Chapter 2

“You didn’t tell him,” I say quietly, picking at a worn spot on my jeans while I listen to his breathing on the other end of the line. “Thanks Jordan, really. It was a huge mistake and...well, we both know that he’d never forgive me.”

“I’m not sure I can forgive you,” he replies finally and that heavy weight sitting in the pit of my stomach gets heavier instead of lighter. “It better not happen again Kens and I mean never,” he adds in a growl that is so unlike the normally happy go lucky member of the Staal clan that it sends a chill down my spine. It’s both a threat and a promise and considering I can count the number of times I’ve seen Jordan angry on one hand, it’s a threat I take seriously. 

“It won’t. You know how much I love Marc.” I hear him make a noise on the other end of the line that sounds like a snort. There are things that don’t need to be said, things that don’t need to be dredged up out of the past, but I know when I say it that there is also no one, besides maybe Marc, that know how I feel more than Jordan. “You know I’d never hurt him if I could avoid it,” I add more quietly. 

“It’s only because he was a jerk, walking out like that. That’s the only reason I haven’t said anything to him.” I take note that he says haven’t and not won’t. It’s the same threat. One wrong move and he’ll pull the rug out from under me. “And maybe because it was Max and he’ll sleep with anything,” he adds in a disgusted tone, which is funny because it seems to me that it wasn’t so long ago that Jordan and Jared were the ones playing the field like if they didn’t use it they would lose it. Jordan’s attitude has changed on that front lately and not because of Heather but I’m thinking now isn’t the time to bring that up. 

“Gee I didn’t think that a pair of beer goggles were required for being with me but whatever,” I smirk, trying to keep things light. That would normally work with Jordan, but as the silence drags out, I gather it’s not going to work today. 

“Don’t fuck up Kens...just...just don’t.” 

“I won’t, I promise,” I sigh, sitting back and staring at the other commuters in the traffic hell that is Manhattan. “I scared the shit out of myself Jordy. I’m not going to do something like that again.” 

“Yeah well...make sure you don’t. Just because you’re some kind of rock star now doesn’t mean you can treat my brother like...well like that.” Clenching my teeth I swallow the sarcastic reply that wants so badly to escape my lips about him and his on again off again girlfriend that isn’t his high school sweetheart, but considering I’m standing in a glass house at the moment and I badly need his good will, for the second time, I choose to have that argument some other time. 

“Got it Jordan. Anyway, we’re just about at the studio so...I just called to say thanks for not ratting me out.” I hear him sigh on the other end of the line and steel myself for another bout of guilt tripping but instead I hear one of his teammates calling him. “Sounds like you gotta go too.” 

“Don’t make me regret it Kens, okay? Promise me.” 

“I won’t,” I promise again and this seems to somewhat satisfy him. 

“Okay well...talk to you later.” He hangs up and, feeling relieved I do the same, stashing my phone in my pocket. 

“Shouldn’t you at least sound sorry when you say that?” Daze smirks and kicks my shin with her heavy, buckled and thickly soled boot. I make a face at her and return my gaze to the other cars stuck in the morning gridlock with us. 

“I am sorry, I just don’t need the whole pot kettle shit this time in the morning when my head is banging,” I mutter. I’m not asking for nor am I expecting sympathy, especially not from Daze. 

“I’m just saying, maybe the big oaf deserves to know what he could’ve lost you know? Maybe he had it coming to him.” I glance over at her and shake my head. 

“You know I’ve never wanted anyone but him Daze and besides,” I sigh, exhaling onto the window of the taxi and drawing a heart in the steam, “I’m not into revenge.”

“You mean not normally,” she points out with elfin grin.

“No, not ever,” I correct her, breathing onto the window again and putting Marc’s initials into the heart.

“Never say never,” she cackles and then ducks when I pull one of the bracelets off of my arm and throw it at her.

“You have that look on your face again.” I look across the aisle to find Jordan staring at me with an unhappy look on his face. 

“What look?” I know what look but one of my favourite things to do is bug the big blonde forward, especially when he’s already in a foul mood. It’s one of the reasons the Coach let him come with us on this trip, hoping that we’ll be able to coax him into a better mood. Maybe I’m not quite doing that and maybe I have a death wish or something, but making him go off the deep end is endlessly entertaining. 

“You’re daydreaming again,” he sighs and rolls his eyes before going back to paging through the magazine in front of him, the one he isn’t really looking at. He’s been doing that a lot lately. Not that Gronk’s ever been a big reader but lately, what with not being able to play, he’s been more distracted than usual and can’t even seem to take the time to read the captions under pictures in a magazine. He just rips through it, literally, leaving pages hanging askew for the next person who might want to look at it. “I wish you wouldn’t think about my sister in law like that.” 

“Hey, I didn’t see a ring on her finger,” I point out, “not that I was looking at her hands much except when they were holding onto my....”

“Hey, I said stop it!” When the veins start popping out of his forehead, that’s usually a clue to back off but today I don’t feel like it. 

“I’m just saying, mon ami, it wasn’t your brother’s name she was calling out when I was...,” I make a lewd gesture and the next thing I know Gronk’s out of his seat, his magazine flying through the air, my laptop is on Duper’s lap and he’s got his big hands around my throat. 

“Well she’s engaged to my brother now and you need to get that through your thick, stupid, skull!” I can feel my eyes starting to bulge and I can see stars in the periphery of my vision but I keep smiling at him and I don’t fight or try and peel his big hands off of my neck.

I guess I do have a death wish. 

“Jordan!” Dupers grabs one arm and Sid gets up from his seat and grabs his other arm and it’s only when our Captain gets involved that he even looks at anyone but me. He still doesn’t let go though. 

“He’s talking smack about my sister in law,” Jordan hisses through his teeth. His eyes are bulging out and his entire face is red. Makes me wonder what I look like right now. 

“He’s being an ass, yeah,” Sid agrees with Jordan and shakes his head at me, “but from what I remember your soon to be sister in law went pretty willingly Jordan,” he adds, giving Jordan’s tree trunk like arm a tug and I begin to feel his grip loosen, just as I start to see his bared teeth through a tunnel of warm, welcoming light.

“Don’t talk about her like that!” God ‘ol Sidney, distracting the big ape enough that he loosens his grip entirely and I’m able to slip down in my seat and out of his grasp. 

“Pourquoi fait-il toujours aller trop loin?” Dupers cuffs me across the back of the head and gives me that ‘why do you have to be such an ass?’ look. Shrugging, I just grin at him as I back peddle towards the tail end of the plane where some of the guys are playing poker. 

“So she said yes? Huh.” Sid and Dupers both turn and give me the look, like why don’t I know when to stop but like I said, maybe I’ve got a death wish. It’s been kind of like that since my girlfriend left me for my best friend. I sort of don’t care anymore. “Well she was probably just...accablé...overwhelmed by her night with a real man who knows a few things about pleasing a woman.” I hear the groans around me and I know that now I have definitely pushed it too far, but it’s like I just can’t stop myself or maybe I don’t want to. 

Jordan actually growls and for a minute I think to myself that I wonder what it’s going to be like to have my head literally ripped off of my body and for another minute I wonder how many Penguins does it take to hold down an angry Staal and that makes me laugh which is the absolute wrong thing to do at that moment. That’s when all hell breaks loose.

“It took a really long time for us to put this album together,” Daze is telling Rock 101.9’s Jennifer Kajzer who actually seems interested and isn’t fiddling with buttons and dials while we talk. “But mostly because we have all this material because we’ve been together so long and it was hard for us to be objective about our songs. They’re like our babies.” 

“Speaking of babies,” Jennifer suddenly brightens and smiles at me. “I hear you’ve been dating one of the New York Rangers.” 

“That’s right but we’ve known each other since we were kids,” I add, because I feel I have to, because I don’t want to be seen as one of those girls, like Elisha Cuthbert, who go from hockey player to hockey player like professional puck bunnies. 

“Sooo you’ve known one another a long time,” she draws it out and I catch her staring at my hand. I look down at the huge rock and realize I’ve been twisting the ring on my finger, drawing attention to it, without thinking about it. “Have you got some news for our listeners on that front?” 

“Nnnno,” I stammer, covering my left hand with my right and shaking my head, knowing my eyes are too wide and by her triumphant sneer she knows I’m lying. 

“Kensey’s a private kind of girl,” Daze puts her arm around me and lays her head on my shoulder, going for cute and distracting all at the same time. Had there been a man across the desk, it might have worked too. 

“So how do you plan to juggle being a rock goddess and having a family on the farm back home?” Jennifer asks, ignoring my imploring wide eyed gaze and Daisy’s cute, ‘look over here’ smile. 

“Umm, neither of us has lived on a farm for a while now but...uh...I guess I’ll deal with that later?” I make it a question because I’m about to have a panic attack. It’s one thing for everyone back home in Thunder Bay to know, but I’ve really enjoyed being able to walk down any street in Manhattan and not have people realize that the little goth girl and the giant red head are someone, anyone. I like being anonymous. 

“I admit I’m not very good with hockey,” Jennifer continues and suddenly there’s one of the Ranger’s programs in her hands and she’s leafing through it. I find myself staring at the pages as she flips through them, knowing that at any minute his strong features are going to be staring accusingly up at me. “But I bet a few of his teammates are probably pretty jealous,” she adds with a raised eyebrow. “I bet a few of them probably sneak pictures of you into their hotel rooms.” If she’s going for salacious, I’m happy to let her go there and predictably Daze says what I’m thinking out loud. 

“Yeah, all but Sean Avery, because everyone knows the only pictures he beats off to are ones of himself.”

“Jesus Christ Max!” I wince as she presses the ice pack to my eye and furrows her brow as she inventories the damage. “You’re supposed to be the fucking class clown, make them fall over laughing, not make them hold you down and make TK give you Lorazepam.” 

“I haven’t been feeling all that funny lately. Gee I wonder why that might be?” I sneer up at Becky who rolls her eyes and shakes her head at me before moving the ice pack further up to the goose egg on my forehead. 

“Well someone has to talk some sense into you and it seems like I might be the only person you’ll actually listen to. I mean, if you won’t listen to Crosby, then someone has to try,” she sighs and looks down at me with that exasperated look that should be coming from an older sister, not my ex girlfriend who’s starting to show, pregnant with my best friend’s kid. 

“I’m fine. You should be talking to Jordan. He’s the one that went complètement fou,” I grumble, snatching the ice bag out of her hand and pressing it back over the gash on my forehead. 

“Well from the sounds of things you did kind of provoke him Max.” Great, just what I need, my ex taking out her hormones on me.  

“Skip the lecture Becks, I don’t need it,” I grimace as takes the bag of ice out of my hand and starts to apply a butterfly bandage to the wound. 

“Fine, I will if you’ll just tell me this. Why’d you do it? Why pick a fight with Jordan when you know he’s like a bear with a sore head. I mean with his foot then his hand and Trina seeing that other hockey player back in Vancouver,” she presses hard as she smoothes the bandage on my forehead and I honestly wouldn’t put it past her to be doing it just to hurt me. Maybe she should just pour some salt into it and rub it around. 

“You mean Kris didn’t tell you?” I actually hope he didn’t. Jesus I’m an asshole. 

“He said you’d been behaving like your old self but considering I only know the sweet and fun Max, I guess I can’t see how that person could have pissed Jordan off badly enough to end up...well...looking like this.” Well damn, suddenly all the air goes out of my balloon and now I feel like a complete bastard. She had to go and say that I’m sweet and fun. Banging Gronk’s sister in law doesn’t sound sweet...even if it was fun. 

“What he probably meant is that I was whoring around and....” Damn, this is harder to say to her than it should be. I should want to toss it in her face, rub it in, but I don’t. I’ve never felt ashamed of a one night stand in my life and suddenly I don’t want to admit to being that guy. 

“And...? Max...what did you do?” There it is. That tone again. Like she’s my mother with her whole hands on her hips exasperated pursed lips thing going on.  At least it makes it easier for me to say it out loud when she’s looking at me like some kind of misbehaving toddler. 

“I slept with Jordan’s sister in law...well she wasn’t at the time but apparently she is now,” I reply nonchalantly, reaching for the bag of melting ice, but she sweeps it out of my reach and sends it crashing into the sink. “What?” 

“Don’t what me!” she snarls, those little red dots appearing on her cheeks just like they do every time she’s pissed off.  “You stood right here and went on and on about your precious ‘code’. What the hell Max? What were you thinking?” 

“I wasn’t, évidemment,” I mutter, unable to meet her judgemental gaze. I sit there, listening to her breathing for what seems like ages until I hear the sound I’m waiting for, that heavy, dramatic sigh she lets go when she’s ready to give up. 

“Max...what are we going to do with you?” I feel her hand dig into my hair and then her lips brush the top of my head and I listen to her walk out of my kitchen and down the stairs, leaving me sitting on a stool in my kitchen, alone, again and not feeling nearly as cocky as I did before. 

“So what was that about?” Daze hisses at me as we walk down the empty corridor of Rock 101.9, her fingers digging into my upper arm. “I thought you’d be thrilled to tell the whole world about your good news.”

“Me too,” I reply expressionlessly, feeling as bewildered by my own panic as my best friend obviously is by my out of character reaction. 

“So is this, like...cold feet or something?” she asks and though I shake my head, I can’t help wondering the same thing. 

“I’ve never even looked at anyone but...well anyone but one of them since...since I stopped thinking full time about horses and actually noticed that the Staals were at least as interesting,” I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose and letting out a huge sigh. 

“That’s why I don’t get that whole...melt down back there. Other than the band you’ve pretty much never talked about anything but them since you got your braces on,” Daze smirks, hip checking me out onto the sidewalk. “Can it be that one night with the great Max Talbot has you actually having second thoughts about marrying the red headed wonder?” 

“No,” I shake my head as she sticks her fingers in her mouth and hails a taxi, loudly. “There’s no way. I must just be hung over. That’s what it is.” 

“Well I just hope your boy wasn’t listening to that little interview or you’ll have some serious ‘splainin’ to do sistah!” My stomach makes an alarming sound and I clap my hand over my mouth, sure my meagre breakfast is about to make a reappearance. “Oh girl...you’re supposed to do that when you’re about to get married, not when you just got engaged,” Daze laughs, slipping her hands in my hair, ready to pull it out of the line of fire if necessary. “You so better not puke on Regis,” she adds as I dry heave into the gutter. 

“Or in my taxi,” the driver warns. I give them both a dirty look and climb into the back.