Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“Not when she has his ring around her neck.”
Silas looks like he’s about to argue. But Chiara is approaching our table with a sway of hips, a toss of hair, and two dessert plates. “Gentlemen, two chocolate lava cakes.”
When she sets them down in front of us, the scent of warm chocolate rushes up to meet me. It’s wonderful.
“Marry me,” Silas says, looking up at Chiara and batting his eyelashes.
She gives a sniff. “Your pop star girlfriend would have a few things to say about that, wouldn’t she?”
“Probably,” he says with a smile. “But you can’t blame a guy for trying.”
I have the worst urge to kick him under the table. Just because I never got the chance to flirt with Chiara doesn’t mean he should get to.
“Enjoy,” she says. Then she sets down the bill folder. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
When she walks away, Silas gives me a grin. “Okay, I notice a couple of things. First, she knows you’re a professional hockey player.”
“Yes? And also you.”
“Well, chicks dig hockey players.”
I snort, because it’s barely true here in Brooklyn. In Helsinki, I’d be a celebrity. But not here. I’m just a rookie who can barely speak the language.
“Also, our lava cakes are not the same.”
“What?” I pick up my fork and examine my dessert. The cake is as dark as midnight. There are halved strawberries waiting on the side, in a pillow of whipped cream. And chocolate sauce has been swirled artfully over the plate. I look at Silas’s, too. “It is just the same. Except mine will be gone soon.”
I drop my fork to take a bite, but Silas catches my wrist before I can do it. “Look at the sauce,” he says. “Look at mine.” He holds up the plate, where the sauce makes a random swirl. “Now yours.”
Looking down one more time, I think I see what he means. The chocolate is shaped into a heart. “That is just nothing,” I say, brutalizing the English language again. “It is without meaning.”
“No way, man.” He lets go of my wrist and plunges his fork into his cake. “Where women are concerned, nothing is without meaning. Trust me on this.”
Hmm. Silas is a good friend, and a great teammate, but he is seeing what is not really there.
I eat the cake. Every bite. And the heart disappears into my gullet, where my real one beats a lonely rhythm.
ONE YEAR LATER
“GREAT GAME, IVO,” Leo Trevi shouts over the win song that’s blasting in the locker room.
“YES, IT WAS,” I agree as I straighten my tie. We just crushed Tampa in an early season game.
It felt great, too. I shut down every bad idea their left wing had tonight. That guy is going to have some bruises with my name on them, too.
Someone turns down the music, so when Leo says, “Coming to the tavern? We’re leaving soon.” I can actually hear him.
“Good idea.”
He checks his watch. “Meet us outside in five minutes?”
The music starts up again, so I just nod and grab my shoes.
After a year on the team, it’s fair to say that I’ve settled in for real. I socialize with my teammates. My English is improved. My passes are connecting. My apartment has some art on the walls.
Yet, if I’m honest with myself, I’m often lonely, even if I’m rarely alone. My teammates will be in a fun mood tonight. There will be women at the bar to flirt with and drink with. And, if I want, to take home.
But there’s only been one woman in Brooklyn who truly caught my interest. And last I heard, she was planning a spring wedding to the wrong man.
My hollow mood will probably pass, though, but not until after the holidays. It’s December twenty-third, and I have three days off in a row. It would go by quickly any other time of year. But Christmas without my family? It will be the longest three days of my life. Just like last year.
But first, drinks.
I ride with three of my teammates in a taxi, which makes the taxi driver roll his eyes. We are loud and take up every inch of his car. It’s a short trip, though, and my teammates are soon shoving against me playfully as we storm through the entrance of the tavern.
“Hurry,” Leo says, pushing on my back. “We have to start a game of darts before Heidi Jo gets here to crush us all.”
“That’s your strategy?” Castro asks. “Start the game before my wife can defend her title?”
“It’s the only way I can win.”
“I’ll buy the first round,” says O’Doul, our captain.
A cheer rises up, and Leo forgets about darts, because he’s too busy goading O’Doul into paying for top shelf liquor.
Millionaires like free drinks. That is a funny thing I have learned as my hockey career progresses.