“No, Ren. It’s a very thoughtful gesture from a caring friend.” Ren’s eyes flicker with something I can’t read. “I mean, I know we work together. But we’re friends, aren’t we?”
Aren’t we?
“Definitely. Yep. Completely.” He nods, shifting his weight.
Silence falls. I’ve learned how best to try to make small talk. I’m still not great at it, and I definitely don’t like it, but I’ve memorized some ways to move through quiet gaps in conversation. I just don’t feel like playing normal right now. I feel like being the real Frankie with what I’m starting to suspect is the real Ren. So, I let the idle hum of my fridge, the whisper of crickets outside my kitchen window serve as our soundtrack. I let myself stare at Ren how I probably shouldn’t, while he gazes at my mouth with the kind of focus that I’ve only ever seen him devote to game tape.
The moment bursts like a bubble when the doorbell rings.
Breaking his stare, Ren glances toward the front door. “That’s the Chinese?”
“Unless someone else from the team brought me magnetic-snap slacks.”
He laughs quietly. “Right. I’ll check it, if you want.”
“Thanks, that would be great.” When he turns away, I scramble for the joint I stubbed out earlier and furiously light up.
Frankie
Playlist: “Atlantis,” Bridgit Mendler
Watching him walk toward the door, I try really hard not to check out his ass, but you need to understand how hard that is. One, all hockey players have incredible butts. It’s a fact. Two, Ren has a really fantastic butt. It deserves to be immortalized in sculpture, a marble homage to the glory of the male backside.
I bounce on the exercise ball to lose my jitters, drag on the joint, feeling its acrid sweetness fill my lungs. That long hit mellows my racing thoughts enough to help me stop ogling Ren and get myself together. Jesus, I am a mess. I stub out the last of it and wave the air to clear the smell a little.
“Wow.” Ren reenters the kitchen, sets down the massive bag of food on the counter, and peers inside. If he’s perturbed by the cloud of secondhand marijuana he’s standing in, he doesn’t let on. “Feeling extra munchy tonight, are we?”
I tear open the bag and nearly drop the moo shoo pork. Ren catches it. Gently setting it down, he lifts the lid and sets it aside, glossing over the moment as he smiles at me.
“Can I get plates?” he asks. “Chopsticks?”
He rounds the counter before I’ve answered. A rush of self-consciousness pricks me. “Only if you join me.”
Ren freezes at the cabinet and looks over his shoulder. “Frankie, I don’t want to take your food.”
“Please share it with me, Ren.” I hold his eyes.
Don’t go there. Not you. Please don’t make me the poor creature you help and fuss over.
Ren’s pale eyes sparkle with his deepening smile. “Well, okay.” He pulls out plates and bowls, then shuts the cabinet and makes himself at home, riffling through the drawers until he finds chopsticks and spoons. “But I call first dibs on the wonton soup.”
As he serves me first, I realize he was joking about getting first crack at the soup. Ren serves us equally with easy efficiency while chatting about nothing in particular. I hate being served normally, but this is friendly, comfortable. I don’t feel one bit coddled. He also sucks at chopsticks worse than I do, which helps my ego.
“You sure you don’t have joint problems, too?” I mumble around a mouthful of moo shoo.
Ren laughs and covers his mouth. “I beat the hell out of a punching bag before I came. My hands are useless right now.”
“Makes two of us.” I smile at him, and he smiles back. My focus shifts to his battered knuckles. “Any particular reason the punching bag earned such a beating?”
Ren pauses mid-chew, looking slightly caught off guard. “Um. No, not really. I just hit the bag to help keep my…temper in check.”
I frown at him. “You? A temper? This coming from the guy who has yet to brawl in his three years playing for the NHL, except for shoving a guy off of him when he tries to start something. The guy who hugs babies like that’s his job, not hockey. Who signs anything, anytime a fan asks. You have a temper?”
“I did almost ring Maddox’s neck the other night. Give me credit for that.”
“Eh.” I sip some wonton broth. “He’s had it coming. I’d be more worried about you if you hadn’t throttled him.”
“But you get my point. It’s not that I don’t have a temper, I’ve just figured out how to manage it. Lots of bag work. ‘I must be cruel to be kind.’”
I swallow my bite of moo shoo. “Hamlet.”
Ren pauses, and a smile makes his eyes crinkle handsomely. “So, she does know her Shakespeare.”
“I have a good memory. When I hear something, it sticks. But yes, I like some of Shakespeare’s plays. Hamlet is not one of them. That guy likes to hear himself talk way too much.”
“So does Maddox,” Ren mutters.
“I wouldn’t blame you for hating him.”
Ren taps his chopsticks against his plate and stares off in thought. “I don’t hate him. I hate playing with him. He has a terrible energy.”
“And here I thought he was just a dick.”
Ren laughs loudly—a deep, beautiful belly laugh.
“Wasn’t that funny,” I say self-consciously.
His laughter dies off. “I don’t think you realize how witty you are, Frankie.”
I glance down at my moo shoo and scooch it across my plate. “I think you need to get out a bit more, if you find me witty, Zenzero.”
He’s still looking at me when I peer up. Clearing my throat, I take a long drink of water. “You were saying, about Maddox? Before I made you aspirate a wonton.”
Ren blinks away finally. “He frustrates me. He should show you and every other person he crosses paths with a lot more respect. But Maddox is still the asshole jock that I’m sure he was in high school.”
“Which you weren’t.”
“No, I wasn’t. I was good at sports, but I was also the kid who got emotional in tenth grade English when our class read aloud Romeo and Juliet.”
I bite my lip so I don’t laugh. I think that’s insanely endearing and healthy, that Ren’s in touch with his soft side, but I know firsthand how hard it is to tell if someone’s laughing at you or with you. I don’t want to hurt his feelings.
In the past, I wouldn’t have thought anything could bring Ren down. I wouldn’t have worried about laughing. But in the past few days, Ren’s shown me that much more lies beneath that chipper smile. All I ever knew him to be was this effortlessly upbeat, hunky, talented guy. The sun shone out of Ren’s ass, the world was at his fingertips, and secretly, that level of happy-go-lucky perfection grated on me.
But what Ren’s shown me is that inside this mature exterior of the pristine swan, there’s a long-ago ugly duckling. A sweet, awkward dork who never really fit in, who still maybe doesn’t feel like he fits in anywhere. And that means we have a metric shit ton more in common than I ever thought.