That had been a pretty nice version of “get the fuck out.” He even managed not to drop any f-bombs. New personal best. But the blonde responded like he kidney punched her. She did drop the f-bomb, several of them as she screamed about how he had never given her, given them a chance. Then she threw the coffee she’d brought down for him on the ice. Pretty fucking disrespectful.
That’s why he needed to up his minimum age requirement Keane decided when she finally huffed away. The younger ones always threw tantrums when he told them to bounce.
Well, all but one of them…
“I get that your natural setting is withholding. You’ve got a lot of emotions you’re suppressing and you probably want to protect yourself…” Lena said calmly when she’d come to visit him in the rehab center after the accident and he told her to get the fuck out as soon as he saw her standing in the doorway.
She’d come all the way into the room anyway, her face so soft and sympathetic, it made Keane want to bellow. “I believe—actually I know you’re going to need somebody to help you through this…”
“And what? You think you’re the person who’s going to help me?” he’d yelled back, hating that he couldn’t get out of bed to confront her, thanks to his missing third of a left leg. “You didn’t want me when I was a hockey star. You dumped me out and fucked off to California. But now that I’m broken, here you are again, like a fucking vampire feeding on useless shit like emotions and feelings.”
She held stronger than she did in high school. Tears pooled in her eyes, but she stood her ground. “Keane you’re not broken. But you have been hurt and I know your hockey career meant so much to you. It must be awful to have something like this happen. I imagine the world feels very out of control for you.”
She was analyzing him. Fuck head shrinking him. Like he was one of the little kids she’d worked with when she interned at the Institute for Better Boys, during their summer together.
“Something didn’t happen. You fucking happened to me. I let you in, I broke all my rules for you, and you assholed me. You chose your dad over me.”
She’d flinched. “It wasn’t a choice between you and my dad. I was trying to think practically about what would be best for both of our futures.”
“Yeah, well I hear Daddy’s number one draft pick Rohan decided to move to Cali. Guess he’s doing his residency in LA now, same city as you.”
Her face fell, tearful patience giving way to naked shock. “That was a coincidence.”
“A coincidence. Yeah, sure.”
It wasn’t a normal anger he was feeling now. More like fury. So blinding, it made him clutch the sheets in a useless attempt to get up as he growled, “You trying to tell me he hasn’t been in touch? You saying you didn’t move pretty much as far from Boston as a bitch can get without leaving the country just to start dating that ass tool again?”
She closed her eyes in a way Keane recognized.
That’s what women did when they got caught red-handed. They closed their eyes. His mom had done the same thing when he tracked her down to some washed-up hockey player’s brownstone after she abandoned her two boys to live with their shithole dad. She’d just closed her eyes, like she could block out the sight of the kid standing on the cracked concrete stoop of her lover’s house.
“Like, I said, get the fuck out.”
“Keane—”
“GET THE FUCK OUT!” He roared the words at her. Over and over again, until someone came to drag her away.
Keane owned that hockey player’s brownstone now. Along with every other house on that block. He’d turned it into a plaza with an Anthropologie and an Urban Outfitters and not one but two places for millennials to buy milkshakes disguised as coffee. He’d also gotten Lena back for daring to show up at his rehab center. And her father. But somehow she still didn’t feel fully handled. It was like that instinct he sometimes had to flip back through a contract, because he was sure he’d forgotten he’d missed one of the signatures—
Fuck! He was doing it again. Thinking about Lena. His mom. Shit that didn’t matter anymore.
Instead of shooting the next puck with his stick, he grabbed it and hurled it across the rink.
The strange restless energy continued to ride him all Monday morning. Work barely provided a distraction even though DGK was setting up to finally close on that Dorchester deal now that the last holdouts had accepted their offers. It continued to nag at him through a day filled with meetings with his New Development team. Seriously, if the restlessness had been a person, he would have gone down to HR and filed a harassment claim.
“So what do you think?”
Keane looked up from his thoughts to see his brother, Bono, on the other side of his office table. What had he been talking about again?
As if to give him an assist, Bono’s eyes fell on the glossy poster for the Dorchester retail, residents, and entertainment complex they were planning to put up after they leveled all the stores on those two blocks over the next few weeks.
“Nah, don’t start selling store units yet. We’re still two years’ out,” he said, ignoring his brother’s other question.
But Bono continued to regard him with worried green eyes. Keane had brown hair and was muscular and cut like their father—minus the six-pack-a-day belly, while Bono had blond hair and was on the lean side like their mom. But they had their dad’s green eyes in common.
And Keane rolled his, already knowing what would come next. Even though Keane had put him through school, Bono seemed to think it was his job to fill in for the mother who’d abandoned them so many years ago.
“Have you thought anymore about my offer to start interviewing other CEOs to take your place?”
“No, why the fuck would I do that?” Keane asked, not bothering to mask his impatience.
“Because this is the biggest deal we’ve ever closed and you don’t seem to be all that interested in it,” Bono answered.
“I am interested,” Keane answered. “I’m just…distracted. Can we get back to the multi-million-dollar project now?”
“Distracted? Distracted by what? Or should I ask who?” Bono asked, sitting straighter in his chair. His face became eager and curious, like a dog who’d caught a scent of something he wanted to pursue. Probably because he was a serial monogamous, incapable of dating any girl for less than a couple of years. While Keane hadn’t dated anyone for more than a couple of months. Not since that summer with Lena.
Keane’s phone vibrated on the table, interrupting the moment. “It’s Con, I should take this,” he said to Bono, more than happy for his best friend’s subject ruining call. “He wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important.”
“Ask him if he wants to grab beers with us tonight,” Bono said. “Maybe we can talk more about what’s distracting you.”
As if he’d ever. But Keane put the phone on speaker and instead of saying hello, asked, “Wanna grab a beer after work? And why are you calling me?”
“Yap, I’ll take that beer if you’re buying,” Con answered, still sounding as Wisconsin as ever, despite living in Boston longer than he ever did on whatever dairy farm he grew up on. “But I’m calling about this new black kid who showed up for the first day of hockey camp…”
“Pavel Rustanov? Yeah, could’ve told you that kid would be topflight. Nikolai Rustanov’s his dad.”
“No, I’m not talking about Mount Nik’s kid—though he’s great, too, just like you’d expect. But we got this walk-in. Like the Dad literally paid for the day this morning and the kid just walked in off the street. Real pretty boy. I almost told him we didn’t accept girls. But you know all these kid players got phones these days, and all they wanna use them for is selfies and recording coaches saying shit like that. Plus, Bono’s always saying…”
“Watch your mouth around the kids,” Keane recited right along with his longtime friend, glaring at his sensitive younger brother. But then he scowled into the phone. “Time’s money, Con and I already did a fundraiser for th
e academy last Friday. Get to the point.”
“Keane, this kid is only nine, but he’s fucking amazing. I put him on a mixed-tracks team, opposite Pavel for a scrimmage, and he held Mount Nik’s kid for zero shots on goal. Except for the size difference you wouldn’t have known who was the twelve-year-old and who was the nine-year-old. In fact, I’m thinking I’d better go ahead and let him start practice with the summer camp travel team today. He’s too good for the regular day pass kids. Most of them are still trying to learn to skate.”
An unexpected stillness blanketed Keane’s mind. The kid was that good, huh? He remembered giving zero fucks about going up against players twice his size when he was a kid, too.
“You say he’s just here for the day?” Bono pulled out his own phone. “What’s his name?”
“Maximillian Grover. And if you’re planning to look him up, I already had the girl at reception do just that. No internet records she could find, even though he plays like he was born in skates with a hockey stick in his hands. But he says he’s here visiting for the summer from California, so you know what that means…”
“Private coach,” Bono guessed.
Keane immediately became a little less interested. “Probably some rich kid then, being groomed for somebody else’s elite pee wee team.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, but when I asked him about coming back tomorrow, he said today was all his parents would let him get away with.”
“What does that mean?” Keane asked, frowning into the phone.
“I dunno. But I want this kid for our summer travel team, Keane. I want him bad. And I know you’re busy, but I was thinking if this kid’s parents were anti-hockey or whatever, maybe you could talk to them. Convince them to enroll him in the summer camp track.”
“Sorry, no can do,” Bono said, shaking his head even though Con couldn’t see him. “This kid sounds great, but we have meetings all afternoon, so—”
“He better be good,” Keane said, cutting his brother off. “See you in fifteen.”
With that, Keane hung up and grabbed his suit jacket, ignoring his brother’s protests. No, going to see some kid play shouldn’t be his priority number one right now. But something strange had happened during that conversation with Con about the mysterious California kid. The restless energy…it had let up all of a sudden. Stopped, as if something he’d been looking for had been found.
And that sure as hell was worth investigating.
Keane didn’t make it to the center they completely rented out every summer for the hockey camp in fifteen minutes. He made it in twelve. And the kid wasn’t nearly as good as Con described…he was incredible.
His footwork, speed, and agility were better than skaters twice his age. And if that wasn’t impressive enough, he skated with a confident aggression you just couldn’t teach. Most kids his age tried to get to the puck. This Maximillian kid commandeered the rubber disc, snatching it from other players with his stick, like they’d taken something that had belonged to him all along.
Keane had only meant to give this side trip a few minutes of his very valuable time. But he ended up staying through the whole afternoon session, watching as some of their best summer camp players threw their sticks, pissed at being bested by a little kid.
No doubt about it, if the NHL took hockey anywhere near as serious as the Russians, this kid would already be on several scout’s radars. But his own check of the kid’s unusual name had brought up the same whole lotta nothing, which frustrated Keane even more as he watched the young boy whip teenage ass on the ice.
“If this is the work of a Private Coach, we need to recruit that son of a bitch right now, too,” Keane said, as he watched the new kid joke around with Pavel Rustanov. Pavel was skating royalty and it had taken several personal calls from Keane to his overprotective father to convince his parents to send him east this summer at the age of 12. But even he seemed impressed with the unexpected nine-year-old phenom.
“Too?” Con asked hopefully. “That means you’ll talk to the parents?”
Tall order, but Keane jammed his index finger and thumb into the sides of his mouth and let out a sharp whistle. “Hey California, come talk to the coach and me.”
Kudos to whoever’d trained this kid, he skated over immediately, which was something they usually had to drill into the younger players. Con was right about him being a pretty boy, though, Keane noted when he pulled off his helmet. He had long lashes and delicate features that put him in mind of how Disney princes used to look back in the early days, and he was really tall for a nine-year-old. Those features with his light brown skin and a mop of sun tinted curls on top made for a killer combination. He’d definitely be getting a lot of love from the ladies by the time those balls dropped, Keane predicted.
Just like me, Keane realized, thinking back to his own taller than most pre-puberty days.
The pretty kid slowed when he got closer to the man who’d called his name from the other side of the rink.
Surprise and awe lit his expression. “Oh my God! Are you serious right now? Are you Keane? Like, the Keane from the ‘What’s Stopping You’ billboard?”
“Yeah, I’m Keane, and I hear your name’s Maximilian. That’s some handle.”
“Call me Max. Everybody calls me Max—I can’t believe I just told Keane to call me Max!” The kid doubled over and put his hands on his knees, like he needed to get closer to the ground to keep from passing out. “Oh my God! Oh my God! I can’t believe I’m actually talking to you!”
Keane and Con exchanged a look over the kids lowered head, and fuck his brother’s PC edicts, Keane had to tell the kid, “It’s Mr. Keane. And look, I’m not down with all that hyperventilating like a girl shit. Either talk to me natural or skate on out of here since you’re only here on a day pass.”
Con kept his face neutral, but Keane could practically hear his old friend screaming, “But what if he calls our bluff?”
Lucky for them, the kid adjusted that attitude really quick. At Keane’s words, he stood up straight like a soldier, deepened his voice and said, “Hey Mr. Keane. Name’s Max. Wassup?”
Con lost it and laughed when the kid had the nerve to give him a chin up nod, but somehow Keane managed to keep his face set to serious as he told the kid, “So let’s talk about getting you signed up for our real summer camp.”
Chapter Five
“No, no, do not place those in the food pantry box! They do not expire for two more years. I can eat them at home!”
Lena rubbed her forehead as she put the several boxes of Hostess Cakes, she knew her father would never eat back on the shelf. Then she threw a rueful look at the scant ten out of thirty boxes she’d managed to pack for the Boston Gives Food Pantry, with her father shadowing her every move. She’d flown out here three days ago, thinking it would only take the weekend to help her father clear out the store. But here they were on Monday, not even halfway done.
“Abba, the people who bought the shelves are coming tomorrow. You can’t keep changing your mind about what goes there.”
“I never said we would give away the Hostess.” Her dad frowned, his brown face creasing with wrinkles that hadn’t been there the last time she came to visit. “Those are a very popular item. Along with the several varieties of Cheetos you tried to insert into that box.”
“Yes, and you know what else Cheetos and Hostess have in common?” she asked with an irritated huff. “You’re never going to eat them!”
Her rail thin father jerked his head back, putting her in mind of a dowager from a PBS show, who had just been outrageously insulted. “Salena Grover, you will not speak to me in this disrespectful tone. I am your father.”
Yes, he was, and he was driving her crazy. As much as he’d complained about having to work in a convenience store as opposed to attending medical school after he was unexpectedly thrust into the role of single father, he sure was dragging his feet about saying goodbye to the store and hello to early retirement.
But i
nstead of pointing that out, she fell back on her old trick of listing all the things her father had done and sacrificed for her so as not to wring his skinny little neck. He’d worked sixteen hour days at this EasyStop instead of finishing med school…he’d let Vihaan stay with them the summer his mom had kicked him out…he’d given up three more hours of sleep to drive for Uber in order to help her pay for her first and only year of med school…and he’d never asked for a penny of that money back, even though she’d eventually gone back to grad school for a doctorate in psychology instead of an M.D after Max was born.
By the time she finished her list she no longer felt stabby, just guilty. Still not a great emotional state, but at least that anger suppression allowed her to keep her voice calm as she pointed out, “I want to help you finish packing up the store, but I don’t think we can haul all these things you’re asking to keep back to the house in your hatchback. Plus, the food pantry is coming to pick up tonight.”
“Tell them to come back tomorrow instead.”
“I already moved the appointment once, Dad,” she gently reminded him. “And my training apprenticeship with the Institute for Better Boys starts tomorrow.”
Dad made an aggravated sound in the back of his throat. “Pah! That Institute again. I don’t know why you are bothering. If you were so keen to become a mental health worker, you should use your degree to work at a hospital. I was reading an article the other day about how understaffed the hospitals are, and what do children need with therapists anyway? This is a silly endeavor if you ask me. What does Rohan say about this?”
Another pang of guilt, because though she was eleven years older than the last time she’d kept a change in her relationship status with Rohan from her dad, she once again found herself in the position of not having the heart to tell him she and his top pick had broken up. Much, much more spectacularly this time. Like, the divorce had been finalized last Christmas and she’d already legally changed her name back to Kumar spectacularly.
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