“But, Mom—”
“Let’s go now, Max. Right now.”
“But, I wanted to ask you if I could—”
“No, buts, Max. You’ve broken several rules and have violated my trust. If I have to tell you to come again, not only will there be consequences for your actions, but the automatic answer to whatever you want to ask me will be no.”
Luckily, this wasn’t their first battle. Calling Max headstrong was like the ocean waves calling the moon a little tuggy. That was just one of the reasons his and Rohan’s relationship fell apart. She’d learn early into his childhood to set consequence examples that ensured he understood until he was eighteen she had the ultimate say when it came to coming and going.
Without another word, Max sullenly shouldered his backpack, which she could only assume had a pair of skates inside, not just the lunch she’d packed him this morning.
“Bye,” he mumbled to the ghost from her past, then joined her at the bottom of the steps.
She could tell from the hunch in his shoulders that he’d like nothing more than to argue with her. But whole child centered as Lena tried to be, old coding died hard. And Max knew pulling her into embarrassing public scenes trophied at number one on her parental Don’t Ever List.
“Is that public enough for you?”
Keane had asked her that after coming to her internship and humbling himself in front of a crowd, then kissing all the doubts out of her, when she agreed to give him a chance. Kissing in public had been #4 on her shake it off list. GIVE KEANE A CHANCE, number 10.
But he had written that one in himself. She’d thought that write-in gesture so romantic as the former school bully kissed her nerdy self in public, like he no longer cared who knew he liked her. But in reality, it had been the first step in a ruinous journey.
She’d learned her lesson about playing with Keane. He was fire disguised as a human being, and the last thing she should do was touch it. Or let her son anywhere near it.
So she shuttled Max out of the hockey center, doing what she should have done eleven years ago when Keane unexpectedly re-appeared in her life after the disastrous end to their Spring Break hook up. Run. Run as fast as she could to get away from him.
And this time, she refused to look back. She kept her eyes on Max, her son, the only person who mattered. But Keane’s eyes burned into her back as they left. She was in Boston now, but his green gaze enflamed her skin just the same as stepping out into LA’s scorching hot sun.
“Slow Down, Lena, slow down…explain to me why you need me to look up hockey programs again?”
Lena didn’t blame Vihaan for sounding alarmed with a big scoop of worry on top. He hadn’t been required to calm Lena down since their senior year of high school. And how crazy that both meltdowns had been inspired by the same boy.
“Max snuck off to this hockey camp today after I dropped him off at the Better Boys’ day camp.”
Lena cursed herself again for being in such a rush to get back to the Sisyphean task of helping her father box up the EasyStop store this morning. Trusting her son, she’d simply dropped him off curbside and told him to let Nancy know she’d take care of signing him in and out when she picked him up.
“And now he’s upstairs sobbing because I told him he couldn’t go back.”
Vihaan let out a snort on the other side of the phone. “You’re much better than my mom. She would have done more than tell me I couldn’t go back. I wouldn’t have been able to sit for days!”
“Yes, well. Your mom did the best she could with the limited resources she had. And I probably should have guessed that ripping Max from both his therapist and his hockey team in California and putting him in the Better Boys’ day camp here might backfire. I was trying to solve two problems with one program, and hindsight being 20/20, that was probably unrealistic of me.”
This very mature observation only earned another derisive snort from her longtime friend. “Okay, Lena. Somehow make your son stealing your credit card and running off to some hockey program he didn’t tell you about is your fault. I can almost understand that logic. But if you’re feeling so guilty about making him give up summer hockey, why can’t he just stay at the program he found?”
“Because it’s at the Keane Hockey Academy.”
“Oh, shit!” Vihaan said before exploding into laughter.
“It’s not funny.”
“No, it isn’t,” Vihaan agreed, still laughing. “How are they actually letting that mean bitch teach children?”
“And that best friend of his from high school was there, too. He was like wearing a polo, so I think that makes him the head coach.”
“Oh my God, it’s like all those high school nightmares I have whenever I’m stressed out about a deadline came true. Did Con also make you take a math test you forgot to study for?”
Despite herself, Lena laughed at Vihaan’s question. “No, but you’re right. This is a nightmare.” For more reasons than even her best friend from high school understood. “Can you please just look into this for me. Max keeps on talking about them having this great summer travel team, and I have to find something equivalent—with what money, I’m not sure. But whatever, I need to do this for him, and I don’t know Boston as well as you do these days.”
“Well, I was planning to spend my Monday, dusting the many cobwebs that have accumulated on the Last Jewish Mistake side of my bed, but since you called…”
“Thank you, Vi,” she said, tamping down the urge to remind him that alone time after the break-up of a long-term relationship was allowed and sometimes even needed.
She should know. Rohan and she had separated over two years ago and she’d only been on a couple of dates since the divorce had been finalized in December.
“Seriously, Lena, no problem,” he answered, his tone magnanimous. But then he said, “Please tell me Con has a beer belly now and one of those ugly comb-overs.”
Lena bit her lip, trying to remember. The truth was, she’d only squinted at Con a little, trying to figure out where she knew him from before the Keane bomb went off. “He was wearing a hat, so I didn’t see his hair. And I don’t remember a beer belly…”
Vihaan let out a frustrated sound. “Ugh, that coach look is so hot without the beer belly. It’s not fair that the guy who called me a fag every day for two years still gets to be cute….”
Her friend probably had a lot more to say on the subject, but she had to cut him off when the doorbell rang.
“Sorry, the pizza I ordered just got here. I have to go, but I’ll call you back later.”
She got off the phone and rushed to the door, grateful that reinforcements had arrived. She was starving, and talking to Max about switching camps would go a lot easier after they both had some food in their bellies—
That gratitude died an instant, painful death when she saw who was at the door.
“Keane,” she said, her heart dropping into her stomach. “What are you…what are you doing here?”
People don’t grow past the age of twenty-one, do they? Somehow Keane looked like he added more inches since she saw him ten years ago. He loomed over her, his ice green eyes burning, his entire body radiating strength and energy even though he stood utterly still.
In fact, nothing but his lips moved as he answered her question with, “Is he mine? Tell me the truth. Is that kid my goddamn son?”
Chapter Seven
Eleven years ago, August
“Alright, he says to send you right up,” The evening doorman manning the front desk of Keane’s Beacon Hill condo building told her.
Lena let out a nervous laugh. “Oh, I get it. You’re kidding. Good one.”
The doorman squinted at her. “Why would you think I was kidding?” he asked, his Southie accent even thicker than Keane’s.
“Um…” Lena wasn’t sure how to answer that question. She could say, “Oh, you know, because I was pretty sure he hated me and would never let me come anywhere near him again after having me tossed
out of his room at the rehab center.” But that seemed like a bit of an overshare.
She settled for, “I didn’t know if he’d be up for visitors…” She lifted the plate of Get Well Soon chocolate chip cookies she’d thought she’d be leaving at the front desk, and tilted her head toward the three elevator bank. “I’ll just, um…yes, I’ll just go right on up.”
“Yeah, like I said,” the doorman answered, in that particular Boston way of adding a silent “you dumb bitch” to customer service interactions.
Yet another thing she hadn’t missed about this city during her year away. Here, she couldn’t buy a ticket for the Boston Ballet without some get-to-the-point clerk shooing you through the line, but in L.A., even the guy at Del Taco didn’t sound sarcastic when he told her to have a great night after taking her order at 2 a.m.
Everyone in her new adopted city was so nice. She’d only been at U-Cal for a semester and a half, and med school was…well, just as tedious as she’d thought it would be. But having no winter really made up for taking classes for which she felt no passion. And at least U-Cal had a highly diverse student population, along with nearby beaches, and days so warm and breezy, she could do most of her extremely hard, extremely boring work outside.
Yet, here she was.
After putting a 3,000-mile buffer between him and his strict mother, Rohan had decided they could be a match after all. He’d been pressuring her to fall back into a relationship, now that they were both living in L.A. But was she currently in sunny So-Cal, trying to figure out whether to give it another go with her sensible Indian ex-boyfriend? No! That would have been the not crazy thing to do.
Instead, she had flown home to hot-as-balls Boston for her summer break. And instead of planning next steps with Rohan, she’d spent the past weekend baking Keane’s favorite cookies in a desperate attempt to do something, anything to ease the pain of him losing his hockey career.
The last thing she’d expected was to be told to go right on up.
But she took a deep breath and stepped into the elevator anyway, chanting to herself, “You can do this.”
What seemed like only a millisecond later, the elevator dinged on the 12th floor of what Keane had referred to as “his starter condo,” even though it was located in one of the most expensive areas in town. And despite her inner cheerleader, her legs felt like two pillars of concrete as she forced herself to walk forward.
What if Keane had only let her up here because he wanted to yell at her some more?
She wasn’t sure she could take another round of him bellowing for her to get out. He’d looked so pissed at the rehab center, and even lying prone in the bed with one leg in traction, he’d appeared just as powerful as she’d remembered. Like he could and would take out anything that got in his way. Including her. Easily.
She swallowed, not sure what would happen when she knocked on that door.
But just like when she came to the Daytona Beach bar to get her journal, Keane yanked the door open before she could raise her fist. He was on crutches, wearing a muscle tee, basketball shorts and a white medical liner on what remained of his left leg. He sported a full beard now, she noticed, unchecked, and dripping water. Just like his hair, which had gone from Kennedy-esque to tangled and unruly.
But other than that, he looked great. She assumed from his wet hair, that he’d just hopped out of a shower, and despite his injury his arms still looked muscular and strong poking out of the Boston Hawks tee he’d gotten as part of a “Welcome to the Team” gift basket right before the summer they’d spent together. But then that positive note soured in her stomach. One season. He’d had only one season to live his dream. Waves of sorrow washed through her on his behalf.
“You brought me cookies?” His whole face lit up when he saw the plate in her hand. “Score! Come on in!”
He turned away and crutched back into the apartment without giving her a chance to answer. But he didn’t have to give her that chance, she followed after him. So happy to see him happy and not a bitter wreck like the last….
Her relieved thoughts trailed off, however, when she saw his front room.
Beer cans lay everywhere, along with old pizza boxes and takeout cartons. There was also a pungent scent lingering in the air. A mix of stale food and staler flesh.
She’d forced herself to give up her subscription to Psychology Now when she unexpectedly got accepted off the wait list at U-Cal Westwood, but looking around Keane’s apartment, she couldn’t help but think of one of the last articles she’d read from that magazine on the plane to California. Five Signs Your Adult Child is Suffering From Depression and Needs Your Help.
The state of this apartment alone should have had any mom rushing to get her kid to a therapist, according to that list. And though Keane’s hair was still dripping water, she had a feeling the “hasn’t showered in several days” part might have applied before she showed up at his front door. Which was dangerous for someone with a recently healed wound. And, as for a change in eating habits, all the takeout boxes tattled on Keane hard. Obviously, he was no longer eating like an elite athlete.
“How are you doing, Keane?” she asked, going over to the cluttered coffee table and setting the plate of cookies down on top of a closed pizza box. It was the only piece of flat real estate left on the table.
“Better, now that you’re here,” he answered, sweeping a few crumpled beer cans off the couch with a crutch before plopping down with a heavy thunk.
“Sit.” He tossed a few more cans and patted the couch right beside him.
“Sure…but first I’m going to open some windows, okay?”
He didn’t say anything in response. But she felt his eyes on her as she went around the room, pushing open the casement windows to let some air into the stinky, stuffy room. It was mad humid outside, but at least opening the window gave all the body and food odors somewhere to go.
She went into the open plan kitchen to grab a trash bag. Yes! The box she had brought him because she couldn’t stand that he didn’t clean up after himself between maid visits was still there.
She grabbed a crinkled bag and hoped its company’s promises about it holding strong for the biggest messes was true as she started tossing in takeout containers, some with moldy food still in them.
“So you feel guilty about me losing my leg.”
She froze at the sound of his question, which really wasn’t a question, but a statement as if he’d already read all about it in the Dear Mama journal she still kept.
She lowered the bag. “I…I just wanted to try apologizing one more time. And to see if there was anything I could do to help.”
A long beat passed, and his green eyes burned into her. That was something else that hadn’t changed. How intently he watched her whenever it was just the two of them, talking face-to-face.
Then he shifted and said, “I can still afford a maid. My career’s over, but I’m not broke. I just haven’t called to put the service back into rotation yet.”
“Oh…do you want me to do that?”
“Lena…”
“Seriously, it would only take me a few seconds. The number’s right on the icebox, right?”
“Lena, the only fucking thing I want you to do is sit and you still haven’t done it.”
That accusation stopped her mid-march to the kitchen, and a new wave of guilt washed over her. “Sorry. I was just trying to…but yes, I’ll sit.”
A seemingly easy task, but it took Herculean effort to reverse course and place herself down next to him on the couch. There was at least six inches of space between them, but now she could smell the alcohol radiating off his body. He’d taken a shower, but it hadn’t been enough to quell the smell.
However, his voice sounded perfectly normal as he asked, “Why did you come here?” He kept his eyes glued on her cookies, though he had yet to pull off the plastic cellophane on top.
“Um…” She swallowed. But despite the added lubrication, every word of her answer had to be
choked out. “I…after the hospital…I wanted…I didn’t know what to do…I just wanted to see…make sure you were okay.”
“You think I’m okay now that you’ve seen me?” His eyes didn’t shift from the plate.
“Um, I…” Wow, for someone who had spent last summer actually thinking she might have what it took to become a therapist, she sure was having trouble talking about her feelings now. “I want you to be okay. Or at least on your way to getting better. And I was hoping I could help.”
“Saint Lena…” he said with a wry chuckle. “So loyal. Always there when people need you.”
“No, not always,” she answered, her voice turning quiet, as she imagined Keane waking up in a hospital bed to the news that they’d had to cut off his leg…that his professional hockey career was over. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
Silence. He still wouldn’t look at her. But he said, “I shouldn’t have just kicked you out like that when you came to see me.”
“It’s okay, Ke—”
“No, it’s not okay.” He finally turned his head towards her. And his face was harsh with anger.
“Keane…” she said, only to trail off. The truth was she had no idea what to say. Or how to tell him about how much she’d missed him during their time apart. Now didn’t seem like the right moment at all to confess that she thought…no, actually she was sure she’d made a huge mistake letting him go last summer.
Keane cut off all those thoughts when his lips crashed into hers without any warning at all.
Just like in Daytona, that kiss changed everything. All those months apart, the dirty apartment, the reek of alcohol clinging to his body, all fell away. Leaving nothing but them. Nothing but the way they used to be.
Keane might be down a lower left limb, but he still had plenty of strength. She discovered that when he leaned back on the couch and took her with him. And apparently, he still had smooth moves, too. With deft precision, his hand pushed up the skirt of her dress, pulled her panties aside, and then…
Keane: Her Ruthless Ex: 50 Loving States, Massachusetts Page 8
