Page 3

Chloe

I stare up at him.

“And you’ll have it. I’m going to figure it out, Coftman. I promise. This is my job.” I look him dead in the eye.

“And I’m good at it.”

“I know.”

His words give me a boost of confidence as I walk out the door, and he surprises me by joining me.

“You don’t have to escort me out,” I tell him without looking at him.

“Mike will walk me to my car.” Mike’s one of the security guards on the weekend.

“Okay.” He continues to walk beside me and doesn’t say a word.

When we get to the front door, one of the guys doing maintenance stops him; and I quickly make my escape.

I pull my jacket around me and walk through the rain to my car.

With fall officially here, the temperatures are reflecting it.

I make it to my car, throw my bag in the backseat, and climb into the front seat.

Thankfully, I don't see Gunner as I leave the parking lot. I turn on my audiobook as I begin the commute. Audiobooks are my official companion on my daily commutes to and from work. They help me not to get too frustrated with all the down time. As a rule, I hate traffic and long commutes. They’re such a waste of time. All I can think of is how much I could be getting done if I weren’t sitting in traffic. When I first started this job, I thought I would lose my mind during my commutes. Audiobooks quickly became my salvation and the salvation of those around me.

I get lost in the romantasy book I’ve been listening to, and the time seems to pass quickly. I kick off my wet shoes and hang up my jacket to dry once I get inside my condo. After warming up my favorite chicken and rice bowl, I settle on the couch and turn on a hockey game. I spend about an hour setting up posts for the team page before I begin to make a schedule for next week. It’s the only way to survive my job without working eighty plus hours a week. There are so many parts to my job, the only way to keep up with everything is to make a master list of what I need to accomplish a week at a time and then break it down into daily tasks. From running the team’s social media posts to organizing charity and community events for the team, to coordinating interviews, working with journalists and reporters, writing press releases, reporting who’s playing and who’s injured...there’s always more to do. And that doesn’t cover dealing with crises that pop up, like the one Gunner’s currently going through. So yeah, my job’s never really done, but I love it. I wouldn’t want to do anything else or work for any other team. The Green Thunder is my team.

I work late into the night and finally crash, thankful that tomorrow is Sunday, and there are no games scheduled. After a slow morning of coffee and getting current on everything that happened in the hockey world overnight, I get to work making my chicken and rice casserole. It’s my day to go visit Grandma May.

I pull into the nursing home parking lot at exactly noon and carry in my bag of groceries and my casserole. “Hey, Nancy,” I call out on my way past the front desk. I’ve been here so many times, they don’t require me to sign in.

“Hey, Chloe,” she calls back with a wave.

I knock on 302 and wait a moment before opening the door. “Hey, Grandma May.” I close the door behind me and step into the small kitchen and drop off the casserole and the bag of groceries. After putting away the perishables, I walk over to the bedroom and knock. “Grandma May?”

“Hold on to your panties. I’m coming.” The door opens a moment later, revealing Grandma May with her snow white hair and sagging skin. She looks me up and down.

“What?” I ask, not sure if I want to hear what she’s going to say.

“Just trying to figure out who you are.”

“It hasn’t been that long,” I remind her.

“I’d forgotten what you looked like,” she says, sounding miffed.

I shake my head. “I only missed two Sundays.” I lean down and kiss her on the cheek. “You know it’s hockey season. Did you lose the schedule I posted for you?”

“It’s on the fridge,” she grumbles as she walks out into the living room with the aid of her walker. I don’t bother helping her; she would probably cut my arm off if I tried.

“Are you hungry?” I ask as I walk over to the kitchen.

“What’d you make?”

“Your favorite. Chicken and rice cracker casserole.”

“Oh boy,” she says as she settles in her favorite chair. “You do feel guilty if you made my favorite dish.”

“I didn’t feel guilty; I wanted to make this.”

She snorts and mumbles something I can’t hear. After getting a bowl out of her cabinet, I dish her up a portion and carry it to where she’s sitting. The news on the tv plays quietly in the background, but I ignore it. Hopefully, she will too or she’ll dive into something political, and that will be the end of our peace. “How is it?” I ask.

“It’s fine.” I smile to myself because that’s as good a compliment as I’ll ever receive. She takes another bite and then narrows her eyes on me. “Why aren’t you eating?”

“I’m taking a break from wheat right now.”

“Is your stomach still bothering you?”

“I’m fine.”

She puts her bowl down. “When are you going to the doctor?”

I resist the urge to sigh. I don’t have time for a doctor’s appointment. “I’ll go soon.”

“See that you do. So how are your boys doing?”

I’ve given up correcting her on the fact that the Green Thunder guys are not “my guys.” Now, I just go with it. “Good. They won their first six games, so we’re off to a good start.”

“I watched the last one. That goalie better shape up, or he’ll be losing his spot on the team. It’s probably because he’s a new dad; he’s distracted.”

“Grandma, Rico’s been a dad for several months now, and he’s in no danger of losing his spot on the team.” I would know.

“Well, he is if he keeps letting the other team score like that.”

“Grandma May, it was one goal; and we scored three on them.”

“Still. He’s slipping, I say. And what about Big C? He didn’t seem to play so good. He didn’t score any goals.”

I’ve given up on trying to get her not to call Gunner Big C, named after the C on his jersey for Captain. “I think he played just fine,” I defend him.

“Of course you do; you’re in love with him.”

I don’t bother correcting her. It’s an argument we’ve had at least a hundred times. I told her about Gunner before I even joined the Green Thunder organization. And then I made it a thousand times worse telling her that I was going to ask him out. That feels like a lifetime ago, but she won’t let it go. It’s no use arguing with her. Grandma May is the most stubborn person I know. Besides, the more I try to refute it, the more she thinks I’m just in denial. So, it’s best to just let it be. I've learned that the hard way.

“Is Big C married yet?”

I sigh.

“No, Grandma May. Just like he hasn’t been the four hundred eighty times you’ve asked me before.”

“Then there’s still hope.”

I don’t respond as I pick up her bowl and wash it in the sink.

“You want a brownie? I brought your favorite.”

“The ones with cream cheese?” she asks, as if there’s any other kind I grab for her.

I bring her one on a plate and grab her box of Five Crowns and start shuffling the cards.

We play every time I come over, and she usually wins.

The afternoon sun begins to set, and I switch the tv over to the hockey game that’s playing.

We chat about nothing and everything for the duration of the game.

“What’s wrong?” she asks after the fifth round of our card game.

I meet her shrewd gaze.

“Nothing.”

“Oh pshaw. There’s something bothering you; you aren’t focused on anything. You just keep staring out into space and letting me smoke you.”

“First of all, you always smoke me; so that’s nothing new. Second, there’s nothing wrong. My mind’s just busy.”

She snorts.

“Your mind’s always busy.” I smile at her words because we both know it’s true; it’s always been that way.

“Nothing’s changed since you were a young'un and couldn’t go to sleep at night.”

“I remember.” I shuffle the deck and count out six cards for each of us. Some nights, it feels like I’m still the little girl that can’t get her mind to settle at night so she can sleep. My mind’s always going. Always. It’s one of the hazards of my job; I’ve gotten used to it over the last four years.

“Is it a boy?”

It’s my turn to snort. “What am I? Five?”

She grins. “So, it is a boy.”

“No, Grandma May. It’s not a boy.” I shake my head. “Man.”

“Yeah, I guess Big C would be a man, not a boy, wouldn’t he?”

I play a card and refuse to react to her words. Speaking of Gunner, though, my mind runs through all the things I discovered on Jenny’s page today. I make a mental note to contact Vic, one of the team’s lawyers, to ask if there’s anything we can do at this stage.

“See? That face right there. That’s what I’m talking about.”

Grandma May’s words snap me back to reality. “I’m just trying to think through a problem at work.”

“What kind of problem?”

I debate telling her, and then finally just do it. She’s a good sounding board anyway. I tell her everything that I know about Jenny. “She’s a witch.”

“Grandma, you can’t call people that.”

“Well, I’d call her that b- word, but I don’t want lighting to fall from heaven for saying a swear word. Now, what are you going to do about her?”

I lay my cards down and tally the points. “I’m not sure yet. I’m going to call one of the team’s lawyers tomorrow and see what we can do legally, but I’m not sure it will be a whole lot. And knowing Big C, he won’t want to do anything to her.” I usually use his nickname when I’m with Grandma May, just so she knows who we’re talking about, since she refuses to call him anything else.

“Hmmm. You know what he needs, right?”

“I shudder to think.” I deal seven cards to each of us and take a look at my hand. It’s a dud. Again.

“He needs a girlfriend. No, a fiancé. Nobody would bother him if that’s what he had.”

I look at her, ready to make a wisecrack; but then her words sink in. I sit back against my chair and think about it. “You know, I think you might be on to something.”

“Of course, I am. Grandpa Jim didn’t marry me for just my body.”

I smile at her words, even as my heart tugs. I wrap my hand around hers. It seems simultaneously like he’s been gone for only a day and for years. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost five years. “I miss him too.”