Carried Away

by P. Dangelico

  “To get started. When do you need it by?”

  “How does two weeks sound?”

  I can’t stop the grin pulling my cheeks apart. “You’ll have it in one.”

  “You’re gross. You know that, right?”

  I’m talking to a cat. This is the state of my life these days. I went from cruising the Sunset strip for kicks and stories to this.

  The devil’s spawn is sprawled out like Caligula in front of the fireplace in my father’s office licking his privates. What’s particularly creepy is that he makes eye contact with me when he does it.

  Almost a week has passed since my meeting with Hal Rodgers and I still don’t have a topic for my lifestyle piece and it’s giving me anxiety. Meanwhile, I have my other job to contend with. We’re booked for a wedding in two weeks. I give that some consideration as a topic for the article. It might work. People love romance. But it doesn’t excite me.

  My attention pivots back to the delivery schedule. I double check when the flowers are arriving, the extra linens and chairs. Any out-of-the-norm instructions from the wedding planner. And trust me when I tell you checking is important.

  Once, Dad got a delivery of fifty mini butt plugs as weddings favors. Yeah, true story. We were all relieved to learn it was a mistake. It should’ve been mini bottle openers. Good thing we checked with the wedding planner who blamed a recently fired assistant.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Elvis is at it again. The fire is running on fumes so I decide to spare myself more kitty fellatio and go fetch more wood from the shed out back. Thanks to Turner, we have enough to last into my next life.

  Except I’m not paying attention. I’m mulling over my article, the one that’s going to blown Hal away. It’s imperative I make a good impression because I may lose my mind if I’m forced to work here exclusively.

  I’m stepping out of the back kitchen door when Elvis, that sneaky SOB, sensing my guard is down, makes a break for it. Horrified, I watch him trot down the back steps of the patio and gallop across the snow-covered yard.

  Elvis is not an outdoor cat.

  Then things to go from bad to worse as I watch him climb up the ancient birch tree next to my cottage.

  “Elvis, come down. Sweet kitty…” I mutter, swallowing the urge to verbally eviscerate him. Shivering, I wrap my arms around myself. All I have on is a wool sweater and if you ask me 30 degree weather requires a goose down comforter.

  For the past ten minutes, no amount of bribery has convinced him to come down. He continues to lounge on a thick branch with his blue-gray tail lazily swinging back and forth as if he has no fornications left to give while I stare up at him with murder in my eyes.

  He’s taunting me. He’s definitely taunting me.

  “Here kitty kitty. Here you evil piece of shit. I’ve got tuna for you back in the kitchen.”

  I’ve been told a million times not to let the cat out, but I’m also no match for his speed and agility. Have you ever tried to herd a cat? Thus the expression like herding cats.

  Even more troubling, I’m not sure if he’s stuck up there or he’s choosing to ignore me. He doesn’t look scared. Just the opposite, in fact. He’s sprawled out on that branch like he’s king of the damn jungle.

  I’m two minutes from grabbing a ladder because my grandmother cannot find out. She’s in town, at the senior center for her weekly card game, and isn’t expected back for another hour. She will freak if something happens to this cat. When Maeve, the female, died two years ago, I saw my Nan cry for the very first time in my entire life. She took to her bed for two days and wouldn’t eat.

  Nothing can happen to this cat––ever.

  “Elvis please. I’m begging you.” Turning his nose up, he looks disinclined to grant me any mercy. “Seriously, if you don’t come down from there right this minute I’m going to go get a ladder! Get the hell down right this minute you!”

  “Something tells me that’s not gonna work.” Turner walks up to stand next to me with two large paintings hanging from his hands. Landscapes. The first is the Adirondack Mountains in fall. The second is another winter scene. Both equally stunning.

  He’s dressed in black track pants and a thermal again. And unfortunately my body chooses this special moment to remind me that Turner, the Scrooge, is an incredibly sexy man…wonderful.

  He catches me staring, and I look away, back up at the cat, heat inexplicably crawling up my neck. Turner’s attention follows. Elvis, of course, is in the midst of licking his balls again.

  “He does it all the time. It’s gross,” I glumly inform him. “Especially since he looks at me when he does it.

  Turner makes a noise, and I turn to examine his profile. His expression is as serious as always, but I detect a subtle note of humor there, his lips pressed together to stifle a smile.

  Well, well. What have we here…

  “How did he get out?”

  “I don’t know,” is my automatic reply. Which earns me a side-eye. “Okay, I may know something about it. Look, can we call a time-out on the Cold War? Tomorrow you can go back to hating my guts and stomping around as if I murdered your firstborn, but I need help right now. My grandmother will have a heart attack if she sees him up there.”

  His dark blue eyes catch mine, searching for something. “I don’t hate your guts.”

  Dare I say he looks puzzled. And he actually sounds genuine. That’s a two for two in the credibility department. For a moment, it knocks me off center, makes me doubt myself. What am I missing here?

  “Agree to disagree,” I throw out, trying to get back on track. Because I have a cat to rescue. I can’t be standing here trying to solve the mysteries of what is going on in this guy’s head. “So…will you help me?”

  He gives me a brief nod and walks over to the porch of the Hemingway, places the paintings against the door under the overhang. When he returns, he walks around the tree getting a measure of it.

  He can’t be serious.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Turner. You can’t climb that thing. It’s too cold and slippery. And the ground is hard when you fall.” The ground is covered in snow and not the fresh kind. It’s days old with a thin layer of ice on it.

  Turner takes a moment out of his busy schedule to scowl at me, then goes back to inspecting the tree.

  “I don’t want to end up in the hospital when you hurt yourself,” I warn.

  “Do you want my help or what?” Mr. Charm volleys back, giving me a look.

  “Yes,” I mutter, biting back another comment.

  Against my wise counsel, Turner takes a running jump up the trunk, grabs the lowest branch, and walks up the trunk. Once he gets horizontal, he vaults up on the branch and straddles it. All this while Elvis and I watch in rapt fascination. Dressed in black workout gear and sneakers, he looks like a hot ninja. And I’m suddenly feeling a lot warmer than I was ten minutes ago.

  “You were saying?” he yells down, gloating.

  “I was saying that that branch is not strong enough to hold your weight!” My heart is beating a mile a minute the way it does when danger is imminent but I can’t pinpoint where it is. Call it female intuition. Or that I have a pair of functioning eyes and a brain.

  “You weigh too much––like two fifty or something,” I holler. “And that branch is thin! Get down. I can call the fire department. The freaking cat is a champion whatnot, a blue ribbon winner. They might come out for a celebrity.”

  Ignoring me, Jake scoots further down the branch and reaches out for Elvis who glances down at his rescuer with the smug satisfaction of a Marvel super villain about to unleash mayhem.

  “Turner get down!”

  Jake starts making kissing sounds, and if I wasn’t so worried about him breaking his neck, I would say it’s darn cute.

  Elvis gets up from his prone position and stretches, tail wiping arrogantly back and forth. Then he takes another look at Jake and turns tail. The devil’s hand puppet jumps down on a branch on the other side of t
he tree, leaps off the trunk, and executes a perfect landing.

  I scoop him up quickly earns me a low growl. “I could kill you,” I push between gritted teeth.

  Once the cat is secured, my attention pivots back to the stubborn man in the tree. “Do not move. I’ll be right back.”

  I dump Elvis in the Austen and hurry back to find Jake looking unsure how to get himself out of this mess. “I’m getting the ladder!”

  “Hang on. I think I got this,” he tells me, glancing left and right, his brow furrowed in deep thought.

  “You do not got this!”

  Does he listen? No. He swings down, hanging by his arms, then his hands, then fingers. But he’s still too far off the ground to be safe.

  His shirt rides up to reveal a flexed six pack, and I’m stunned into silence. That six pack has the same effect on me that a phone has on an infant. I’m in a spell. I want to explore and inspect for days on end. I want to––

  “I think I need a ladder,” I hear him mutter.

  Now is not the time, however.

  “Are you freaking kidding me! Now? Now that you’re hanging by your fingertips?!”

  Too late. He lets go and falls to the hard ground with a grunt. Horrified, I run over and dive to my knees. “Turner!” His face twists in pain. “Turner! Jake are you okay? I’m calling an ambulance.”

  I move to stand and he catches my wrist.

  “Don’t. I’m fine.” Using me for leverage, he sits up and stretched his legs out, flexes his ankle, makes another face.

  “Is it broken?! Please tell me it’s not broken?”

  He chuckles drily. “Help me up.”

  When I stand, his gaze meets mine, and for the first time, there’s no cold apathy or irritation there. There’s none of that. And what’s even better is that there’s more than a little amusement.

  Holding out his hand to me, I take it and pull against his considerable weight. I throw everything I’ve got into it, which isn’t much to be honest.

  Once he’s on his feet, he tests out the ankle.

  “How bad does it hurt?” I can tell from the tightness around his mouth that it hurts.

  “Not at all.”

  “Really bad, then.”

  “Two hundred and twenty.”

  “What?”

  “I weigh two twenty. Not two fifty.”

  I find myself inspecting his body parts again. Measuring. Weighing. Yes, I know, we’re not doing that anymore, we shouldn’t objectify men or women. That’s absolutely true. Problem is, my lonely body parts haven’t gotten the memo.

  He clears his throat and it jolts me out of my wayward thoughts, my gaze lifting to get a better read on him. Anyone else would believe the expression of indifference. Not me. Na. Not even a little. I can see the unspoken challenge in his eyes from a mile away.

  “Congratulates. That’s still too much for that branch. You could’ve broken your neck.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Yes.”

  “Help me get to the porch?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s only a little sore,” I hear him mumble as I get closer.

  He throws his arm around my shoulders, and I hold my breath. It’s all I can do to contain the sigh. His weight against me, his heat, the way he smells. There’s something familiar about him that I can’t explain.

  Once we get inside his cottage I see more paintings stacked against the wall. All finished. He releases me and hops to the refrigerator in the kitchenette, pulls an ice pack out of the freezer, and grabs a bottle of NSAIDs out of a cabinet.

  “Maybe I can drive you to an Urgent Care,” I say, feeling completely awkward in his personal space.

  Turning, he leans his butt against the counter and slams two pills in his mouth. “I played an entire season with a fractured collar bone.”

  The sympathy pain I’m feeling makes me nauseas. “Oh––”

  “This is nothing.”

  Holding onto the walls for support, he hobbles into the main room and sits on the distressed leather couch facing the bed. Which, naturally, my attention gravitates to without permission.

  I can’t stop picturing Turner naked, the swell of muscle, the size of him. All that tan skin beneath the white linens with the CC monogram. God help me, I’m starting to sweat. I hook a finger in my turtleneck and tug, giving myself some room to breathe.

  Meanwhile, the man I’m having inappropriate thoughts about is busy kicking off his sneakers and peeling off his sock. A scar runs up the inside on the sore ankle.

  “How did you do that?” I blurt out.

  Putting the leg up, he places the ice pack over it and meets my eyes. He’s doing it again––looking at me as if he’s about to confess the secrets of the world to me and only me. Like I’m the only one he allows in his world. Which couldn’t be farther from reality. Still, it’s unnerving.

  “Broken ankle. An old training injury.”

  I nod and lean a shoulder against the door jam that separates the main room from the kitchenette. Then I wait, knowing that if he wants to say more he will.

  “My rookie year playing with the Bears…I didn’t know if it would heal well enough for me to play again.”

  From the articles I read on line, I know he came from very humble beginnings. So I’m certain that not knowing whether he would remain broke, or become a millionaire was a harrowing experience.

  “You got lucky, I take it?” I say in an attempt to lighten the heavy mood we’re slipping under.

  “Yeah.”

  I’ve never been good at letting things fester. I don’t like strife of any sort. Even with Zelda. She’s a constant thorn in my side because she makes me second guess whether I’m being crazy not giving her a chance.

  Typically, I charge in guns blazing, or more precisely, lips flapping determined to smooth things over because I’m not okay with not being okay. Tension makes me queasy and uncomfortable.

  “I’m sorry if we got off on the wrong foot…” Then I catch it, smiling. “No pun intended.”

  He brushes it off with a gruff, “It’s fine.”

  “Jake…I should––I want to thank you for letting me stay in the Austen. I know you rented it to have some privacy.”

  “You don’t have to thank me.” He looks away and it dawns upon me that I may have embarrassed him.

  An awkward silence falls, and I debate whether to leave. He doesn’t seem as put out that I’m in his space as he was at the farmhouse. “Is your ankle any better?”

  “It will be.” He extends the leg and stretches it out. My eyes follow the movement and land on the bed. And I’m reminded that I’m in the room where he sleeps and…and other stuff.

  “Well, I should be going…” I mutter, suddenly nervous and warm like the thermostat just got cranked up a thousand degrees. “I’ll, uh, see myself out.” I back away from him one step at a time while he watches. The humor under the stony façade is back. I’m pretty sure I see him fighting it. “Holler if you need anything. I mean, because of the ankle.”

  Goodness, I’m flubbing this.

  Opening the door, I step out on the porch. He has yet to break eye contact. “Bye. And thanks again for your help with the hell raiser––Elvis, I mean. And the cottage....and, uh, for saving my life obviously.” I need to shut up. “Anyway, thank you.”

  I shut the door behind me and take a deep breath.

  Chapter 9

  Ask any serious sports enthusiast and they’ll tell you The Herb Brooks Arena, built for the 1980 Winter Olympics, is an American landmark, site of the legendary Miracle On Ice. A game that saw the heavily favored Soviet Men’s Ice Hockey Team lose to a bunch of rag tag Americans 3 to 4.

  When I was growing up, however, it was just the parking lot where all the high school kids would meet up to determine whose parents’ booze they could steal or which house they were going to party at.

  I’m following up on a lead today. One Gray mentioned in passing. Breaking news here: Twice a week the Brooks
Arena is closed to the public, rented out by none other than Jake McScroogePants.

  It’s been a few days since the cat in the tree incident and other than him passing me by as he left for the farmhouse and my yelling in a weirdly high pitched, “Good morning,” we haven’t spoken.

  One thing that has changed? My interest. It is seriously piqued now, and Carrie Anderson, investigative reporter at large, did more internet digging.

  The grouchy one is some kind of hockey phenom. A modern day Bobby Orr––that’s what the analysts called him. Orr considered one of the all-time best. Which says a lot about the comparison.

  Like Orr, Turner was a defenseman both fast and with scoring ability. Drafted at eighteen, he went second overall to the Boston Bears where he played his entire career until four years ago. I also learned that Jake never officially retired. He asked the Bears to release him from his contract.

  What’s even more interesting is that Turner uses the Brooks Arena to hold hockey practice for disadvantaged kids. Considering his personality, this blew my mind.

  Turner and kids? Turner talking to kids? I can’t imagine how.

  I asked Gray to contact him for an interview and permission to let someone from the paper observe the practice session. Reluctantly, he agreed. I’m not entirely sure he would have had he known I was the one covering it. Even with our newfound truce in place we aren’t exactly braiding each others hair.

  Regardless, I cannot pass up the opportunity. This article practically writes itself. Fallen Hockey God Finds Redemption Helping Kids? I literally cannot come up with a better human interest piece if I tried.

  It’s perfect for my article, and if I get a couple of cool candid shots I can post them on The Gazette Instagram account and Facebook page. Heck, maybe even Twitter to drive some traffic.

  Inside the arena, the chill in the air makes me turtle my neck into my coat. Down below, the rink is swarming with small bodies outfitted in hockey gear. They seem to be skating in a haphazard pattern. Some taking shots on goal, some defending. I know close to nothing about the rules of hockey so I brushed up for this visit. That’s not saying much, though.