Page 9 of Not A Chance

No. Please, don’t. FINE. I will do it if you just stop talking about it.

Abbie

Great! I knew you’d think it was a good idea. It’ll be fun. You’ll get to buy her a whole bunch of cute stuff. That dog is going to need a whole wardrobe for winter! (heart eye emoji)

Indie

OMFG. You are the worst. How are we friends, again?

And that’s how I’d ended up at not one but two pet stores on the way home from work, going completely out of my way for a dog I hadn’t even met.

After I’d carried too many bags up the steps of my apartment building, feeling too edgy to wait for the elevator, I reached my apartment door. With both arms full, I dug blindly through my purse for my keys.

It wasn’t until I heard the footsteps coming my way down the hall that I realized someone else was in the hallway with me. Other than a couple of people in the mailroom downstairs, I hadn’t seen another soul since I’d moved in.

If I had a new neighbor, I wasn’t in the mood to make nice. My mind still spun with nerves and excitement about getting a dog, even a temporary one.

In my rushed effort to get into my unit, my key jammed because I hadn’t put it fully in the lock before I started turning.

The footsteps halted at the door diagonally across from mine. Shit. I was going to have to say hello or risk looking like a jerk.

I braced myself to force some sort of cordial expression on my face. I pushed the too-heavy bags against the door for support before I angled my body in a way that allowed me to catch a glimpse of the person who stood about ten feet down the hall from me.

“Rocky?” A voice choked on what might have been a surprised cough.

Arriving at Pearson Airport from Vancouver this morning hadn’t felt different from any other away game I’d played in Toronto.

My mind had not yet accepted the fact that this city was going to be my new home now, for the next year at least.

The ride from the airport flew by as I tried to imagine what actually living here was going to be like. I packed up my condo and said goodbye to my teammates, still in a haze of disbelief. I hadn’t really allowed it to hit me how much my life was about to be turned upside down.

Toronto’s team services manager, Christine Goode, had hooked me up with a furnished rental for the season, so I’d been able to arrange the larger stuff in my condo to be put in storage in Vancouver for now. I didn’t know where I’d be next June, so I didn’t want to send anything home to San Jose just to ship it somewhere else in nine months’ time.

I’d had two big bags worth of luggage to my name at this point, with the hope that one of the team services assistants would takepity on me and grab any essentials missing while I was integrating myself into training camp.

After I tipped my driver, I looked up at the refurbished warehouse that was now a set of what looked like twenty or more units. I wasn’t big on style or design, like my brother Chase, who’d gone into architecture, but I could appreciate the cool vibe of the building.

There wasn’t much of a view to be had, though I knew Lake Ontario was only a few blocks away, hidden by the multitude of skyscrapers in the downtown core.

It was hotter here than in Vancouver, even though it was technically fall. I knew from experience with Toronto that this was just a blip at the start of the autumn weather to lure the city into a false sense of complacency, and then the temperature would drop 10°C from one day to the next. Vancouver got a lot of rain, but I couldn’t remember an entire sunny day while in Toronto during October and November over the past couple years. It could get pretty gray here too.

Mom had always just said to enjoy these brief hiatuses from seasonally appropriate temperatures because winter was long in Canada, whether it was raining, snowing, or you were just plain freezing your ass off.

Plus, I’d found since moving to Canada permanently, Canadians really did love talking about the weather. So temperatures going wacky were always a good way to fill awkward silences.

Thankfully, there was an elevator in this building because I could feel my muscles tightening up from all the travel and lugging these heavy bags around. Maybe I’d try to find out from Christine if I could get into the gym to loosen up before the official training camp started.

I guessed the direction of my new apartment when I got off the elevator into a central foyer area on my floor. At the end of the hallway, I could see a young woman with dark hair overloaded withbags while trying to open her door.

If I’d been on my game and not weighed down by heavy luggage, I’d have offered to help her. Both my parents had deeply impressed upon all us kids that we should offer help when we could.

Except I felt a bit like death warmed over from travel fatigue and the stress of the last few days, so I gave myself a pass on being a good neighbor for the moment. Mixed with a hefty dose of self-pity at being traded away from a team I’d worked so hard for to a city where I literally knew no one, I wasn’t in any shape to be making small talk.

Instead, I tried to be as quiet as possible as I checked the unit numbers on the way to what I hoped was my front door.

With her back to me, I couldn’t tell much about her other than she was tall and lithe. At six feet, I stood taller than most but based on where her head reached compared to her front door, I’d have put her at five nine or five ten. As I got closer, I could see her hair was the same shade of warm brown, and it fell in a thick, shiny waterfall down her back.

She was murmuring softly to herself, likely frustrated with the lock when all she wanted to do was get inside. As I reached my door about ten or so feet away from hers, she tilted her head in a way that brushed her hair off the right side of her face.

---