Chapter 6

Love is the devil counting teardrops in the rain
To the sound of a chalkboard symphony played with nails
For what it's worth I don't wanna see you hurt anymore
Than you have to

(lyrics from Love, the Hardest Way Ville Valo, HiM)

“I hate that look.”Glancing up and following Jordan’s line of sight, I find myself staring into Max’s smug face. Shrugging, I return to tugging at the laces on my skates. 

“So don’t look,” I suggest, wrapping the laces around the top of one boot before tying a tight bow before reaching for my other skate. 

“But he’s got that face on…that I’ve had sex and you haven’t face,” Jordan grumbles, sending another dark and threatening look towards our too happy teammate. 

“You fighting with Heather again?” I ask, which earns me an unhappy look and something colourful muttered under his breath about my not being very supportive. “I don’t like the look either,” I tell Jordan, not really to be supportive but because the look doesn’t bother me as much as the vision that I can’t quite get out of my head. I had to watch him running into his house, holding his t-shirt and jeans bunched in front of his junk while his new girlfriend raced ahead in just her bra and panties. It’s an image I can’t shake. “I had to listen to them all night.” 

“No one put a gun to your head and told you to sleep with your window open,” Max interjects, making me look up at the still too happy expression that seems permanently fixed on his face. 

“You know I always sleep with it open,” I mutter, knowing it doesn’t make a difference to him, that maybe it makes things worse. I hate to think that some of what I hear coming from his bedroom might be overacted for my sake, but I know it’s possible.

“Does Max have himself a screamer?” our captain asks, the grin on his face saying he doesn’t much care about the answer but isn’t above stirring the pot. Sometimes the boy wonder can be a real asshole. 

“Mostly it was Max doing the screaming, from what I could tell,” I answer, knowing I’m being just as unhelpful, though I should know better and Max doesn’t disappoint as he grins even more broadly at me. 

“Someone sounds jealous,” he begins and before I can make a counter claim of any kind, he laughs and turns to walk away. “Oh wait, I keep forgetting, you’d have to actually remember what having sex feels like to be jealous.” 

“Oh c’mon Maxie,” Sid pipes up and I feel my entire body stiffen, anticipating what’s coming next. “Kris is just worried about losing you to some girl, aren’t you Tanger?” he asks, his dimples deepening as he turns to me. 

“Ha ha, très drôle,” I mumble and psychologically extricate myself from the group, returning my attention to my skates, letting my hair drop in front of my face and doing my best to ignore the rest of the jibes and sarcastic comments tossed around the room at my expense. 

“What time do you call this?” My blood freezes in my veins and my shoes drop out of my hand with a resounding clatter that makes me wince and flinch, half expecting one of my mom’s slippers to go flying past my head. “Why don’t you just stay out? Don’t worry about your poor old mom and what the neighbors will think of my whore of a daughter who stays out all night, not worrying about her poor old mom.” 

“First of all,” I begin, rolling my eyes and giving up on all pretense of sneaking around and going straight for the coffee pot, which, I notice, hasn’t even been rinsed out since yesterday. “I wasn’t aware you’d suddenly developed some kind of fatal disease,” I grumble as I rinse out the pot and put it back on the warmer, lifting the lid and taking out the used, gummed up and cold filter and tossing it in the garbage under the sink. “And second of all, most of our neighbors are still passed out or sleeping off last night and I’m pretty sure no one gives a shit about what time I get home.”

Having put the coffee on to percolate, I begin to head for my room and some clean clothes, feeling my mother’s beady little eyes on my back. I’m tired, and everything aches in that bone deep way that only a night of truly exuberant sex can bring about and the fuzzy feeling of afterglow is gone now that I’m wandering around in day old panties. Now is not the best time to pick a fight with me, and you would think my mother, of all people would recognize that. 

“Anything could have happened to me during the night. You know I’m not well,” she begins in that whiny, accusatory voice that makes me feel like she’s sticking pins under my fingernails. Part of my brain, the sane part, the smart part, tells me to leave it alone, to nod and say nothing but when I haven’t had my coffee and my brain is more than a little fuzzy from lack of sleep, I rarely listen to the smart part. 

“You have M.S., you’re not dying…yet,” I mutter, emphasizing the last word like it’s a chocolate covered cherry truffle that tastes so delicious that I want to savor the idea of it. “So instead of sitting around waiting for me to come home, maybe you should be doing what the doctor suggested and using that tread mill that I worked my butt off for or, you know, go outside and go for a walk instead of sitting around here feeling sorry for yourself and chain smoking,” I add viciously, making a grab for the cancer stick in her hand that’s about to drop a long, thin, strip of ash on the carpet. “Or maybe I’ll get lucky and you’ll burn the place down around yourself and I won’t have to listen to you bitch and moan anymore,” I grumble when she pulls the cigarette out of my reach. 

“Is that what this is about?” she asks, getting that dangerous glint in her eye that not only says the effects of the scotch I can smell on her breath have not even begun to dissipate, but that she’s about to do or say something truly and deeply nasty. Bracing myself, taking a deep breath, I get ready for her to do or say the worst, most manipulative, most personally hurtful words, but instead she pulls something out of the pocket of her well worn, thread bare baby chick yellow bathrobe and then turns her hand over and lets it dangle from her fingertips. 

It’s my bracelet, the one Max gave me. 

“You went into my room?” God knows we’ve had a thousand fights, but this is a new low even at her most scotch soaked.

“So is this what you’re doing? Hooking for baubles and trinkets?” she asks venomously, her lips pulling thin across her tobacco stained teeth. 

“Fuck you,” I hiss, making a grab for the diamond bracelet, but she pulls her hand back and it disappears up the sleeve of her robe. 

“Maybe you think if you give your sugar daddy good enough head he’ll take you away from all this? Is that it? You’re going to leave me here, all on my own, to fend for myself until they turn me out on the street. Is that what you want?” There it is; the guilt trip, the threat that keeps me tied to her. I’d no sooner see her on the street than myself but she has to remind me of my duty as her daughter. As if I need reminding.

“Give it to me,” I sigh, trying my best to keep my voice calm as I hold my hand out towards her.

“I don’t know why you can’t be more like Jenny,” she says, summoning tears that I know are just as fake as her tattooed on eyebrows. “You’ve always been such an ungrateful child.”

“Oh yeah, because Jenny’s the one paying for your smokes and the Johnny Walker you polished off last night, bitch. I get one nice thing and you have to make it dirty,” I snap, turning and slamming my bedroom door in her face. I don’t feel good about it and for a minute I think about opening the door and actually apologizing for being a complete and utter cunt, but then I hear the unmistakable sound of glass shattering against the other side of the door, right where my head is. 

“You’re a whore! And no daughter of mine is a whore.” 

It’s not like I haven’t heard it before and it’s not like I don’t think she has the right to be pissed, but right then, I’m tired, I’m short on patience and it just feels like the last straw. So with a shake of my head and a irreverent smirk, I grab the nearest thing that passes for luggage, a garbage bag, and begin to stuff my shit in it. 

“Max! There’s a visitor for you!”

Everyone turns to look at me as I’m about to step off of the ice. Furrowing my brow, I shrug. Usually, on hearing that news, I’d expect one of my brothers but I haven’t had a text or call from anyone in my family saying they were coming and they know better than to just show up, unannounced.

I hand my stick to the equipment manager and am pulling my helmet off when I get a glimpse of Chestnut waves and faded blue jeans and feel a grin spread across my face. 

“Can’t get enough of me, eh pitoune?” I call as I follow the rubber mat into the hallway where she’s leaning, one leg bent up so that her foot is tapping the wall just beneath her shapely ass. She turns towards my voice, but where I’m expecting a big, sexy grin, instead I see that she’s biting anxiously on her thumb nail. “Whoa, is something wrong?” I ask, taking in the tracks that tears have made through her foundation and the silvery glimmer of still unshed tears in her eyes.

“Look, I know this is like…I mean you hardly know me but, I was just wondering if I could maybe crash at your place, just for like…maybe a couple of days until I find something else.” 

“Yeah, sure.” The answer is out of my mouth before my brain engages and starts asking questions like ‘are you thinking with your dick?’ and ‘how do you know she’s not some kind of axe murderer?’ but the relief on her face is tangible and the way she looks at me it’s like I’m her knight in shining armor and suddenly my chest feels broader and my shoulders wider. “Do you wanna tell me what happened? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she sighs, her shoulders slumping like she can finally let herself relax. “I just couldn’t take it anymore, you know?” I don’t but I nod like I do because it seems like what she needs is a sympathetic ear, not a bunch of questions from some guy dripping sweat all over the place. 

“Look, I’m just going to go and get showered and changed,” I explain, getting a whiff of my own funk as I shake off one of my gloves so that I can reach out and carefully wipe away a tear that is making its way down her cheek. “Then I’ll come right back here and we’ll go back to mine and get something to eat, maybe that will make you feel better, d’accord?” She nods and gives me a childlike smile that is all kinds of grateful and it makes me want to hug her but instead I turn and head for the dressing room with a funny sort of smile on my face. 

“Did Max make you cry?” 

She’s the last thing or person I expect to see slumped against the wall of the corridor that leads to the dressing room. Security is pretty good about keeping puck bunnies out of this area, so we don’t usually see girls down here unless it’s one of the guy’s girlfriends and I don’t recognize her right away. Not in the faded jeans with the holes in the knees. It’s only when she runs her hand through her dark waves that something clicks in my head and I find that I’m smiling, happy to see her, but just as I open my mouth to call out a hello she wipes her nose with the back of her hand and I realize that she’s crying and then all I can think is that either last night wasn’t as consensual as it sounded or I’m looking at a serious case of buyer’s remorse.

“N…no,” she sniffs, straightening as she pushes away from the wall and wipes quickly at the mascara that’s ringing her eyes, making her look like she’s taken a shot to the bridge of her nose. “Well…yeah kind of,” she admits and I feel my hands curl into fists. “I had kind of a bad morning and…well he’s going to let me crash at his place and I mean, I know he doesn’t have to do that. He’s pretty great isn’t he?” My answer sticks in my throat and I manage, just, to nod as if I agree with her, which makes her smile, her dark eyes glittering behind her tears with an appreciation that I know Max doesn’t deserve. “You’re…Kris, right?” 

“Yeah, that’s me.” It’s stupid, but I get this idiotic grin on my face just to know that she remembers me, that she knows my name. 

“You’re friends with him, right?” she begins and I nod because it makes her smile and she has a beautiful smile. “Of course, you must be. You live next door to each other.” 

“Nos Francaphonie have to stick together,” I tell her, which makes her smile broaden and she even laughs a little, ducking her head away so that her rich, chocolate brown waves fall into her face. As if I have no control over it, my hand reaches up and brushes her hair back, tucking it neatly behind her ear. She gives me a little grateful grin and then glances past me, towards the doors of the dressing room. 

“I’m not going to get him into trouble am I? Being here?” 

“No,” I promise her, making a mental note to crack my stick over his head for leaving her out here alone like this when we have a new, tricked out player’s lounge with comfortable couches, LED TVs and a fully stocked fridge. 

“Good, that’s good,” she sighs like it’s a huge weight off of her shoulders. 

“I’ll just hurry him up for you,” I add, reaching for the bag at her feet. She tries to stop me but I’m too quick and it’s already slung over my shoulder. “Let me just take you somewhere you can sit down and then I’ll go find him for you.” Her gaze searches mine, like she’s looking for an ulterior motive and I wonder if she can see through me to that place where I’m thinking that Max isn’t good enough for her. 

But all she says is, “thanks,” and follows me down the hall to where I push open the door and lead her to one of the leather couches where she sinks gratefully, looking like she’d like to curl up and go to sleep. 

“Can I get you a drink or anything before I go?” I ask, because I don’t really want to leave her all alone. She seems so defenseless, so ready to break into a million pieces that I actually have to work at not going to her and putting my arms around her so that I can promise her everything will be okay. 

“No, I’m good,” she says, giving me another one of those brave, pretty smiles that don’t even take the edge off of the hurt that’s plain in her eyes. I want so much to ask her about it but tell myself it’s not my place, not my business, that she’s not my girlfriend. So with a nod, I turn to go. “Kris?” 

“Yeah?” Maudit! I’m like an eager puppy wagging my tail looking for approval when it comes to her. 

“Don’t tell him I was crying, okay?” 

“D’accord,” I agree, but I know it’s a lie as soon as the word leaves my lips. 

“How could you leave her like that?” 

I look back at Kris’s furious reflection in the mirror and smile. 

“Je laisse toujours les plus vouloir,” I grin back at him and watch as his face gets even redder. 

“Sacrement Max! She’s balling her eyes out there. You don’t just leave her in the hall for anyone to see. Do you never think about anything but yourself?” 

“Mon crisse Tanger, don’t get your panties in such a knot,” I laugh, running my hands through my hair before arching my neck to get a better angle of the dark purple love bite on my neck. “I was just gonna be un moment, not leave her there all day,” I promise, turning to grin at him which only makes him grind his teeth together. “Calmes-toi mon ami, I’m on my way to save ma jolie fille.” 

“Tu es un âne,” he growls at me, running his hands through his wet hair, slicking it to his head before shaking his head as if to tell himself I’m not worth arguing with, but just as I’m about to slip my shoes on and go, he obviously loses that argument with himself. “Are you seriously moving her in? You don’t even know her.” 

“Jaloux, beaucoup, mon ami très solitaire?” I ask, watching his nostrils flare before he storms into the shower, in full gear. I watch him go, shaking my head and thinking that our Krisopher is far too sensitive sometimes. 

“You really moving her in?” I turn to see Jordan staring at me like I’ve grown another head or something. 

“It’s temporary. She must have had a fight with her roommate or something,” I shrug. That’s what I’ve decided must have happened and why she’s never let me pick her up or drop her off. She must have the roommate from hell. “Besides, you know what they say about a blowjob a day?” I add, laughing when he rolls his eyes at me. “You’re jealous. You’re all jealous,” I add, laughing when Sid shakes his head contemptuously at me. “I’m going home to have more monkey sex. See you suckers later,” I call over my shoulder as I head out the door and down the hall, finding it empty. 

Tanger….

Turning I push open the door to find Becky sprawled out on one of the sofas, eyes closed, her soft lips slightly parted, her cheek resting on her forearms, fast asleep. Poor kid, guess I really wore her out last night. 

“C’mon ma copine,” I whisper, sliding my arms beneath her prone form and lifting her up to cradle her against my chest. “Let’s get you home.”