Room For You (Cranberry Inn)

by Beth Ehemann

  I had no answer for her, she was right.

  “Go to Alexa’s, talk to her. You need some girl talk, not advice from an old lady.” She patted my knee and stood up, heading for my bedroom door.

  “You’re not an old lady. You’re a pretty cool mom, and one of my best friends.” I walked up behind her, wrapped my arms around her shoulders and hugged. Her hand reached up and squeezed mine back.

  “Thanks, Kacie, now go read that card. Maybe give Brody a shot, he had a cute rear end.” She winked at me and closed my bedroom door.

  I grabbed the card on my way out of the house a few minutes later. No way was I going to read it with my mom staring at me … but once I got to my car, I tore the envelope apart. It was a standard sage green card from Alexa’s shop and the inside read…

  My brain went into a fuzzy euphoric state. I couldn’t believe he was still thinking about me. I was sure that once he went home and got back to his life of—whatever hockey players do—he’d forget I even existed. This wasn’t fair, to me or to him, I definitely needed to text him and tell him thanks for the flowers but that we weren’t possible. Just the thought of sending that text deflated me, but I was very good at compartmentalizing my thoughts, so I put that one away to deal with later. Right now I had sweet and sour chicken on the brain as I stopped at Chang’s Kitchen and picked up take out for Alexa and me.

  The bell clanged as I walked through the bright red door of The Twisted Petal, which closed an hour before but Alexa hadn’t locked up yet. I turned back and spun the silver latch to the left, jumping out of my skin when I heard Alexa bellow, “Three days since what? When did you meet Brody Murphy, and why the hell is he sending you flowers?”

  I paused and leaned my forehead against her shop door, not ready for her onslaught of questions. When I turned to face her she was standing by the counter, her jet-black hair pulled up into a messy bun, hands on her hips, tapping her foot impatiently.

  “I’ll tell you all about it. Can we just eat first? I’m starving.”

  “You didn’t know who he was?” Alexa exclaimed, rice flying out of her mouth and all over me.

  “Keep your dinner to yourself, drama queen. No, I didn’t know. How could I know? I watch baseball, not hockey.”

  “I thought everyone in the state of Minnesota knew who he was. I almost dropped the phone when he said his name, then I thought it was a post pubescent teenage boy pranking the shop, then he gave a credit card number and said they were for Kacie Jensen at the Cranberry Inn. I almost dropped the phone again.”

  A twinge of jealousy sprouted in my stomach and grew taller as Alexa told me about the rest of her conversation with Brody. I would have given anything to hear his voice again.

  “Did he kiss you?” Her eyes sparkled, desperate for juicy details.

  “Nope, nada.”

  “Kacie, you have this guy crazy enough to send you flowers and you haven’t even kissed him yet?”

  “It wasn’t like that, he wasn’t like that. He was really sweet,” I sighed, “but God, I felt it, Lex. Every time our bodies accidentally touched—when he brushed past me and his hand rested on the small of my back and when he smiled at me from across the dinner table—it was there. This ridiculous pull, this tension. It was totally there.”

  Alexa was frozen, her eyes the size of half dollars and her fork suspended in mid-air halfway to her mouth. “Kacie, I haven’t heard you talk about a guy like that in a long time … since Zach. You can’t just let this go.”

  “Our lifestyles don’t exactly match up. It would never work, and I’m not putting myself out there to get hurt again.” I grabbed a piece of broccoli and popped it in my mouth.

  “Do you know the last time Derek got me flowers? Let’s see…” She looked up at the sky and tapped her chin. “Oh yes, I remember. I was seventeen, wearing braces and the flowers were on a band on my wrist. And if I remember correctly, we capped off the night by doing it in the backseat of his parents’ car.”

  “That’s not fair, you OWN a flower shop. Should he call you to place your own order?”

  “My point is, why shoot this down before it’s even had a chance to get off the ground?”

  “Alexa! He was arrested for swimming naked in Buckingham Fountain in Chicago for Christ’s sake! You think that’s a good role model?”

  Alexa threw her head back and laughed. “I remember reading about that. Boy, I would love to see that security camera footage. That man is scorching hot, and I’m assuming his southern hemisphere is pretty heavily populated, if you know what I mean,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows up and down.

  I picked up a fortune cookie and threw it at her. “You’re not helping.”

  “Why do you need a good role model anyway? You’re a grown woman,” she teased, cracking the fortune cookie open.

  “You know what I mean, Lex. I’ve got the girls to think about too. Anyone that comes into my life comes into theirs. I have to make good decisions.”

  “And I get that, but you’re not dead, Kacie. You’re young, you’re hot, and you have a lot of life left. Those girls are going to grow up and move out one day. Then what? No one is saying you have to marry him, but lighten the fuck up. Have some fun.” She paused, looking down. Her face swept back up, looking at me impassively and she chuckled. “Here, I think this belongs to you.” She reached over and handed me the small strip of paper from the fortune cookie.

  HEY BRODY, IT’S KACIE. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE JERSEY AND THE FLOWERS, ESPECIALLY THE FLOWERS. THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL. IT WAS VERY THOUGHTFUL OF YOU. :)

  I stared down at my phone, my mind a blank slate. Six days ago I met her, four days ago I left her my favorite jersey, yesterday I sent her flowers, today she was finally answering me, and now the noodles of my brain didn’t want to connect enough to form a coherent sentence. I felt like an awkward fifteen-year-old kid trying hard not to fuck it up.

  Smiley face. She put a smiley face—I might have a shot. I would have felt better about my odds if it were one of those winky faces, but I’d take what I could get.

  Here goes nothing…

  YOU’RE WELCOME, I’M GLAD YOU LIKE THEM. MAYBE NEXT TIME I GIVE YOU FLOWERS, I CAN DELIVER THEM IN PERSON WHEN I’M PICKING YOU UP FOR DINNER?

  My heart pounded in my chest. I had never asked a girl out via text before, and it definitely wasn’t my preferred method, but at this point, I’d take what I could get from her. It was forty-five minutes before my phone beeped again. Okay, it was really only two, but it felt like forty-five.

  K: ABOUT THAT … IT WOULD BE FUN TO HAVE DINNER, I’M JUST REALLY BUSY RIGHT NOW WITH SCHOOL AND THE GIRLS.

  Bullshit.

  SO, YOU DON’T EAT DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR? THANK GOD IT’S SUMMER.

  K: OF COURSE I EAT, I’M JUST KINDA TOO BUSY RIGHT NOW FOR DATING.

  DATING IN GENERAL OR DATING ME?

  Please say dating in general, please say dating in general.

  K: I KNOW THIS IS GOING TO SOUND REALLY BAD, BUT I HAVE TO BE HONEST. YOU ARE GREAT. I REALLY LIKE YOU. I JUST DON’T HAVE THE TIME TO INVEST IN SOMETHING THAT WILL LEAD ME DOWN A DEAD-END ROAD. DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?

  Ouch.

  That was the first time a girl had ever referred to my advances as a dead-end road and it was a kick in the balls. Why was I so damn determined to get this girl to go out with me? She clearly had some deep scars and should be easy to walk away from, but instead of running the other direction I wanted to scoop her up, clean her off and make her world good again. I felt defeated.

  YEAH, I GET IT. FRIENDS?

  K: OF COURSE! MAYBE THE GIRLS AND I CAN COME SEE A GAME SOMETIME. :)

  Fuck you, smiley face.

  I was annoyed. She closed the door before I even got to it, and then locked it … twice. She knew nothing about me. How could she decide that quickly what should and shouldn’t be? That day at the inn outside in the rain, there was a moment when we were hovering over a puddle, her arms around my neck and it was there. She felt it; I felt it, even if
I was the only one willing to admit it. I saw it in her eyes. Now here she was, less than a week later feeding me a line of bull about why it wouldn’t work. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince me, or herself.

  The stale air in my condo was suffocating and I needed to get out, work off some of this frustration. I snatched my cell phone from the coffee table. “Hey, you busy? Wanna meet me at The House in twenty minutes? Okay, see ya then.”

  One of the perks of being a professional hockey player is having a state of the art fitness center and an ice rink available to me just about any time I wanted. In the locker room a few seasons ago, one of the guys referred to the stadium as “The House” and the nickname had stuck ever since. I pulled my truck into the parking lot and made a sharp left, stopping next to Viper, who was sitting in his truck on the phone, his driver’s side door wide open.

  “Fine, do whatever the fuck you want!” Viper threw the phone across the cab of his truck, watching as it shattered when it bounced off the other side. “Fuck!” he yelled, running his hand through his shoulder length blonde hair and slamming his door.

  “What’s up, Murphy?” He shook my right hand and grabbed my shoulder with his left.

  “Um, well…” I nodded toward his truck. “You’re going to need a new phone.”

  “Yeah, second time this month I’ve broken one.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked as we walked toward the stadium.

  Viper sighed. “Same old shit. Kat thinks I’m cheating, so she’s moving out. What else is new? I don’t care anymore, she can go.”

  “Are you cheating … again?”

  A shit-eating grin spread across his unshaven face as he looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “Maybe.”

  I reached around and smacked the back of his head. “You really live up to your name sometimes, Viper.”

  “Hey, I got that nickname because of the smooth way I slither on the ice. It’s just fitting in my personal life too.” He laughed.

  Viper had been my teammate for three years now, and in that time, we’d grown pretty close. He always had my back, no questions asked and I had his; however, I didn’t always agree with his actions. He was too out of control, even for me. Lord knows I’ve done some stupid shit, but he was just plain old reckless. And he tore through women like a kid opened birthday presents, then tossed them aside when he was done the same way. Kat had been around for several months, the longest one yet, as far as I knew. I stayed as far away from their drama as possible. I didn’t understand their relationship. He cheated on her constantly, yet she kept coming back.

  “Okay, Viper, I need you to kick my ass in the gym today. I want to be so sore my brain won’t function after this workout.”

  “Sweet!”

  After an hour and a half of dead lifts, shoulder presses, bicep curls and about a thousand crunches, I cried mercy.

  “Had enough?” Viper laughed.

  I lay on the gym floor, chest heaving, arms and legs spread out like a snow angel, staring at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. “Yes, no more arms, but I’m not nearly done. Let’s hit the rink, Fabio.”

  “You’re on.”

  I put my goalie pads on and prepared for Viper to shoot 90 mph slap shots, snap shots and wrist shots at me. When I was in the net, my brain went somewhere else. I was in the zone and that’s exactly where I wanted to be right now, far away from reality. My eyes zeroed in, focused solely on keeping that three-inch piece of vulcanized rubber from getting past me, by any means necessary.

  Two hundred shots or so later, Viper skated over to me and spit his mouth guard into his glove. “How ya feeling? You good?”

  “Not yet, let’s do some more.”

  “Brody, now my arms are going to fall off. Come on, man, let’s call it a day. I gotta get home and make sure Kat didn’t destroy all my shit.”

  I let out a frustrated sigh. “Fine.” I took off my helmet and tossed my stick and gloves on top of the net.

  “What’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing. Why?”

  Viper looked annoyed. “Well, you missed a third of the shots I hit at you. Clearly, you suck today. Why don’t you want to cut your losses and go home?”

  I did miss a lot of shots and Viper pointing it out just irritated me more.

  “Eh, I’m off my game today, had a shitty morning.”

  Viper called out incredulously, “You and me both! What happened?”

  I eyed Viper cautiously, not sure I wanted to talk about being turned down with the biggest playboy on the team. Vulnerability wasn’t my strong suit.

  Oh, fuck it.

  “Um … a girl. I was into her and she shot me down. Didn’t really say why, seems like she doesn’t like what I do for a living and it’s really pissing me off.”

  “I didn’t know you’d been seeing anyone,” Viper responded.

  “I haven’t, just met her last week when I was stuck up north in that damn storm. I wasn’t even looking for anyone. I was driving along, minding my own business and bam! Now I can’t stop thinking about her.”

  Viper was quiet, staring off into space.

  I sighed. “Go ahead, asshole. Give me shit about it, I can handle it.”

  “I’m not giving you shit, I was just trying to remember if in my whole life, there’s ever been a girl that I couldn’t stop thinking about. There have been girls I thought about for a night then forgot them shortly after I fucked them, but thinking about someone for a week? No way. That’s worth fighting for, dude. Season’s over, you have time. Turn the tables, prove her wrong. Then make her beg.”

  Viper was right and I couldn’t say that often. Kacie didn’t know me, how could she possibly know that I was a dead-end road? She was making a snap judgment based on what I did for a living and if I wanted any chance with her, I had to show her who I really was.

  “Now remember, you guys, you have to be quiet in here. Whispering only, okay?”

  Lucy and Piper bounced along excitedly next to me as we made our way into the library. It was Princess Day at preschool storytime, and while the girls sang about tiaras, I was going to find a quiet corner to do some studying. Even though it was summer, I wanted to try and get a jump on next fall’s classes, but I hadn’t picked my textbooks up in over a week. Microbiology was going to eat me alive if I didn’t get my head out of the clouds.

  I left the girls in the multi-purpose room with a woman who was way too old to be dressing up like Cinderella and found a secluded table along the window, overlooking the lake. I got all set up and cracked open my laptop. Up in the corner of my screen, the search bar still had my last search saved.

  Brody Murphy

  My heart sank a little at the sight of his name. My eyes drifted out over the lake, getting lost in the ripples, thinking about our texts earlier that morning. He seemed disappointed, and frankly, so was I. If it were just me I wouldn’t have to be so cautious, but every decision I made directly affected Lucy and Piper. That thought weighed on me constantly. I had made enough mistakes in my life. I couldn’t afford any more. Dating an athlete who traveled all the time and led a hectic, non-structured lifestyle was not a luxury I could afford.

  “Kacie?”

  “Oh my God. Lauren!” I jumped up and threw my arms around my old friend. I pulled back but didn’t let go of her hands. “You look fabulous! What are you doing in town? You normally call first—is everything okay?”

  Lauren was a walking, talking Barbie doll, but not the plastic kind. She was an all-natural American beauty. I was convinced that her gene pool was made up of magical sparkling stream water from the tippy top of the Alps. She was taller than me, though that wasn’t saying much because most people were. She had long, wavy blonde hair, sky blue eyes and legs that were two miles long. Her toes were always perfectly polished and no hair was ever out of place. From her looks she should be a total stuck-up snob, but that was the furthest thing from the truth. She was in our same social circle in high school, but we got really close aft
er I had the girls. When I got pregnant, most of my friends took off and distanced themselves, but Alexa and Lauren were my rocks. Zach was always somewhere else, but those two were constantly by my side massaging my sore back and painting my toenails.

  “Tommy and I are both back, actually, just visiting our parents. I brought my niece to that storybook lady and saw Lucy and Piper, so I had to find you. Boy, Cinderella probably shouldn’t be wearing that outfit, huh?”

  “Definitely not, but the kids go crazy for her. That’s all that matters, I guess. Wanna sit?” I motioned toward the table.

  “Sure! I’m actually really glad I ran into you … I was going to stop by your house later.” Lauren chewed on the corner of her lip, her eyebrows creased nervously as she sat across from me.

  “Okay, something’s up.” It was right then that I looked down at her hands and saw the huge rock on her left ring finger. “Oh my God! You’re engaged?” I squealed.

  The Mr. Rogers lookalike at the next table glared from under his unkempt, bushy gray eyebrows and shushed me.

  “Sorry,” I whispered loudly before I turned my attention back to Lauren. “When did this happen?”

  “Yesterday. He took me to the park where we had our first date. At first I was annoyed because we were supposed to have dinner with my parents and we were running late. Once I realized what he was doing, I melted. I love him so much, Kacie.”

  I scooted around to Lauren’s side of the table and sat down, pulling her into another hug. “I’m so happy for you guys.” That wasn’t a lie, I was happy for her, but I couldn’t ignore the twinge of envy inside me.

  “Thanks. That’s actually why I was going to stop by later. I know it’s sudden and I’m not being very original about it, but I wanted to ask if you’d be a bridesmaid for me?” She had tears in her eyes, tears of pure happiness. Seeing her overflow of emotion was contagious as my own eyes started welling up for my dear friend.