Shell Games
Prairie Dogs
Air conditioning wasn’t all great in humidity. On the streetcars and on the subway, the mixed smell of sweat and air conditioning the day after Labour Day was an unpleasant smell that couldn’t be escaped. It could be ignored but it lingered and it was always there until the humid heat went away. It was something I got used to quickly though. The combination of Toronto’s very effective public transit system and location of my brother’s condo made me a nearly daily subway rider. After a whole day of ballet rehearsal, it was very convenient that the distance between Islington Station and the door to the lobby of the complex building was less than two blocks.
Home was on the 17th floor of a high rise condominium building in Central Etobicoke. My brother, Gavin, was one of those people who never stopped thinking. He was a critical thinker: quick on his feet and always with a plan. He was integral to the company he worked for. Not with the corner office on the top floor, but definitely an elevator ride up. It was the reason why, at 24, he could already afford to make mortgage payments on a two-bedroom condo in Toronto.
Now granted, Etobicoke didn’t exactly have the same allure or price tag as downtown, but it was certainly way past the ceiling of my corps de ballet salary. The rent money I gave to Gavin for letting me reside in the second bedroom was still equal to the amount I’d contributed for the apartment we shared during the first year we lived together in Toronto once I got out of the dorms. Our current digs were definitely an upgrade. I knew I was lucky to have a brother who helped support my dream by undercharging me for rent. Most of my friends in the corps weren’t so fortunate to have rooms with views.
As I turned my key in the lock of our door, unit 1717, the dance bag draped casually on my shoulder slipped to the bend of my arm on the inside of my elbow. I grimaced at the weight and straightened my arm, letting the bag drop to the hallway carpet. It was the first week of rehearsal for the upcoming season and all of my limbs felt sore after a full day devoted to learning choreography for the first round of performances. The sudden mid-week holiday the day before, for the observance of Labour Day, had been completely lazy and hadn’t done me any good.
I made my way inside noisily, dropping the bag against the sliding oak door of the foyer closet and kicking off my Sanuks. I was all about comfort after the rehearsals that kept me in a leotard and pointe shoes all day. There wasn’t much glamour to the daily ins and outs of ballet unless you counted a touch of waterproof mascara. I usually came home in a version of the same outfit: cutoff tights and some sort of casual, cotton dress.
My ears picked up male voices as my bare feet moved against the cool tile of the entry way, further into the condo. I could tell they were in the kitchen but I couldn’t see past the stack of boxes that were blocking the small living room. It didn’t matter. I knew what more boxes meant. And I could recognize two of the voices on any day of the year—my brother and his best friend. Kris Versteeg had arrived in Toronto.
I knew I should have been more prepared. I should have been calm and collected. I did know, after all, when Kris was going to show up. But what exactly was the appropriate way to prepare to greet a guy I’d been crushing on since junior high?
All eyes fell on me once I stepped into the space between the kitchen and the living room area. They were all standing, leaning against the counters. My brother would be the first to speak. “Hey. You’re right on time.”
I walked toward the men standing against the dishwasher. Kris pushed off from the counter and met me halfway, pulling me into a hug I wasn’t expecting. If I’d known, I probably would have showered before going home. I had dried sweat in my hair and I probably smelled like the subway, too.
“How ya been, kiddo?” Kris asked. “You look tired.”
Quickly I went from feeling bad that I smelled to wanting to stab him in the heel. It was one thing for him to not notice me. It was another for him to be saying, in kinder terms, that I looked like shit. That was worse.
“We can’t all get by on wit and charm like you,” I replied sarcastically (but secretly only half-sarcastically). “I was at rehearsal.”
He looked great. His blond hair looked lighter than it’d been the last time I saw him during the summer because of its new length: short on the sides and pointed on top. I wasn’t sure where he’d gotten into town from, but if it involved a plane, he sure didn’t look worn from the travel. Neither his dark washed jeans nor his button-down shirt were wrinkled. His eyes sparkled under the track lights of the kitchen, the colour of the sky on a clear day.
I moved away from Kris and into a casual hug with another familiar face. He was reminiscent of Kris, but with darker hair and a couple extra inches in height.
“Hi Mitch,” I said. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
Mitch was one of Kris’ brothers. We were nearly the same age. In elementary school we’d even been in the same Grade 4/Grade 5 split class together. We were never really good friends but he was someone I’d always known since our brothers had been inseparable. Before we hit double digits in age, the two of us probably wanted the same thing – to hang out with our cooler older brothers. They didn’t want anything to do with us, since we were younger and because, well, I was a girl.
“Just for the weekend,” Mitch responded. “I’m headed to K-zoo on Monday.”
Like his older brother, Mitch was a hockey player. But he wasn’t an undersized winger like Kris. When he said K-zoo, I knew he was referring to where he would be playing his hockey season. Mitch was a defenseman for the Kalamazoo Wings in the ECHL.
“Are you actually here for a visit,” I wondered, “or has your brother just burdened you with helping him move into his new digs?”
“More of the second one, definitely,” he laughed. With his hand in a fist, Mitch pointed behind himself with his thumb at the final person in the room. “I even recruited reinforcements in the form of one of his new teammates.”
The guy Mitch pointed at was actually the second person I noticed in the kitchen after I saw Kris. He stood out. He didn’t look like anyone in the room. He was the tallest guy and biggest guy, and I’d never met him before.
“Hi,” he flashed dimples and quickly gave my hand a solid shake. My palm felt small in his bear paw of a hand. “I’m Luke.”
“Whoa, calm down there, junior,” Kris interjected. “I’m sure she knows who you are.”
That I did. Toronto was—and still is—the hockey center of the universe. It was impossible to live in the city without gaining even the slightest grasp of the Maple Leafs roster. Of course I knew who Luke Schenn was. He was one of the most popular players on the team. Younger fans, including a sizeable amount of girls, wore his #2 jersey with pride.
He was the kind of player that hardcore members of Leafs Nation would get into comment wars with on the internet, saying things along the lines of “the Leafs didn’t draft him because he’s hot, okay?” and “his looks weren’t included in the scouting report”. Seeing him up close, looking up at him in Gavin’s kitchen, I knew he was one of those guys who had perpetual baby face. He was cute in that teenage skater boy kind of way as opposed to the George Clooney handsome man kind of way. I’d heard his name around town and on Hockey Night in Canada for a few years but he still looked like he’d just graduated from draft day with his rounded cheeks and too long to be neat hair.
“I’m Kaylie,” I greeted him. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“What kind of rehearsal were you at?” he wondered, alluding to my earlier retort to Kris.
“I wa—”
“She’s a ballerina,” Kris interrupted, cutting me off. “So you can forget about it. She wouldn’t be into an uncoordinated doofus like you.”
I’d explained to him on more than one occasion that I actually wasn’t a ballerina.
Even if I were to work my way to a soloist, I still wouldn’t be. I would never actually be a ballerina. The term wasn’t used too often in the ballet business. The only real ballerinas were internationally acclaimed principal dancers.
But I didn’t correct Kris this time. I was more distracted by his implication that Luke might want to hit on me. It wasn’t often that he did it, since I hesitated to be around him, but it always bummed me out when Kris went into hyperactive protective older brother mode. I didn’t care about his friends or teammates hitting on me. I wanted him to hit on me.
Luke was as unfazed by the comment as I was. So instead of telling Kris he was literally clueless, and instead of throwing myself at him, I asked a question. “Why are all your boxes still here? I would like to be able to sit on the couch and actually see the TV, you know.”
“Good for you.” Kris clapped a hand on my shoulder. “You wanna get a head start? I’ll let you get first choice of which box to carry.”
“Oh, ha ha,” I said dryly. “There’s enough testosterone in this room to power a lamp. I’m not carrying a single box.”
Kris shrugged. “You can still help unpack.”
“No.” I shook my head with intent. I took a half-step in the direction of my room before quickly stopping and speaking again. “And I want to see a welcoming living room when I come back out here, not one made of cardboard.”
I didn’t say any more as I headed down the small hallway that led to the bathroom and my bedroom. I thought it best to get away from Kris before I made a fool of myself. There would be plenty of time for that later. After all, he was moving in across the hallway.
By the end of June the news was widespread that Kris would be reporting to Toronto for training camp in the fall. Hell, someone had even brought a Leafs jersey with his name plate and #32 to his Stanley Cup party in our hometown. Three weeks ago I had no idea where he’d be living in Toronto and I hadn’t even asked my brother about it. I figured that the further I stayed away from Kris, the better. It was bad enough that I was 21 years old with a renewed crush on my brother’s best friend. There was no reason for me to embarrass myself by becoming a blubbering idiot around him and letting him know.
Two weeks ago, before rehearsal started and I was spending a lot of time lounging in the living room, my brother came home and told me the great (read: horrifying) news. The condo one door down and across the hall, unit 1714, was actually under lease by whoever owned it. And it would be unoccupied by the end of August by whoever used to live there (we weren’t the friendliest of neighbours). So the new leasee was going to be Kris.
As soon as Gavin told me, I knew hockey season wasn’t going to be the same. Kris and Gavin didn’t take the best friends thing lightly. It was like a bromance. They enjoyed hanging out together in their mid-20’s just as much as they did when they were 12. Living across the hall from each other would, in essence, be like living as roommates. I knew that whenever Kris was home it would probably mean that he’d be at our place. There would be no escaping him.
It was too bad that Etobicoke was such a convenient place for him to reside. I had no idea where the majority of his teammates lived, but the Mastercard Centre—the Leafs practice facility—was less than a 10 minute drive from our building. He had every reason to agree to terms on that lease, never mind my silly little feelings for him. So boxes showed up to our place from Chicago before his arrival. It wasn’t a mountain of boxes, but there were enough that most of our living room disappeared.
I was sure though that with three men to help him, Kris could get everything moved over into his new place across the hall in the time it would take me to shower and regain some composure in my room. I knew how pathetic it was. I was an adult whose entire career was based on performing for and appealing to an audience. That was my comfort zone. But some guy from Lethbridge that I’d known since childhood? Forget it. I crumbled.
His presence made it so that I couldn’t even be comfortable in my own home after I showered. That’s how pathetic I was. Once I’d showered, I didn’t even feel right putting on an old t-shirt and athletic shorts like I usually did after a long day of rehearsal. I actually put on a racerback tank and jeans, and I blow dried my hair. I even considered reapplying mascara to my blonde lashes again and I only decided against it because I knew I’d be going to bed in a couple of hours.
Sure enough, the living room was back to normal when I got back to it. There was Chinese takeout on the coffee table. All the guys were eating and an episode of The Big Bang Theory was on the television screen. It was a show that my brother and I were working through on my Netflix account. Mitch and Gavin were sitting beside each other on the love seat. Kris and Luke were on opposite ends of the couch, which only left the middle for me. So I sat down there, right next to Kris. I swear I was the best smelling thing in the whole place but he didn’t even notice. He barely glanced my way before returning his gaze to the television.
Luke noticed. He even offered to open the one remaining bottle of beer on the coffee table for me while I looked through the small takeout boxes. He was placing the sweating bottle of Labatt Blue in my hand by the time I’d found the sesame chicken my brother had kindly ordered for me.
“Well aren’t you helpful,” I told Luke.
He shrugged, turning his head from the LCD screen and looking at me with ocean eyes. His dimple-accented smile was genuine. “I try.”
“How do you know Mitch anyway?” I wondered.
“We played against each other in a few tournaments when we were younger, and in The Dub,” Luke answered. “He trains with a group of us in the offseason in Saskatoon.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“Yup,” he nodded. “We’re all prairie dogs.”
I wondered if being from Saskatoon made him more or less of a prairie dog than all of us from Lethbridge. The Bridge City, in Southern Alberta, was definitely on prairie land. It was surrounded by industrial parks and farm land on all sides. But it was less than a three hour drive from Calgary and less than two hours west of the Rockies. Saskatoon was a much bigger city than Lethbridge, sure, but the province of Saskatchewan had long upheld a reputation of flatness as the heart of the Canadian Prairies.
Conversations were put on hold while we watched the sitcom. Occasionally we would join in with the laugh track or someone would slurp while they took a sip of their beer. I was well aware of Kris’ presence beside me. I peeked at him out of the corner of my eye more than a few times and each time it was the same: he was slumped against the couch, head tilted back, eyes focused on the screen. It was actually kind of weird. Maybe it was because I’d spent so little time around him in the last seven years that I didn’t realize he could sit still for an extended period of time. Kris was always so loud and animated.
Three episodes of The Big Bang Theory later, no one was touching any more of the food and all the beer bottles were empty. Gavin actually retired to his room three quarters of the way through the second episode because he had an early conference call the next morning. As a result, Mitch had made himself right at home, sprawled out on the loveseat with his legs spilling over the edge. His arms were crossed over his chest and his eyes were closed when his older brother stood up.
Kris spoke over me to Luke. “I’m gonna go pass out. You got Mitch, right?”
“Yeah, man,” Luke responded. “I’ve got a pullout couch.”
“Alright.” I could tell with my peripheral vision that Kris yawned and stretched with emphasis, overdramatically, like he was in a bad movie. “See you tomorrow.”
“See ya,” Luke said casually.
“Oh,” Kris was halfway to the front door when he stopped in his tracks, shoes squeaking against the hardwood floor. “Good night, Kaylie.”
I blinked at the TV. “Night.”
When I heard the click of the door shut behind him, I let a silent sigh escape my lips. It would have been a nice thought to know he wanted me to have a good night. But I was so invisible to Kris that he barely even remembered to say anything to me before he left. I was as much in the background to him as I was when I performed with the corps de ballet. He was clueless and I was the most pathetic girl I knew.
“Hey, Kaylie?” Beside me, Luke spoke my name like a question.
I grunted in response. “Hmm?”
“How long have you liked Kris?”
Home was on the 17th floor of a high rise condominium building in Central Etobicoke. My brother, Gavin, was one of those people who never stopped thinking. He was a critical thinker: quick on his feet and always with a plan. He was integral to the company he worked for. Not with the corner office on the top floor, but definitely an elevator ride up. It was the reason why, at 24, he could already afford to make mortgage payments on a two-bedroom condo in Toronto.
Now granted, Etobicoke didn’t exactly have the same allure or price tag as downtown, but it was certainly way past the ceiling of my corps de ballet salary. The rent money I gave to Gavin for letting me reside in the second bedroom was still equal to the amount I’d contributed for the apartment we shared during the first year we lived together in Toronto once I got out of the dorms. Our current digs were definitely an upgrade. I knew I was lucky to have a brother who helped support my dream by undercharging me for rent. Most of my friends in the corps weren’t so fortunate to have rooms with views.
As I turned my key in the lock of our door, unit 1717, the dance bag draped casually on my shoulder slipped to the bend of my arm on the inside of my elbow. I grimaced at the weight and straightened my arm, letting the bag drop to the hallway carpet. It was the first week of rehearsal for the upcoming season and all of my limbs felt sore after a full day devoted to learning choreography for the first round of performances. The sudden mid-week holiday the day before, for the observance of Labour Day, had been completely lazy and hadn’t done me any good.
I made my way inside noisily, dropping the bag against the sliding oak door of the foyer closet and kicking off my Sanuks. I was all about comfort after the rehearsals that kept me in a leotard and pointe shoes all day. There wasn’t much glamour to the daily ins and outs of ballet unless you counted a touch of waterproof mascara. I usually came home in a version of the same outfit: cutoff tights and some sort of casual, cotton dress.
My ears picked up male voices as my bare feet moved against the cool tile of the entry way, further into the condo. I could tell they were in the kitchen but I couldn’t see past the stack of boxes that were blocking the small living room. It didn’t matter. I knew what more boxes meant. And I could recognize two of the voices on any day of the year—my brother and his best friend. Kris Versteeg had arrived in Toronto.
I knew I should have been more prepared. I should have been calm and collected. I did know, after all, when Kris was going to show up. But what exactly was the appropriate way to prepare to greet a guy I’d been crushing on since junior high?
All eyes fell on me once I stepped into the space between the kitchen and the living room area. They were all standing, leaning against the counters. My brother would be the first to speak. “Hey. You’re right on time.”
I walked toward the men standing against the dishwasher. Kris pushed off from the counter and met me halfway, pulling me into a hug I wasn’t expecting. If I’d known, I probably would have showered before going home. I had dried sweat in my hair and I probably smelled like the subway, too.
“How ya been, kiddo?” Kris asked. “You look tired.”
Quickly I went from feeling bad that I smelled to wanting to stab him in the heel. It was one thing for him to not notice me. It was another for him to be saying, in kinder terms, that I looked like shit. That was worse.
“We can’t all get by on wit and charm like you,” I replied sarcastically (but secretly only half-sarcastically). “I was at rehearsal.”
He looked great. His blond hair looked lighter than it’d been the last time I saw him during the summer because of its new length: short on the sides and pointed on top. I wasn’t sure where he’d gotten into town from, but if it involved a plane, he sure didn’t look worn from the travel. Neither his dark washed jeans nor his button-down shirt were wrinkled. His eyes sparkled under the track lights of the kitchen, the colour of the sky on a clear day.
I moved away from Kris and into a casual hug with another familiar face. He was reminiscent of Kris, but with darker hair and a couple extra inches in height.
“Hi Mitch,” I said. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
Mitch was one of Kris’ brothers. We were nearly the same age. In elementary school we’d even been in the same Grade 4/Grade 5 split class together. We were never really good friends but he was someone I’d always known since our brothers had been inseparable. Before we hit double digits in age, the two of us probably wanted the same thing – to hang out with our cooler older brothers. They didn’t want anything to do with us, since we were younger and because, well, I was a girl.
“Just for the weekend,” Mitch responded. “I’m headed to K-zoo on Monday.”
Like his older brother, Mitch was a hockey player. But he wasn’t an undersized winger like Kris. When he said K-zoo, I knew he was referring to where he would be playing his hockey season. Mitch was a defenseman for the Kalamazoo Wings in the ECHL.
“Are you actually here for a visit,” I wondered, “or has your brother just burdened you with helping him move into his new digs?”
“More of the second one, definitely,” he laughed. With his hand in a fist, Mitch pointed behind himself with his thumb at the final person in the room. “I even recruited reinforcements in the form of one of his new teammates.”
The guy Mitch pointed at was actually the second person I noticed in the kitchen after I saw Kris. He stood out. He didn’t look like anyone in the room. He was the tallest guy and biggest guy, and I’d never met him before.
“Hi,” he flashed dimples and quickly gave my hand a solid shake. My palm felt small in his bear paw of a hand. “I’m Luke.”
“Whoa, calm down there, junior,” Kris interjected. “I’m sure she knows who you are.”
That I did. Toronto was—and still is—the hockey center of the universe. It was impossible to live in the city without gaining even the slightest grasp of the Maple Leafs roster. Of course I knew who Luke Schenn was. He was one of the most popular players on the team. Younger fans, including a sizeable amount of girls, wore his #2 jersey with pride.
He was the kind of player that hardcore members of Leafs Nation would get into comment wars with on the internet, saying things along the lines of “the Leafs didn’t draft him because he’s hot, okay?” and “his looks weren’t included in the scouting report”. Seeing him up close, looking up at him in Gavin’s kitchen, I knew he was one of those guys who had perpetual baby face. He was cute in that teenage skater boy kind of way as opposed to the George Clooney handsome man kind of way. I’d heard his name around town and on Hockey Night in Canada for a few years but he still looked like he’d just graduated from draft day with his rounded cheeks and too long to be neat hair.
“I’m Kaylie,” I greeted him. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“What kind of rehearsal were you at?” he wondered, alluding to my earlier retort to Kris.
“I wa—”
“She’s a ballerina,” Kris interrupted, cutting me off. “So you can forget about it. She wouldn’t be into an uncoordinated doofus like you.”
I’d explained to him on more than one occasion that I actually wasn’t a ballerina.
Even if I were to work my way to a soloist, I still wouldn’t be. I would never actually be a ballerina. The term wasn’t used too often in the ballet business. The only real ballerinas were internationally acclaimed principal dancers.
But I didn’t correct Kris this time. I was more distracted by his implication that Luke might want to hit on me. It wasn’t often that he did it, since I hesitated to be around him, but it always bummed me out when Kris went into hyperactive protective older brother mode. I didn’t care about his friends or teammates hitting on me. I wanted him to hit on me.
Luke was as unfazed by the comment as I was. So instead of telling Kris he was literally clueless, and instead of throwing myself at him, I asked a question. “Why are all your boxes still here? I would like to be able to sit on the couch and actually see the TV, you know.”
“Good for you.” Kris clapped a hand on my shoulder. “You wanna get a head start? I’ll let you get first choice of which box to carry.”
“Oh, ha ha,” I said dryly. “There’s enough testosterone in this room to power a lamp. I’m not carrying a single box.”
Kris shrugged. “You can still help unpack.”
“No.” I shook my head with intent. I took a half-step in the direction of my room before quickly stopping and speaking again. “And I want to see a welcoming living room when I come back out here, not one made of cardboard.”
I didn’t say any more as I headed down the small hallway that led to the bathroom and my bedroom. I thought it best to get away from Kris before I made a fool of myself. There would be plenty of time for that later. After all, he was moving in across the hallway.
By the end of June the news was widespread that Kris would be reporting to Toronto for training camp in the fall. Hell, someone had even brought a Leafs jersey with his name plate and #32 to his Stanley Cup party in our hometown. Three weeks ago I had no idea where he’d be living in Toronto and I hadn’t even asked my brother about it. I figured that the further I stayed away from Kris, the better. It was bad enough that I was 21 years old with a renewed crush on my brother’s best friend. There was no reason for me to embarrass myself by becoming a blubbering idiot around him and letting him know.
Two weeks ago, before rehearsal started and I was spending a lot of time lounging in the living room, my brother came home and told me the great (read: horrifying) news. The condo one door down and across the hall, unit 1714, was actually under lease by whoever owned it. And it would be unoccupied by the end of August by whoever used to live there (we weren’t the friendliest of neighbours). So the new leasee was going to be Kris.
As soon as Gavin told me, I knew hockey season wasn’t going to be the same. Kris and Gavin didn’t take the best friends thing lightly. It was like a bromance. They enjoyed hanging out together in their mid-20’s just as much as they did when they were 12. Living across the hall from each other would, in essence, be like living as roommates. I knew that whenever Kris was home it would probably mean that he’d be at our place. There would be no escaping him.
It was too bad that Etobicoke was such a convenient place for him to reside. I had no idea where the majority of his teammates lived, but the Mastercard Centre—the Leafs practice facility—was less than a 10 minute drive from our building. He had every reason to agree to terms on that lease, never mind my silly little feelings for him. So boxes showed up to our place from Chicago before his arrival. It wasn’t a mountain of boxes, but there were enough that most of our living room disappeared.
I was sure though that with three men to help him, Kris could get everything moved over into his new place across the hall in the time it would take me to shower and regain some composure in my room. I knew how pathetic it was. I was an adult whose entire career was based on performing for and appealing to an audience. That was my comfort zone. But some guy from Lethbridge that I’d known since childhood? Forget it. I crumbled.
His presence made it so that I couldn’t even be comfortable in my own home after I showered. That’s how pathetic I was. Once I’d showered, I didn’t even feel right putting on an old t-shirt and athletic shorts like I usually did after a long day of rehearsal. I actually put on a racerback tank and jeans, and I blow dried my hair. I even considered reapplying mascara to my blonde lashes again and I only decided against it because I knew I’d be going to bed in a couple of hours.
Sure enough, the living room was back to normal when I got back to it. There was Chinese takeout on the coffee table. All the guys were eating and an episode of The Big Bang Theory was on the television screen. It was a show that my brother and I were working through on my Netflix account. Mitch and Gavin were sitting beside each other on the love seat. Kris and Luke were on opposite ends of the couch, which only left the middle for me. So I sat down there, right next to Kris. I swear I was the best smelling thing in the whole place but he didn’t even notice. He barely glanced my way before returning his gaze to the television.
Luke noticed. He even offered to open the one remaining bottle of beer on the coffee table for me while I looked through the small takeout boxes. He was placing the sweating bottle of Labatt Blue in my hand by the time I’d found the sesame chicken my brother had kindly ordered for me.
“Well aren’t you helpful,” I told Luke.
He shrugged, turning his head from the LCD screen and looking at me with ocean eyes. His dimple-accented smile was genuine. “I try.”
“How do you know Mitch anyway?” I wondered.
“We played against each other in a few tournaments when we were younger, and in The Dub,” Luke answered. “He trains with a group of us in the offseason in Saskatoon.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“Yup,” he nodded. “We’re all prairie dogs.”
I wondered if being from Saskatoon made him more or less of a prairie dog than all of us from Lethbridge. The Bridge City, in Southern Alberta, was definitely on prairie land. It was surrounded by industrial parks and farm land on all sides. But it was less than a three hour drive from Calgary and less than two hours west of the Rockies. Saskatoon was a much bigger city than Lethbridge, sure, but the province of Saskatchewan had long upheld a reputation of flatness as the heart of the Canadian Prairies.
Conversations were put on hold while we watched the sitcom. Occasionally we would join in with the laugh track or someone would slurp while they took a sip of their beer. I was well aware of Kris’ presence beside me. I peeked at him out of the corner of my eye more than a few times and each time it was the same: he was slumped against the couch, head tilted back, eyes focused on the screen. It was actually kind of weird. Maybe it was because I’d spent so little time around him in the last seven years that I didn’t realize he could sit still for an extended period of time. Kris was always so loud and animated.
Three episodes of The Big Bang Theory later, no one was touching any more of the food and all the beer bottles were empty. Gavin actually retired to his room three quarters of the way through the second episode because he had an early conference call the next morning. As a result, Mitch had made himself right at home, sprawled out on the loveseat with his legs spilling over the edge. His arms were crossed over his chest and his eyes were closed when his older brother stood up.
Kris spoke over me to Luke. “I’m gonna go pass out. You got Mitch, right?”
“Yeah, man,” Luke responded. “I’ve got a pullout couch.”
“Alright.” I could tell with my peripheral vision that Kris yawned and stretched with emphasis, overdramatically, like he was in a bad movie. “See you tomorrow.”
“See ya,” Luke said casually.
“Oh,” Kris was halfway to the front door when he stopped in his tracks, shoes squeaking against the hardwood floor. “Good night, Kaylie.”
I blinked at the TV. “Night.”
When I heard the click of the door shut behind him, I let a silent sigh escape my lips. It would have been a nice thought to know he wanted me to have a good night. But I was so invisible to Kris that he barely even remembered to say anything to me before he left. I was as much in the background to him as I was when I performed with the corps de ballet. He was clueless and I was the most pathetic girl I knew.
“Hey, Kaylie?” Beside me, Luke spoke my name like a question.
I grunted in response. “Hmm?”
“How long have you liked Kris?”
Notes
I wasn't planning on updating for a few more days but once the lockout news broke it prompted me to finish my editing by the end of the night. Thank you for reading and subscribing!So I've now revealed that another character in the story is also a former Leaf. I'm not sure how everyone feels about that but I'm 7 chapters deep into writing this thing and I feel great about it.
Extended Chapter Notes
My favorite part of the chapter is when Kaylie says there's enough testosterone in the room to power a lamp. What's yours?
Omg, its sooo good.
3/15/14