunches with Tallulah and scheduled naps with her.
The two of us would tangle up in the blankets together and Rat would snore on Tallulah’s pillow, curled around her head.
It was more perfect than I could’ve imagined.
After filming a stupid life insurance commercial, one of Tomasini’s many business ventures, I came home, ready for a nap. I found Tallulah in my bed, typing away on her laptop. Rat was sleeping at Tallulah’s feet, meowing when I walked in.
“That’s it?” I asked, yawning, exhaustion tugging at me. “You used to run up to me when I came home.”
Rat stretched her little paws and turned away from me, resting her head on Tallulah’s foot. “Meow.”
“Disrespectful,” I muttered to Tallulah and crawled into bed, so fucking grateful to lay down.
Tomasini had us go through the motions for four hours.
It was a thirty second advertisement—fucking ridiculous.
I’d been close to losing my mind on set.
Now here, in my bedroom, I could finally relax. “Can you believe Rat?”
I expected Tallulah to laugh. She gave me a wistful smile, a little distracted. “How was the commercial?”
“So much fun, look how much fun I had,” I chuckled, running my hand up her thigh. “How’s the profile?”
“Mm…I’m doing research on Joe Tomasini.”
I stared at her for a beat too long. I drew my hand away. “Why?”
“If I win the contest, and I intend on doing so, I’ll be interviewing him. I won’t get much prep time for picking questions.”
“Ah.”
Her voice was careful. “It seems like people had a lot more to say about him when he was playing for the Montreal Coyotes, or when he was the coach for the Toronto Tigers. Not much now. Which is interesting because he runs so much. He’s kind of…shadowy?"
“I guess.”
“What’s he like?” she asked slowly. “I only know he yells at Andrew over the phone sometimes. We can hear it from his office.”
I didn’t know what to say. Did one of my teammates let something slip? No. Of course not. This wasn’t an interrogation, only…questions.
I rolled away from the bed and unbuttoned my shirt, reaching for a loose t-shirt. “Uh…lethal shot in his heyday. Selected first overall in his draft. Coach Bud Weckhorst’s star player. Won multiple cups. The Al-Bentail Trophy, the Silver Shot Award—”
“I know his achievements,” Tallulah said quietly. “The internship’s named after Weckhorst, Tomasini’s biography is on the reading list, his portraits are on the walls. I know what everybody else knows about him.”
I glanced over my shoulder to find Tallulah’s eyes on me. Suddenly, I felt like one of her subjects. Like she was studying me, taking notes.
I cleared my throat. “What about him?”
“I was thinking about that lunch with the yellow dress. When you took the call from Tomasini.”
“Yeah?”
“You said he…berated you?”
Shit.
Did I?
Did that slip out when we had the argument outside of the restaurant? I struggled with an answer, I didn’t want to give one. “Uh…yeah.”
“Like he yelled at you?”
“Tomasini has kind of an anger problem,” I admitted and immediately wished I hadn’t. I pulled the shirt over my head. “Hockey can be a beacon for those types of guys. You know, they punch down, and nobody gets in their way.”
“Why would Tomasini berate you if he’s not your real coach?”
I opened my mouth to say something and clamped it shut, grabbing the laundry hamper. “I forgot I left clean clothes in the dryer—I’m going to do a load of laundry. You have anything you want thrown in?”
“Um, no.”
“Okay, I’ll—”
“Nick? You seem kind of…uncomfortable…”
“I’m not uncomfortable,” I lied.
“I just want to know why?”
I picked up the few things off my closet floor that I’d forgotten to toss in the basket. Silence filled the room. Claustrophobic silence. Stifling silence. I didn’t want our conversation to end like this. I didn’t want Tallulah to think I was hiding something, or avoiding the topic.
It didn’t matter if I was. I didn’t want her to think that.
I scooped up Rat, who meowed in protest. I didn’t care. I placed her in the hamper with my laundry. “Tomasini wanted to talk about my place in the Blades. He’s never been a guy who’s good at regular conversations. Only screaming matches.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. It was normal stuff, he just blows everything out of proportion.”
She bit her lip. “That’s not okay that he—”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Not important.”
I was restless on my walk downstairs. Why did I say that? I could’ve handled that way better. Shit. Now I had to figure out what to say when I walked back upstairs.
Rat meowed insistently from the laundry basket, cat-speak for “I want to go back upstairs, I want to cuddle with her.”
“Shh.” I set Rat on my shoulder, throwing laundry in the machine. “You’re doing laundry with me, freeloader.”
“Meow.”
“I pay your rent, your food, every vet visit you’ve ever had—freeloader is a perfect nickname.”
“Meow.”
Rat tried to jump down but I scratched her behind her ears, pressing her head against my cheek, holding her close. That cat had become a damn expensive bill on my monthly statement—and I would never admit it to Tallulah—but maybe she made me feel better.
It was getting worse with Tomasini. He was taking out all of his anger from when I walked away two years ago. Eventually, his workouts would get careless. The effects would move from exhaustion to bruising and it’d be different this time.
Two years ago, my parents’ marriage was on the rocks. It’d gotten so bad between them. The only thing my mom was happy about was my spot on the Winter Olympics team. Tomasini picked me out as his star player, and she’d been so excited for me.
I couldn’t tell my mom what was happening behind closed doors. The psychological shit he did to make my teammates hate me, the insults, the threats, the screaming fits. The physical shit because I didn’t know how to duck yet…
So I kept quiet.
When I was washed out, my mom asked about the bruises, and I came up with every lie I could think of. She believed the excuses.
Tallulah wouldn’t.
Eventually, Tallulah would have questions I couldn’t ignore.
“Shit,” I muttered, kissing Rat on the forehead. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.”
I dumped in the detergent as my phone rang.
My muscles tensed, but it wasn’t Tomasini.
I breathed out in relief. A tired grin crossed my face when I spotted who it was.
Shutting the lid of the machine, I answered the call.
“Hey, man. Bear hit me up, he can play Wednesday with us. And you know he’s been busy as hell since he made it to Boston—”
“Do you know who Tallulah’s sleeping with?” Fridge’s voice whirled through the call.
My stomach clenched. “Huh?”
“Tallulah’s sleeping with someone.”
“I—what? How do you know?”
“Her parents are dancing around the topic—they basically told me! Dude, the way her parents are making it sound, Tallulah’s actually seeing this guy. Not just sex. She’s serious about him!”
My heart slammed against my ribcage, beating like a drum close to busting open. My fingers gripped the edge of the washing machine. I couldn’t breathe.
My voice was hushed. “Are you sure?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions, Nick,” he replied, irritated. “If I wasn’t sure, why would I call you?”
Hope is a dangerous, dangerous thing and I could feel it growing, like a flower blossoming from a crack in the sidewalk. An impossibility in an impossible situation. Were their suspicions correct? Were Tallulah’s parents right?
Did Tallulah…think about me like that?
“I told Tallulah that she could sleep with whoever she wants.” Fridge heaved a hard breath. “I meant like fucking around, I didn’t mean—”
Slowly, I shifted up, numb. “Fridge?”
“What?”
The words were dredged up from deep inside. “I don’t like how you handled things with Tallulah.”
“What?” Fridge said, genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t like how you treated her.”
“Treated her? Nick, I…I don’t understand.”
“I think, sometimes, people hurt people without realizing it.” I was stiff, uncomfortable. Rat stayed as quiet as Fridge did. Maybe the kitten felt the severity of this conversation. I sure as hell did. “Fridge, you hurt Tallulah’s feelings. What right do you have to know who she’s dating?”
“Hurt her feelings…?”
“We talked about her bucket list.”
“Jesus Christ,” he stuttered. “Tallulah told you about that?”
“Yes. Why did you ignore it? Seriously—why?”
His words sharpened. “How would you feel if your girlfriend made a list of sex stuff for you to do because—?”
“No, no, no,” I interjected. “That’s not what happened—”
“How are you going to tell me what happened?” he demanded.
“Tallulah didn’t write that list to make you feel shitty,” I retorted. “She wrote it as a way to connect with you! To open herself up to you—goddammit, Fridge. That’s a gift, how could you trash it?”
“You don’t know Tallulah! She doesn’t like getting head. That’s, like, my specialty. What was I supposed to do?!”
“If you two weren’t sex compatible or whatever, you were supposed to break up with her, asshole!” I snapped. “Not string her along until December!”
“I wanted her to break up with me—I didn’t want to be the bad guy!”
“Then you’re a coward!” I shouted.
Silence.
Neither of us said anything. I was so tired and it was hard to pick apart my feelings for this. My protectiveness over Tallulah. My regret that I let my opportunity with her slide for so long. How much I cared about Fridge. The way I resented him for how he made her feel.
“If it was anybody else, this would be different,” I admitted.
“But you’re Fridge Fowler. The guy who talks this big talk about open dialogues, and healthy communications, and therapy-speak bullshit.
But when it comes to you and your uncomfortable conversations, you’re just like the rest of us.
You felt small and you couldn’t face up to it, so you dipped out.
And now that you realized it was a mistake, you're crawling back.”
“Nick…”
“You’re like a brother to me,” I continued, my voice twisted. “If I’m being honest, I’d take a bullet for you. But goddamnit, grow the fuck up.”
There it was.
If I knew anything about hockey players, the culture itself, this was where he’d scream at me, where we’d really get into it. My shoulders tensed, bracing for impact, waiting for the confrontation. Waiting for this to get so much worse.
“You’re right,” Fridge mumbled, his voice barely audible over the call. “I felt shitty, and I was shitty to her because of it.”
I didn’t know what to say. “I—I—”
“It was wrong,” Fridge said, a little more firm. “I need to apologize.”
“Apologize?”
With a click, the call ended.
What did he mean? My eyes darted to the black kitten, gazing up at me with golden eyes. What did Fridge mean by apologize?
Apologize to who?
“Oh, shit,” I whispered, and scooped up the cat, sprinting for the stairs.