Shell Games
Guy Code
Training camp was over. The preseason was over. It was the last night to hang out before the NHL season grind began for Luke and Kris. The next day would be a regular morning practice for everyone that was still on the Leafs roster – some guys were still subject to get sent down to the Marlies. The day after that would be opening night. Kris and Luke were already reacclimated to the ins and outs of being NHLers, so it was a quiet night at Luke’s place at Maple Leaf Square.
It was Luke and me and then Kris and Matt Lashoff—one of guys who’d already been assigned to the Marlies—playing video games. Since the Marlies, the Leafs’ AHL affiliate, were also based in Toronto, some of guys on both teams were roommates and lived in the same building as Luke. I thought it was cute that members of the Maple Leafs lived in a place that was basically named after their team. I wondered if Kris wasn’t curious about why Luke hadn’t invited any of the other guys who played for the big club. Luke and I had a secret to keep. Because if Kris could ever pull his head out of his ass and date me, but a few of his teammates already knew me through Luke, it would be very awkward explaining that I’d been after Kris all along.
Hockey players were pretty vulgar. They would paint me as a Leafs Nation slut if they thought I’d bounced from one guy on the big club to another. For his efforts in helping me, Luke didn’t deserve to be cast as someone who hooked up with puck sluts. Other guys might not give a shit about that kind of thing—might even be proud of it—but I knew Luke liked his good guy image.
We’d begun with the latest Call of Duty then moved on to Halo: Reach, which had only been on the market for a little less than a month. By the third hour, it was just Luke and Matt battling it out with the wireless controllers. According to Kris, Halo wasn’t one of his specialties. I wished I was one of those cool ‘knows how to hang’ gamer girls but, alas, no video games were my specialty. To be honest I was mostly just dead weight. I knew that their offseason consisted of a lot of working out in the gym, eating healthy, getting on the ice a few times a week, and a fair amount of leisure time. But I didn’t have hockey talent and I didn’t have that kind of offseason. Since joining the corps de ballet, and aspiring to become a soloist, I could count the days of my summer offseason that felt relaxed. The Xbox-360 in my living room was a dust collector.
Kris sat beside Matt eating a piece of the Panago pizza we’d ordered earlier. If he had any issue with being at Luke’s place without hanging out with the other guys on the big club, he didn’t say so. He and Matt knew each other from times past. Both had been Boston Bruins draft picks. They’d been teammates for part of a season in Providence during Kris’ time in The A, before he got traded in a deal to the Blackhawks organization that sent him to Norfolk. Professional hockey constantly reminded players and fans alike just how small the world was; more transactions had landed them both in Toronto. They probably knew each other more than they knew Luke, actually.
I had my head rested on Luke’s shoulder, growing sleepier by the minute. I was pretty beat. I was into the fifth week of ballet rehearsal for the autumn program. For the Canadian National Ballet, opening night would be on the Tuesday of the sixth week (rehearsals didn’t just come to a screeching halt once performances began). Rehearsal had been moved into the theatre of the newly renovated and restored Sony Centre—where the National did all of its performances throughout the season—for the remaining time leading up to opening night. Practicing in the comfort of the studio was never like practicing on the stage. Rehearsal had gone long for the last two days. I wasn’t sure anymore if the soreness I felt all over my body was weakness or strength.
“Hey,” Luke spoke to me when he and Matt hit a ‘Game Over’. “Do you want more pizza?”
I wanted to soak in a jetted tub. I wanted to have pretty feet. Without saying a word, I shook my head against his shoulder.
He shifted the game controller so it balanced in the center of one of his palms and he moved an arm around me. “You tired?”
“What would ever give you that impression?” I asked sarcastically.
“Ooh,” his tone was teasing, “you’re very cute when you’re sassy.”
Instead of returning with another sarcastic remark, I lifted my head from his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek, resting a hand on his chest. He squeezed my shoulder and then turned his head to his boys.
“Steeger, heads up,” Luke said before he tossed his controller in a perfect arch.
Kris caught it in mid-air right before it hit him in the jaw. “Jeez,” he muttered.
Then Luke detached himself from me momentarily, standing up and extending his hand. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”
Not let’s go to sleep, not I’ll tuck you in, but let’s go to bed. Either my mind was in the gutter or he thought his friends’ minds would be in the gutter and take it as an implication. I grinned up at him before I placed my palm in his and I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. He had a glint in his eye. He knew. Oh, he was just that good.
He called over his shoulder for the guys to lock the doorknob behind them on their way out, deadbolt be damned. I could practically feel the heat from Kris’ stare on my back as Luke pulled me down the hallway toward his bedroom. I thought there might have even been a look of disapproval.
In his room, I waited until the door was shut behind us and the light was on before I unclenched my jaw. My laughing had bubbled to the surface by the time I dove for the bed, not even asking permission.
“Oh my God,” I giggled against the bedspread, forgetting all about my sleepiness. “They think we’re going to have sex in here.”
Luke’s approach to the bed was much calmer. He walked across the carpet and sat down beside me. “Did you see the look your boy gave me?”
So that confirmed it. There had been a look of disapproval from Kris.
“Isn’t he still dating that girl he picked up at the club?” I reminded Luke. “He’s not my boy.”
That girl. I knew her name. Rissa. I hated her even more than I did when Luke and I had gone on the double date with them. However many girls Kris was dating or had fucked since his arrival in Toronto, she was on the heavy rotation list. I knew she’d stayed at his place across the hall at least once. She’d even been at my brother’s place—at my place—chumming it up with Gavin and Kris one afternoon when I’d arrived from rehearsal. God, I hated her. I really fucking hated her.
“Not yet,” Luke corrected me, ignoring my first comment. “Anyway, I don’t even think he wants to be my friend anymore. He only hangs out to keep an eye on you.”
I beamed. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
“And now we’re in here…torturing him.” I burst out laughing again once I’d said it, pretty pleased with myself.
Kris was playing right into our hands. He’d warned me about getting burned. He’d implied that he had a clue about the game I was playing. He’d thrown a leggy brunette in my face. But he was acting so jealous. He either thought that Luke was gaming me, or that I was gaming Luke. There was no way he had a clue we’d been conspiring together and against him for the last month.
“Shh, Kaylie, do you have to laugh so loud?” Luke tried to shush me. “They’ll think you’re laughing at my size.”
Really? He had to bring his dick into the discussion?
“Don’t worry, Luke, I’ve seen the yoga video,” I looked up at the ceiling, then looked at him with a smirk playing on my lips, “I know you’re packing.”
His jaw dropped. “I cannot believe you just said that.”
It was true though. One night I’d searched his name on the YouTube app on my phone to check on my partner in crime. Most of the clips were interviews, a few fights, and some big hits labeling him as The Human Eraser. And then there was the video of him doing yoga in former WWE diva Trish Stratus’ studio. His balance had been crappy and his attire had been pretty tight. When the group had shifted into bridge position there’d been a distinct outline of him through his shorts momentarily before he collapsed on the floor, and he was impressive.
“You’re the one who brought it up,” I chided him with a double entendre.
“Okay, new topic,” Luke made a face before he stood up again and shuffled over to the closet. He pushed the sliding door open and revealed a dresser beside the hanging clothes. “Do you want other clothes to sleep in?”
I looked down at my outfit. He’d said it would be a quiet night in and I’d dressed accordingly. I had on jeggings and a fitted v-neck. The bra I had on underneath didn’t have a wire. I could just shed my pants and sleep comfortably. Surely young Luke had seen better than bare legs and boy shorts panties before.
“I think I’m good,” I answered. “Do you have an extra toothbrush?”
“There should be one in the medicine cabinet,” Luke nodded and threw a faded, clean Kelowna Rockets shirt at me anyway.
We took turns in the en-suite master bathroom. When I returned to the bedside with clean teeth, sans pants, and plus one Rockets t-shirt, Luke had already changed the lighting. It was dim with the lamp on his nightstand as the only source of light. He was already in bed beneath the duvet.
“So I was the sleepy one but you beat me to the bed?” I clicked my tongue. “How does that work?”
“Come on in, sleepyhead.” Luke flashed me his trademark grin and pulled back the blanket, revealing coffee-coloured sheets and his bare sculpted chest.
Wow. Forget my sexy dancer’s legs. He was gorgeous. I thought that his ex-girlfriend must have been crazy to leave him as an eligible bachelor when he spent most of the year in a city where girls would have sold their souls just for him to look their way. If he wasn’t involved in helping me with my Kris situation, he would surely be staving girls off left and right. Because that’s the kind of guy he was: very sweet, very handsome, and not into party girls.
“What are you thinking about?” he wondered once I was lying next to him and the light was out.
It had taken me an extra moment to get into bed because I was admiring Luke’s torso and thinking about how great he was. “I was thinking…I wish Kris would drop a bomb already,” I lied.
The lie was reasonable enough. The eldest Versteeg brother was the most frustrating. Just because I thought Luke and I were playing the game better than him, it didn’t mean that Kris was bad at it. I still couldn’t get a proper grasp on what he was thinking or how he felt. He would do things that made him seem jealous, but he would never act on his feelings for me—that is, if he even had them. He’d warned me about Luke and told me to be careful. But Kris had never flat out told me to stay away from him.
Luke reached over and patted my shoulder. “He’s an idiot if he doesn’t see how amazing you are.”
We were both on our sides, facing each other. The contact made it feel suddenly more intimate even though I was used to Luke touching me. We’d given off the impression to everyone else that we hung out just by ourselves but actually we’d never been alone in each other’s company before. I scooted closer to him until he was close enough that I could hug him. Without a word, he snaked an arm around my waist.
For the first time I wished things were different. I wished that I was falling for Luke instead of stuck on someone else. I couldn’t wait around for Kris forever. In all the time I’d been crushing, I hadn’t learned much about him that I didn’t already know before. With Luke, I already knew that he cared about my happiness and he was a good kisser. He was a one girl kind of guy that understood women. He was the complete package.
It was my sixth year living in Toronto but I’d never been to the Air Canada Centre to see the Leafs play before. For the last couple of seasons they’d missed the playoffs, yet their ticket prices were sky high. Even at their outlandish prices though, it was nearly impossible to get tickets for a Leafs home game. I knew fans who said they were lucky if they could get in the building once a season, and that, in fact, it was easier to drive down to Buffalo to catch the Leafs when they played the Sabres.
So I knew that getting to go to the home opener was a big deal. The place was packed to the rafters for the game against a divisional and traditional rival, the Montréal Canadiens. It was the CBC’s first Hockey Night in Canada game of the year. My brother was nice enough to let me have his second ticket—courtesy of one Kris Versteeg—instead of inviting a date. Being from Southern Alberta, I had grown up a casual Calgary Flames fan. I didn’t know much about their present day team anymore but there was still no one I wanted to see win the Stanley Cup more than Jarome Iginla. But for Leafs opening night, switching my loyalty from the flaming C to the maple leaf wasn’t so difficult when two of the rostered players were guys that were part of my life as of late.
Gavin and I were seated in the second to last row of the lower level along the blue line that the home team defended for the first and third period. My brother’s bromance with Kris made us lucky. The tickets had been purchased during training camp. Any later and we would have been sitting in the nosebleeds. It wasn’t the bird’s eye view that was a problem sitting up top; it was the ridiculous price tag on it. Luckily we had the hookup. The people beside my brother and me were dressed business casual. The same went for the people directly in front of us.
They were the reason home games were half sold out before they even went to market and why the cost of a ticket was an arm, a leg, and a kidney. Corporate Canada was heavily centered in Toronto. Business people used Leaf games as a spectacle for their clients as they closed deals; even Gavin had been to games on business for his company before. They certainly weren’t there discussing what kind of season they thought Tyler Bozak was going to have. None of them got emotional when Johnny Bower walked to center ice before the ceremonial puck drop.
By the middle of the second period, the Leafs were up by a goal over the Habs. When Luke inadvertently pulled the puck offside, a whistle blew immediately, stopping the play. I smiled to myself when a collective groan came from all the diehards. Summers for Leafs fans had been long for the last several years. First game in and they weren’t shy about letting the team know it.
Music came on over the sound system while the players reconvened for another faceoff. Gavin shifted in his seat. From the corner of my eye I could see my brother watching me instead of the ice as he took a sip of his arena beer. I turned my head to confront him.
“I’m worried about you, you know,” he told me.
“I’m alright,” I returned. “Rehearsal was great today.”
It wasn’t a lie. I’d had what I thought was the best day of rehearsal in the theatre so far earlier in the day. My pas de deux was as good as it had ever been. The orchestral conductor had nailed the timing that Étienne and I were comfortable with. The feedback from our directors, for the most part, was positive. The critiques were minor adjustments. I’d even received compliment for my second variation, which I’d been having trouble with a few days before.
Gavin’s golden eyes returned to the ice once both teams were in chase of the puck again. “I’m not talking about your rehearsals.”
My brother rarely expressed any worry for me. We lived with each other and we were constants in each other’s lives. When he did worry about me it was usually because of my life as a dancer. I loved ballet. Truly, it was my only lasting love. But ballet didn’t always love me back.
In high school, at the dance academy, we’d had a saying: ballet is not for sissies. It was demanding not just physically but mentally as well. Maybe it was even a little insane. There was no such thing as ‘low intensity’. Every position, every move, every step, every placement was meant to be perfect. We were mere humans and on an impossible quest for perfection. Like any true love, sometimes ballet made me miserable. My brother could always tell.
“Oh?” I didn’t know what other reason he would have to worry about me. “Then what?”
“I know why you never came home the night before yesterday,” Gavin answered. “Kris told me all about what happened at your boyfriend’s house.”
“Luke isn’t my boyfriend,” I corrected him.
Gavin set his beer down in the cup holder of his seat and cringed at me. “Oh, like that makes me feel better.”
“Spare me, Gavin,” I rolled my eyes, “What, are you monitoring me now? All this time you’ve been saving your overprotective older brother card for when I start hanging out with a guy that’s harmless?”
“No guy is harmless, Kaylie.”
“You don’t know Luke very well,” I retorted.
“You’re right. I don’t.” he agreed. “That’s what worries me. Are you sure he’s your type? He doesn’t seem like the other guys you’ve dated before.”
Instead of correcting him again to say I wasn’t actually dating Luke, I scoffed, “What, tall?”
“I mean, a hockey player,” my brother clarified. “You know what some of those guys are like. They’re not clean cut altar boys.”
My brother’s last few words struck a chord with me and I stopped paying attention to the game. Hockey players weren’t altar boys. That sounded awfully familiar. Not because I knew it was true, which I did, but because of the person I’d heard it from before.
I sighed. “Did Kris set you up to this?”
“No,” he responded all too quickly. He shifted his gaze, too, so I knew he was lying.
“Gavin,” I spoke his name with an edge to my tone.
“Kaylie.”
I turned in my chair and stared at him with a straight face. It was a tested method of mine. He would crack. He always did. Gavin could deal with high stress situations at work under pressure. But he was not immune to his little sister’s annoying tactics.
“Okay, okay,” Gavin surrendered. “He didn’t explicitly tell me to have a conversation. But he has raised concern over your budding relationship with Luke more than once. And that’s just this week alone.”
I wanted to smirk at my double victory. One, for getting my brother to crack so quickly and two, for Kris paying enough attention to me to the point that he was talking to my brother about me. Gavin had no idea how much work Luke and I had put into our scheme for Kris to even bring us up. I kept my cool, keeping the same expression on my face. “Oh really?”
“Look, what you and Luke do…that’s your business. I just don’t want you to get hurt. Neither does Kris.” Gavin went on, “I trust him with my life. I’d trust him with yours, too. In a sense you’re kind of like his little sister too, you know? He’s practically family.”
Oh Lord. That wasn’t how I thought of Kris. That wasn’t how I wanted him to think of me. He was one of those non-altar boy hockey players and he was who I actually wanted to date. He was my type.
Having known him for so long, I knew that just because Kris was wild and free, it didn’t mean he couldn’t be steady. He didn’t stay the same way that he was in high school, putting girls into frenzies without apology. He was boisterous and tongue-in-cheek, but deep down he was still humble as his mother had raised him to be. Yes, without commitment, he enjoyed the perks of being a well-paid bachelor with small town good looks and charm. But he’d had a few girlfriends, too. I overheard conversations between him and Gavin all the time. Kris wasn’t a cheater. He kept himself in check. And he didn’t say nasty things about his exes once things were over.
“There’s gotta be some Guy Code rule that Luke is violating,” Gavin spoke again. “Because he and Kris are teammates. And they’re supposed to be friends. You can’t just hook up with your friend’s sister.”
Guy Code was stupid. Of course my brother was referencing it and trying to make me think of Kris as familial.
“I think that’s more of a best friends’ thing,” I said on the contrary, then tested him, “like if your best friend wanted to date your little sister.”
Gavin practically snorted. “If Kris ever told me that he wanted to date you, there would be hell to pay.”
Well, shit. There was something I’d never even considered. As if the desired result of my shell game wasn’t impossible enough.
It was Luke and me and then Kris and Matt Lashoff—one of guys who’d already been assigned to the Marlies—playing video games. Since the Marlies, the Leafs’ AHL affiliate, were also based in Toronto, some of guys on both teams were roommates and lived in the same building as Luke. I thought it was cute that members of the Maple Leafs lived in a place that was basically named after their team. I wondered if Kris wasn’t curious about why Luke hadn’t invited any of the other guys who played for the big club. Luke and I had a secret to keep. Because if Kris could ever pull his head out of his ass and date me, but a few of his teammates already knew me through Luke, it would be very awkward explaining that I’d been after Kris all along.
Hockey players were pretty vulgar. They would paint me as a Leafs Nation slut if they thought I’d bounced from one guy on the big club to another. For his efforts in helping me, Luke didn’t deserve to be cast as someone who hooked up with puck sluts. Other guys might not give a shit about that kind of thing—might even be proud of it—but I knew Luke liked his good guy image.
We’d begun with the latest Call of Duty then moved on to Halo: Reach, which had only been on the market for a little less than a month. By the third hour, it was just Luke and Matt battling it out with the wireless controllers. According to Kris, Halo wasn’t one of his specialties. I wished I was one of those cool ‘knows how to hang’ gamer girls but, alas, no video games were my specialty. To be honest I was mostly just dead weight. I knew that their offseason consisted of a lot of working out in the gym, eating healthy, getting on the ice a few times a week, and a fair amount of leisure time. But I didn’t have hockey talent and I didn’t have that kind of offseason. Since joining the corps de ballet, and aspiring to become a soloist, I could count the days of my summer offseason that felt relaxed. The Xbox-360 in my living room was a dust collector.
Kris sat beside Matt eating a piece of the Panago pizza we’d ordered earlier. If he had any issue with being at Luke’s place without hanging out with the other guys on the big club, he didn’t say so. He and Matt knew each other from times past. Both had been Boston Bruins draft picks. They’d been teammates for part of a season in Providence during Kris’ time in The A, before he got traded in a deal to the Blackhawks organization that sent him to Norfolk. Professional hockey constantly reminded players and fans alike just how small the world was; more transactions had landed them both in Toronto. They probably knew each other more than they knew Luke, actually.
I had my head rested on Luke’s shoulder, growing sleepier by the minute. I was pretty beat. I was into the fifth week of ballet rehearsal for the autumn program. For the Canadian National Ballet, opening night would be on the Tuesday of the sixth week (rehearsals didn’t just come to a screeching halt once performances began). Rehearsal had been moved into the theatre of the newly renovated and restored Sony Centre—where the National did all of its performances throughout the season—for the remaining time leading up to opening night. Practicing in the comfort of the studio was never like practicing on the stage. Rehearsal had gone long for the last two days. I wasn’t sure anymore if the soreness I felt all over my body was weakness or strength.
“Hey,” Luke spoke to me when he and Matt hit a ‘Game Over’. “Do you want more pizza?”
I wanted to soak in a jetted tub. I wanted to have pretty feet. Without saying a word, I shook my head against his shoulder.
He shifted the game controller so it balanced in the center of one of his palms and he moved an arm around me. “You tired?”
“What would ever give you that impression?” I asked sarcastically.
“Ooh,” his tone was teasing, “you’re very cute when you’re sassy.”
Instead of returning with another sarcastic remark, I lifted my head from his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek, resting a hand on his chest. He squeezed my shoulder and then turned his head to his boys.
“Steeger, heads up,” Luke said before he tossed his controller in a perfect arch.
Kris caught it in mid-air right before it hit him in the jaw. “Jeez,” he muttered.
Then Luke detached himself from me momentarily, standing up and extending his hand. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”
Not let’s go to sleep, not I’ll tuck you in, but let’s go to bed. Either my mind was in the gutter or he thought his friends’ minds would be in the gutter and take it as an implication. I grinned up at him before I placed my palm in his and I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. He had a glint in his eye. He knew. Oh, he was just that good.
He called over his shoulder for the guys to lock the doorknob behind them on their way out, deadbolt be damned. I could practically feel the heat from Kris’ stare on my back as Luke pulled me down the hallway toward his bedroom. I thought there might have even been a look of disapproval.
In his room, I waited until the door was shut behind us and the light was on before I unclenched my jaw. My laughing had bubbled to the surface by the time I dove for the bed, not even asking permission.
“Oh my God,” I giggled against the bedspread, forgetting all about my sleepiness. “They think we’re going to have sex in here.”
Luke’s approach to the bed was much calmer. He walked across the carpet and sat down beside me. “Did you see the look your boy gave me?”
So that confirmed it. There had been a look of disapproval from Kris.
“Isn’t he still dating that girl he picked up at the club?” I reminded Luke. “He’s not my boy.”
That girl. I knew her name. Rissa. I hated her even more than I did when Luke and I had gone on the double date with them. However many girls Kris was dating or had fucked since his arrival in Toronto, she was on the heavy rotation list. I knew she’d stayed at his place across the hall at least once. She’d even been at my brother’s place—at my place—chumming it up with Gavin and Kris one afternoon when I’d arrived from rehearsal. God, I hated her. I really fucking hated her.
“Not yet,” Luke corrected me, ignoring my first comment. “Anyway, I don’t even think he wants to be my friend anymore. He only hangs out to keep an eye on you.”
I beamed. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
“And now we’re in here…torturing him.” I burst out laughing again once I’d said it, pretty pleased with myself.
Kris was playing right into our hands. He’d warned me about getting burned. He’d implied that he had a clue about the game I was playing. He’d thrown a leggy brunette in my face. But he was acting so jealous. He either thought that Luke was gaming me, or that I was gaming Luke. There was no way he had a clue we’d been conspiring together and against him for the last month.
“Shh, Kaylie, do you have to laugh so loud?” Luke tried to shush me. “They’ll think you’re laughing at my size.”
Really? He had to bring his dick into the discussion?
“Don’t worry, Luke, I’ve seen the yoga video,” I looked up at the ceiling, then looked at him with a smirk playing on my lips, “I know you’re packing.”
His jaw dropped. “I cannot believe you just said that.”
It was true though. One night I’d searched his name on the YouTube app on my phone to check on my partner in crime. Most of the clips were interviews, a few fights, and some big hits labeling him as The Human Eraser. And then there was the video of him doing yoga in former WWE diva Trish Stratus’ studio. His balance had been crappy and his attire had been pretty tight. When the group had shifted into bridge position there’d been a distinct outline of him through his shorts momentarily before he collapsed on the floor, and he was impressive.
“You’re the one who brought it up,” I chided him with a double entendre.
“Okay, new topic,” Luke made a face before he stood up again and shuffled over to the closet. He pushed the sliding door open and revealed a dresser beside the hanging clothes. “Do you want other clothes to sleep in?”
I looked down at my outfit. He’d said it would be a quiet night in and I’d dressed accordingly. I had on jeggings and a fitted v-neck. The bra I had on underneath didn’t have a wire. I could just shed my pants and sleep comfortably. Surely young Luke had seen better than bare legs and boy shorts panties before.
“I think I’m good,” I answered. “Do you have an extra toothbrush?”
“There should be one in the medicine cabinet,” Luke nodded and threw a faded, clean Kelowna Rockets shirt at me anyway.
We took turns in the en-suite master bathroom. When I returned to the bedside with clean teeth, sans pants, and plus one Rockets t-shirt, Luke had already changed the lighting. It was dim with the lamp on his nightstand as the only source of light. He was already in bed beneath the duvet.
“So I was the sleepy one but you beat me to the bed?” I clicked my tongue. “How does that work?”
“Come on in, sleepyhead.” Luke flashed me his trademark grin and pulled back the blanket, revealing coffee-coloured sheets and his bare sculpted chest.
Wow. Forget my sexy dancer’s legs. He was gorgeous. I thought that his ex-girlfriend must have been crazy to leave him as an eligible bachelor when he spent most of the year in a city where girls would have sold their souls just for him to look their way. If he wasn’t involved in helping me with my Kris situation, he would surely be staving girls off left and right. Because that’s the kind of guy he was: very sweet, very handsome, and not into party girls.
“What are you thinking about?” he wondered once I was lying next to him and the light was out.
It had taken me an extra moment to get into bed because I was admiring Luke’s torso and thinking about how great he was. “I was thinking…I wish Kris would drop a bomb already,” I lied.
The lie was reasonable enough. The eldest Versteeg brother was the most frustrating. Just because I thought Luke and I were playing the game better than him, it didn’t mean that Kris was bad at it. I still couldn’t get a proper grasp on what he was thinking or how he felt. He would do things that made him seem jealous, but he would never act on his feelings for me—that is, if he even had them. He’d warned me about Luke and told me to be careful. But Kris had never flat out told me to stay away from him.
Luke reached over and patted my shoulder. “He’s an idiot if he doesn’t see how amazing you are.”
We were both on our sides, facing each other. The contact made it feel suddenly more intimate even though I was used to Luke touching me. We’d given off the impression to everyone else that we hung out just by ourselves but actually we’d never been alone in each other’s company before. I scooted closer to him until he was close enough that I could hug him. Without a word, he snaked an arm around my waist.
For the first time I wished things were different. I wished that I was falling for Luke instead of stuck on someone else. I couldn’t wait around for Kris forever. In all the time I’d been crushing, I hadn’t learned much about him that I didn’t already know before. With Luke, I already knew that he cared about my happiness and he was a good kisser. He was a one girl kind of guy that understood women. He was the complete package.
It was my sixth year living in Toronto but I’d never been to the Air Canada Centre to see the Leafs play before. For the last couple of seasons they’d missed the playoffs, yet their ticket prices were sky high. Even at their outlandish prices though, it was nearly impossible to get tickets for a Leafs home game. I knew fans who said they were lucky if they could get in the building once a season, and that, in fact, it was easier to drive down to Buffalo to catch the Leafs when they played the Sabres.
So I knew that getting to go to the home opener was a big deal. The place was packed to the rafters for the game against a divisional and traditional rival, the Montréal Canadiens. It was the CBC’s first Hockey Night in Canada game of the year. My brother was nice enough to let me have his second ticket—courtesy of one Kris Versteeg—instead of inviting a date. Being from Southern Alberta, I had grown up a casual Calgary Flames fan. I didn’t know much about their present day team anymore but there was still no one I wanted to see win the Stanley Cup more than Jarome Iginla. But for Leafs opening night, switching my loyalty from the flaming C to the maple leaf wasn’t so difficult when two of the rostered players were guys that were part of my life as of late.
Gavin and I were seated in the second to last row of the lower level along the blue line that the home team defended for the first and third period. My brother’s bromance with Kris made us lucky. The tickets had been purchased during training camp. Any later and we would have been sitting in the nosebleeds. It wasn’t the bird’s eye view that was a problem sitting up top; it was the ridiculous price tag on it. Luckily we had the hookup. The people beside my brother and me were dressed business casual. The same went for the people directly in front of us.
They were the reason home games were half sold out before they even went to market and why the cost of a ticket was an arm, a leg, and a kidney. Corporate Canada was heavily centered in Toronto. Business people used Leaf games as a spectacle for their clients as they closed deals; even Gavin had been to games on business for his company before. They certainly weren’t there discussing what kind of season they thought Tyler Bozak was going to have. None of them got emotional when Johnny Bower walked to center ice before the ceremonial puck drop.
By the middle of the second period, the Leafs were up by a goal over the Habs. When Luke inadvertently pulled the puck offside, a whistle blew immediately, stopping the play. I smiled to myself when a collective groan came from all the diehards. Summers for Leafs fans had been long for the last several years. First game in and they weren’t shy about letting the team know it.
Music came on over the sound system while the players reconvened for another faceoff. Gavin shifted in his seat. From the corner of my eye I could see my brother watching me instead of the ice as he took a sip of his arena beer. I turned my head to confront him.
“I’m worried about you, you know,” he told me.
“I’m alright,” I returned. “Rehearsal was great today.”
It wasn’t a lie. I’d had what I thought was the best day of rehearsal in the theatre so far earlier in the day. My pas de deux was as good as it had ever been. The orchestral conductor had nailed the timing that Étienne and I were comfortable with. The feedback from our directors, for the most part, was positive. The critiques were minor adjustments. I’d even received compliment for my second variation, which I’d been having trouble with a few days before.
Gavin’s golden eyes returned to the ice once both teams were in chase of the puck again. “I’m not talking about your rehearsals.”
My brother rarely expressed any worry for me. We lived with each other and we were constants in each other’s lives. When he did worry about me it was usually because of my life as a dancer. I loved ballet. Truly, it was my only lasting love. But ballet didn’t always love me back.
In high school, at the dance academy, we’d had a saying: ballet is not for sissies. It was demanding not just physically but mentally as well. Maybe it was even a little insane. There was no such thing as ‘low intensity’. Every position, every move, every step, every placement was meant to be perfect. We were mere humans and on an impossible quest for perfection. Like any true love, sometimes ballet made me miserable. My brother could always tell.
“Oh?” I didn’t know what other reason he would have to worry about me. “Then what?”
“I know why you never came home the night before yesterday,” Gavin answered. “Kris told me all about what happened at your boyfriend’s house.”
“Luke isn’t my boyfriend,” I corrected him.
Gavin set his beer down in the cup holder of his seat and cringed at me. “Oh, like that makes me feel better.”
“Spare me, Gavin,” I rolled my eyes, “What, are you monitoring me now? All this time you’ve been saving your overprotective older brother card for when I start hanging out with a guy that’s harmless?”
“No guy is harmless, Kaylie.”
“You don’t know Luke very well,” I retorted.
“You’re right. I don’t.” he agreed. “That’s what worries me. Are you sure he’s your type? He doesn’t seem like the other guys you’ve dated before.”
Instead of correcting him again to say I wasn’t actually dating Luke, I scoffed, “What, tall?”
“I mean, a hockey player,” my brother clarified. “You know what some of those guys are like. They’re not clean cut altar boys.”
My brother’s last few words struck a chord with me and I stopped paying attention to the game. Hockey players weren’t altar boys. That sounded awfully familiar. Not because I knew it was true, which I did, but because of the person I’d heard it from before.
I sighed. “Did Kris set you up to this?”
“No,” he responded all too quickly. He shifted his gaze, too, so I knew he was lying.
“Gavin,” I spoke his name with an edge to my tone.
“Kaylie.”
I turned in my chair and stared at him with a straight face. It was a tested method of mine. He would crack. He always did. Gavin could deal with high stress situations at work under pressure. But he was not immune to his little sister’s annoying tactics.
“Okay, okay,” Gavin surrendered. “He didn’t explicitly tell me to have a conversation. But he has raised concern over your budding relationship with Luke more than once. And that’s just this week alone.”
I wanted to smirk at my double victory. One, for getting my brother to crack so quickly and two, for Kris paying enough attention to me to the point that he was talking to my brother about me. Gavin had no idea how much work Luke and I had put into our scheme for Kris to even bring us up. I kept my cool, keeping the same expression on my face. “Oh really?”
“Look, what you and Luke do…that’s your business. I just don’t want you to get hurt. Neither does Kris.” Gavin went on, “I trust him with my life. I’d trust him with yours, too. In a sense you’re kind of like his little sister too, you know? He’s practically family.”
Oh Lord. That wasn’t how I thought of Kris. That wasn’t how I wanted him to think of me. He was one of those non-altar boy hockey players and he was who I actually wanted to date. He was my type.
Having known him for so long, I knew that just because Kris was wild and free, it didn’t mean he couldn’t be steady. He didn’t stay the same way that he was in high school, putting girls into frenzies without apology. He was boisterous and tongue-in-cheek, but deep down he was still humble as his mother had raised him to be. Yes, without commitment, he enjoyed the perks of being a well-paid bachelor with small town good looks and charm. But he’d had a few girlfriends, too. I overheard conversations between him and Gavin all the time. Kris wasn’t a cheater. He kept himself in check. And he didn’t say nasty things about his exes once things were over.
“There’s gotta be some Guy Code rule that Luke is violating,” Gavin spoke again. “Because he and Kris are teammates. And they’re supposed to be friends. You can’t just hook up with your friend’s sister.”
Guy Code was stupid. Of course my brother was referencing it and trying to make me think of Kris as familial.
“I think that’s more of a best friends’ thing,” I said on the contrary, then tested him, “like if your best friend wanted to date your little sister.”
Gavin practically snorted. “If Kris ever told me that he wanted to date you, there would be hell to pay.”
Well, shit. There was something I’d never even considered. As if the desired result of my shell game wasn’t impossible enough.
Notes
Thank you for subscribing and for your comments. I'm so glad people are interested in reading this.Your feedback is always appreciated.For anyone curious, you can see the video of Luke Schenn (and Garnet Exelby) doing yoga right here. They do the bridge around the 2:20 mark. If you see what Kaylie is talking about, you will laugh.
Extended Chapter Notes
Omg, its sooo good.
3/15/14