Page 16 of Hutch (Minnesota Raptors #2)

Hutch

It has been a hell of a long week. We’d just finished the last of three away games.

Truthfully, all I want to do is crash, but I’m too wired after that last game.

It was close, but Elio pulled off a miracle at the last second and was able to get me the puck close enough to the net that the slap shot I’m famous for paid off and we won.

There for a while, I thought we were going to lose to Boston, but our team gels better than theirs.

My roomie is out at a party, but I waved him off and told him not to get to drunk when he asked me to come with.

If Coach has to hunt him down, it’ll be my head alongside his since I’m his buddy/roomie for this trip.

If Davis is an issue, I’ll just ask for a different roommate.

Kid’s new. A freshman and he’s got this need to party that the rest of us don’t.

I love a good party, don’t get me wrong, but I’m sore and I don’t want to deal with bunnies crawling all over me. I ain’t got time for all that.

I’d rather be on a video call with Daisy, but the girl has yet to give me the sign she’d be okay with me calling.

I’ve asked. Twice. But she seems to never really answer me.

Collin laughs when I gripe. It’s not funny.

I’ve never not had a woman want me to call her.

I swear she’s going to give me a complex by the time she actually stops holding her conversations hostage.

An idea strikes. It’s Saturday so there’s probably a party going on at her house.

I don’t want to ask any of the guys I’m sure will be there, so instead, I pull up Jenny’s number.

Busy. She’s probably talking to Dylan so that won’t work.

I need someone to ask Daisy if she’s up to talking. Hmmm…Christa!

“Hutch?” she asks, yawning. “Why are you calling my phone?”

“Are you at the party?”

“God no. I hate parties. I’m in my room.”

A heavy sigh escapes.

“What’s wrong?”

“I really want to talk to Daisy, but she keeps dodging me when I bring up if calling her is okay.”

“I don’t know. Maybe give her some space for a bit?”

She sounds so cautious. She knows something.

“Why?”

“Not my story to tell, but she has her reasons for keeping you at arms length.”

“Bad breakup?”

“I’m not telling.”

“How bad is it? At least tell me that.”

“Pretty bad. Not sure even you and your charming self can overcome it.”

“Well, we’ll never know if I can’t talk to her now will we?”

She makes a noise I don’t have a name for.

“At least tell me if she’s better. She was still snotting all over the place last I saw her. I’m worried she’s not eating enough and you have to eat to get better.”

“Why do you care how much she eats?”

“I dunno. I guess my mom and my grandma always fed people they cared about and it rubbed off on me.”

“You care about her?”

“Would I be trying this hard if I didn’t? You and I both know how easy it would be for me to just find a bunny or any girl on campus for that matter.”

“Why are all hockey players so arrogant?”

“You love your arrogant NHL star. Now, please, how is she?”

She sighs. “Better. Her snotting has stopped and she barely has a cough. I made her go back to the doctor yesterday anyway to get more medicine so whatever that junk is doesn’t come back.”

Thank God for Christa. I’d have been harping on Daisy to do the same thing as well.

“Do you think you can at least ask her to call me? I haven’t seen her for a week and I need to hear her voice to make sure she’s good.”

“She really is. She starts work with me on Monday. So at least you know where she’ll be from five until midnight all week.”

“You sure she’s good to do that? She’s not too sick?”

“No. I meant it when I said she’s better. The extra round of antibiotics is just precautionary. Honest.”

I’d rather hear Daisy tell me this.

“But I will call her and ask for her to call you. Does she have your number?”

“I put it in her phone myself. Doesn’t mean she kept it though.”

“I’ll text it to her to make sure.”

It’s something at least. “Thanks, Christa. I appreciate it.”

“Just promise me you won’t hurt her. She’s been through a lot and doesn’t need any more heartache.”

“It’s not my intention.”

“Doesn’t matter if it’s not your intention. It can still happen. The bunnies won’t make it easy for either of you.”

“Fuck the bunnies.”

“Precisely my point.”

“Since I met her, looking at another woman does shit for me.”

“Good, let’s hope it stays that way. I’ll call her now.”

“Why not just go upstairs?”

“Because leaving my room means dealing with the shit show downstairs who might be up here looking for an empty, unlocked room.”

“Good point.”

Once I say goodbye, I order pizza. It’s not good for me, I know, but I’ve been good for weeks. A couple of slices of pizza is not going to set back my progress if I eat clean for the next few weeks.

The pizza arrives and I eat half of it before my phone rings. I fully expect it be Christa telling me Daisy wouldn’t call. When I see her name lit up on the screen, a knot in my stomach untangles itself.

“Hey, Daisy.”

“Why did you phone Christa to get me to call you?”

She sounds surly, but I’ll take it. “Because you never act like you want me to call you.”

“Ever think the reason for that is because I didn’t want you to?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were actually getting better. Christa can tell me all day long you’re okay, but until I hear it for myself, I’m going to worry.”

She’s completely quiet when I tell her that.

“If you don’t want to talk or me to call, then I won’t until you tell me it’s okay. I just had to be sure for myself you were getting better.”

“I’m not looking for a relationship. I’m just here to finish school.”

Ouch.

“Then that’s fine. Doesn’t mean we can’t be friends does it?”

Not what I want to say, but if I can get my foot in the door, then I have a chance.

“We can be friends.”

She sounds so guarded. Whoever hurt her really did a number on her and it makes me furious. I keep all of that out of my voice though. She’s cautious enough already.

“Then friends call each other and hang out.”

I don’t think she agrees.

“Didn’t you have a game tonight?”

“Didn’t think you followed hockey.”

She sighs. “With everyone at the house talking about it, it’s not like I can ignore it. I’m assuming you guys won since there’s a big party going on downstairs right now.”

“We won. Three to one.”

“It’s odd to hear such small scores. I grew up with football and the scores could be massive compared to yours.”

“Hockey’s more brutal than football so it’s harder to score.”

“I think the football guys would fight you for that opinion.”

She isn’t wrong. “Here’s the thing. Put any of the hockey players on a field and we’ll be able to play, take all the hits, and still score. Put a football player on skates and ask them to do the same thing, do you honestly think they could?”

She pauses for a long moment. “No.”

“Exactly.” I crack open a bottle of water and down the rest of the pizza on my plate. “So, you are feeling better?”

“I’m fine.”

When she doesn’t say anything else, I try again. “Christa said you start work on Monday. Nervous?”

“A little, but it’ll be good to have something to do outside of school and studying.”

“You’ll get to meet lots of people.”

She sighs. “I guess.”

“You sound tired.”

“I am tired. I’ve been working on a paper all weekend and my eyes feel like sandpaper. I need to sleep, but I can’t since someone demanded I call them.”

“I didn’t demand. I asked.”

“Okay, you asked.”

“that your not so subtle hint to tell me to get the hell off the phone and let you sleep?”

“No. I’ve been trying to sleep for about an hour and can’t get my brain to shut off so I can sleep.”

“How about I hang out on the phone with you until you feel sleepy?”

“I guess.”

Hearing her agree, albeit grudgingly, feels better than the win from earlier.

“I broke my diet tonight.”

“Really? What’d you have? Chocolate cake?”

“Nah. Just pizza from Papa Johns. They put mushrooms on it.”

“Don’t like mushrooms?”

“I don’t dislike them, but I don’t want them on my pizza.”

“I put mushrooms in my spaghetti sauce.”

“Never had them in spaghetti before.”

“How about Salisbury steak?”

“Mom used to try to get me to eat those Banquet Salisbury steak tv dinners when she had to work and I was home alone. They looked disgusting.”

“When we lived with my mom, my brother and I ate those. They are pretty disgusting.”

“Did you not always live with her?”

She goes completely quiet and I have a feeling I put my foot in my mouth.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, then we don’t have to.”

“No, it’s fine. My mom has a drug problem. My grandmother filed for custody and she raised us.”

“I’m sorry if I brought up bad memories.”

“You can’t hide from your past. It’s a fact that she’s more concerned with her next fix than she is with us. She only calls when she needs money. I never answer the phone, but at least I know she’s still alive when she calls.”

That has to suck ass. I grew up with a mother who loved me and would commit murder to keep me safe. Daisy got the shit end of the parental deal.

“What about your dad?”

“I doubt she even knows who our dads are.”

“I just keep sticking my foot in it…I’m so sorry.”

“It is what it is.”

The fact she says that with no emotion is awful.

“I grew up with just my mom and me. Dad left when I was little and never looked back.”

“My turn to be sorry.”

“Nah. I’m all good. I don’t need a shit head like that in my life.

My mom’s the best. She worked her ass off so I could go to all the hockey camps and have the right gear.

When I get into the NHL, first thing I’m doing is buying her a new house in a good neighborhood and doing my best to get her to let me give her enough money so she doesn’t have to work so much. ”

“You sound like a good son.”

“I hope I am.”

“You are. A lot of guys would focus on getting rich and living it up while forgetting about the people who helped them get there.”

“I know some people like that. Not hockey players, but I knew a guy that made it to the MLB and completely forget about everybody back home.”

“The what?”

“Major league baseball,” I explain. “Not my sport, but I remember Roy. He lived next door until he got a contract with Cincinnati. After that, I only saw him maybe once a year. Maybe.”

“I guarantee hockey players do it too.”

“Probably. Just not ones I know.”

“You know a lot of professional hockey players?”

“Well, no, but I follow them.”

“And you know for a fact they don’t forget people?”

“Well…”

“That’s what I thought. Doesn’t matter what anyone else does, though, only what you do.”

“That’s what my grandma always says.”

“She’s a smart lady.”

“She cooks better than Mom, but I’ll deny that if you ever tell her I said that. I’ll call you a bald face liar to your face.”

She laughs. “There’s no better cooking than your grandma’s.”

“Did your grandma teach you to cook?”

“Yeah. I remember standing in a chair helping her make biscuits when I was maybe four or five.”

“Your cooking is good.”

“I’ve only ever cooked tacos for you. How do you know that?”

“Because you made everything from scratch. Only good cooks do that. Not even my mom makes taco stuff from scratch. She buys one of those kits and a jar of Pace’s Picante chunky salsa to add into it.”

“That actually sounds good.”

“Oh, it is, but your homemade stuff was just a smidge better, but again, I’ll call you a liar if you ever tell her that.”

She laughs again and my entire being settles. Why does she make me feel like this with just her laugh? Like all is right with the world.

“I’m surprised you’re not getting a culinary degree and opening up your own place or something.”

“I’ve watched enough Restaurant Impossible to understand that restaurants are a fickle business. Things go wrong. I might like to own my own place one day, but for now I’m good with studying psychology so I can help people with drug addictions.”

“Because of your mom.”

“No. It’s more for the families dealing with addicts. Yes, the addict needs help, but so do the families who gets their hearts broken again and again by the person they love.”

Makes sense. She wants to help people deal with what she and her brother dealt with all their lives.

“That’s noble.”

She snorts. “It’s practical.”

“Uh huh. I don’t see why you can’t do both. Have your own practice and your own shop. They can both be open for set hours or something.”

“I’d be a counselor, not a psychiatrist or something. I’d have a job that would probably be eight hours a day.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

The line goes quiet on both sides, and I know I should let her go, but still, I don’t want to hang up yet.

“Are you coming to our game next week?”

“I’m working.”

“Shit.”

“Are you really superstitious about that?”

“Fuck yes. I been wearing the same pair of socks since I was twelve. Things have more holes in them than there’s actually cloth left, but they’re my good luck socks.”

“Please tell me you wash them.”

“I didn’t until they gave me athlete’s foot.”

“That is gross.”

“Mom marched into the locker room at school and took them after practice, stating she refused to deal with the smell anymore. Embarrassed the shit out of me.”

“You deserved that if you didn’t wash them.”

“How was I to know if the good luck would rub off in the wash? The guys all commiserated with me since their moms had taken their lucky socks and washed them too. I was the last holdout.”

“Did your luck change?”

“We lost the next three games.”

“But you won again didn’t you?”

“No, it was the last three games of the season. Mom said next year I’d have to make new luck with clean socks. I bought a new pair and made sure to wash them after every game and then put them back in my duffel.”

“You’re weird.”

“I know, but all athletes are weird.”

“God’s truth,” she mutters.

“Know many athletes do you?”

She’s extremely quiet for the longest while before she replies. “I grew up in a town where football is king. I know athletes.”

“We’re a pretty big sports town here too.”

“I’m picking up on that just from the sheer number of different athletes that come by the house.”

“You still good there with so many people in and out?”

“It’s fine. I hardly ever even hear any noise and that’s honestly all I care about.”

“I should probably let you go huh?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. You go back to doing whatever you were doing and I’ll try to not get bored out of my mind. I’ll see you in class on Monday.”

“Bye.”

I sigh heavily. She is doing her level best to push me away, but I’ve decided that she’s worth the effort. I just have to convince her I’m worth the effort too and that might be a little harder.

I always did enjoy a challenge, though, and this is one I plan on winning.