by Rebel Hart
Somehow we were able to laugh about things now. I wasn’t sure if the same went for Kim and her brother, or Liz, but Roger seemed to appreciate the humor of it all.
I remembered Maxine was waiting for my reply. I sat up a little straighter in my seat. “Roger is doing well. He’s off his pain medication and taking it one day at a time. As far as I know he should be up and moving around without his walker, too. Probably on to a cane now.” Just saying that out loud gave me tons of ideas for more annoying texts I could send him. I smiled to myself.
“That’s so good to hear. What a wild story that was.” Maxine reached out and absently straightened her cutlery. “Was it all true? What the papers said?”
“I didn’t read them,” I said.
“Of course you didn’t. You’re too humble for that.”
I chuckled. “I don’t think anyone has ever called me humble.”
“I find that unlikely. I mean, how many times does a girl have to beat around the bush before you tell her the full story? I can’t help it. I’m curious. You saved that man’s life. What was it like?”
I grimaced.
Maxine cocked her head to the side. “Did I say the wrong thing?”
“No,” I said, trying not to think about the memories of that early morning. “It’s not something I like to talk about if I can avoid it. The papers may have made it sound a lot more impressive than it was. In the moment it was… terrible. Roger is a very important man in my life and I thought he was going to die.”
Maxine bit her bottom lip and looked down at her lap. “I’m sorry, William. That was insensitive of me.”
Kind of, I thought to myself as I took a sip of my water. Kim would never ask me something like that. Even if it wasn’t about her father.
Kim.
When was the last time I’d spoken to her? Probably that day before I moved out—the day she and I had stood in the kitchen with Keith and pretended we hadn’t just spent the previous night in bed together. Naked.
I missed her. And I wished she was the one sitting across the table from me right now.
“Shit,” I breathed.
“What is it?” Maxine asked. “Did you swallow an ice cube?”
I shook my head.
This was wrong. I shouldn’t be here.
“Sorry, Maxine.” I got to my feet and took my jacket from the back of the chair to shrug it on. Maxine watched me with confused eyes and parted lips. “I completely forgot I have something I need to do. It’s important.”
“Oh. I uh… okay, I guess.”
“I’m sorry to do this to you.” I fished my wallet out of my back pocket, pulled out a wad of cash, and left it on the table to cover the bill. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”
She lifted her wine glass and the corner of her mouth twitched. “You can make it up to me.”
“Sure,” I lied, not wasting a second more as I veered away from the table, wove through the others scattered throughout the restaurant, and emerged on the sidewalk to collect my new car, a silver Fisker Karma.
As per usual, it drew the attention of passersby, who pointed and started to call out my name when they saw me getting in. I didn’t stop to sign autographs or fulfill the role of being the fan-appeasing hockey player.
I had someplace to be.
25
Kimberly
My father watched me out of one eye as I hobbled out of the kitchen with a fresh ice pack and tea towel in my hand. His nose was buried in a book—some action-packed spy adventure that took place in Russia—and his reading glasses were perched on the very end of the bridge of his nose. He didn’t say a word and he didn’t have to. His concern was obvious.
I’d stayed home from hockey practice this evening after banging up my knee in the afternoon when putting away the concession inventory. Someone had mopped the floor and not put up a wet floor sign, and my feet went out from under me. My left leg twisted at a bad angle and the pain was immediate and so intense I’d almost given in to the tears that threatened to spill over.
Thank God Eugene had been there to help me keep my cool. He knew how badly I hated showing pain or emotion, so he’d kept everyone out of my hair while I got myself together, and then he’d gotten my phone so I could call my mother to come pick me up. She’d arrived within fifteen minutes and I was already sitting out on the front stairs with Eugene by my side, distracting me with a story about this cute guy he’d met at a café a few days ago and was going to have drinks with tonight.
I’d have to remember to call him in the morning and ask how it went.
I fetched a throw pillow from one end of the sofa and propped myself up on a second in my favorite corner, facing my father’s spot in his new reading chair, covered by the insurance company. It was very obviously newer than all the other furniture in the room and I’d caught my mother suggesting to my father that they take this as an opportunity to update their décor.
He’d quickly teased her that she was just jealous because he was the one who got a new chair out of this mess.
“How’s your knee feeling, kiddo?” My dad put his book face down and open on his thigh.
I settled into the corner of the sofa and slid the extra pillow under my knee to elevate it. Then I wrapped the ice pack in the tea towel and draped it over my knee. The cold immediately began to seep into my aching joint. “Sore,” I sighed. “Looks like I’m not even strong enough to work a menial concession job.”
“It’s not your fault someone forgot to put up a floor sign. Stuff like that happens.”
I eyed my father—my father who I’d thought I was going to lose just three weeks ago. Guilt crawled around in my stomach. I shouldn’t be complaining about my petty problems when his stitches were still dissolving. “Sorry, Daddy. Setbacks like this just get under my skin, you know?”
“I do.” He nodded graciously. “How are you besides the knee?”
I shrugged. “Fine.”
“Sweetheart.” My dad had a tone when he said the word sweetheart that I was powerless to. It was full of love and concern and optimism—like he knew if I came clean with what I was thinking I would feel better. He was right ninety percent of the time. “Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours. You seem sad, Kim. Is it because of, you know?” He gestured at himself in a sweeping gesture.
I shook my head. “No. I mean, three weeks ago? Yes. But now… I don’t know. The accident put everything into perspective for me, Daddy. Things can change so quickly. And I’m not happy.”
He nodded, expressing his understanding, but he didn’t say anything. My father knew that once I started talking I would put it all out there on the line for him. I wasn’t like that with other people, but the relationship I had with my father was special. There was nothing I could ever say to him that would make him see me differently or love me less.
Hell. If I killed a person I doubted he’d stop loving me. It was a messed-up thought, but I knew it in my heart to be true. He’d probably take the fall for me.
“I’m lost,” I said softly, picking at a loose thread on the tea towel around the ice pack. “I don’t like my work anymore. My few hours of coaching a week doesn’t make up for all the other hours I spend at the rink. Being there feels like a cruel tease now. I’m so close to the ice or on it and I can’t skate or play the way I want to. And I know I never will. It’s like I’m being constantly reminded of what I used to have and will never have again.” I yanked the thread free with a quiet snap. “It’s so frustrating.”
My father picked up his book, creased the corner, and set it down on the table beside his chair. “Maybe it’s time to move on, kiddo.”
“What would I do? I don’t have any skills. No education. I put all my eggs in the hockey basket and now I’m living with my parents with no prospects of a promising future. No offense,” I added with a small smile. It was all I could muster.
“None taken,” he chuckled. “For the record, I feel compelled to say, you’re not falling behind, Kim.”
&nb
sp; “Yes I am.”
“Everyone feels behind. It’s part of the human condition.”
“Here we go,” I mused, rolling my eyes playfully.
My dad always had a slice of wisdom to share in moments like these. I played it off like I thought it was silly, but truth be told I hung off of every word he ever said to me. I considered getting half of them tattooed on myself for future reference.
With a smile, my father continued. “Timing isn’t uniform, Kim. We spend so much of our lives waiting for the next thing, whatever that thing may be, and when it comes to others before us we start to wonder what we’re doing wrong. Why don’t we have that thing yet? Why haven’t we crossed that off our list yet? But it simply doesn’t work that way. You’re not behind. You’re figuring things out. And I hate to break it to you, kid, but that feeling of the unknown? It never goes away.”
“Yeah, right,” I scoffed. “You and Mom have had it together since you were in your early twenties.”
“That’s not true. Just because we found each other early doesn’t mean we checked off all those boxes quicker than most. We got married really young. Everyone in our lives told us we were making a mistake. And then your mother got pregnant really young. We had Keith when we were still living in your grandparents’ basement suite. You want to talk about feeling behind? Try being a twenty-four-year-old father still living in your in-laws’ basement so you can save up for a down payment.”
I pointed my thumbs at my chest. “That’s me right now. Except I’m older. And not even close to buying a house or having a husband or kids. I thought you were supposed to be helping?”
My father chuckled. “You’re always in a hurry, Kim. Ever since you were a little girl you were always ready for whatever came next. I think, perhaps, it’s time you figure out how to be happy with where you are, even if it’s not where you end up. You have so much time. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Words were easy. I heard the message. I understood it.
But embracing it would be another story.
What did I do next? What could I do?
“I’ll have to go back to school,” I said. “I’m not qualified for anything that pays more than minimum wage.”
“What’s wrong with going back to school?”
“It’s expensive.”
“Your mother and I can help out.”
Another handout. Another act for me to feel indebted for. I shifted the ice pack. “I don’t want you guys to spend any more money on me.” The surgeries had been expensive. All of them. And my parents hadn’t batted an eyelash at any of the bills. It cost them things I knew they’d always planned to do. Like home renovations and updates and vacations and new cars and what might have been a pretty flush retirement account.
“Kim. Money doesn’t matter to us. What matters is knowing our daughter is happy and will be in a place to take care of herself when we’re gone.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “I just wish I could do it myself.”
My father shrugged. “Then figure out how to do it yourself. You’re a headstrong young woman. You have good people skills when you want to. You’re clever and you have a brain for numbers and profits. Why not do some research and see what kind of opportunities might be out there?”
“And if there aren’t any?”
“Make some,” he said simply.
“It’s not that easy.”
“You’re right. It’s not easy. Especially if you choose to wallow in self pity instead of putting action behind this desire of yours to get out of that skating rink and make something of yourself.”
I blinked at him. “Harsh.”
“Was it too much? Sorry, kiddo.” He smiled. “You know I mean well.”
I smiled back. “I know, Daddy.” I swung my legs over the side of the sofa and held up the ice pack. “I’m going to put this back in the freezer. Do you need anything while I’m up?”
He shook his head.
My knee already felt better than it had just fifteen minutes ago before icing it. I still was careful not to put too much weight on it as I half hobbled to the kitchen, where I tossed the ice pack back in the freezer door and hung the tea towel on the handle of the stove. When I limped back toward the sofa, there was a knock on the door.
My father frowned and leaned back, trying to peer out into the driveway, but he couldn’t get a look through the nearly fully closed blinds. “Who might that be at this time on a Tuesday?”
I glanced at the clock. It was quarter after nine. “Maybe it’s Keith,” I suggested. “I’ll get it.”
I kept a hand on the sofa to bear my weight as I moved behind it and to the door. I unlocked the deadbolt and then the handle and pulled the door open. It was raining, as it had been for the past few days. The smell of wet dirt and asphalt flooded my nose as I blinked at the man standing on the front step.
“William?” I said.
His hair hung wet in his eyes and the shoulders of his jacket were wet. He smiled sheepishly at me and slid his hands into his jean pockets. “Hey,” he said rather breathlessly. “Will you go on a date with me?”
26
William
Kim’s brows drew together. “A date?”
I nodded. “Yes. A date.”
“Why?”
“Why?” I laughed.
Her eyes narrowed and she glanced over her shoulder into the living room. Then she wrapped her arms around herself, drawing her cardigan around her body, and rubbed her upper arms to ward off the chill seeping into the house, all the while glaring up at me with a tight jaw. “I haven’t seen or heard from you in two weeks and you show up asking for a date?”
“Yep.”
“Why on earth would I say yes to a request like that?”
“Because there was something between us that night. I know I didn’t imagine it. And there’s no way you can convince me it was all in my head because you were just as into it as I was and—”
She cleared her throat.
I fell quiet and she stepped back, pulling the door open with her, and nodded across the living room.
My stomach hardened into a rock of nerves as Roger looked up from his book and waved at me. “William,” he said.
Horrified and turning red, I looked back at Kim.
She was smirking at me. The nerve. “Can’t you find some other girl in the big city who’s more refined?”
“I don’t want to find another girl. I want to give this a shot. A real shot. Yes or no, Kim?”
She stared at me and I stared back. I doubted there was anything I could say to sway her in my favor. She had to make this choice on her own. And as I stood under the heat of her stare I, had a bad feeling she was going to tell me to piss off. If that was the case I would understand. She was right. I’d fallen off the grid, my signature move, and hadn’t bothered to reach out to her even though we had shared something special that night. I let myself get caught up in the fast-paced lifestyle of Chicago and I hadn’t intentionally made room for other things.
For her.
Her feelings had probably been hurt. I cursed my thick skull for not thinking about things from her perspective sooner.
You can be a real ass sometimes, I thought bitterly.
“You know what, William?” she asked.
“What?” I almost whimpered.
“You can be a real ass sometimes.”
I laughed. “Yeah. I know.”
She scrutinized me a little while longer. Then she sighed and deflated like a balloon. “Fine. A date it is.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She shrugged out of her cardigan and swapped it out for her usual bomber jacket which hung on the hook by the door. Then she paused to talk to her father. “I’m going out with William for a bit, Daddy. I’ll be home later. Okay?”
Roger nodded. “Have fun, kiddo. Be careful on that knee though, will you?”
“Of course,” s
he said. Then she was stepping outside and looking expectantly up at me. “Well? Are we going or not?”
She might have agreed to go on the date, but she was still annoyed with me, and rightfully so. I’d have to make it up to her and I had just the place in mind to get the job done right. “Let’s go.”
I walked her to the Fisker Karma in the drive. She didn’t say anything about the new car and she didn’t have to. Her eyes roamed over the shiny silver paint and sleek lines, and when I opened her door for her she let out an impressed sound and slid into the leather seat. She ran her hands over it and admired the dash and display. I watched her as I walked around the hood of the car, then I slid into the driver’s seat.
“Is this new?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yep. You like it?”
“It’s nice.”
I chuckled. “Nice? That’s all you have to say?”
“What do you want me to say?” she barked. “It’s a car.”
I turned the ignition. The engine rumbled and purred.
Kim glared at me. “Don’t kill us in this thing, okay?”
“Calm down, Kimwick. I finally got a date with you. Why would I ever want to fuck that up?”
“Beats me,” she said, staring out at the house as I backed out of the driveway. “You technically already did fuck it up by falling off the grid after we hooked up.”
I deserved that. “I’m sorry.”
“Mhm.”
“You’re still willing to give me a chance, though?”
She looked out the passenger window. She didn’t know I could see her reflection in the glass. She smiled. “We’ll see, hot shot.”
I tried to play the rest of the drive cool and not let on that I was thrilled to have her riding shotgun. She’d been on my mind every day over the past two weeks in some form or another. I thought of her in the mornings when I woke up alone or when I stood in the shower. She strolled through my mind while I sipped my morning coffee or as I strapped on my gear for practice. Whenever I had a quiet moment alone with my thoughts she was there, prodding at me, reminding me of that night.
