Page 74 of From Fling to Ring

Her heels click on the floor behind me. “Ah, finally ready. Sorry for the wait. Oh hey, checking out my French book?” she asks, still fastening her earrings.

“Um. Yeah. Just checking it out. Didn’t, um, know you spoke French.” I try to inject some enthusiasm into my voice. Not sure it’s working.

Is this me getting a taste of my own medicine? I’m part of her book and she’s part of my bet?

“I don’t speak French,” she laughs. “Thus the challenge. I’d like to visit France, so I pulled out my old textbook from college. I hope some of it comes back to me so I can at least ask where the bathrooms are.”

I barely hear what she’s saying, I’m so stunned.

Confusion runs through me, which is to be expected I suppose, but it’s mixed with a side of frustration. And shame.

Frustration because in spite of being what I consider a good guy, someone thinks of me this way, but also shame for being just as big a dick to this woman as it looks like she’s been to me.

Beaten at my own game. And I deserve every bit of it.

I rub my temples. “You know, I’m getting a headache. Actually, I’ve had one all day,” I lie, “but it’s getting worse now.”

I make a move toward the door.

“Wait, I have aspirin. Let me get you a couple,” she says, reaching for me.

But I move too fast. “I… I gotta head home. I’m sorry. I’ll… call you later.”

I make the drive home on autopilot and don’t remember a thing about it until I’m in my apartment, but when I get there, I head straight for the kitchen and pull out my cookie sheets. Well, they’re not my cookie sheets, they’re my mother’s.

Or they were my mother’s.

They’re old and crusty and warped, but I normally look forward to seeing them. Baking cookies is my pregame ritual, at least when I’m in town. It helps me wind down. De-stress.

And while I’m tempted to make a batch right now of whatever I have the ingredients for, something is putting me off.

I’m pissed. That’s what it is.

First and foremost, I’m pissed at myself. And I’m pissed at Lucy.

Do I have the right to be? I have no idea. But I am. No doubt about it.

I half-heartedly take the flour and sugar from the cabinet over the stove and pull out my mom’s old measuring cups. But my heart isn’t in it.

It’s not in anything.

My freezer’s full of goddamn cookies anyway. I could have a bake sale out in front of my building and still not be able to get rid of them all.

Stupid fucking way to decompress. I leave everything out on the counters and wander over to the sofa. I click through a few channels but, not surprisingly, nothing looks interesting. So I lay back on the sofa, my head propped on a pillow, and fall asleep.

37

TYLER

“Brooks,” Coach hollers across the ice, “you saw the video of the last game. You know what you need to do.”

His voice echoes through the auditorium and bounces around my head. I’ve been listening to him all morning yelling ‘find your man’ and ‘keep your head up,’ sure signs that my attention is not what it should be.

“Over here, Brooks.”

The other guys keep at their drills and I skate over to Coach. “Hey there,” I say. “I know I’m not on top of things. I think I ate some bad sushi last night or something,” I lie.

He looks at me with suspicion. “Brooks, you’re the guy who played last year right through a stomach flu. You kept running to the locker room to barf, and then you insisted on going right back out on the ice.”

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