Crazy Thing Called Love

by Molly O'Keefe

  “I don’t know,” she whispered back. “Stop talking.”

  “He’s coming over here. Again!”

  “I know. Shut up, Fi!” She could hear his boots on the cafeteria floor, and she knew in her gut she would recognize his footsteps anywhere. She could be blind and she would know when Billy Wilkins was coming toward her.

  Oh God. Her heart was going to pound right out of her chest, the hamburger on her plate blurring.

  “Hey, Maddy.”

  Fiona giggled and Maddy kicked her under the table.

  “Hi, Billy,” she managed to say. Billy was the biggest kid at Schelany High School. Bigger than even the seniors on the football team. Denise had told her that all he’d done last summer was lift weights and work out, trying to get bigger so he’d be invited to try out for the National Junior Team.

  It had worked. Billy was huge. Nothing but muscle. And word was that he’d been asked to try out for the team last week.

  Looking at him made her nervous and happy at the same time. It was like she could feel her skin from the inside. And all of it felt good.

  Denise had said he’d gotten a girlfriend over the summer. Some older girl who gave him blow jobs in her car. And the thought of it, of him … like that … made her heart race. And hurt a little, too.

  The sun came in through the high windows and turned his brown hair to caramel. His eyes were the color of chocolate.

  She wasn’t totally sure what a blow job was, but if it meant putting her mouth on Billy Wilkins—getting to taste him, even just a little bit—it seemed like a great idea.

  “Can I sit with you?” he asked, like it was normal. Like he wanted to sit with Maddy and her overbite and Fiona, who couldn’t stop staring, and the theater nerds, who were doing their homework at the table.

  She could feel the eyes of every single person in the cafeteria on them.

  Why? she wanted to ask. Is this a joke? Some kind of prank you’re pulling with the rest of the jocks?

  “Sure,” she said.

  The chair he pulled out scraped across the floor and the guys with their homework looked up at him, furious.

  “Sorry.” He winced.

  Billy sat down, his long body curling and uncurling into a chair. Under the table, his feet touched hers and even through their shoes she felt a zing shiver up her legs to rest low in her belly.

  Go, she mouthed to Fiona and her friend rolled her eyes but moved over two chairs, closer to the boys, giving Maddy and Billy a bubble of privacy.

  “How are you?” Billy focused on her like they were alone in the cafeteria. It was crazy how he could do that. How he could make everyone and everything disappear.

  “Good.” She couldn’t look at him for too long. It was like staring up at the sun, if she did it for too long she’d see spots. Or go blind.

  “Hey, guys, mind if I join you?” Kevin Dockrill, with his pockmarked face and tiny little eyes, pulled out the chair Fiona had been sitting in and sat down, his tray of French fries clattering on the table.

  Maddy stiffened, every muscle in her body turning to concrete. Kevin was a jerk. Always had been, since they were little kids growing up in the same neighborhood. And when the word spread that Billy was going to try out for nationals, Kevin had started riding Billy like crazy.

  “What are you doing, Kevin?” Billy asked, not even pretending to be nice.

  “A guy can’t talk some hockey with an old friend?”

  Billy said nothing, his eyes focused on the edge of the table.

  “What, you’re such a big shot you can’t even talk?”

  The whole room was silent, pulsing with dangerous energy Maddy didn’t quite understand. But Kevin was staring holes into Billy’s head and Billy was looking away.

  “I heard this rumor that you were scared about tryouts. You were crying in the locker room.”

  “That’s a lie,” she said, the words erupting from her mouth like they had a mind of their own. “He’s not scared, everyone knows he’s going to make it!”

  “Oh, hey, man.” Kevin sat back, his jean jacket falling open over his faded KISS concert T-shirt. “You got yourself a cheerleader.”

  “Leave her alone,” Billy muttered.

  “I will,” Kevin said, “when you look me in the eyes like a man.”

  Billy looked him in the eye, bigger and stronger than ever before. “I’m not fighting you, Kevin. Say what you want. Do what you want.”

  “ ’Cause you’re chickenshit?”

  “ ’Cause you’re not worth losing my tryout over.”

  Suddenly, Maddy realized what was really happening. Kevin wanted Billy to fight because if Billy got suspended from school, he’d couldn’t try out.

  She stood up. “Let’s go.”

  “Go?” Kevin asked. “Where you gonna go?” He opened his beady little eyes real wide like something had just occurred to him. “I heard Billy had some girl giving him head in his car, is that you?”

  Billy stood abruptly, his chair screeching across the floor, and now everyone really was looking. People on the other end of the cafeteria were standing up to get a better angle.

  “Shut your mouth, Kevin.”

  “You want to fight over this girl?” Kevin said. “She must be really good. Hey,” he touched her hand and she snapped it away, “maybe you want to come out into the parking lot with me?”

  Billy shoved the whole table aside, and Fiona and the guys stared openmouthed as their lunches fell to the floor. Billy took one big threatening step toward Kevin, who jumped to his feet, his hands in fists.

  Maddy had no idea she was going to do what she did until she was doing it.

  But suddenly she was in between Billy and Kevin. “Get out of here, Kevin,” she said.

  “Maddy …” Billy tried to push her behind him, but she wouldn’t be budged.

  “You need a girl to fight for you?” Kevin laughed and other kids started to join in.

  “No, he doesn’t,” she said, feeling anger churn through her. Anger for Billy, for herself, for the way they grew up, for the choices they had to make and the assholes like this guy, who wanted to make fun of them for trying. “He could take you with one arm behind his back. But he’s too smart to do it.”

  “I don’t think Billy has ever been called smart,” he sneered.

  Oh that made her mad. “Yeah, well, neither have you. Now go, before you get us all in trouble.”

  “No.” Kevin folded his arms over his chest. Suddenly, Maddy remembered her dad dealing with a drunk man at the arena one time. A belligerent dad who wouldn’t shut up and wouldn’t walk away—just like Kevin.

  And so, just like her father had done, Maddy reached out and smacked him, openhanded, across the face. More insulting than painful.

  The entire cafeteria gasped and Maddy’s hand stung and her heart stopped.

  “Oh shit,” Billy muttered and finally pulled her behind him, just as the cafeteria erupted. Kevin charged Billy, trying to get at Maddy. Billy held him off with one hand, but another fight broke out behind them and someone caught her in the eye with their elbow.

  She was stunned. Reeling. Holding on to the back of Billy’s shirt like her life depended on it.

  Suddenly, there was a whistle and Coach Roames was standing on a table, bellowing.

  “Who started this?”

  Everyone slowly turned and pointed their finger at her.

  “Oh shit,” Billy muttered again.

  Ten minutes later Maddy was sitting outside the principal’s office with an ice pack pressed to her eye. She’d never been in trouble before and was pretty sure she was going to throw up all over herself.

  The door to the main office opened and Billy slipped in, carrying her book bag. Her heart dropped into her stomach and she didn’t know if she was happy or embarrassed. He sat beside her and she tried to pull her body, her skin, as far from him as she could.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “My eye hurts.”

  His fingers to
uched her chin, turning her face toward him, and she burned at the touch. From her hair to her toes, she burned.

  “Let me see,” he whispered, and he lifted the cold pack. He whistled, long and low.

  “It’s bad?” she asked.

  “It’ll be a shiner.”

  “My dad is going to kill me.”

  She leaned back, staring up at the ceiling.

  Billy shifted and cleared his throat.

  “You don’t have to sit here,” she muttered.

  “You think I would leave? After what you did?”

  Oh God, she felt stupid and small.

  “I’ll explain to Mr. Pursator,” he said. “And your dad.”

  “You’ll explain that I slapped Kevin Dockrill?” Saying it sounded ridiculous, like it had to be someone else who’d slapped him. Someone else that dumb.

  “I’ll explain that he was saying shitty things about you and you stood up for yourself and you … you know … you stood up for me.”

  The silence pulsed around them. When he put it that way, she didn’t feel quite so bad. In fact, she felt kind of … right.

  “You think that will work?”

  “Yep.” He nodded, like the case was closed. No problem.

  When she smiled it hurt her eye, but that didn’t stop her. “Thanks.”

  His fingers touched hers, the knuckle, the palm of her hand, where she could still feel that slap. “Thank you,” he whispered. “No one has ever done that for me.”

  “Slapped a guy?”

  “Stood up for me.”

  She got lost for a second in his eyes. They were so pretty and she could see so much in them. “You’re not stupid,” she said.

  “I know.” But he didn’t, she could see that in his eyes, too.

  They sat there quietly, waiting for the principal to open the door. Listening to the buzz in the main office, the clock in the hall count off the seconds.

  It was weird sitting there with a black eye and Billy Wilkins. But there was nowhere she’d rather be.

  And when she looked into his chocolate eyes, she got the idea that he didn’t want to be anywhere else either.

  After meatball subs, Tara Jean suggested a trip to Target. Charlie jumped up and down, which Billy was beginning to realize was the kid’s normal state. He must have been truly scared, truly exhausted before, to have subdued all this ceaseless joy.

  Surprisingly, despite her sullen stillness and silence, Becky lit right up, too. For the first time she actually looked like a thirteen-year-old girl.

  The sight was sort of breathtaking.

  “I need the money.” She held out her hand. “The hundred in the front hall drawer.”

  “I think I can afford some stuff from Target,” he said, pushing himself to his feet.

  “We can pay our way.” We don’t need charity, that’s what she was really saying. He knew that tone of voice. Remembered using it with all those rec league coaches who talked about fund-raising and scholarship programs for a kid who had to work so hard just to buy skates, much less pay his fees.

  “Becky.” He felt every minute of his years, every ache in the bones of his body. “How many of your birthdays have I missed?”

  “All of them.”

  “Charlie’s?”

  “All of them.”

  “Right. Consider this payback.”

  She didn’t even hesitate. Charity was one thing, overdue presents, quite another. “Fine.”

  “I’ll drive.” He turned for the living room and the foyer with his shoes and keys, but Tara Jean stopped him.

  “If you go, every person in the store will be snapping pictures of you on their cell phones.”

  God, he was exhausted. He rubbed his face, his eyes, ran a hand through his hair, getting himself ready to practice his indifference. To summon his patience.

  “I got this, Billy.”

  Oh Lord, really? He couldn’t even pretend not to be totally grateful. Honestly, at this point, he would take a bullet for Tara Jean Sweet.

  “You sure?”

  TJ shrugged. “How hard can it be?”

  Luc, still sitting at the round table, the daylight haloing his face, laughed.

  “I can do it!” Tara Jean protested.

  “I have no doubt that you can.” Luc grinned at his girlfriend, his faith in her palpable. “You can do anything.” Their happiness was bittersweet to watch and Billy looked down at his feet.

  He’d begged Maddy to stay and she had left. Part of him understood that—hell, he’d leave if he could. But he’d been floored by how badly he’d wanted her here. It was one thing to love her, but the need kind of surprised him.

  “Saddle up, kids,” Tara Jean said, herding them out the kitchen door. As they passed Billy, she held out her hand and he shoved all the money he had at her.

  “A car seat,” he said. “And some kid crap. Movies and things.”

  “Got it.”

  Without looking at or counting the money, she just tucked it into her pocket. He knew if he was short, she would fill in the gaps and never say a word. That was friendship.

  After they left, the house was silent in a way it had never been before. There was silence and then there was the absence of noise. Of people.

  Billy dropped into a dining room chair as if all his bones had broken at once.

  “You all right?” Luc asked, sitting beside him.

  “Thanks to you guys.” Billy was at a loss, it had been years since he’d been in such debt to another person. After the divorce, he’d developed a steady pattern of pushing people off to a comfortable distance.

  Nothing like an emergency to shrink that comfortable distance down to nothing.

  “Our pleasure, man. I wish we didn’t have to fly to Toronto tomorrow.”

  “No, don’t worry. Honestly.” Billy had regretted asking them to stay the night nearly the second he’d done it. A knee-jerk desperate response to being all alone with two kids. To being so exhausted he couldn’t see straight.

  It was almost better that Luc and TJ couldn’t stay; he was uncomfortable enough with all this help. All these well-meaning witnesses to his floundering at rock bottom. “I’ll be all right.”

  Luc stretched his legs out in front of him. “What are you going to do?”

  “About the kids? I feel like I can’t do anything until I talk to Janice.”

  “What about Maddy?”

  Billy dropped his head back, his laugh strangled. “I have no clue. No. Fucking. Clue.”

  “Then let’s talk about hockey.”

  Luc watched Billy as if he was waiting for him to say something. Billy finally shrugged, tired of feeling so damn clueless.

  “If you have something you want to say, spit it out, Luc. I’m too damn tired to read your mind.”

  “Hornsby was trying to save your hide, Billy. You’re the one who didn’t help. And this whole thing with Maddy and the kids, you know that’s not what he’s really upset about.”

  “So now you’re an expert on my coach?”

  Billy tried to make a joke to kill the tension that was coating the room like a thin layer of ice, but Luc just gave him that level cut-the-crap stare.

  Billy got to his feet and walked toward the fridge even though he wasn’t hungry. Between the exhaustion and the emotional upheaval of the last few days he felt raw. As if every breeze was a hurricane force wind and he couldn’t keep himself on his feet.

  “I’ve been playing professional hockey for sixteen years, Luc. I am the kind of player teams need, not to be a leader but to get shit done. To stir the pot.” He pulled a glass out and filled it with water he didn’t really plan on drinking. “I don’t make speeches, or score points. I get in the other team’s head. I take the hits, I make the hits—all so guys like you can do your jobs.”

  The black edge of resentment in his voice surprised him. Shook the corners of the room. Shook his corners. But Luc just nodded, as if he’d known all along.

  “You know, buddy, I’ve never said
this before, and I’ll never say it again, but the day we started playing on the same team was the same day you stopped being the player you could have been.”

  The glass hit the counter with a crack. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You weren’t an enforcer until you and I were in Toronto.” Billy started to tell him that he was crazy, but Luc lifted his hand. “No, you weren’t a finesse player, and yes, you were rough and aggressive. You’ve played with a chip on your shoulder your whole damn career, but you scored points back then. You led by example, you showed all of us what it meant to play hockey with nothing held back. But the more we were on the ice together, the more you let me shine and took the hits and handed out the retribution.”

  Billy rolled his eyes.

  “No, listen. For once, just listen without fighting. I started to hit my stride and you and I fell into a rhythm. And it was good for all of us. But I think you let go of the player you could have been.”

  “I’m pretty damn happy with the player I am.”

  “Really? Because they’re sending that player down to the minors.”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with the way I play!”

  “That’s right. Because you didn’t play the last half of the season! Is this really the way you want to go out, Billy?”

  They were standing. Yelling at each other. Billy had his hands wrapped around his glass like he was going to throw it at his best friend. His only friend.

  “I’m sorry,” Luc said.

  “Don’t be sorry.” Billy sighed. “You’re right.”

  Luc blinked.

  “And I won’t ever say that again, so we’re even.”

  Luc laughed and the tension in the room vanished. Billy wasn’t a guy who had heart-to-hearts and Luc knew that, so he dropped the subject.

  “You look like you could fall asleep,” Luc said. “Let’s go see if there’s anything good on TV.”

  “I’m sure you’ve got other things to do besides hang out with me.”

  “Nope,” Luc answered definitively and walked to the living room, talking about how he wanted to see Billy’s epic movie collection.

  “Grab that candy Tara Jean brought,” he called and Billy, on autopilot, pulled the licorice from the cupboard under the counter.