Page 7

Lovie

T hankfully, I don’t run into Harrison again for the remainder of the day.

Everyone in the office is friendly, coming out to greet me, shaking my hand, welcoming me to the team.

Marcus Heath, the VP, wasn’t in the meeting but drops by my office.

“I was pushing hard for you to be hired,” he says, flashing a set of shining white teeth at me as he holds out a hand. “So make me look good, please.”

I laugh and tell him I will, even as my stomach flips at the pressure. I’m good at my job, I know that, but it doesn’t stop me from being constantly reminded about the particular stakes for this one.

The skills coach for the team is a woman, and she comes to my office to introduce herself. With short, choppy black hair and an endearingly crooked smile, she seems like my exact opposite—wild, brash, loose and free.

“Not a lot of women in the NHL,” she says, also shaking my hand, her grip surprisingly strong. “It’s good for us to have each other's backs.”

At midday, Ki Park comes to show me around the cafeteria, where the other admin people are eating. I make small talk and try to keep my eyes from flicking to the door every time someone walks in.

Back in my office, staring at my computer screen, I can’t get my mind off of Harrison Clark.

No matter how much I will myself to sink into my spreadsheets, to get lost in my data collection, I can’t stop thinking about the look on his face when he pushed past me on the patio.

It has been like he was disappointed in me.

It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter.

If anything, I should be glad that he maybe doesn’t like me. That might keep him from joking with me, acting like we’re old friends.

Then again, if he doesn’t like me, that might push him to tell HR about our little situation. Or about the fact that I was still studying up on both the team and hockey as a whole on the flight over.

But Harrison doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would do something like that. I can only hope my intuition is right and that I can trust what I think I know about him.

I knew coming into this position, that everyone was going to want something from me.

That, with the power to approve or kill requests, there would be many people coming to me to get support for their ideas.

But what I didn’t expect was to have to face the man who held me while I slept last night.

And even worse, I didn’t expect his request to be something so… heartwarming.

Of course he wants to start a program for underprivileged kids. And of course I have to tell him no. At least he truly seemed like he understood the gravity of keeping my secret for me.

The moment I’m done for the day, I shut my laptop and hurry out of the complex, being careful to avoid any of the paths he might take. Once again, I feel like the woman skirting past him on the plane, but I just won’t be able to handle seeing him again today.

Luckily, my apartment is close enough that I can walk home, swinging past a little market on the way. I grab a salad in a plastic container, start for the checkout, then circle back around for a bottle of wine.

When I push through the front door and into my apartment, the first thing I do is pick up my phone and call my sister.

Chrys answers on the first ring, “Lovie? How was your first day?”

“If I told you that every single thing went wrong, would you believe it?”

She sucks in a little breath of air, and I launch into the story—first, telling her about my terrible, stupid decision to sit with him on the plane. Except I dial it back a bit, not giving her the full details. I admit to kissing him, and that’s enough for her to be shocked.

“Lovelace Waters—I can’t believe you were making out with a stranger on a plane.”

“It gets worse.”

When I tell her that the stranger turned out to be the coach for the Baltimore Blue Crabs, she says she can’t believe me.

“But how in the world did you not recognize him?”

“He was way more tan at the airport than in his pictures,” I argue as I move around my new kitchen, pulling the fridge open only to realize I’ve done no grocery shopping since arriving this morning—other than my little trip to the market.

The fridge is stark white and empty, except for a single, abandoned packet of ketchup in the back.

“More tan?” Chrys laughs. “That’s your excuse?”

“He also cut his hair short. It used to hang to his shoulders. Now it’s like, an inch long. He looks like a completely different guy.”

“What’s his name? I’m going to look him up.”

At first, I hesitate, wondering if I should wait to tell my sister his name—but it’s not like she won’t be able to find him, anyway. I already told her he’s the coach.

“Harrison Clark.”

A moment passes, then Chrys sucks in a breath, “Lovie.”

“What?”

“He’s hot!” she says, then a moment later, “But…he’s so much older than you!”

“You don’t know how old he is.”

“His Wikipedia page says forty-eight. Even if that’s a little off, that’s more than ten years on you, Lov.”

“Okay, it’s like…a silver fox thing.” I laugh, pinching the phone against my shoulder as I pour myself a glass of wine. I’ll need to do some serious meal planning soon—I can’t afford a pre-made salad and a nice wine each night. But for now—I’ll write it down as a coping expense.

“Ha,” she puffs out a breath. “Right. Silver fox.”

“Mom and dad had basically the same age gap between them,” I argue, holding up a hand even though Chrys can’t see me do it.

“Sure,” she says, drawing out the word. “But mom was the older one.”

There’s a pause in the conversation, and I know it’s because we’re both thinking about Mom. About her yellow rain boots. The crochet flowers she’d leave around the house. Her brief obsession with essential oils that left us all smelling like bergamot for weeks.

The chickens we had to get rid of after she died, each of them with their own unique name, just like Chrys and me. Stevie Chicks, Bernadette, Lady Mary, Nova Scotia.

Every day, I wonder what my mom would make of all this. Chrys and I taking care of Dad. Dad, having to accept that care. Everything in our family dynamic being completely flipped around.

Knowing her, she would take it in stride, then cook up walnut brownies to celebrate our small wins.

Now, wanting to draw both of us out of our collective moment of grief, I clear my throat and ask Chrys, “Yeah, mom was old, but why does that matter?”

“I don’t know, it’s like—a feminist thing or something. An older guy has more power.”

I sit down at the table with my salad and wine, frowning into the lettuce, “Oh, well—it’s not like I want to date him.”

“Oh—you don’t?”

“Of course not.” I tell her the story about him following me out to the patio, about how I’d asked him not to tell anyone.

And how it seemed he wouldn’t. “Dating him could be catastrophic. This position is important to me. The last thing I need is to get HR on my bad side. Or to appear like I can’t do my job. ”

“Well, I don’t see why you’d get in trouble,” Chrys says, and I hear something on the other end of the line—the sizzle of onions in a pan?

My stomach gurgles as I spear another bite of spinach and carrot.

“You only kissed. And it was before you ever really started the job. Maybe they’d be upset that you didn’t even recognize their head coach, though. ”

“He was way more tan!”

Chrys laughs, then I hear the low rumble of Dad’s voice in the back of the room. Chrys is muffled for a second, saying something to him about dinner. I close my eyes and imagine I’m there with them, sitting at the counter, watching Chrys cook because I burn everything I touch.

“Whatever you have to tell yourself,” she says, returning to the phone. “Dad says hi, but I have to go. This meal is gonna turn out like you made it if I don’t focus.”

“Ha.” We say our goodbyes, then I end the call, placing my phone face down on the table. My apartment is quiet, though I can hear the sounds of my neighbors—running water, shifting floors, the general sounds of people returning from work and winding down for the evening.

When I look up, I see an empty seat across from me.

Rather than sit with how alone I am in this apartment—and this city—I push my salad back and pick my phone up again.

Harrison Clark is, of course, on Instagram, his tanned face and white teeth glowing at me from his profile picture.

His profile is a collection of high-definition photos from the season—winning games, getting ready for the Stanley Cup—and beachy, athletic photos—him surfing, standing in the sand, the sun shining off his oiled chest, a volleyball tucked under one arm.

His Instagram starts shortly before he retired as a player, before he became the coach for the Blue Crabs. And in the very first few photos, there’s another woman with him. I alternate between his Wikipedia page and his Instagram, matching the woman to the information about him online.

Harrison Clark was married to Eliza Clark—now Eliza Greene—for the duration of his career with the Blue Crabs. The couple publicly announced their split in September 2010.

I didn’t even know he had been married.

Shifting in my seat, I try to tap back over to his Instagram, but I’m too quick with it, and accidentally double-tap his first photo—him with his arms around a golden retriever.

A little red heart appears on the photo, and all the blood drains from my body.

Oh—no. No, no, no. Not after the conversation we had today—fuck.

I hastily unlike the photo—though I know that, realistically, that’s not going to help me—then set my phone down on the table, pick up my fork, stab it into the salad. I drop the fork, put my hand on my phone, then draw back like it might burn me.

What am I doing? In all my years of internet stalking, I’ve never been so careless as to like an old photo. And especially not one from over ten years ago.

“Fuck,” I mutter out loud, standing up and thrusting my hands into my hair, starting to pace back and forth beside the table. What is he going to think when he sees it?

What if he thinks it’s flirting? What if he thinks it’s some sort of desperate attempt to make friends after our little spat today?

I’m still pacing, still deep in my thoughts, when I hear the tiny little telltale buzz of an Instagram notification on my phone.

My heart turns over in my chest, and I approach the device like it’s an active bomb, picking it up and turning it over in my palm so the screen lights up and shows me the notifications.

Harrison_Clark has followed you.

Harrison_Clark liked a photo.

Heart thudding, I tap on the second notification and it takes me to the photo he’s liked—the very first one I ever posted on Instagram.

In it, I’m home from college for spring break, one arm around Chrys, the other around my mom.

It’s grainy, the kind of quality I could manage with my second hand smart phone.

The three of us have dye from Easter eggs on our fingers, staining them blue, purple, and green.

I completely forgot about that day and our mother’s insistence that we still dye eggs from our chickens, even though the brown didn’t take color well.

I’m still staring at the picture when the notifications flood in.

Harrison_Clark liked a photo.

Harrison_Clark liked a photo.

Harrison_Clark liked a photo.

Stifling a laugh, I shake my head and tap back over to his profile, giving him the same treatment. It’s juvenile, and it’s not smart, considering the fact that I just gave him a talk about keeping what happened between us a secret, but I can’t stop myself.

I’m starting to get the feeling that might be a strong theme for me when it comes to Harrison Clark.