Page 11 of Left-Hand Larceny

“Moi? Google? I would never.” Technically, I used Ragnar. Not the same at all.

“It was a tough one,” Dad says as we grin at each other. “I had to ask Birta about several answers. She was not amused.”

Yeah, I’m not surprised. The scrub nurse is terrifying. Not in a mean way, in a I-do-not-have-time-for-your-shenanigans-and-I-do-not-have-a-problem-expressing-my-disappointment kind of way.

“I asked Rags.” When Dad furrows his brow I add, “Ólaffson. He’s from there.”

“Right, the goalie. Right.” He folds the newspaper and lays it flat on the counter behind him. “Bill said he’s looking good”

I wasn’t aware the team owner had seen Rags skate recently. Not that he’s not involved in the day-to-day operations, but he has staff that handle everything. Bill doesn’t even show for every game.Then again, Bill and my dad were once college roommates. If he had anything to say about Ragnar’s rehab, it would make sense he’d say something to Dad.

“I let him know that was all my little girl.” Dad claps a hand on my shoulder, and I resist the urge to shrug it off.

“It was a team effort,” I say. “I haven’t done anything without Greg’s guidance, and ultimately, it’s Ólaffson putting in the work.”

A lot of work. If I hadn’t seen his scans my self, mapped the shape of his muscles, examined the curve of his bones, I’d wonder if he was a machine.

“He’s a decent kid,” Dad says, like Rags isn’t over half a decade older than me. Although sometimes I’m sure my parents still see me as a kid. I still live with them, after all. I imagine we all look like tiny babies to the people who raised us.

“Sadie,” Mom steps into the kitchen, hands outstretched. “The silverware?”

I look down at the forks and spoons clutched in my hand. I forgot I was holding them. I shouldn’t have. It’s been my job to set the table since I could walk.

I bump my shoulder against my dad’s and duck around the counter to go set up for dinner.

The reprieve is a good thing. I don’t enjoy talking about work with my parents. I know they both wish I went to medical school instead of pursuing sports training. Honestly, sometimes I wish I’d studied anthropology or German or anything else in college, too. The sciences involve… a lot. Memorizing, math, critical thinking, problem solving. If my performance in stats and physiology is any sign, I chose the wrong career path all together. But I’m already a bachelor’s degree deep and at the tail end of a Masters. It’s too late to walk away now.

“I heard Dad mention…” she pauses like his name is escaping her. It probably is. My mother does not watch hockey. She has dinner once a week with Bill’s second wife, but she doesn’t enjoy the sport.

“Ragnar?” I supply, watching her straighten the edges of the linen napkin I set next to Dad’s plate.

“Is he the bearded one?”

I lot of them grow beards during the season. Especially during playoffs. It’s a league superstition. No one shaves until the team is out of contention. I think it’s a bizarre ritual. Every team seems to take part in the trend, and yet all but one will lose. Seems like it’s worse luck than they think, but what do I know? I’m not the one playing.

“Yes,” I tell her instead, “The redhead. The goalie.”

“Oh yes, the one with the shoulder? Neck?”

“Hip.”

“He’s cute.” She bats her eyelashes and puckers her mouth at me from across the table.

My mother and I look nothing alike. It’s not surprising, given that she didn’t birth me, but I struggled with it a lot growing up. I stood out, even if no one guessed I was adopted. Where Mom was all pale skin and hair and light-colored eyes. I was the opposite. Tan skin, dark brown—almost black—hair. The consensus was my mother had had an affair.My eyes were the dead giveaway.Blue and blue are supposed to make more blue. Not brown.

She didn’t, though, and it was important to her that everyone knew it.

“We adopted Sadie,” she’d say, placing her hand on my shoulder. It started at the top of my head, but I grew too tall for her to do that comfortably. Probably in kindergarten.

“Be careful around that one, sweetheart.” Mom brushes a wrinkle out of the pristine ivory tablecloth. “Don’t let him distract you from your goals.”

“Mom.” I frown. “There’s nothing going on between me and…” okay, well it’s not nothing, nothing. We are training together. “Nothing romantic….”

Mom waves me off. “I know. I know you’re too smart to let a boy derail your education and your career.”

That “boy” is hardly a boy, and it just so happens that he is my career.

“I also don’t have time for a relationship.” I tell her.

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