Page 123 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

“You’rehere?” I might be prepared to talk to him, but I’m not sure I’m ready for a face to face. In my living room.

“Yeah. Downstairs. And I’m outside, on the sidewalk, because the doorman from Fort Knox here won’t even let me into the fucking lobby.” The hard stare Wyatt’s giving the doorman, who’s ex-Special Forces and takes no shit from strangers, is audible in his voice.

“Why?”

“Wanna talk.”

“So you just show up at my house? At”—I take the phone away from my head to check the time—“two eleven a.m.? Couldn’t you just call like a normal person?”

“It’s not the same. And I was sure you’d be so fucking mad about your shoulder that you’d still be wide awake.”

This man knows me.

“And that you haven’t eaten,” he adds.

My stomach growls right on cue as I look at the empty yogurt tub on the table next to me, the contents of which constituted my dinner.

“That’s why I brought pizza,”he says.

Fuck.

“From Pappalucci’s,” he adds.

Double fuck.

“With the garlic-buttered shrimp on it.” His tone says he knows that’ll be the clincher.

Okay. Even my grand principles have limits. “Pass me to the big guy who won’t let you in.”

There’s a rustling sound and some muffled chatter before a voice says, “Hello?”

“Hi, Clint. It’s Gabe.”

“Good evening, Mr. Woods. I’ve never known you to have a visitor at this time of night before. And I’ve never seen this gentleman with you before either.”

“Is he really carrying a pizza?”

“Yup.”

“From Pappalucci’s?”

“Yup, from Pappalucci’s.”

Wyatt’s voice protests in the background, saying something I think was “Did he think I was lying about the fucking pizza?”

“Okay, Clint,” I tell him. “You can let him up.”

“Thank you, sir. Good night, sir. Enjoy the pizza, sir.” And Clint hangs up the phone.

“You seriously thought I might make up the pizza? You motherfucker,” Wyatt says as he steps out of the elevator, holding the box in the air as if it’s the Stanley Cup.

“Good evening to you too.” I pull two beers from the fridge with my right hand because I’m not supposed to use my left arm. It should really be in a sling.

“Seriously though. Really,” he says, kicking off his boots, hanging up his coat, then walking along the widehallway toward me. “A year and a half since I left, and all I had to do was show up with pizza and you’d talk to me again?”

“I thought it was you who wasn’t talking to me?” I grab a roll of paper towels from the drawer and set it on the island, gesturing for Wyatt to put the pizza next to it.

“Is that not what I’m doing right now?” he says. “Seems that talking to you is exactly what I’m doing.”

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