45. nick
NICK
THE INVESTIGATOR AND SEXY CAT CHAUFFEUR
“Why do you walk the cat on a leash?” one of the kids around the circle asked.
I sat crisscross in their library reading circle. I was about six times bigger than any of the little kids that sat around me. Rat leaped onto my hand to bite my fingers and I brushed her away. “Because Tallulah doesn’t want her to hunt birds.”
“I think Tallulah makes you use a leash because you look funny walking a cat.”
I shot her an unimpressed smile. “Thanks, Lavender.”
One of the little boys raced over from the arts and crafts table. “I made you a present.”
“A present?” I held out my hand and he dropped a beaded bracelet, covered in little pictures of books. I was so surprised by the gift. “Oh. Wow…thank you.”
“It’s books because one day, you can read too!”
I slipped on the bracelet. “Avery, I can read.”
“But we read to you?”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t read—I brought my own book, it’s in the car—”
“Are you lying?” Lavender asked, batting her eyelashes.
“No! I can read!”
“Nick!” Tallulah called from the librarian’s station. She’d spent the last hour and a half deep in research, with plenty to show for it. There was a stack of books and printouts in her arms. “Time to go!”
I stood up, scooping Rat off the ground. “The kids said I can’t read!”
Her mouth fell open. “They found out?”
“What? I can read—” I whipped around, indignant to discover the group of kids laughing like it was so funny. I muttered under my breath, motioning them away when they tried to follow me to the door. “I’ve had enough of your harassment today.”
Tallulah snickered and I took some of the books from her arms. “You’re so good with them.”
“They make fun of me.”
“It’s good for your ego.”
I threw her a grin and nudged her shoulder, taking more books from her stack. “What’d you find?”
“A couple of books on him playing for the Montreal Coyotes, a couple of books on his time as a coach for the Toronto Tigers. The real finds are these,” she said, nodding towards the stack of colorful folders she’d color-coordinated.
“Not all newspapers are archived online. I had to do dives into the local collections across the Toronto library system. Especially on clippings that might’ve been buried. ”
“Buried?”
“On purpose? On accident? Who can say?” She shrugged. “There are certain years that are gigantic white spaces online, just dead ends. I’m hoping these will provide more context, more clues.”
“It’s scary how intense you get. Scary and hot.”
She arched an eyebrow, sliding into the passenger seat of my car. “Scary and hot?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Menacing, but I’m also horny listening to it.”
“You have such a way with words,” she laughed.
I pulled out of the library’s parking lot. “Where are we headed to next?”
Tallulah had a list of errands to run that coincided with her research.
She tried to see if any of her fellow interns were down for an ‘off-the-grid’ research project.
Nobody signed on for it, even Winona declined.
Most of their parents were involved in some way with Tomasini, they didn’t want to get involved in anything that’d jeopardize those relationships.
So it was just the two of us. Tallulah, the investigator, and me, her sexy cat chauffeur.
We arrived at the Everett Center for the team’s defense practice, my off-day. Tallulah wanted to talk to a few of my teammates. I closed the car door behind me, placing Rat on my shoulder. She pressed her head against mine, claws sunk into my shirt.
Tallulah frowned. “You’re not seriously bringing the cat.”
“Why not?”
“She’s a cat.”
“I’m not leaving her in the car. What if she gets a heat stroke?”
“It’s the first mild day in weeks—”
“You don’t know what’ll happen in twenty minutes.”
Tallulah stared, dumbfounded. “What, like a comet hits the Earth?”
“I’m not leaving our kid in the car,” I told her, bypassing her for the front doors. Rat meowed and I glanced over my shoulder. “She agrees with me.”
“Oh my god,” Tallulah sighed.
I opened the door for her and she made sure I saw her eyeroll. I grinned back, wiggling my eyebrows.
My teammates were going through drills. Most of them glanced over, curious at our arrival on a day I wasn’t supposed to be in.
“Um…” Tallulah tapped my hand. “Can you…?”
“Serge?” I called to my captain. He skated over and I lowered my voice. “Can you grab Krull, Muratov, Brennan, Blond, and Gordo over? Without coaches getting involved?”
He gave me a confused look but whistled a few of the guys to us.
“My girlfriend has something to say,” I announced.
“Fucking knew it.” Gordo grinned. “Knew you two weren’t friends.”
Tallulah flushed, gazing up at the hockey players waiting on her. “Um…hi. I’m Tallulah—”
“We know who you are, Tallulah,” Krull chortled. “Loverboy made sure of that.”
“I’m tired of listening to your bed creak,” Gordo joked. “You two make me hate sex.”
“Be nice,” I warned.
“I—I want to discuss—um—Joe Tomasini?” Tallulah said quietly, hands clasped. “Have you ever been in a situation with him where you felt unsafe?”
For a moment it was silent. And then the group of them burst into laughter, hard laughter, careening laughter, where once they caught the look on each other’s faces, the laughter started up all over again.
They laughed until they realized I wasn’t laughing, and Tallulah was blushing dark red, also silent.
“Are you serious?” Gordo asked. “Oh, uh, every fucking day?”
Serge leaned back, whistling for another teammate’s attention. “Drew! What was the thing with Tomasini—?”
“Fuck you, Serge! Don’t piss me off!”
“Drew, get your ass over here.”
Drew skated up, irritable at being summoned. “What?”
“What’d Tomasini do when you two had that argument?”
“Motherfucker punched me in the back of the head.”
Tallulah’s mouth fell open, and even I was surprised.
Tomasini liked to throw things, scream in your face, and push you to unsafe levels during a workout but those were all things you could cover up pretty reasonably.
I thought he’d gotten smarter with violence.
A punch to the back of the head was different, that was physical proof.
“Do you remember when that happened?” Tallulah asked. “Where it happened?”
“Five—six months ago? Happened here.”
“At Everett?”
“Yeah.” Drew nodded. “I used to play for the Tigers a long time ago. Tomasini wanted me to agree to a memorial event. I couldn’t, it was my daughter’s birthday.
Tomasini and I were yelling at each other in the hallway.
” Drew tipped his chin towards the east hallway.
“I tried to walk away and motherfucker punched me in the back of the head. I thought I was going to pass out.”
“Here, like…where there’s cameras?” Tallulah asked.
“There’s gotta be cameras, but I sure as shit don’t want to see it.”
“No, I—I—” Tallulah hesitated. “I…um…”
“Tallulah’s writing a piece about Tomasini,” I explained. “She’s going to interview him face to face and attach this stuff to the interview.”
Drew stiffened. “You’re putting it out there? Woah, hey, I didn’t sign up for that—”
“Tomasini promised the winner of the internship a no holds barred interview. I won. I emailed him the confirmation from his assistant’s computer.” Tallulah flushed with pleasure. “Tomasini is the one who scheduled it with The Toronto Chronicle. I’m going to do an exposé on him!”
“Not with my video,” Drew said suddenly.
“I’ll blur the faces,” Tallulah promised. “This is how we can take him down.”
Everyone was suddenly uncomfortable and I studied my teammates, all looking at Tallulah with the same expression. No one was agreeing to this. Fuck. I shoved my hands in my pockets. What was I expecting? These guys had careers they didn’t want to jeopardize too.
“Look, you’re a nice girl…” Drew sighed. “But…”
“But what?” Tallulah pressed, confused.
“I can’t do that.”
Blinking, Tallulah faced Krull instead. “Eden said Tomasini threw a stapler at you—”
“He missed,” Krull quickly said, a flush creeping up his neck. “No harm. No foul.”
“No harm?” Tallulah repeated. “Gordo, Tomasini hit you with a bar stool.”
“That was a long time ago,” Gordo said instantly. “A couple weeks ago at least. And it wasn’t even at the Everett Center, it was at a bar—”
“A bar would have cameras,” Tallulah interjected. “I don’t understand. No one…?”
My teammates shared pained looks. I understood. Hockey was our way of life and going against Tomasini had serious consequences. I was evidence of that. Nobody else wanted to risk it.
“Tallulah, you can use my video,” I told her, keeping my voice low. “It’s a good one. He had me do a three-minute plank after a game and tossed books on my back and—”
“Woah, woah, kid.” Serge stopped me and pulled back. “We’re in that one too.”
Tallulah’s lip curled, her eyes narrowed. If I didn’t know Tallulah, I would’ve said she was angry. She folded her arms over her chest. “You were there.”
“Yeah.” Serge sighed. “And the video won’t look good.”
“Won’t look good?” Tallulah repeated. “Tomasini had Nick do a three-minute plank after a game and you did…nothing. None of you did anything.”
Gordo rubbed the back of his neck. “We couldn’t do anything, Tallulah—”
“There’s twenty grown men on this team,” Tallulah said, her voice icy. “Nobody did anything. Nobody stopped him. Nobody reported it.”
It was more complicated than that. Of course the guys told him to stop. They stuck their necks out for me. I knew that. Yet the longer I watched my teammates, these guys that had at least a decade on me, most of them averted their eyes, ashamed.
“Tallulah.” Drew cleared his throat. “I’m forty-three. Tomasini said I have a shot at the North Stars next season, I can’t miss that. If what you do doesn’t work, I’ll get fucked over, and—”
“You have a son Nick’s age,” Tallulah snapped.
Drew flinched, pushing away from the boards. His mutter directed to me, “I’m really sorry, kid.”
I nodded along to the apologies, I didn’t know what else to do. I liked these guys, I did, and I knew where Tallulah’s frustration came from, but I could see it from their perspective too. I didn’t hate them or anything. It was just a shitty situation we were all stuck in.
Tallulah walked away, obviously disappointed.
I met her at the stairs. “It’s fine, Tallulah—”
“It’s not fine, Nick.” She turned around, her back to the railing. She bit her lip. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything. The summer’s almost done.” I shrugged, showing her that it wasn’t a big deal. “I know you want to help, but I’m never signing on with Tomasini again. It’s okay. I promise.”
“He hurt you. That’s not okay.”
Tallulah hurried to wipe at her eye. Was she crying? They were angry tears, Tallulah averted her gaze to hide them. I was touched that she cared so much, it meant a lot to me, but I knew we couldn’t do anything about it.
I went to give her a hug and she sidestepped up the stairs. “No. I’m not giving up.”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“Yes, there is,” she insisted, then nodded to herself. “I just need to find people who can talk.”
“You won’t find anyone in hockey.”
Her eyes flickered to mine and she frowned. “I…right.” Tallulah went up the stairs again, wiping away the last of the tears with her sleeve. “Someone not in hockey. Someone who’s experienced Tomasini but their career doesn’t hinge on his approval.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, following after her.
Tallulah didn’t answer. She whipped out her phone, hurrying to the front doors. I jogged to keep up with her. “Max? Hey?”
“What—Max?” I said, appalled. “I thought that was done.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Um, no, Nick and I are still dating,” she said awkwardly to the phone. I grumbled under my breath, pushing open the door for her. “Max, I have a question. You said a lot of people have stories about Tomasini. Like, Olympians? Or Olympian-adjacent people?”
“Anybody but Max,” I muttered. “Anybody but him.”
“Are you at the training facility?” Tallulah asked, clearly ignoring me. “I need to talk to you. Actually, I need to talk to a lot of people.”