Beauty and the Beefcake Read online

  Or tries. There’s not much room. Which means Loki’s basically scratching his feet into Ares’s ear and pounding his head into the ceiling while Ares pets him until he calms down.

  Maren peers in at us. I roll my window down a notch, and cold air slips inside.

  “Am I interrupting something?” she asks.

  I glance back at Ares and Loki again. “No. Just thinking.”

  “You ready?”

  “Five minutes.” I turn in my seat. “You two want to go lie down inside instead?”

  He blinks as though he’s clearing the sleep fog, then shakes his head. Loki shakes his head too.

  No way are they going with me to Doug’s place while I sweet talk a manager into giving me a key. First, he needs to stay off his ankle. And second, I don’t need the testosterone show. Ares might smell like cake, but I recognized that look when he saw Doug’s car this morning. He probably would’ve taken a bite out of the car if Doug hadn’t floored it when he did.

  I’m not entirely certain why Doug was here, but I’m guessing he wanted a picture of Soggy Dick Cookie Mountain.

  It’s something Nick would do too. Capturing the moment of glory for posterity.

  A shiver slinks down my arms, but I ignore it. Blame the cold.

  “Time to ice your ankle again,” I tell Ares.

  He scowls.

  “Come on, crankypants,” I vent as Lucy. “Can’t get better if you don’t take care of it. You’re probably due for pain meds too.”

  I roll my window up while Maren pops the back door for Ares. “Need a hand?” she offers.

  He looks her up and down. She’s not a waif, but he has her by over a foot and at least two hundred pounds.

  “What? I’m strong.” She flexes her biceps. Or so I assume, since she’s wearing a giant white parka that looks like it’s pumped full of helium, and therefore we can’t actually see her biceps. “Try me.”

  Loki gives a monkey laugh. Ares ignores her, grips the top of the car—I sincerely hope he’s not crushing the metal—and maneuvers himself out with a surprising amount of dexterity.

  I saw him do it this morning in the parking lot at the clinic too, and I’m impressed all over again. He’s like a 350-pound jungle cat. Flexible and graceful and powerful, even when he’s dragging around a bum ankle.

  Which has to hurt.

  He refuses the crutch and only limps a little on his way to Gammy’s back door, which he holds open for both me and Maren while Loki sits on his shoulder. The tape holding the cardboard over the broken window has come loose so the house is chilly.

  Maren gives me a side eye. “How old is the furnace in this place?”

  Translation: How much energy are you wasting between the hole in the window and the ancient appliances? “Younger than Gammy was,” I answer. Which gives me some wiggle room. Gammy was eighty-eight when she passed. So even if the furnace is thirty years old, it’s young in comparison.

  Maren’s eyeball twitches.

  “Here, Ares.” I make Maren twitch harder when I crack ice out of the trays and straight into a plastic zipper bag—I know, I know it’s wasteful, but all my reusable ice packs are, yep, you guessed it, at Doug’s house—which I wrap with a towel. Gammy’s fridge is also too old to have an ice maker, and it’s making weird noises.

  Probably Nick and I should just burn the place to the ground and let someone buy the land and start over.

  An ominous creak overhead makes all of us look up. A small chunk of plaster cracks out of the ceiling and plops in a dime-size heap in the center of Gammy’s prized table.

  Sorry, Gammy’s ghost. I didn’t really mean it. I won’t burn your house down. Pinky swear.

  “Go sit,” I tell Ares. “Maren and I are running to the store for more food. If there’s anything you and Loki like, text me, and I’ll see if I can find it.”

  Ares takes the ice bag, but his gaze bores into me as if he knows I’m lying. My pulse kicks like it’s a shooting for a goal, and my breath comes quicker.

  For a guy who doesn’t say much, he seems to be saying volumes.

  But I stare back and pretend I’m not lying. I don’t know if he’d tell Nick if he knew where I was going, but I’m not taking the chance.

  “I’m picking up some ice packs too,” I add.

  “And an energy efficient refrigerator,” Maren suggests.

  Probably she wouldn’t want to help me switch out my car for Ares’s massive beast of a gas guzzler. I’ll call Alina later. She’ll do it.

  Not that I want to drive a gas guzzler. But there’s a complex equation running in my head of the balance between Ares’s comfort, the risks of him getting hurt by having to do gymnastics to get in and out, the additional wear and tear on my car from the extra weight, and the complications of putting him on public transportation instead.

  The easy button is winning, and the easy button is using his car.

  I finally get Ares moving toward the living room. “You want the remote for the TV? Or I can run upstairs and get your tablet. We shouldn’t be gone more than an hour or so. I was thinking about grabbing Indian for dinner. You ever had dal? It’s delicious. Or just text me what you like and I’ll pick that up too.”

  “An hour?” Maren mutters behind me.

  Right. Because getting my stuff back from Doug—who lives near downtown—grocery shopping, and grabbing Indian in rush hour traffic will probably take closer to three hours.

  And that’s assuming I don’t have to hunt for the signed Chester Green Thrusters jersey that I accidentally left there.

  If he hurts my jersey, I’m going to be almost as mad as I will be if he’s hurt Harold. They’re both priceless.

  “Maybe two hours,” I amend. “You two okay here by yourself?”

  He lifts a single brow. I’m not exactly fluent in Ares-ese, but I think I’ve just been put in my place.

  He’s a grown-up who’s successfully proven he can raise a monkey. Or maybe that the monkey can successfully babysit him.

  “Right. You’re fine. Okay then. We’re out.” I add a goodbye in my Lucy voice, then my Harold voice, and also my Tim voice. “Later, gator! Don’t get blood on the carpet. Ignore those two and enjoy the quiet.”

  Maren grabs me by the collar. “Later, Ares. Bye, monkey.”

  Ares grunts. Loki chirps.

  I vent a quick “Bye, Felicity! I love you and I’ll miss you so much!” in my Loki voice, which earns me a middle finger from the monkey and a grin from Ares that makes more than just my pulse spike.

  Ares doesn’t just give intense, concentrated glares.

  He gives killer grins too.

  Holy puppets.

  I think my clit just did a backflip.

  This isn’t good.

  We’re out at my car before either of us speaks again. Maren adjusts the passenger seat and slips inside. “You didn’t tell him about Gammy’s ghost.”

  “Didn’t seem wise.”

  “Hope she likes him.”

  “He’s a hockey player. Of course she’ll like him. I think she’ll even like the monkey.”

  Maren studies me as I turn the key in the ignition.

  “What?”

  She shakes her head. “Nothing. Let’s go get your stuff.”

  6

  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 th
an 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-w
ashy 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.