I might look like a dumb jock.
Hell, I might even be a dumb jock.
But the first thing that springs to mind as I stare at the woman in the men’s bathroom—who’s scrubbing her hands while sporting raw, red, teary eyes—is that scene in Macbeth where Lady Macbeth goes off the rails. Proof that I did listen in class once in a while. Man, my high school English teacher would be proud.
My second thought is that this will teach me for drinking so much Gatorade on the way to practice that I have to duck into the arena’s public restrooms before I can even get to the locker room. Because here I am, staring at a woman who’s staring back at me with wild eyes as she clearly experiences some sort of a crisis of the highest order.
“Hi!” she squeaks, her eyes roaming over me as her cheeks color scarlet like they’ve been painted. “I’m just finishing up in here, I’ll be right…” She shoves her hands back under the running water a little too fast, and a jet of liquid sprays all over her shirt. “Out,” she finishes dejectedly, staring sadly at her soaked top.
I open my mouth to ask if she’s okay. Ask if I can help. Do something to assist her.
And then, I take in the unique celery-green tint of her eyes. The stick-straight light brown hair. The freckles dancing over the bridge of her button nose… A familiar button nose.
Frick.
“This is perfect. Absolutely perfect!” The lady sounds a touch hysterical now. She sniffs, then takes a paper towel and dabs at her wet eyes before taking it to her drenched shirt and scrubbing it as roughly as she was her hands. “Of course Sebastian Slater walked in here and this is happening right now!”
My internal panic button starts to flash. Though I’m not one to usually acquaint myself with hysterical women who lurk in men’s restrooms, I have definitely seen this particular woman before… I just can’t remember where I’ve seen her.
Please, please, tell me this isn’t a Puck Bunny I took on a date or something.
And if it is, what in the name of all that is holy is she doing in the men’s restroom at the RGM?
I wrack my brain, trying to remember the women I’ve dated since I was sold by the Edmonton Wolverines to the Atlanta Cyclones and moved to Georgia this time last year. But I come up empty. All of my flirtations here have been brief. Unremarkable. Well, they’ve been like that everywhere, given that for a long time now, I’ve been committed to nothing and nobody but the sport I love.
Those eyes of hers, though. I feel like I’d recognize those strange eyes anywhere.
But the fact is, I don’t really know anyone here in Atlanta except my teammates and the women I’ve dated.
Plus, she’s looking at me like I’ve ruined her day.
My panic button segues into alarm bells as I stare blankly at a woman who I may or may not have had a romantic dalliance with, while I may or may not have been suffering a brain hemorrhage and/or temporary amnesia.
I should ask if she’s okay.
Should ask if I can help her.
Should ask for her to remind me of her name so I can remember, and maybe apologize, for whatever I did.
But apparently, I really am a dumb jock. Because instead, I blurt, “You missed a spot on your pants!”
Then, like the gentleman and scholar that I am, I turn on my heel and bolt, and the bathroom door slams closed behind me.
“Who do you think would win in a fight—a narwhal or a unicorn?”
I look up at Jimmy Jones-Johnstone, AKA Triple J, from where I’m unlacing my skates on a bench in the locker room. He beams back at me, like he’s just asked an actual, legitimate question.
“You do know that unicorns aren’t real, right?”
Triple J considers this for a moment as he removes his jersey. “But neither are narwhals.”
For the second time in a matter of hours, I find myself putting my high school education to good use. And you know, my general non-absolute-idiocy. “Yes, they are. They live in the Arctic Circle.”
“Sure, and Santa’s elves ride them to work every morning.” He sticks out his elbow in a little nudge, nudge gesture, then starts wheezing with laughter.
Is he serious right now? Sometimes when I talk to Jimmy, it’s like he’s tuned into a totally different frequency than the rest of the human population.
“I always imagined that Santa’s elves would be super hot, if they were real.” Dallas Cooper—famous for being one of the best defensemen in the NHL, and for having a roster as long as his arm—pipes up.
“But sadly, they’re about as real as narwhals,” says Aaron Marino, our alternate captain and the world’s biggest softy despite looking like a real-life Gigachad.
I am surrounded by idiots.
And yet, as my teammates traipse off to the showers one by one, I can’t help but smile. Because honestly? I don’t hate it here.
At all.
In fact, I like it a whole lot more than I thought I would.
When the Edmonton Wolverines dropped the bomb that I was being traded and would be going to the Cyclones, I wasn’t exactly delighted—I viewed the Cyclones as a relatively unexciting franchise who didn’t have the best track record.
Like… the team hasn’t even made the first round of the playoffs for years.
Despite my reservations, my agent, Mike Ambrosia, was sure that joining the Cyclones was going to be the best move for me and my career. Give me a chance to be the hero and lead a team in a dry spell to glory.
And I wanted to do anything I could to further my career.
So, I decided to give Atlanta a chance. A calculated chance. I had Mike negotiate my initial contract to only be for a year’s duration instead of the standard five years so that I could bail if things didn’t work out the way Mike predicted, and there was better opportunity to advance my career elsewhere. My agent wasn’t pleased, but he did say that the silver lining to my decision was that we could revisit negotiations regarding salary, bonuses, etc.—which I cared about much less—after the team’s management saw my performance on the ice for the franchise.
Which has been pretty stellar so far, if I do say so myself. Last season—my first season with the team—we came fourth in our division, missing playoffs by only a few points. This year, we plan on going all the way.
And I say “we,” because it turns out that Mike was right… I have no desire to go anywhere else.
I want to stay here in Atlanta for a long while. Make a name for myself on the Cyclones, and lead them to the playoffs, and eventually, to the Stanley Cup. I can feel it the same way I can feel when my stick hits the puck just right, this is the team, the place, for me. It’s hard not to notice the whiff of victory in the air—and all of us can smell it to the point that we’re ravenous.
The Cyclones’ head coach Tony Torres has carefully curated peak camaraderie and brotherly vibes among our team. It’s nothing short of Ted Lasso-worthy. My teammates—despite their general idiocy and lack of wildlife biology knowledge—are really good guys. Guys who look out for each other. They immediately accepted me as one of their own and looked out for me.
And I, in turn, have each of their backs. To the point where I recently got three stitches removed from my upper lip for coming to the aid of Colton Perez—left winger and one of the guys on my line—after that dickhead on the Hawks illegally crosschecked him.
Boy, was that a brawl and a half.
After I finally get my skates off, I head to the showers, but before I get undressed, I check all the stalls for any more rogue women covered in soapy water. Which is not something I’d normally be averse to finding in the shower, but after my restroom encounter earlier, I’m on higher alert than usual.
Who was that?
When I’m sure that the coast is clear, I get in and wash myself slowly, savoring the scalding water on my bruised body. My ribs are purple and black from where I took a huge hit in our last game, but it was worth it, because we won.
By the time I’m done, the locker room is quiet. I imagine my teammates have all piled into the player’s lounge to devour whatever protein- and veggie-rich dish Stefani, our nutritionist, has come up with today.
For once, I’m not particularly hungry, so I change into sweatpants and a faded gray hoodie emblazoned with the maroon Cyclones logo, and then pull a baseball cap over my damp hair. I’m absolutely beat, and I can’t wait to get a few hours of sleep…
But first thing’s first—we have a whole lot of game tape to review.
We have two home games this week against Charleston and D.C., and then next week we’re off to Vegas to face off against the High Rollers for a Thanksgiving Day special—a tradition established a few years back between our two franchises that’s always highly anticipated… and competitive.
I’m ready. I know we can beat them. Coach Torres has already gone through hours of tape with us, and I know exactly where their goalie’s weaknesses lie.
On my way to the media room, I swing by the kitchen. I’m hoping that Stef has a spare smoothie or two whipped up that I can grab. The smoothies aren’t my favorite—they always taste vaguely like chalky protein powder—but I can’t complain. I know what a privilege it is to have someone take care of all my nutritional needs and calculate my macros for me.
We guys don’t tend to go into the kitchen very much—it’s Stef’s domain—so I call out a “hello” before sticking my head into the room.
And for the second time today, I find myself looking at a short, green-eyed woman washing her hands frantically. Only now, she’s wearing an apron with the Cyclones logo on it.
Her eyes pop when she sees me, and her mouth pops open to match. “Uh… hello again, Slater. Um, Sebastian. Sebastian Slater.”
Despite my confusion as to what the hell the restroom lady is doing here, I can’t help but grin. “Seb usually works fine.”
“You don’t look like a Seb.” She frowns. “You look like a Sebastian Slater. Number 19. Center. Leading scorer in your division.”
“Hockey fan?” I ask warily. Why didn’t I consider earlier that she might be a crazed hockey lover/borderline stalker?
I had one of those once, back in Edmonton. I’m certainly not in the market for another.
I’m vaguely wondering whether I should be calling security right around now when she surprises me by replying, “No. Hockey’s never been my thing, if I’m being honest.”
Color me officially intrigued. Maybe I’m still experiencing that brain hemorrhage, but I’m beginning to think there might actually be a reasonable explanation for Lady Macbeth’s presence in our team kitchen.
“So, we meet again…” I stroll into the room and lean on the industrial metal counter, then wait for her to fill in the blank.
“Maddie.”
I smile. Cute name. Suits her.
“So we meet again, Maddie.” I nod in her direction. “And you’re scrubbing your hands again. Please tell me you didn’t commit a murder.”
She hops from foot to foot before turning off the faucet and grabbing a hand towel. “Well. Not technically.”
“That’s an ominous response if I ever heard one, Maddie. Is that short for Madison? I want to get it right for the police report.”
“Madelyn. And no police report necessary.” She crinkles her nose. “Unless an epidemic of e-coli spreads through the arena and bodies start dropping like flies. Then I’m most likely to blame. Albeit indirectly.”
My eyebrows shoot up when I see that she’s totally, 100% serious.
I’m still confused as all hell, but I have gleaned one thing for certain: I know her from somewhere, but this is no Puck Bunny, nor a former flame. This girl is… funny. In the weirdest good way possible.
I open my mouth, but then quickly shake my head. “I’m not even going to ask.” Now that I’m (mostly) certain that the girl’s sane, and might actually be a staff member here—and not just an apron thief on top of being a restroom lurker—I hold up my hands. “But I do need to apologize.”
“What for?”
“For running away earlier like a coward.”
She snorts. “I don’t blame you. I’d run too if I was minding my own business, trying to enter a bathroom for a pee, and came across a crazy lady crying at the sinks.”
“Still. I should’ve asked if you were okay.”
She finishes drying her hands and hangs the towel on a hook. “Oh. Well, um… thanks.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?” She looks at me blankly.
“Okay?”
She seems to consider this for a long moment. “Yes, actually. Yes, I am.”
“Good. Well, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot. Have you been working here a while?” I examine her face, wondering if we’ve been passing each other in hallways for months and I’ve simply made a huge deal in my head about literally nothing.
“First day. I’m Stef’s new assistant. I do food prep, etc. Which I know doesn’t sound ideal given the aforementioned potential e-coli outbreak.”
“It does not.” I chuckle. “But given how many times I’ve walked in on you washing your hands today, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say congrats on the new job. Despite the maybe mass murders.”
“And don’t forget the crying in the men’s restroom.”
“Quite the eventful first day.” I smile at her.
I could swear her cheeks tinge the slightest bit pink, and she turns away quickly. “Anyway. Can I get you anything?” Maddie-Madelyn frowns suddenly, her green eyes widening. “Assuming I can find it in this massive kitchen… I’m afraid some of Stef’s kitchen orientation is already slipping my mind.”
I give a little snort. “Kitchen orientation, huh?”
“Yup.” Her expression is entirely sincere. “It’s all very official, kitcheny business.”
“Sounds like it. But I am actually on the hunt for a shake or a smoothie… Are there any in the fridge?” She pauses for a moment, looking a little deer-in-the-headlights, and I quickly add, “If not, don’t worry about making anything new, I was hoping to grab something quick on my way to the media room.”
“Hmm, yeah, I think we’re fresh out.” She taps a finger to her chin, and then her expression brightens. “But I did whip up some greek yogurt and berry parfaits on Stef’s request, in case anyone wanted dessert later. I can grab you one and sprinkle some nuts and seeds over the top for fat and protein.”
The light in her eyes is all it takes for the penny to finally drop.
“I know where I know you from!” I exclaim. “You’re on that Christmas cookie show!”
My grandma is an absolute fiend for those shows—the ones where people compete in outlandish baking challenges. The holiday themed ones are her favorites, and I used to watch them with her back home, propped up at her butcher block countertop after school. I’d be doing my homework as she cooked dinner, the ancient TV in the corner filling the room with pleasant, sugar-sweet background noise.
Years later and thousands of miles away, I still watch those shows. Usually reruns late at night as I’m drifting off to sleep. Not because they’re boring, but because they’re soothing. Familiar.
They remind me of the people I love that I haven’t seen in way too long.
I look at Maddie triumphantly, glad to have finally figured out my mental puzzle, but I’m surprised to find that the light in her eyes has extinguished. Like someone dumped an entire bucket of water over a single flame.
“I didn’t take you for a Food Network type of guy.” She places a hand on her hip and smiles, but it’s flimsy, and her voice is slightly strained.
I clearly made some sort of misstep. And wanting to bring the tone back to the light bantering it was a few minutes ago, I waggle a finger at her. “Never judge a hockey player by his cover, Madelyn.”
She raises a skeptical brow at me.
“We are sensitive souls under all our muscle and bruises,” I continue. “Sensitive souls who binge-watch cookie shows. While eating cookie dough.”
“To be honest, that just sounds like you have PMS.”
“I believe the term you’re looking for is IMS—Irritable Male Syndrome.”
This makes her grin round out substantially as she walks over to one of the big, stainless steel fridges that line one of the walls. “Well, either way, I call BS, Mr. Hockey Man. You look like you haven’t eaten cookie dough in years.”
“Thank you.” I pat my abs.
“Not a compliment. Plus, I bet you watch nothing but Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan and… Die Hard.”
“Like I said, never judge on appearances. But yes, Die Hard is a solid Christmas movie.”
“You’re proving my point.” She sets a parfait down in front of me and opens a tupperware full of nut and seed mix. “And not a Christmas movie.”
“Agree to disagree?”
“Absolutely not.”
I grab a spoon from the stack of utensils in the basin on the counter and dig into the parfait.
Ho-ly it’s good. Like, ridiculously good.
“What’s your favorite Christmas movie then, Madelyn?”
“Easy: any and all of the Hallmark movies.”
“Oof,” I say, taking another huge spoonful of yogurt. And another. I don’t know what she’s put in here, but I’m not ruling out crack. This shiz is almost weirdly delicious. “You make great-tasting yogurt snacks, but your taste in movies is all wrong. The correct answer is Home Alone.”
She puts a hand to each of her cheeks, imitating Kevin McAllister from the movie. “I’m beginning to wish you’d stayed home alone today, too.”
“The feeling is definitely not mutual.” Now that I know for certain that she’s not a stalker or an ex, I’m free to let my natural flirty flag fly. From what I remember on that baking show, she’s got a boyfriend, so it’s all harmless and in good fun anyway. I wink at her, then walk to the fridge and load two—actually, make that three—more parfaits into my arms before heading for the door. “It was genuinely wonderful to meet you. Thanks for feeding me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I guess I’ll see you around the kitchen and the men’s restrooms then, Lady M.”
“Lady M?” She frowns, even as her cheeks turn pink.
But I’m already out the door, laughing all the way down the hallway.
Never a dull moment here at the Cyclones.
