Last night, I spent the entire evening at Oakley’s, watching Autumn. It was hard to take my eyes off of her. The sound of her voice as she laughed at Brent’s dumb jokes he loves to tell, how she listened so intently to Ryker, Seven and Reeve as they replayed every second of the game from tonight but from the player’s point of view on the ice.
I listened to her conversations back and forth with Tessa and Penelope about how she and I grew up together. I cringed at some of her memories that involved the teasing and pranks that Isaac and I pulled on her. Now that hindsight in 20/20, I wish I could do some of those things differently but she’s animated and bright eyed as she recalls the stories, as if looking back on them is actually amusing to her now. Not everyone shares in her sentiment as I got at least one dirty look from Penelope when Autumn retold the story about the time that Isaac and I double bounced Autumn off the trampoline in my backyard when Isaac and I were twelve. Autumn ended up with a broken ulna in her arm. The image of her tiny purple cast with flowers all over it and little doodling of things Isaac and I wrote on it that she had to wear all summer, comes to mind.
The remember that day vividly. I remember seeing a seven-year-old Autumn hit the ground, panic for her safety hitting me instantly as Isaac and I both dove off the trampoline for a crying Autumn. I got to her first and scooped her up immediately off the thick green grass and held her against my chest as I took off running through my backyard, past the side yard gate and all the way down the street to Autumn’s house, Isaac on my tail as he tried to reassure Autumn that she would be ok.
I still remember my heart racing and the overwhelming need to get her somewhere safe, get her help. Maybe there has always been a part of me that, when it really counted, would protect of the little girl that lived down the street from me.
Waking up this morning and walking out to the large kitchen to find Autumn in a pair of tiny pajama shorts and camisole making breakfast in front of the range gives this new arrangement its first perk.
I take a seat at one of the bar stools sitting under the large six-foot-long rectangle white quartz island with flex of something shimmery throughout. I scan the perfect backside of my new roommate as she works on the other countertop that butt up against the wall, a large wooden hood vent that matches the light stain cabinets hanging just above her. She faces the white subway tile backsplash, unaware of my eyes locked on her heart-shaped ass.
Yeah… I shouldn’t have these thoughts about Isaac’s little sister, but they can’t be helped. There’s something about Autumn that has me curious about what I’ve missed over the years apart. I want to know what she’s been up to since I last saw her. I want to know what about her is still the same and what has changed. Does she still eat her french fries with mustard? Does she hum a tune when she does chores around the house like she did when she was a kid? Does she still like the grape-flavored Otter Pops in the heat of the summer?
“Chocolate chip pancakes?” she asks over her shoulder, her messy bun on the top of her head bobs as she works to pour the pancake batter onto the hot skillet.
“Yes, please. The way your mom makes them?” I ask, pleasantly surprised at the idea of getting a childhood favorite for breakfast.
“Of course. How else?” she asks with a chuckle.
She’s still that same girl, I can see it. But she’s also this entirely new and confident woman too that sparks my interest. As much as I’d like to deny that, it’s becoming harder and harder to do, but I’ll do everything in my power not to cross that line with respect to her brother and our long-standing friendship.
And also because I’m not sure if she is as curious about me as I am with her. Is she really buying her time until she can go back to dating that fucker Derek?
“Smells good.” I say, taking a deep inhale through my nose.
Damn, I’m starving now.
“Do you want bacon and eggs, too?” she asks.
Hell yeah.
“That would be great.”
I watch as she lays out more strips of bacon on the sizzling pan and then turns to the container of eggs, pulling several out of the carton and setting them by a bowl to be cracked. I stand up and walk around the island to the range where she’s diligently working in a silky lavender camisole with black lacy detailing and matching shorts.
I walk up next to her and lean my hip against the countertop, facing her, “Want some help?”
“I’d love some,” she says, looking up to her left and beams up at me.
She passes me the bowl along with milk and cheese to add to the mixture once I’ve cracked the eggs.
I start immediately on my task, quickly cracking the entire dozen eggs open and then whisking all of the ingredients together.
“I’ll be leaving in two days to head for Denver.” I tell her, still combining the ingredients quickly.
“Oh, I thought your first game out of town wasn’t until Friday?” Her eyes roaming over the pancakes and bacon to make sure nothing burns.
She starts flipping the bacon over with her fork on the pan as it starts to get golden brown on one side, the sound of popping and sizzling making us both have to raise our voices silently to hear one another.
“It is, but I have to leave a couple of days early.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Phil Carlton wants a few of us to rub elbows with a large company that has interested in becoming a huge endorsement of the franchise.”
Usually this sort of thing doesn’t bother me. I don’t mind schmoozing it up with big wig companies to entice them to spend money with The Hawkeyes but with just moving in with Autumn, it’s the first time I’ve ever cared about having to leave early for a trip.
“That’s exciting,” she says, flashing a quick smile over at me and then setting her sights on flipping the pancakes with her spatula.
I hand her my bowl of egg mixture, and she takes it, pouring the contents into a prepped pan.
“It is, but it means I’ll be gone longer than usual. I just wanted to let you know.”
She points to the salt and pepper shaker on my side of the range cooktop, indicating she wants me to use them to season up the eggs as I see fit. I add a nice amount of dusting using both seasonings.
“Okay, thanks for telling me.”
She lays out a set of paper towels for the bacon to rest on in order for the grease to get absorbed.
“Don’t worry. I’ll clean up the rager I plan to throw while you’re gone before you get back. You’ll never even know.”
I chuckle at the thought of Autumn throwing a party. We didn’t go to high school at the same time but from the limited information I gathered from what Isaac told me over the years, Autumn is more of a low-key homebody.
“A rager? You?”
She looks at me with a faint look of offense. “What? You don’t think I can throw a big party?”
“Could you throw a party…? Yes. Would it be any good…?”
I don’t answer before she smacks my arm with the back of her hand. I laugh.
“I’ll have you know, your parents’ thirty-year wedding anniversary went off without a hitch,’ she says, a playful scowl across her face.
“You’re making my point,” I say under my breath.
She turns to me abruptly, her pancake spatula raised in one hand. “Thanks for not showing up, by the way… only son,” she says, flicking me shit.
“Well, if someone hadn’t planned the party the same day that their only son was playing in his first-ever championship game, I would have been there.”
She smirks but doesn’t say anything. Instead, she grabs the plate of bacon and the plate of pancakes that she just took off the stove and moves them to the island for us to sit down to eat.
‘Yeah, the big screen TV that our dad set up in front of the beautiful ice sculpture I had ordered really added to the ambience of the party,’ she says, reaching back to grab the butter plate and sets it with the plates of food on the island.
“I guess my parents hadn’t guessed thirty years prior that they might have a son playing in the NHL, headed for a career all-time high and should have picked a different day to get married,” I joke.
“Yeah, you’re right. What terrible foresight your parents must have,” she agrees, laced with sarcasm.
“I fronted the entire bill, at least.”
She rolls her eyes as she walks around the island and steps up into one of the barstools, sitting down and staring back at me. “Okay, big pockets, you ready to eat yet?”
I grab the plate of eggs and the orange juice she already has sitting out and head for the other barstool. “Thought you’d never ask.”
Autumn
Briggs left yesterday morning for his five-day trip. He texted me when he arrived at his hotel, per my request. I’m overjoyed to feel like a friendship is blooming between us, which is a great relief since the first meeting in The Hawkeyes office with Briggs storming out made me feel certain that this whole thing would be awkward and uncomfortable.
With Briggs gone, I’ve already made huge headway with a couple of our client’s files that I had been working on before I started working on The Hawkeyes account. Erika told me to leave any and all accounts not related to Briggs for other staff to take care of. She wants my full attention on landing this project, but with him gone, I have tons of free time… and frankly, I’m bored.
I shoot a text to Erika.
I still haven’t heard a single word from my brother, so he must still be in his UFC bubble, and I’d be delighted if his coach decided to keep him there until this thing with Briggs comes to a complete end, but with Isaac’s fight scheduled for Tuesday of next week, I have a feeling that by Wednesday afternoon, once his hangover from the night before has gone (win or lose), the news will hit, and I have no idea what to expect. I mean, after all, we’re adults now, right?
My mother and Mrs. Conley are in my inbox more than they ever have been. I’m getting daily texts from both of them asking how things are going, wondering if Briggs and I would like to get in on their cruise to Alaska that the four of them are planning next year.
This lying to our parents thing is so much harder than I thought. I’m just glad they don’t live close enough to pop over whenever they want and see that we’re lying.
Does he want me to come, or is he just being nice?
I know we need to make it seem real to the public, but does it really matter what his teammates think? I’d almost think he’d try to avoid us commingling whenever possible.
He quickly sends another text as if seemly to attempt to entice me.
I try to sound even keeled with my text response, but deep inside… I’m mush.
He doesn’t text me that night before he goes to bed, or even the next day but on day three of his trip, when he should be flying out of Denver to meet up with the rest of the team in Texas, he sends off a quick text around ten in the morning.
Is he hoping I will? Does he even care? I guess he must if he’s asking.
I know that I’m alone in the apartment, but I still check behind me to make sure that no one is looking over my shoulder at that last text. Maybe I should have left the word ‘fake’ out of the text message. I’m not sure who has access to Briggs’s phone.
Could a player on the team see it? Or worse, someone from the media?
I laugh out loud at his response.
It crosses my mind not to tell him. I’m not sure how he’ll react about me betting on the games but then I do anyway.
Should I even tell him? Will he be mad that we’re betting for terrible things to happen in the game to his teammates?
I don’t tell him that Tessa has $30 on Briggs ending up being wheeled out of the game on a gurney. This is The Hawkeyes’s rival team, so crap is bound to happen as it always does. However, I truly hope that Tessa loses the one about Briggs. I enjoy a good fight on the ice, but just like Mrs. Conley, when it’s Briggs getting served up, I close one eye. I can’t look away, but only half of me is willing to watch it all go down.
I laugh.
A few minutes after sending Tessa Briggs’s bet, she responds back with, “I’ll take that bet. Like taking candy from a baby.”
There I go again calling our relationship fake over text.
I chuckle and then send off a last text. I know he’s busy, and although I have this odd desire to want to keep this texting going and keep in communication all day, I know he needs to get back to focusing on tonight.
Penelope lives in The Commons as well, three stories above me and Briggs’s apartment. She calls and invites me up to watch the game with her and Tessa.
These two are starting to become my very favorite part of this whole project. I hope this friendship between me and these women continues after Briggs and I are no longer required to date.
The game plays out fast and hard, all three of us on the edge of our seats the entire night. Ryker ended up getting taken back to the locker rooms by the medical staff after an opposing player hit him from behind after the buzzer and Kaenan ended up spending a good chuck of time in the penalty box for breaking a hockey stick over another player’s head… just like Briggs had predicted in his bet with Tessa.
They had to stop the game to clear the ice of broken fiberglass and wood from the splintered hockey stick, and to break up the fight that ensued right after the hockey stick cracked over the player’s head.
If you ask me, the referees were being a bit dramatic. It’s not like the player Kaenan hit wasn’t wearing a helmet. Then again, I might be biased.
After it ends, I send off a text to Briggs. I know he won’t see it since he still has media, and then they have to get back on a bus and head for the next city they will be playing in tomorrow, but at least it will be there waiting for him when he gets a chance to read it.
I jolt awake to the sound of my phone chiming for an incoming call and the blue cellphone light glaring up on my pitch-dark bedroom ceiling.
I’m grateful that this apartment came with blackout curtains because the city lights would be too bright to sleep.
I scramble to reach over to my nightstand where my phone is currently charging and a small fan is blowing, making white noise to drown out the loud downtown city noises and sirens.
My heart flutters seeing his name on my phone.
It’s a joke… I’d never give up my latte money for anything! But it sounds better than “I’m not a gracious loser.” I guess he did warn me not to bet Tessa, but it still made the game even more fun to watch having a little money on the hare-brained antics of the players.
I think my heart just stopped. I re-read that text over and over again. My stomach flutters don’t dissipate any less the more I read it.
My pulse picks up. Why is he being so cute? Before I can say anything back, he sends another text.
I fall asleep with a smile on my lips. I don’t know what all of that was, but I swear, Briggs Conley, my fake boyfriend, was flirting with me.
The next night, Penelope invites me up again for the game. This time, she invites Isla and Berkeley. With Kaenan being gone, Penelope thought it would be a good idea to bring her into our new girls’ group, and I couldn’t agree more. A bond is beginning to form, I can feel it, and I’m hoping that they’ll still want to include me even after I’m no longer associated with the team in the capacity I am now.
The Hawkeyes are dominating this game, and the guys are playing well, besides the fact that Briggs and Kaenan both end up in the penalty box for taking out a player on the other team who intentionally threw and elbow into Lake’s face and knocks Lake flat on his back on the hard cold ice.
You can see from the replay that Lake gets knocked out cold for a moment. His body hitting the ice, lifeless for a split second. Coach Bex pulls Lake off the ice and makes him sit out a period of the game.
Luckily, Kaenan and Briggs’s alternates are playing well tonight too. Everyone is skating their hearts out, and it’s games like this that make me believe the rumors that The Hawkeyes might make it to the playoffs this year.
Briggs is back in the game and scores a goal. The crowd goes wild, and so do we, jumping off the couch and cheering, high fiving each other and bouncing around with excitement like we’re a bunch of middle schoolers at a boy band concert.
“Look at the screen!” Penelope says, pointing at Briggs as he points to the cameraman with his hockey stick.
He skates up, ramming into the side of the plexiglass in front of the camera and mouths something.
“Did he just say, ‘That one’s for you?’” Isla asks.
“Pretty sure he said, ‘I have to poo,’” Tessa adds with a giggle.
Penelope gives Tessa a playful nudge. “Bull.” She looks over at me. “Someone’s getting soft on their girlfriend.’ she sends me a little wink and I can feel my cheeks warm.
“Oooh,” Tessa says flirtatiously. “Briggs has a crush,” she singsongs.
“Stop it,” I tease. “No, he doesn’t.” Then my eyes dart to Isla, who I forgot doesn’t know that Briggs and I are faking it.
She doesn’t seem to realize that I contradicted the feelings of a supposed serious boyfriend as she turns back to the tv and watches Briggs skate away.
“That’s really sweet,” Isla adds.
We watch the rest of the game while snacking down on the pizza that Tessa brought, the pineapple hard ciders that Isla brought, and the Boston cream pie cupcakes that I made.
After the game is over, we keep the TV on. One of my favorite parts of watching the game at home is that I get to see the interviews.
I grab my half drank hard cider off the glass coffee table directly in front of me and scoot back into the dark grey microfiber couch, pulling my legs under my bum and slightly to the right as I snuggle in. No longer sitting on the edge of my seat in suspense of the action-packed game, I can now relax into the interviews and actually taste the fresh, fruity flavor of the pineapple cider that Tessa brought.
Kaenan is up first, and in my peripheral, I see Isla’s spine straighten when he comes on screen. She’s pretending not to be interested but her body language says otherwise.
“That freaking scowl.” Tessa laughs. “Smile! It won’t kill you!” she yells at the screen, leaning forward from her seating position directly next to me on the couch.
I see Isla smile at Tessa’s comment, and then I look down at Berkeley, who doesn’t seem to notice Tessa’s outburst but runs to the TV and plasters her tiny little hands on the screen.
“Dadda!” she screams and then plants her mouth against the TV as if to give him a wet kiss.
His interview is over soon, and Briggs steps into view and takes a seat. He points to a reporter to ask their question.
“Briggs, your team seems to have found their groove this week so far. How do you think that will work to your advantage going into Sunday’s game in two days?”
“I think we’re riding high on this wave, and as long as we can keep up the momentum, we should do well. But we have to remember that we’re only ever one bad game away from a loss. Morale is up with consecutive wins. We’re feeling good.”
He points to another reporter.
“Briggs, you and Kaenan both had some penalty box time tonight. How does that affect your team when two of its top players are out at any given time?”
“Our teammates are talented players. All of our alternates dominated tonight and covered our asses like they’ve been trained to do. But we’re a family out there on the ice, and when an opposing player goes after Lake like they did tonight, or Ryker like they did last night… well, Kaenan wanted to make sure they understood that we don’t take kindly to dirty hits or hits after the buzzer and I’ll back up Altman’s or any players’ back out there.”
He turns to another reporter and points to them.
“You pointed to the cameraman and then said something into the camera. Care to tell us what you said and who it was for? Could you have been speaking to your rumored girlfriend and the woman who’s been spotted on your arm lately, Autumn Daughtry?”
“She knows what I did, and she knows who she is,” he says, sending a sexy smirk to the camera. “I’ll be home soon,” he says to the camera at the end and winks. I feel a waterfall of tingles cascade down my back.
“Oh. My. God!” Penelope yells and looks over me from the other end of the sofa.
Tessa looks at me, too, biting back laughter.
With Isla here, I’m saved from having to dive into a conversation about what is or isn’t happening between Briggs and me because, honestly, I have no idea.
The flirting seems to be escalating, but Briggs is a flirt by nature. Maybe this is how he is with every woman he’s in close proximity with. After so many years apart, I don’t know the adult version of Briggs, but the excitement in the idea that he’ll be home in a couple more days means I’ll have a few more days to pretend this is all real before he gets home.
