Chapter Eleven

I throw the ball for Lucky and he turns to run after it, bumping into Ben.

"Watch out, Ben. You're in his way," I say, laughing.

"Everything is in his way," he laughs and comes over to stand by me.

"So it seems you've made some new friends," he hints.

"It seems I have," I smile at him. "They're really nice. Well, the ones I've met anyway. We're invited to a party at Max's."

"You and Danny," he asks, throwing the ball for Lucky.

"Yeah. Well, I assume you and Rach too," then it occurs to me that I don't know if the offer extended to them. "I guess I shouldn't assume though, huh?"

"Probably not. It'd be nice to go. I might be able to use some of the connections. Plus, like you said, they're really nice."

"I'll ask when we get back," I tell him with a smile. It occurs to me that this is the perfect opportunity to bring up Anne.

"Tell me about Anne and Danny," I request, not knowing if I'll get an answer.

Ben takes a deep breath and puffs his cheeks out as he exhales.

"I don't know, Carly," he says shaking his head. "It was a touchy situation."

"Ben, I'm your sister. If there is something about my boyfriend, your best friend that I should know, don't you think you should tell me?"

He opens his mouth to say something and then closes it again. I wait him out, standing in front of him, hands on hips.

"Carly, I..." It's clear he doesn't know what to say and he's making me really nervous. "Yes. Yes, I do think I should tell you." Then he closes his eyes and lowers his head.

"Well?" I prod, fighting back tears.

He raises his head to look at me.

"I promised I wouldn't," he says and looks down again.

I spin around and walk into the house. Ben and Lucky follow me to my room. I sit on the bed to take off my boots and then I throw them one at a time into my closet.

"Carly, I want to tell you," he says like wanting to tell me is as good as actually telling me.

"Then fucking tell me, Ben!"

The yelling sets the tears free and now I'm crying. I roll my eyes and walk to my closet to find my black flats. I'll have to stand on a chair to talk to Jordan in flats. I'm not sure why that thought pops into my head in the middle of all this, so I try to shake it out.

Ben sits down on my bed as I shove my feet into my flats.

"I can't, Carly," he says softly. "I can tell you that there is nothing between Anne and Danny."

"She kept staring at him. I know it sounds jealous and ridiculous,” I try to explain, “but it just seemed like she was looking for something in his eyes or something.”

Ben doesn’t say anything so I give up. I don’t want to pry it out of him. If I asked him to keep a secret, I would expect that he wouldn’t tell anybody.

“Okay,” I sigh and walk out of my bedroom.

“I’m sorry, Carly,” Ben says sincerely.

“I know. Let’s go,” I smile at him and pat my leg for Lucky and he’s at my side in an instant.

We leave Lucky in his fence and ride the quad back to Danny’s. We’re barely out of the driveway before Max and Tara approach us.

“Hi,” Tara says cheerfully. “We were sent looking for you.”

“Oh yeah,” Ben asks curiously. “Who sent you?”

“Danny,” Max answers. “He has his hands full with your girl,” he laughs. “Plus he wanted to make sure you could get a game in before it gets too dark.”

We walk through the yard back to the Baggo game. The crowd around the game boards has grown quite a bit. As we get closer, I see that the crowd is most of the Penguins roster. Engelland and Jordan are still playing and it looks like their opponents are Danny and Geno. I don’t see Kris anywhere in the vicinity. Rachel is telling a story to a few of the guys that apparently requires her to punch Pascal Dupuis in the chest animatedly with both fists. They’re all laughing.

“Partner swap?” I ask when we get closer.

“Wooo!” Rachel turns to us and throws her arms around Ben. “You’re back. What took so long? Is Lucky okay?”

“He’s fine,” Ben puts his arms around her and kisses her forehead.

“Your partner is back,” Geno tells Danny. Danny winks at me and I smile easily.

He stretches his arm toward me and I walk to him. He notices how short I am as he puts his arm around me.

“Now you’re back to normal height,” he says and kisses the top of my head.

I stand there with my arms around Danny and my eyes are drawn to Jordan. I thought I could feel him looking at me and he is. I smile at him and he looks back to the game.

I decide I should go mingle before everybody starts leaving so I ask Danny if he wants to come with me when he finishes this game.

“Of course, yeah,” he answers with a smile.

I hear something and turn to see Kris and Anne coming out of the woods. They’re holding hands and smiling at each other. She sees me watching them and covers her face with her free hand, embarrassed. I sigh with relief and smile at her. The others catch sight of them and start commenting.

Deryk makes three bags and the game is over. Danny glares at him mockingly and then laughs.

“We’re going to mingle,” he tells him. “But you and me? We’re going to have to have a one on one match one of these days.”

Deryk laughs. “Absolutely. I want to get in that gym of yours too. We got all summer.”

I stand there, watching them talking to each other like old friends, and see Jordan watching them too. He has a smile on his face. We make eye contact and this time he smiles at me instead of looking away. I give him a little wave as Danny and I walk towards the tents.

___________________________________


After she walks away, I make my way over to Engelland.

“What’s going on,” I ask him. “It seems like you’ve known this guy for years.”

Deryk shrugs… of course.

“He’s a cool guy,” he says dismissively.

“Yeah, well he looks like a loose cannon to me.” I’m not saying it to be childish; the guy really looks like it would be really uncool to see him lose it.

Deryk looks me up and down and back up again. He stops his gaze at my eyes and raises an eyebrow.

“I’m not just saying that,” I tell him.

“Okay, man,” he says and turns his attention back to the game. “Who’s up?”

Sid and Flower step up to play what will probably be the last game of the night. I want to switch partners so I can stand on the same side with Engelland. I don’t want to tell anybody else what’s going on though, so I let it go. Sid is standing beside me. I know that means he’s going to read me the way Letang does. I just hope Sid doesn’t read too much into it too.

He doesn’t say anything to me through the game but he keeps looking at me sideways. As soon as the game is over… which Sid and Flower won, of course; Sid steps in front of me.

“What’s up, man?” Just because he’s the captain of the team, he thinks everything is his business.

I just sigh and throw up my hands.

“Nothing. Why?” I sidestep him to grab a beer.

He’s a good guy. I don’t mean to sound bitter about everything being his business. He cares about us and always wants to help.

“You look weird,” he says.

“Well, I’ve been drinking for several hours.” Like he’s never seen me drinking before.

“Yeah,” he probes, “but you’re drinking slow.”

I shrug and take a big gulp of the beer I just opened.

“I was just slowing down to play the game. I’ll drink more now, if you’d like.” I smile and take another big gulp.

He nods, knowing I’m not going to talk about it.

“Okay,” he says and claps the back of my shoulder. “I’ll be around,” he knows I know that’s an invitation to open up to him. The problem is that everybody is making this into a big deal and it just isn’t.

I walk over to Kris, who now has an arm ornament in the shape of the girl that was Geno’s partner, and ask him if he wants to go down to the tables. The ornament girl comes with us.

“Can we not talk about that thing anymore?” I ask him. “It just isn’t really a big deal.”

He nods and parks his girl at a table with some of the WAGs. Then he asks her to wait for him there. She nods and turns to the table. Vero immediately introduces herself as Kris and I are stepping away.

“Anne used to date him,” Kris tells me quietly.

“I don’t know who Anne is, but I assume it’s that girl,” I reply looking in her direction. “Why were you talking about him with her?”

“She brought it up, man,” he says and takes a drink from his bottle. “She thought we were friends with him and that’s why we’re here.”

His eyes get all shifty, darting from her to me back to her again.

“I’ve been dying to talk to you but I didn’t want her to get any thoughts,” he tells me as he’s wiping his hands on his shorts. “Keep walking. Pretend we’re getting something from the car.”

We walk to the car, Kris checking behind us every few steps.

“What the fuck’s going on, man?” I’m getting impatient because he’s making me nervous. “Did he abuse her or something?”

He shakes his head. “Like she would have told me if he did?” He pauses before continuing and shakes his head again. “No, I don’t think so. He has some problems though. Bad ones. I’ll tell you later.”

“So is this something we should step away from? Pretend we never met them,” I ask because we tend to distance ourselves from a lot of people we meet. We have to be careful of what we get mixed up in.

He exhales heavily and puts on his thinking face.

“I don’t think I can,” he resigns. “I like the guy. I like all these people,” he says and sweeps his arm across the yard. Then we start walking back to the festivities.

“What the hell, Tanger,” I sigh. “I thought you were getting your dick sucked not learning somebody’s life story.”

“Funny how it always happens that way for me,” he laughs. “I did get sucked off though,” he says with a sly grin.

“That’s your game,” I joke. “Don’t lie.”

Carly’s brother and his drunk girlfriend walk over to us.

“Up for a bonfire,” Ben asks us and Rachel lets out another “woo”.

Yep. I like these people too.