Page 29 of The Legend Next Door
“Where’s Luca?” I ask.
“Amy called this morning to check on me, and when she heard the state I was in, she offered to swing by and take Luca for the morning. He was amped.”
“She sounds like a saint.”
“She is. She really is.”
We sit on the swing, sipping our coffee in comfortable silence. A silence that’s broken now and again when one of us groans weakly. When we’ve drained our mugs, we put our heads back on the backrest of the swing and close our eyes. Ben uses his heels and the balls of his feet to rock us gently back and forth.
The earth and the sky and I spin around Ben.
Eventually, he says, “Is this making it better or worse?”
“Much worse,” I reply.
The swing comes to a gradual stop, and we start to cackle but think better of it when our heads pound from the force of the sound leaving our bodies. He gazes at me curiously, tilting his head back and to the side ever so slightly, then reaches out and uses a forefinger to slide my sunglasses down the bridge of my nose. Nerve endings sizzle as our eyes meet. Synapses spark and fire. Fine lines of concern appear around Ben’s mouth when he sees how bloodshot my eyes are. He winces and says, “Ouch.”
He looks at me, into me, for a few seconds. A couple of hours. A few years. I can’t tell which.
Then he pushes my glasses back up again.
I had no idea something like this could be arousing. But it can be. It really can. I’m so turned on I can’t move or talk or breathe, but I am able to smile. In fact, I can’t seem to stop.
“Knock, knock,” says a chipper male voice that snatches me from wherever I just was and plops me back into reality with a hard landing.
There are two men at Ben’s gate. An attractive blond one with what looks like a homemade apple pie in his hands and an obscenely big dark-haired one that looks prone to bad moods.
“As I live and breathe,” says Ben, getting to his feet. “Decker? McGuire? What the hell are you doing here?”
“We live here,” says the dark one. “Well, not here, but across the street. We’ve been meaning to come over and say hi, but we’ve been traveling for a few weeks, and there was this whole pie thing… So we weren’t able to get here before.”
“Geez, good to see you, man,” says Ben, extending a hand and politely ignoring that much of what the man said made no sense. “Been a while since I skated rings around you.”
The dark one looks ridiculously pleased, like Ben’s just given him a big compliment.
Ben turns to the blond one, hand outstretched. “Ben Stirling. Don’t think we’ve met off the ice. That was some season you just had, McGuire.”
The blond one shuffles the pie he’s holding, balancing it precariously on the palm of one hand so he can greet Ben, and says, “I’m a f-fan.”
The dark one looks at him, head dipping in sympathy, and slings an arm loosely around his shoulder. The blond one accepts the embrace and leans into it.
“This is my neighbor, Jeremiah Blake,” says Ben. He indicates to the blond one. “This is Robbie McGuire, and that’s Ant Decker. Vipers left and right wing respectively.”
“I know who they are,” I say to Ben out of the corner of my mouth. It’s true. I’ve seen both of them play against Ben in reruns of games. I turn to Robbie and Ant in turn. “Big fan. Love your work.”
It’s not flirtatious this time. It’s simply what you say when you meet famous hockey players.
“So, we tried to make you a pie,” says Robbie to Ben, “but we can’t bake for shit. It’s a hard no for us. What we bake really isn’t safe for people to eat.”
“Gee, thanks,” says Ben, voice trailing off as Robbie hands him the pie.
“No, no,” says Ant. “This pie is fine. Robbie’s dad came over and tried to teach us baking, and when that didn’t work out, he went ahead and made it himself. His food is fine. I eat it all the time, and I’ve never had a problem.”
“Yeah, we weren’t sure what you’d like best. It was between cherry and apple. I thought apple was more of a neutral, everyday kind of pie, but if you prefer cherry, we can get my dad back and…”
The conversation isn’t going particularly well. It’s a bit cringey. It’s clear both our guests are starstruck by Ben, and who can blame them for that. I feel for them, poor things. To save them from themselves, I say, “Great choice on the pie. Apple is undoubtedly the superior pie between the two. It’s easy eating, not too sweet…and plus, cooked cherries give me the runs.”
There.
