Felicity

So that was embarrassing.

I park my car in Gammy’s carport and thunk my head against the steering wheel. The back porch light is out, the drizzle is back, the sky is black, and I still don’t have my stuff.

I will, though, forever have the memory of a nice chat with a police officer who was called when the doorman at Doug’s building recognized my face. It seems Doug told him I trashed the apartment and that I carry knives in my pockets.

And since my name isn’t on the lease, and I agreed that I voluntarily took all of my possessions into Doug’s apartment when I moved in with him—which was the first question the cop asked after the near strip-search to make sure I wasn’t carrying anything more dangerous than my temper—he couldn’t help me get my stuff back either.

Though he did seem on the verge of asking for my number by the time we were done, which was odd, to say the least.

Maren’s flirting with the cop didn’t even help, and she pretended like she didn’t know me so at least one of us would have a chance of getting into Doug’s apartment.

Swear on Gammy’s ghost, if he hurts my puppet, I really might resort to carrying knives. I thought I had Harold in the first round of stuff that I carried out of Doug’s place—mock me all you want, but my puppets are family—but when I got to Gammy’s, I couldn’t find him, and I’ve been having serious guilt ever since.

Even though I make him talk and I know he’s just a plastic-and-fabric puppet, he feels real to me.

Which I probably shouldn’t admit in public. Ever. But the fact that I know I shouldn’t admit it in public does give me bonus points on the sanity meter, right?

Maybe?

Right. I make puppets talk, even when they’re resting in my trunk across town. Yes, yes, I have issues. Don’t we all?

I pull the six grocery bags out of the backseat, sling every last one over my shoulders like grocery carrying is an Olympic sport and I’m a gold medal champ, and drag myself the short distance to the back porch. Drizzle catches in my eyelashes, I almost slip on the wet wood step, and one of the bags crashes into the door. I probably shouldn’t have piled potatoes on top of the eggs I hope Ares will eat, because I definitely didn’t buy them for myself.

Wonder if he’ll eat the shells? I’ve seen him eat candy wrappers, and I swear he would’ve gnawed on a chopstick the last board game night Nick invited me to if we hadn’t taken it away from him.

I unlock the door and make it to the table without blowing up any more bottles of wine. The living room is dark, there’s a bag of water in the sink—melted ice, undoubtedly—and all’s quiet upstairs.

Ares and Loki probably went to bed.

Good.

Rest is good for healing. And for monkeys not getting into trouble.

Plus, I was gone longer than I meant to be and I haven’t grabbed dinner yet.

But at least now I have something more than wine, beans, and tofu to offer Ares.

And just for the record, if he were staying with Nick, I’d expect my brother to be doing all the grocery shopping and cooking too. It’s not a guy-girl thing. It’s more of a concern that Ares can’t take care of himself.

Plus, I’d really like to see him back on the ice. I like it when the Thrusters win, and Ares has been a huge asset to the team.

And I mean huge in every way a person can mean huge.

My mind flashes back to the movement in his sweatpants this morning, and I flush.

Yeah, that seemed pretty huge too.

Not that it matters, because I’m off men.

And my brother’s teammates wouldn’t be at the top of my list anyway, because when things went south—and they always do—there’s no telling what Nick would do.

Once I have everything put away, I tiptoe up the stairs and peek into the guest room. I slept here on occasion when I was growing up, and everything’s the same as it always was. Mostly because Gammy truly was terrifying about people touching her stuff, and neither Nick nor I have had the guts to change anything in the six months she’s been gone.

There are pink flowery curtains that match the bedspread on the double bed—along with the couch downstairs—the sturdy oak dresser that’s older than I am because we used to make things to last, young lady, and the faded wedding photos of my great-great grandparents hanging on the walls. We haven’t even touched the dead spider plant hanging in the corner, because it’s been there for at least five years—dead, I mean, for the last five years—though Gammy’s only been gone six months.

We could probably move the plant out for Ares.

Who isn’t in the guest room.

Which I can clearly see since the curtains are open and a street light shines right on the neatly-made bed, and there’s really no other place in the room he could be hiding. The closet’s too small, and his massive black duffel bag takes up half the floor in the small room anyway.

I look down the hall at the master bedroom.

The bed’s no bigger in there—Maren would be pleased that Gammy insisted on taking up no more space than she needed and never even upgraded to a queen size—but I sneak down the hall anyway and peek in.

Empty.

Ares isn’t in my house.

I check both rooms thoroughly, along with the bathroom, before scouring the main floor and the creepy basement as well.

No Ares.

Loki is hiding under the kitchen table with the Wayne Gretzky bobble head, making his head move. There’s no moaning in the pipes or creaking from the bones of the house, so either Gammy’s ghost is sleeping, or she likes the monkey.

But the more important question—“Hey, Loki. Where’s Ares?”

He turns his back and twerks his butt at me, then makes Wayne’s head bobble some more.

This should be fine. It’s not like anybody could kidnap him. He’s huge. They’d have to use a horse tranquilizer or six, and then they’d have to have enough people to carry him somewhere, and there’s no way they could do that without making some kind of mess in Gammy’s house.

And he is a grown man. If he wants to go somewhere, I can’t stop him.

But if he went somewhere to try to skate, I can kiss my chances of a job with the Thrusters goodbye.

And it’s not even the job that seriously concerns me. If he doesn’t get off his ankle, he won’t get better. I might only be a student—again—but it’s my job to help injured athletes get better every day. I don’t want to see any of them hurt any longer than they need to.

I group text Maren, Alina, and Kami. Four heads are better than one. As an afterthought, I text Gracie Diamonte separately too.

Until Nick dropped Ares here yesterday, he was staying with Gracie’s boyfriend, Manning. I’m pretty sure Gracie isn’t in Copper Valley full-time yet—she’s from some small town in Alabama, and her relationship with Manning is about as old as her pregnancy, which isn’t really showing yet—but she and Ares are friends.

I think.

They were sharing a bedroom until about a week ago, but that’s another story.

Maren texts that she’ll hit the internet for her favorite hockey-player-sightings sites. Kami offers to come over—she lives around the corner and could be here in two minutes. Alina reports that she’s texting Nick for Ares’s number under the pretense that I won’t let her have it for fear she’ll give it to Maren, but Nick will totally believe her when she says she wants to ask him if he’d be in one of her YouTube videos.

Alina’s a rock cellist. All those years in braces, glasses, and the orchestra turned her into a strings badass. She’s done shows with everyone from Justin Timberlake to Levi Wilson to Ed Sheeran, and even once with country superstar Billy Brenton, and she pays her mortgage on ad revenue from her YouTube channel.

Also, she’s playing for the first time ever with Swedish pop sensation Xandria at a local fundraiser this weekend, which should spike her popularity even higher.

Nick will totally buy Alina’s story.

But before Nick replies to Alina, Gracie comes through with Ares’s number and an apology for the cookies.

I don’t quite get the thing about the cookies, but okay.

Now what am I supposed to say to Ares? I dial his number. After seven rings, I get voicemail. “Berger Twin Central. You got the handsome one. Leave your number at the beep for a good time.”

I’m ninety-nine percent certain this is Ares’s number but his twin brother, Zeus, set up his voicemail, because that’s way too many words for Ares.

I pace the kitchen while I leave a message. “Um, hi, Ares. This is Felicity. Murphy. Nick’s sister. Just wondering when…if…you’re coming back. Could you give me a call? Or a text? Or…something?”

I sound like a wishy-washy pre-teen talking to her celebrity heartthrob. And if that was actually Zeus’s number, at least I’m that much closer to reaching Ares.

Part of me hopes it is Zeus’s number. He’s more approachable. I think. I haven’t met him, but he seems more approachable.

For one, he actually answers questions in post-game interviews. Or rather, his ego answers for him, but still. He answers.

Ares mostly just stares, grunts, and occasionally says random one-syllable words like float or lunch. Nick says the team’s trying to work with him on being more media-savvy, but apparently he had it in his contract that he’s excused from participating in media and public appearances. The Thrusters are working out if they have to honor that since they got Ares in a trade, and the contract specifically spelled out that he was excused from participating in media and public appearances for Chicago, his last team.

When staring at my phone for a minute doesn’t make it ring, I decide texting too can’t hurt. I have no idea if I’ll understand anything he might text back—that gif thing in Nick’s message thread with him included one of a guy wearing a banana suit and peeling his head open—but at least I’ll know he got my message. And no, I don’t want to talk about how long it takes me to figure out what to say in a text to him.

Hey, this is Felicity. Just got home. Did you have a preference on dinner? How’s Indian sound?

I hit send and hope I don’t look like a moron. Like I’m stalking him or something. Can you stalk someone whose monkey is living in your house? More importantly, is Ares the type of guy who would leave without his monkey and his clothes?

If it was just the clothes, maybe. Because surely he has more stuff than just a duffel of clothing.

But who am I to talk? When I moved in with Doug, I put half my belongings in storage. And by storage, I mean Kami’s basement. Since I was in a teensy studio apartment before that, I didn’t have much. And I didn’t want to put it here, in Gammy’s basement, just in case Nick would’ve decided to drop by on a day off.

When Ares was traded to the Thrusters, he had two days’ notice. Not much time to move. I wonder if he still has a place in Chicago, or if he was couch-hopping there too.

My phone dings. I glance at the screen, and my heart skips a beat.

Ares texted me back.

I pull up my messages, and—

What in the world?

He texted me a gif of two baby rabbits, each in a paper cup, their adorable little noses twitching in time.

I hope this doesn’t mean he wants to eat a bunny.

Or that he’s picking out pet bunnies for Loki to have some companionship.

I glance at the monkey under the table.

He’s licking the bobble head.

Gammy’s ghost is going to kill us all in our sleep.

So you’ll be back soon? I text back.

He doesn’t answer.

Dammit.

He’s a grown man, I remind myself. If he doesn’t want to take care of his body, I can’t make him, even if the idea of him wrecking his ankle makes me break out in hives.

Since I started my PTA program, it seriously kills me when people don’t take care of their injuries.

I call Alina, because I need someone else to tell me the same thing. She’ll look at this objectively with me.

“You’re totally screwed on getting a job with the Thrusters if he hurts himself on your watch,” Alina says.

“He’s a grown man. And I’m not officially babysitting him for the Thrusters. I’m doing Nick a favor because he’s worried.”

“No one ever expects men to take responsibility for themselves. It’s all on you, babe. Good news though. He’s not at the arena.”

“You checked?”

“Didn’t have to. One of those ice dancing shows is in town. If he’s trying to skate somewhere, he’s not doing it there.”

There are at least a half-dozen other rinks in Copper Valley. I find my tablet in the living room, take a seat where the hockey bobble heads are only kinda watching me, far from the blanket Gammy was knitting, and open a browser. I hope none of the rinks are open on a Monday night.

Useless hope—they’re most likely all open until at least ten, because nothing closes before ten in a city this size—but there it is.

“Did you get your stuff back?” Alina asks.

“No, but I got a good pat-down from a cop. The dickhead told them I’m psycho and they don’t want me in his building.”

“What?”

“Yeah. He told them I talk to myself all the time, have a freaky doll collection, and coated myself in pig’s blood to protest the bacon he keeps in his fridge.”

“That’s ridiculous. Everyone knows you only use red food coloring for animals’ rights protests.”

“And he doesn’t eat bacon. That part never happened.”

“What what? He doesn’t eat bacon? That’s so not normal.”

“I don’t eat bacon,” I remind her.

“Yeah, but you at least gave tofacon a real shot, so you’re forgiven.”

I frown at my tablet. There are eight skating rinks open until at least ten all across the Copper Valley metro area, some almost as far north as the military base and one so far south it’s outside the I-256 loop.

“I need to call some of these rinks to see if any of them have seen Ares before rumor central goes nuts and Nick hears I lost him.” An incoming call beeps in my ear. “Oh, wait. Kami’s calling.”

I say bye to Alina and switch over to Kami.

“I found Ares,” she blurts out before I can even say hello.

“What? Where? When? How?” I head to the kitchen. “Where are you? I’m on my way.”

“Stop! Wait. Just hold on.” She takes a big, loud breath. “I found him, but you’re not going to like this.”