Page 76 of Sexting the Coach
With my fingers wrapped around the handle of my suitcase, I depart from the plane and walk through the airport, shivers running along my skin at the familiarity. Denver’s airport is massive, and when I was a kid, Drew used to tell me stories of secret tunnels running under the building, a whole mirrored world down there with people just like us, living their lives, no idea that we walked above them.
Another shiver runs the length of my body when I step out into the frigid air. I grew up here, I should have known betterthan to think it wouldn’t be stupidly cold, but I haven’t really been thinking straight.
My Uber arrives quickly, almost like the driver was hanging around the airport, which makes sense. The guy—who looks as old and large as my dad—gets out of the car and loads up my luggage for me, then circles back around to the driver’s seat.
He’s the kind of driver who likes to talk, and I find that it actually feels nice to chat with him. To pretend like my entire life isn’t falling apart around me.
When we pull up outside my parents’house, the driver lets out a low whistle, and it makes me laugh. After living in a shared apartment with the girls for the past year—and in college dorms before that—I can see the house through fresh eyes.
It’s massive, the kind of building that could, realistically, have wings. Drew and I had bedrooms on the west side, while my parents had their rooms on the east side. My mother had an entire dressing room just to herself, all wardrobes, shelves of shoes, and a vanity with her expensive line-up of makeup.
“Thanks for the ride,” I say, climbing out of the car and waiting for it to pull away before I turn around and head inside, punching in the code for the security system, praying to God my parents didn’t change it.
They’re in Puerto Rico right now, at one of the resorts my dad invested in after retiring from the NHL. I didn’t tell them I was coming, but they’ll see me on the cameras soon enough. I’ll probably wake up to a text from my mom in the morning.
She won’t be happy with me. It’s fine, because I’m not happy with myself.
I open the door and step into the quiet, dark entryway. Everything about this house is just like I remember, and I flashback to nights I’d come back from late skating practice to find the house in this mode—the lights off, the air weirdly still.
The gentle hum of the dishwasher in the kitchen.
“Elsie?”
“Fuck!” I jump and turn, throwing my carry-on suitcase in the direction of the intruder—maybe the Uber driver? Or another robber?
No, it’s worse than that, because the person knows my name. It’s someone with a vendetta against my father, someone come to kidnap me?—
My suitcase rolls slowly across the floor, coming to an anti-climatic stop at Drew’s feet. He looks down at it, then back up at me, laughing in that quiet way he does, chuckling without opening his mouth.
“Good to see you, too,” he mutters.
My hand is on my heart, and I’m desperately trying to suck in breath. All I can think is that this kind of adrenaline can’t be good for the baby. “You scared theshitout of me!”
“Well, I thought you were someone breaking in,” Drew says, pushing my suitcase away with his toe. “So maybe we’re even, then?”
With the suddenness of this first meeting settling around us, I feel the rush of everything filling up the space. Remembering what happened. The reason why I haven’t spoken to Drew—or been alone with him—in years.
“Elsie—”
“I can go,” I say, taking a step back and holding up my hands, glancing toward the door like it might open up and suck me out into the night again. “I’ll get a hotel?—”
“Elsie,” Drew snaps, grabbing my wrist and forcing me to look at him. We have the exact same eyes and it sends a little bolt of something—nostalgia, longing?—through me. “Stoprunning away.”
It knocks the air out of me, and when he releases my wrist, my hand falls limply to my side. Staring at the floor, I say, “I know you don’t want to be around me.”
“You don’t know anything.”
He sounds frustrated, and I can’t help it—this confrontation, combined with the all-too-much of everything that’s happened in the past few weeks—it sends me over the edge.
Again.
Except Drew doesn’t seem bothered by the sobs. Quietly, he takes me by the shoulders, guides me to the couch, tells me to sit down. He hits the button on the wall and the fireplace roars to life. As he walks out of the room, he tells me to take off my shoes.
I do, staring at them, watching the snow melt off them and into the rug. Mom is going to kill me.
+A second later, Drew returns with a mug of something that steams, and a cool cloth. It makes me laugh and cry harder all at once. Tea and a cold cloth—it’s what our mother always did any time we were inconsolable.
And even worse, it works. I press the cloth to my eyes, breathing deeply, that familiar scent of laundry soap soothing me like a custom-tailored aromatherapy. Then I slide the cloth around to the back of my neck, taking deep breaths and a tiny sip of the tea, which is scalding but still comforting to hold in my hands.
