by Ellen Devlin
One more hug and she headed off to her room.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
There was a cloud of unhappiness hanging over the apartment the next few days. Liz didn’t want to push Paige to talk if she didn’t want to, but there was a subject that needed to be addressed, so she sat Paige down on the couch.
“You know I’m not great about subtlety and dancing around tough subjects, so I’m just going to come out and ask and hope that you give me a pass on tactlessness because, you know, it’s me.” Taking a deep breath, she asked, “I need to know if you will be upset if I stay in contact with Chris.”
Paige had some tears starting, but she didn’t look angry.
“I will be staying in touch with Zee—we’ve become really good friends already—and that means, by extension, I will sometimes see Chris.” Another deep breath. “But Chris feels like a really good friend to me too, and I don’t know what to do about that.”
She continued kind of in a rush, trying to just let her thoughts flow out and see where they led; she had known Paige long enough to have a solid hope that she would understand this manner of processing.
“He’s not a jerk, and he didn’t treat you badly—you know I wouldn’t stay friends with an asshole—but on the other hand, you’re my best friend in the entire world, and I don’t want you to be more upset by this, so if you need me to not see him, I will, Paige. But I’m also kind of worried about him, because I know this has got to be wrecking him too…” She winced a little at Paige’s reaction to this statement. “…and I know he’s not my responsibility and he has other friends, but shit, I feel like I need to talk with him, but I don’t want to do anything that will make you more unhappy, and I don’t want to lose his friendship, or Zee’s, but you’ve been with me through pretty much every hard time in my life, so I can’t lose you, so I don’t really know what to do.”
Paige stared at her for a moment before saying, “There was so little sentence structure to what you just said that I want to get out a red pen.”
Liz gave a brief laugh and got a smile from Paige in return.
“It’s okay, Liz. He’s your friend too.”
Liz squeezed her hands. “Are you sure?”
Paige sighed and said, “Yeah, I’m sure.”
Liz gave her a tight hug. “Thank you.”
***
Liz: Do you want to get coffee sometime?
Chris blinked in grateful surprise to see the text from Liz.
Chris: Yes when and where?
Liz sighed in relief, and they made plans to meet at a local Starbucks. She was waiting on the sidewalk when Chris walked up, and she hugged him fiercely enough that his emotional walls crumbled a little. When he squeezed her back in return, he said, “Shit, we should have met at my apartment. I don’t want to be unmanly right here on the sidewalk.”
She chuckled but said, “I’m so sorry, Chris.”
One more squeeze and he said, “Me too. Let’s go get coffee.”
Once they were seated with their drinks—regular coffee for Chris and a sweet, frothy concoction for Liz with extra shots of espresso—he asked the obvious question. “Does Paige know you’re here?”
“Here, specifically? No. But she knows that I want to stay in contact with you and that I will be seeing you.” She looked at him sideways and said, “That is, if it’s okay with you. Fuck, these things feel so complicated. I consider you a good friend, Chris, and would like to still get together sometimes, you know, with Zee or whatever.”
“Of course, you idiot.” He smiled at her. “I was really glad you texted.”
Liz exhaled in relief and then asked, quietly, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Chris rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the ceiling. “I guess? I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t understand what happened. Everything seemed fine, and then, suddenly, it wasn’t.”
“You’re an athlete,” she said. “You live in that world and you always have. It feels completely normal to you. The risks, the public attention, the uncertainty. To Paige it’s scary as hell. I think the idea that it’s possible for you to be traded was the final catalyst for all of this. That’s not something she had considered; she thought having a contract meant you were here for sure, at least for the next six years. I think that started a cascade of fear and doubt about, well, everything.”
“Shit.” Chris fiddled with his coffee cup. “Yeah, that fits with the timing of this.”
“If the two of you were together, and you were traded, it would mean moving to God-knows-where, at essentially a moment’s notice, with almost no input from her.
“There are places that you will never live, no matter if she would want to. Like, say, Omaha.” At a strange look from Chris, she clarified, “I’m not saying she would ever want to move to Omaha, or Santa Fe, but the minute she commits to being with an NHL player, those options are gone.”
Chris was looking thoughtful and a bit sad.
“Paige plans her life, Chris.” Liz so wanted him to understand. “It’s one of the reasons she’s so good at her job. It’s not that she has no flexibility—she does—but she is prepared and organized. Plan and contingency plan. Always.”
He sat back and asked, “Are you saying this is doomed? Because I can’t accept that. Three things, Liz. There are three things in my life that have been crystal clear to me. And she’s one of them.”
“No, sweetie, I’m not saying anything like that.” Liz put her hand on his arm. “She loves you, Chris. In a way and with a depth that I have never seen in her before. But I think something about that is scaring her to death.”
Chris’s face became almost unreadable; there was a mix of emotions that seemed to war across his features. Hope, joy, sadness, love, desperation.
“I won’t just walk away from this,” he said in a voice that had gone rough with emotion. “I can’t. I won’t push her, but I won’t leave, either. Not unless she tells me she doesn’t love me, Liz. As long as she loves me, then I’m in this for the long term.”
Liz smiled at the conviction in his voice and said, “So, low-speed chase?”
He smiled too but said, “You’re goddamn right I’m going to be chasing Paige.”
“You know I love you, right, Chris?” She stood up and walked toward him as he rose from his chair. “You’re already family to me. Paige just isn’t quite ready to believe it yet.”
Chris hugged her tight for a moment and said, “So you believe in this?”
Liz pushed back from him and looked him in the eye. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, sweetie.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
When Paige got to her desk at school Monday morning, there was a vase with one perfect red rose and a card that simply said:
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
She smiled a bit sadly and tucked the card into her wallet.
***
Chris wasn’t particularly looking forward to the next weekly radio call-in. There were some real hockey-related things to talk about—the trades that had just happened, for one—but it was inevitable that they would poke at his relationship to try to get details about Paige, and this week, that was not going to be fun.
“Hey, Chris! Thanks for calling in. Things have been on a little hot streak lately for you guys. Nice score the other night, by the way.”
“Thanks! Happy to talk with you guys. Yeah, we’ve had some puck luck, and a bit of it rubbed off on me the other day. I got a great pass from Navee—he put it right on my tape. It would have sucked to miss after such a nice setup.”
“Yeah, that guy seems to be really kicking up his game this season. Seems to be winning a good number of face-offs too.”
“Definitely. He puts in a lot of work on that. He’s an important part of our penalty kill in that way too. If you can keep the other guys from getting the puck and maybe send it down the ice so they have to chase it, it knocks a few seconds off the clock un
til you get your guy back.” So far, so good. Keep talking hockey, please.
They discussed the trades—Washington had picked up a veteran forward as well as a defenseman—and the upcoming schedule.
“So, are you guys looking at the playoffs already? Or do you not talk about that yet?”
“No, we’re looking at tomorrow night’s game, always. Gotta get after what’s right in front of you if you even want to make it to the playoffs, right?”
Keep talking hockey.
“Yeah, but you gotta have it in the back of your mind that you guys are only one point down from New Jersey in the division.”
Chris laughed and said, “I truly try not to think about it. One game at a time.”
And then JD chimed in, “So, Chris, how’s that hot girlfriend of yours?”
Shit.
“She’s…” What? What is she? Not really my girlfriend, that’s what she is. “I’m sure she’s doing well. It’s a busy time of year for her too.”
As soon as the sentence was out of his mouth, Chris was kicking himself.
“You’re ‘sure she’s doing well?’” another host asked. “That sounds like you don’t really know.”
“What’s going on with you two? Trouble in paradise?”
Fuck. Me.
“Well, things get crazy, and schedules are frustrating, so…” Chris was looking for a way to deflect this, hoping that they would drop it or that his time on-air would run out.
“Hey, man, we don’t mean to pry…”
“Yes, we do,” another one interrupted.
The third chimed in with, “We totally mean to pry.”
Laughing, the first one said, “Okay, yes, we do. We’re prying. Are you guys on the outs? Inquiring minds want to know, Chris.”
Chris said, “Guys, I’ve got my mind wrapped around hockey. Looking forward to the next game. And the game after that. And hopefully lots of games after that. So, that’s where my head is right now.”
They relented. “All right, sounds like we’re just relegated strictly to hockey talk with Chris right now, and we’re up against a break. Hope things are going okay, pal, and we’ll talk to you next week.”
“Everything’s good. Thanks for having me on, guys. It’s a pleasure talking to you.”
Chris hung up the phone, put his head in his hands, with his elbows on his knees, and just stared at the floor for a few minutes. I don’t fucking need to be reminded of what I’m missing and have it broadcast to the entire DC area.
***
The next Monday when Paige walked into her classroom, there was a vase on her desk with two red roses. The card read:
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
Paige sighed, wiped a small tear, and tucked the card into her wallet with the first one. He had not contacted her in any other way than this, these roses, since telling her she could have all the time she needed.
***
Zee knew what had happened between them, although Chris had tried not to make it too widely known. Too many questions, and he wanted to keep his head in the game as much as he could, but it had been impossible to keep it from Zee, considering how close they had all become.
Zee, for his part, was being admirably discreet and doing his best not to disrupt things in the locker room. Well, at least not in that way. Pranks always made people feel better. Laughter was great medicine.
Chris did his best to keep his personal life from affecting his game, and he succeeded on the ice, but off the ice, even just in the locker room, was a different story. Everything just felt…off.
***
By the third Monday, she wasn’t surprised to see the vase with three red roses and knew what the card would say before she read it:
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
***
Life was going on as before; Liz watched games and sometimes met with Zee and/or Chris when they were in town. Paige graded papers and worried about her students’ test scores.
And Chris…well, Chris played hockey and forced himself to do no more than send Paige roses every week. When he saw Liz, they usually didn’t talk about Paige or the relationship or anything of importance. The concern showed on her face and in how hard she hugged him when they saw each other.
After one of their coffee dates, however, Liz started to leave but turned back to the table and sat down again.
“She’s been taking skating lessons.”
Chris was clearly startled.
“Really?” His look was mixed—part happiness, but with a clear thread of disappointment.
“What’s wrong?” Liz reached out and put her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Chris, I thought knowing that would make you happy.”
“It does. It should. I just…” Chris rubbed his hand on the back of his neck and looked up at the ceiling for a moment, gathering himself before continuing. “I just thought I would be the one to teach her.”
Liz laughed and said, “No way, Chris. That would never happen.”
He looked confused and a little hurt.
“You’ve gotta trust me on this one, Chris. Even if you guys weren’t…even if you were together, she never would have let you teach her. Too much pressure. She’d rather learn on her own or from a neutral third party.”
He still looked unsure, so she continued, “Don’t be offended, at all, truly. That’s just the way she is. She has her own style of learning new things, and she almost always prefers it to be by herself, at least at first. Once she’s feeling more confident, she can handle the group dynamic better.”
Chris stared at her, one eyebrow raised, and she stared back for a moment, wheels turning in her head.
Finally, Liz said, “Huh. Yeah, she definitely needs space to learn lessons. Even about herself.”
Chris finally gave her a smile that looked a little more hopeful.
***
Monday. Four red roses, and the card:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
Paige snorted. You’re hardly poor, Chris. She immediately felt a pang of regret at the slightly snide thought. He had never flaunted his salary, never made her feel “less than” because she wasn’t in a high-paying, high-power job. He seemed to be genuinely impressed with her passion for teaching and supportive of her career, understanding how much it meant to her.
***
The playoffs were rapidly approaching, and the Guardians had just clinched their playoff spot—they had one more road trip, and then they were back in DC for the last game before the first round of the playoffs started.
Chris was going to put his head back and try to catch a little sleep on the flight, but Zee slid into a seat beside him shortly after takeoff.
“Hey, Becks.” Zee was speaking uncharacteristically quietly. “I just wanted to check in. Any changes? How are you doing?”
While initially irritated by the interruption of his planned solitude, Chris found himself grateful for the concern.
“Nothing new. I send her roses every Monday, but other than that, I’m just trying to give her space.”
“Shit. Sorry, man.” He moved as if he were going to get up but then asked, “Really, though, you okay? I mean, you’re playing well, but you’re definitely not the same. I don’t think anyone else notices as much, but I do.” With a much more characteristic little smirk, he added, “I need you to be on your ‘A’ game to make me look good, ya know.”
Chris thought for a moment about how to answer. “I’m dealing. Hockey for me, roses for her. After the season is over, I can think about what more to do, but until then, I’m just trying to focus on us playing hockey as far into June as possible.”
Zee clapped him on the shoulder as he got up to return to his seat.
“Sounds good, man. Hang in there.”
***
Another Monday, with five red roses, and another card to tuck into her wallet:
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
>
Well, that was certainly true. Chris had worn his heart on his sleeve from day one. Gentle, sweet, unguarded, and vulnerable. Paige sniffled and wiped away a few tears, trying to get ready for her first class of the day.
There was only one more line in the poem. What’s going to happen after that?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“What’s up?” Liz asked after hearing Paige cursing at her laptop.
“What? Oh, sorry. I didn’t even realize that I had said anything out loud.” She took a deep breath and blew it back out again. “Just an email from my mom. I seriously don’t understand why Becca even taught her how to use the computer sometimes.”
Liz walked closer to Paige and leaned against the wall, drinking a beer.
“I swear, Paige, sometimes I hate your mother so much I don’t know how to handle it. I know that you have worked so hard on personal stuff, and the changes in you have been amazing over the years,” she took a drink before continuing, “but she still makes me furious. She still intentionally pushes every one of your buttons. She does everything in her power to undermine your confidence.”
Paige grimaced. “Yeah. But I am really proud of myself for where I am, you know?”
“God yes.” Liz sat down at the kitchen island barstool and leaned on the counter. “As you should be. But…”
Paige leaned on the other side of the counter. “I’ll bite, but what?”
“You still don’t appreciate yourself.”
