It Feels Like

Her day job was Monday through Friday from eleven in the morning to seven in the evening. The hours allowed her to hold the second job at the diner during the nights. Instead of going back to sleep after Brad left at eight in the morning, she put on some clothes and decided to get a cup of coffee down the street. She could still smell him on her sheets and her feelings were conflicted over that. She liked him, but it felt like they were going nowhere fast when he couldn’t even seem to tell her about his life.

The guy two blocks down always had the best coffee--strong, but not bitter. He sold candy, magazines, newspapers, and coffee. She’d only ever bought coffee from him, but today, she glanced over the magazines, lining the back wall of his stand, while he dug in the bin for a packet of Stevia sweetener for her.

“It’s gonna be a hot one,” he told Keri.

“Yeah,” she agreed, running her eyes over the newspapers. She skimmed over it at first, but something made her turn her eyes back to the front page of one of New York’s many local rags. Brad’s face was in blotchy color on the first page. What?

The man was holding her coffee cup out to her, a stir stick and a packet of sweetener on top of the lid, but she didn’t even notice. Instead, she grabbed the paper and scanned the headline. Richards Struggling, Rangers Fight for a Win. Her heart was thumping in her chest so hard she could hear it. He was in a Rangers jersey and standing on an ice rink.

Suddenly everything fell into place. “Motherfucker,” she whispered.

“Excuse me?” the man with her coffee said.

Keri looked up, suddenly remembering that she wasn’t alone. “Sorry, this too.” She held out the paper and gave him five bucks to cover both. She left the change with him and went back to her apartment to read the article.

He was a professional hockey player for the Rangers. And he was having a terrible season. Everything he’d told her made so much sense now. The traveling for work, the difficulty at his job, the highs and lows, the stress and exhaustion. She felt a little bad that she pushed him an hour ago, making an unspoken ultimatum that if he couldn’t come clean with her, then they were over.

Keri almost picked up her phone and called him. But he didn’t want her to know. He could have told her at any time.

Instead, she showered and dressed for work. She arrived an hour early and proceeded to spend that time commandeering company property for her own personal use: looking up Brad Richards on the internet. She felt stupid for not having thought of it earlier. But she hadn’t recognized him, nor seen anyone else recognize him. She’d just assumed he was a businessman who worked in a high-energy, high-stress environment.

Professional athlete explained his flawless body. And when she watched videos online of him playing so well, scoring goals, flying across the ice, she finally understood that he really was a big deal. His salary and every detail of his career were public knowledge. She felt like a voyeur as she flipped through pages with all the information, pictures of him at events, magazines articles, business dealings, past girlfriends. It made her sick to her stomach. Who had she been messing around with? She didn’t know the first thing about hockey.

It was hard not to call him on Wednesday, but she did watch the game on Thursday night. He wasn’t playing, though. The announcers spent several minutes talking about how he’d been a healthy scratch. The coach had thought it best he not be involved in the game at all. She didn’t realize things were that bad. Did he get scratched often?

He didn’t call on Thursday night. She pulled up his number several times, but always pressed the back button and sat her phone down on the table before hitting send. If he wanted to talk to her, then he’d call. She didn’t know what to say to him anyway.

********************************

The Rangers were eliminated on Saturday afternoon. The last of the game aired while she was in the diner. The old television hooked to the wall normally showed the news or baseball when it was on. Tonight, she made sure to tune it into the hockey game when she walked in the door just before eight.

“You a hockey fan now, sweetie?” Helen asked, pocketing her tips for the night and pulling her purse from underneath the counter.

“It’s the playoffs,” Keri replied. It sounded like the thing to say. Really, she was just parroting back what she’d read in the newspapers and blogs over the past few days.

“Looks like we’re losing.”

“We are,” she agreed.

Helen gave her a wave before leaving her alone in the diner. It was a slow night and no one was there to be waited on.

She stood in the middle of the floor and watched the end of the game, hoping that his team would win even if he wasn’t playing. They didn’t win. They lost three to one. She felt the loss in the pit of her stomach, like a sympathy pain for him. Keri wondered if she’d ever see him again. He wouldn’t leave her hanging, would he? They had gotten along so well. He was so sweet.

An older man shuffled in and ordered a slice of pie with a cup of coffee. She served him and watched as he spread out a newspaper and settled in for a long night. She was annoyed because she felt like being alone with her thoughts.

At just after midnight, she was watching newspaper guy open up the paper again and start to read from the beginning. No one else had come in. Maybe the entire city was as depressed as she was at what felt like the impending end to her short-lived relationship with Brad. It felt weird to think of him as Brad Richards, the Rangers hockey player.

The door opened, bells jingling. Keri looked up and locked eyes with the man who had been on her mind. Brad. His eyes looked hollow. He walked up to the counter and leaned across. “I need to talk to you,” he said.

“I need to talk to you, too,” she replied. “Sit down.”

“Alone,” he said.

“Brad, I’m working.”

“Please.” His eyes looked so sad.

Keri turned around and called through the window for Rob, the cook. She asked if he could mind the front while she took a ten minute break. Rob agreed, and she walked around the counter to follow Brad outside.

Instead of heading toward the door, he pulled her down the short hallway to the bathrooms. “What are you...?” she asked, as he pulled her into the women’s room and locked the door.

As soon as the tumbler on the lock turned, he was on her, pressing her against the wall and sliding his hands down to cup her ass.

She dug the heels of her hands into his chest, pushing him back when he tried to kiss her. “What are you doing?”

“I need you,” he explained. “It’s been nothing but bad since I left your apartment on Wednesday.”

He kissed her, sucking her tongue into his mouth and moaning when she kissed him back. Her heart was breaking at the desperation in his movements.

When he pulled back to take a breath, Keri put a hand on his mouth. “I need to talk to you.”

“We can talk later. I need you.”

“I saw you on the front page of the paper,” she blurted out.

His entire body froze, and the passion that had been growing in his brown eyes was extinguished. “You know who I am.” Brad’s voice was cold and flat.

Keri moved her hand from his mouth and placed it on his rough cheek. “I knew who you were before. Now I know what you do for a living.”

“Maybe not anymore.”

“Brad, don’t say that. You’ll come back next season and be better.”

“What if I can’t?”

“You will.”

He turned his face away from her hand and stepped back. With his body gone, she just felt cold and alone, leaning against the bathroom wall of the diner. “I’ve got to go,” he said.

“Brad, don’t. Stay here and have some hot chocolate with me. I’ll take tomorrow off and we can pretend like today never happened.”

“I can’t pretend anymore. I’m leaving the City tomorrow.”

His response gutted her. She hadn’t been expecting that. “Where are you going?”

“Away from here to get my head straight.”

“Oh.”

They stood in silence, eyes averted, looking anywhere but at each other.

“What was this, then? Some goodbye fuck?” she asked.

He unlocked the door and opened it. “Goodbye, Keri.”

She followed him down the hall, tears burning behind her eyes. She willed them not to gather and fall because they would take her dignity with them. He walked out the front of the diner and continued down the empty sidewalk.

“Hey!” she called, following him outside. “Secret agent Brad!” The nickname got his attention. He turned around and looked at her. “Tell me I was just a distraction.”

He shook his head at her.

“Admit it or you’re just a coward.”

“No,” he said before turning and walking away for good.

Keri went back into the diner. She felt numb. Rob saw her take her spot at the counter and slipped back into the kitchen. The old man with the newspaper appeared to be oblivious to what had just happened. Oblivious to the fact that his waitress had just been humiliated by a NHL player named Brad Richards. She should have known from the beginning that he was trouble, sitting there looking all sad and sexy.

Notes