Page 67 of Whirlwind
“Oh. My. God. I should have ordered champagne with our orange juice! Tell me everything,” she says. “Well, not everything, everything, but you know,everything.”
“It was the morning after the game,” I start, then stop, not knowing exactly how much to tell.
“Girlfriend,” she says, sitting back against the booth. “That wasdaysago. You’ve been holding out on me.”
“How do you type that out on a text? It seems too, I don’t know, important or deep.”
“It is, you’re absolutely right. But I would have come over with shrimp fried rice or something.”
“Is shrimp fried rice the meal for having sex for the first time?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “It’s always a good time for shrimp fried rice; seems appropriate.”
“Nothing about that man is shrimpy.”
“What the hell is happening here? You’re making sex jokes before me, now?” She grins conspiratorially. “That means it was good. Which, yeah, obviously it was; otherwise, you’d have called. Right? You would have called me if it went badly?”
“I would have. But it didn’t.” I pause, taking a drink of my coffee. There’s something about diner coffee that I always love.At home, I want the good shit. Out for breakfast, I want it black and bitter. “Tyson was great. Patient and caring, he listened to what I wanted and needed.”
“And he delivered?”
“He definitely did,” I say, feeling the blood rush to my cheeks.
“Don’t be embarrassed or shy about it,” Willa consoles. “It’s hard to be assertive and ask for what we want, but you did that. And with a man that knows what he’s doing, no less. Be proud of that.”
“I am,” I promise her. “I guess I’m just struggling to wrap my head around it all—it’s been something of a whirlwind.”
“Falling in love with the right person should always be a whirlwind.”
“I didn’t say anything about love,” I say with a nervous laugh.
“No, but I don’t think you’d have gone this far if there wasn’t some deep affection happening already.”
“We don’t know each other well enough for all that.”
“What do you know about him?”
I know he grew up in the suburbs around Vancouver. That he was immersed in hockey from the age of four, even though nobody in his family had ever played before. He loved peewee but hated junior hockey because the boys often had overinflated egos and what Tyson called “toxic behavior.” He hated when they had to stay in hotels, and loved billeting because it felt more like home, and he often missed his family.
He loves baseball—the slow pace, being vastly different from hockey, intrigues and relaxes him. When gaming, he’s aggressively competitive, especially against assholes he encounters. He playsStardew Valleyin co-op with Lottie, which is the most endearing thing I’ve learned about him to date.
When he was eight, he broke his arm riding his bicycle and thought it meant he’d never play hockey again. In school, despite his busy elite athletic career, he always received the highest grades. He’s a perfectionist and loves challenges, yet doesn’t hold others to the same standards he holds himself.
He’s kind, most of all. He cares about others.
“I guess I know more than I thought,” I say after several moments of her patiently waiting.
“And what does he know about you?”
That question is both easier and more complicated. He knows less about me than I do about him. My childhood wasn’t filled with happy memories or stories of family vacations. I’d never left the state of Maine until I moved away for college.
“Not as much,” I say, feeling somewhat defeated. “I don’t like bringing down the mood.”
“Honey, that’s not what would happen.” She reaches across the table to hold my hand. “Not if he cares about you, and I’m guessing he does.”
“I know he does. It’s the kind of guy he is,” I say. “What I don’t know is if it will last—if it can when I’m like an orphaned baby bird learning to fly and he’s the stranger that happened by at the right time.”
“That’s not fair to either of you, Kit. Yes, this is all uncharted water for you. And, of course, there is fear involved. But I know Tyson well enough to believe he wouldn’t be taking you out tonight if he was only fucking you as a favor. And I think you know that, too.”
