Chapter Eight
Logan
Back to the beach that night. It was already dusk by the time I picked Dawn up, and we’d both eaten already, so there weren’t that many other options for things to do. And I didn’t want any other options, to be honest. The beach with Dawn was just fine with me.
We parked in the public lot closest to the concession stands, and it felt totally natural to reach for Dawn’s hand as we walked down the sandy path between the grass-covered dunes, and even more natural to pause before stepping out onto the open beach and turn to face each other.
She smiled up at me, daring and confident, and raised an eyebrow in what could only be an invitation. I bent down, she stretched up, and this time there was no crowd of golfers to make us self-conscious.
The beach faded away. There was no cool breeze coming off the water, no warm sand under our feet. Just me, and Dawn, and the way our lips joined and our breaths combined.
Damn. I wanted to kiss this girl forever. Or at least all night.
But I couldn’t be that lucky.
Dawn and I were both too wrapped up in each other to notice anyone approaching, but neither of us missed the sudden, surprised, “Oh!” and then the quick shuffling as too many bodies moved around with too much energy and too little coordination.
We both turned our heads without moving our bodies apart, but when Dawn saw the group of newcomers she took a big step backward, away from me, and dropped my hand. Then, after half a breath, she raised her chin and reached for my hand again.
There was definitely a message in the look she shot at me then, but I couldn’t begin to figure out what it was. So I just followed her lead as she tugged me after her as she stepped toward the newcomers and said, “Hey, guys! You’re back!”
“We figured we’d find you down here,” one of the girls from the group said with a warm smile. Dawn let go of my hand long enough to give her a quick hug. The other two girls moved in for a sort of group huddle, a buzz of weird energy almost enveloping them.
I was left staring at the three guys. All of them tall and fit, one of them looking like a young Viking, one of them—yeah. One of them I recognized from my internet stalking—Dawn’s ex. These were the hockey players back from their draft.
These guys were me from one year earlier: confident, excited, right on the edge of everything they’d been working for and dreaming of for their entire lives.
And I was me from just then: battered, broken, trying to figure out what the hell happened to it all.
“Uh, guys, this is Logan,” Dawn said, coming back to my side. “He’s working at the sports camp this summer.”
Everyone nodded politely, but there was an extra bit of awareness running through the group. I was pretty sure that this was the first time Toby had seen Dawn with another guy, and I guess we’d given him a fair eyeful.
“Logan, this is Karen, Claudia, Natalie, Tyler, Chris, and Toby.” Dawn nodded as if she’d done her duty and was ready to move on, preferably to a more distant location.
I was more than ready to follow her lead. The idea of hanging out with a bunch of freshly drafted hockey players was not how I wanted to spend my time. But then one of the non-Toby guys—Tyler, maybe, but the introductions had been a bit of a blur—stepped forward, squinting at me, and I instantly knew I was screwed.
“Logan Balanchuk?” he said, sounding amazed. And then he did it—ran his eyes down to my knee the same way the dad at camp had. I was wearing jeans again, so he didn’t get any actual confirmation of anything.
I was tempted to deny it all. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever told Dawn my last name, so if I just played stupid, if I made up some other name—
If I lied to Dawn.
Yeah. Okay, I had enough sense to not go quite that far. I might have not told her things, but I wasn’t going to start lying to her.
“Hi,” I said. “Yeah. Logan Balanchuk.” I stepped forward and offered my hand, and he took it, but seemed kind of dazed. Shit. I needed to give myself some time to think. “I heard you guys just got drafted? Who took you?”
“Toronto,” Toby said. He was still staring at me like I’d stolen his favorite toy in the sandbox, and I figured he had about another two seconds before his current girlfriend got pissed off about that.
“New York,” the big guy said. Chris.
“Uh—Montreal,” Tyler said. He still looked kind of stunned, and I began to see why. He was my replacement. Montreal had drafted a high-ranked center the year before, but that poor sap had fallen apart and let them down, so they still needed someone to fill the role. Hopefully they’d found the right man for the job this time around.
“I don’t think it’s a curse or anything,” I told him. “And they’re a great team. I mean—not currently great, obviously, or they wouldn’t have had such high draft picks two years in a row. But it’s a solid organization. They’ll take care of you.”
And while all this was happening, I’d been aware of the increasing pressure from Dawn’s grip on my hand. Now she tugged on my arm, not all that gently, and then forced a smile toward her friends. “I’ll catch up with you guys later. Welcome home.”
I noticed she hadn’t said we’d catch up with them later. And as she tugged me along one of the side paths that led deeper into the dunes, I had the definite feeling we weren’t going to find a quieter place to make out.
…
Dawn
“What the fuck?” I demanded. I sounded shrill even to my own ears, but honestly, the tension in my voice was nothing compared to the tension everywhere else. “What was that all about? Why does Tyler MacDonald know your name? And why do you know any damn thing about the Montreal hockey organization?” I felt like there were more questions I should be asking, but I managed to bite my tongue and wait to get some answers for the ones I’d already come up with.
Logan looked at me for a second, and I could almost hear his thoughts. He wasn’t looking for a way out, I was pretty sure; he just didn’t know where to start.
Finally, he flopped down on the sand, right on the edge of a dune so it was like he was on a hill, and then he bent over and started pulling up the leg of his jeans.
“What are you—” I stopped talking when I saw the first scar, and he looked up at me as he kept lifting his cuff.
His knee was covered in angry pink lines, some long, some short. They looked healed, but there were so many of them. “Those are surgeries?” I asked, my voice smaller than it had been. “That’s not, like—you didn’t get bitten by a tiger or something.”
He huffed out a laugh, one without any humor in it. “Surgeries,” he confirmed. “Three major, four minor. They—I guess they were successes, ’cause I’m walking around, aren’t I? But—they weren’t good enough to let me go back to what I loved.”
“Hockey,” I said. Shit. Of course, hockey. “You used to—oh my God!” It had taken me way too long to put it together, mostly because last fall, when it had all happened, I’d still been dating Toby but we’d been on the way out and hockey had been the last thing I’d wanted to hear or think about. But all the same, I hadn’t been living in a cave. “You’re the rookie who got messed up in his first game! Two guys hit you at once…”
“One high, one low,” he said, and it was like all the personality had been drained out of him and he was just a talking robot. “Tibial plateau fracture plus torn ACL plus some weird nerve damage stuff. I’d never been injured before, got the Ironman trophy two years running in junior, and then—” He looked down at his knee as if he still couldn’t quite believe it, couldn’t understand how it happened. “That was it. No more hockey.”
It wasn’t like I could be mad at him for being injured. That would have been totally unfair. But he was supposed to be my straightforward, happy guy for a simple, fun summer. He was not supposed to be an ex-hockey player. Ex-NHL, even, and— “Wait a second. Your dad! Your dad is Anton Balanchuk! He was in the NHL for—for forever.” I stared at him and I could feel my lip curling into something very close to a sneer. “He’s not an entrepreneur.”
“He is now,” Logan said quietly. He looked down at his knee. “Hockey’s over for him, just like it’s over for me. And since it’s over for you, too, what’s the problem?”
That was a good question. What was the problem? Why was I feeling so—betrayed? “You know everything about me. You know my ex, and my plans, and my stupid dreams. You know what my parents do and that they won’t pay for my school because they don’t think it’s important.” And then the biggest part, the worst part. “You know how I feel about hockey players. You know how much I don’t want to get sucked into that world. And you just didn’t bother telling me anything about your situation? You decided to hide it from me, manipulate me into liking you when I didn’t know the whole story—”
He pushed his pant leg down, then, and rolled to his feet with a grace that made it easy for me to imagine him on the ice, prowling the blue line, looking for an opportunity. “Here’s an idea,” Logan said, and his voice was as bitter as mine had been. “Maybe it’s not all about you. Maybe I’m not trying to trick you or hide anything from you or manipulate you. Maybe I don’t want to talk about hockey because it’s hard for me. Because I loved it and it’s gone and I’m trying really hard to get past that, and the best way for me to get past it is to not talk about it all the damn time with every new person I meet.” He stared down at me. “Leaving hockey behind is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Getting to move on? With you? With someone who doesn’t care about hockey, or about who I used to be or who my dad used to be? Maybe that was a fucking gift, and I’m sorry if I wasn’t strong enough to ruin it by spilling my shit all over your fucking beach.” He shook his head in disgust. “You’re a big talker about moving on and leaving things behind. But only on your terms. When you go to Montreal in the fall you’re going to tell every new guy you meet all about Toby and how he made you feel trapped?”
He stepped backward, and then, in a voice too soft to be casual, said, “You know what the big difference is? You and Toby started dating in, what, eighth grade? And you dumped him. But me and hockey? We started when I was three years old, and I still loved the bitch when she threw me out.” Another step backward. “I still fucking love her.”
I stared. I couldn’t help myself. It was so—so honest. He was letting himself be so vulnerable. I’d come at him aggressive and hard, and he’d come back—well, not soft. There was no way to pretend that. But not defensive. I’d attacked, and instead of closing up and protecting himself, he’d opened himself to me. It was a gesture of trust, and not one I was sure I deserved.
“I’m sorry.” Then, quickly, “About you getting hurt. I’m not sure—the rest of it—I think I hear what you’re saying. It’s just—you knew I’d want to know this. It’s not like it’s some little detail you forgot to mention. I told you all my stuff, and maybe it’s not as intense as yours, but it’s intense to me. But you didn’t tell me your stuff.” I stopped. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer, but I asked the question anyway. “Why not?”
“I’m almost nineteen years old,” he said slowly. “I’ve been living on my own since I was sixteen—my parents were always involved, sure, but they were at a distance. This time last year I had my own apartment, right downtown, and my own money and my own agent and my own investment manager and—I was a fucking adult.” He stood on one leg and shifted his weight off the other as if he was experimenting, testing. “Then one damn injury, and all of a sudden I was a kid again. When I got out of the hospital the first time, my mom moved me right back into her house. And it made sense—she had to do a lot of looking after me. But then there were more surgeries, and I just kept living there. She wanted me to give up my apartment and I didn’t want to do it. I’m still paying rent on the damn place, but I haven’t been there for months. My dad got me the job at the camp. I went from having billion-dollar corporations fighting to see who could hire me to my dad begging an old fan to give me a place to work. No, not even to work—just to kill some time. Fill my days so I didn’t spend them staring at the damn ceiling.”
He turned to me, then, his expression raw and honest. “You want to know why I didn’t tell you all that?” He shook his head. “Because I can barely stand to say the words. Because I’m fucking pathetic, and I like you and you’re beautiful and your whole life is ahead of you and mine’s all behind me—”
“It’s not behind you!” I’d been more or less just absorbing, trying to understand what he was saying and let it sink in instead of reacting with a quick denial or counter-argument, but I could only go so far. I stepped closer to him and looked up into his dark eyes. “Hockey is behind you. But hockey isn’t life. It isn’t. Not for me, but not for you, either. There’s more out there for both of us.”
“You sound pretty sure about that,” he said.
I nodded. “I haven’t known you for long, but you know what? So far, you’re the most interesting guy I’ve come across in a long time. Not just because you’re from Montreal, either. It’s because you—” I struggled to find words for a thought I’d only started to recognize. “Because you’re looking for something. Because you’re open to finding something. You don’t know what you’re doing in the fall, and that’s exciting, Logan. It’s—it’s your chance. Does that make sense?”
He didn’t answer right away, but then he looked at me; his eyes were honest and his voice was low and intense as he answered, “It makes sense when you say it. I’m not sure it’ll really make sense when I’m on my own.”
In another circumstance, it would have felt sleazy, like he was asking for, or I was offering, a commitment that made no sense after knowing someone for just a couple days. For in that context, with him looking at me like he was? It felt completely natural to say, “Well, you don’t have to be alone.” I didn’t mean it in a couple-y way, although I was back to liking him enough that the idea seemed appealing. “If you need someone to remind you of all this, you know where to find me.”
“Yeah?” He looked away as if thinking things through or gathering his courage, then added, “Just for this? For pep talks? Or can I find you for other stuff, too?”
I’d been angry at him, but that was gone. He’d been right—his secrets were his, and he’d kept them for his own reasons. The world didn’t revolve around me. So I smiled. “What kind of ‘other stuff’ did you have in mind?”
He grinned, fast and sweet. “I don’t know, maybe—church? I hear church is pretty happening around here.”
“I’m not sure I’m your best bet for church stuff,” I said. I let myself move toward him, and maybe I put a little extra slink in my step. “Considering I haven’t darkened the door of a church since my cousin’s wedding six years ago.”
“Hmmm. No church. Maybe—skinny dipping?”
I raised my hand to my chest in an exaggerated gesture of shock and alarm. “Why, sir! Of course I could never take part in anything like that.”
He nodded and quickly said, “Sorry. Sorry, my mistake. How about—going out to the campfires and hanging out with your friends and trying to keep them from talking about hockey all night?”
I snorted. “Good luck with that one.” But I reached forward and took his hand anyway. “Maybe a quick appearance, just so they know I’m still alive. And so they know you’re still alive, if they’ve figured out I was blindsided by your dark hockey past.” I looked down at his knee. “You can move around okay? I’ve never seen you limp or anything.”
“I can move as well now as I could before you knew I’d been injured.”
“But maybe you were being stoic. Guys are like that, you know. All busy being tough, unable to admit when they feel pain. I’m trying to make allowances for your guy issues. Pretty generous, huh?”
He gave me a look that told me whatever was going to come next was more serious than what had come before. “You’re okay with this?” he asked. “Or are you pretending to be fine, but really you’re totally bitter and plotting revenge as soon as I let my guard down?”
“I’m flattered that you realize how truly evil I could be, if I wanted to. But in this one situation?” I edged in closer and lifted my face in a clear invitation. “I’m okay with it. It was your business, and your decision about when to share it with me. If we’d be going out for months or something, I’d have had a good reason to be pissed, or hurt, or both. But we’re new. Just because I’m a creepy over-sharer doesn’t mean you have to be, too.”
“I like it that you share a lot,” he said.
I grinned. “Well, good, because I’m not likely to stop any time soon.” I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed him, just a quick peck. “So we’re both okay?”
“Our first—no, wait. I was going to say it was our first fight, but it’s our second. And we’ve known each other less than two days. Damn, Dawn, that’s not a good ratio.”
He was kind of right, but I could tell from the light in his eyes that he wasn’t too worried about it, so I decided not to be, either. “We’re just getting it out of the way all at once,” I said. “Smooth sailing from now on.”
“Sounds good,” he said, and he leaned down for a kiss and stayed down for quite a while.
When we finally came up for air, I said, “Damn. I should go say hi to people.”
“Is it going to be all hockey talk?”
I shook my head. “No. We won’t let that happen. Okay? And if we can’t shut them down, we’ll just leave. We have that power.”
“Yeah?” He laced his fingers through mine. “We’re powerful, are we?”
“You bet,” I said. In that moment, I absolutely felt like I was telling the truth. “We can do what we want.”
“Okay, then. Let’s go say hi to your friends.” His smile was a little wicked as he added, “And then afterward, let’s do what we want.”