Page 4 of Top Shelf
Me: Sorry for texting so much.
Quinn: You’re fine. I’ll text you when I’m in town.
Me: Sounds good.
And that was that.
For the next six weeks.
It ate at me to the point I couldn’t focus, and it was in that silence I made my first and very serious decision: before graduating, I needed to lose my virginity. Then maybe I’d stop acting like a fool when one attractive, older man paid me even a little bit of attention.
It was pouring rain,and I was sitting in my room, staring at the window, debating about whether or not I could afford to skip my watercolor class—which I could. Even if my GPA took a ding, it wasn’t like I needed the class to graduate.
Or needed a GPA to do anything with my life because it wasn’t like I was going to grad school. But every time I thought about fucking off, I could hear my mom’s voice in my head telling me that it didn’t matter if I was going to do sports. My education would always be important.
There was nothing like the internal, breath-stealing panic at the thought of bringing home a B average.
But I hated walking in the rain. The feeling my skin getting cold and wet was just…no. No, thank you. So I picked up my latest little pack of amigurumi yarn—a button quail with a Spanish guitar and a hat—and I began to weave the strands through the loops and around the hook.
It was meditative. It was probably my favorite activity. I could zone out, get lost on the pattern, and counting the stitches. It was what my therapist had called a “happy brain scratch.” I was propped up against my headboard, rocking back and forth gently as the quail started to take shape.
I was content, even if I was well aware that no one was going to want to fuck an anxious virgin who crocheted little animals in his free time.
At least, not anytime soon.
And then my phone started to buzz—five texts in a row.
My heart leapt. Myles, my friend from art class, tended to text like that—sort of rapid-fire, hitting Send before he everproperly finished a thought. But those could also be family chat emergency texts too.
It was no surprise I was catastrophizing as my fingers dropped the half-done quail in my lap and scrambled for my still-buzzing phone. Two more texts had come through. I swiped open the screen, and then my heart did a little samba in my chest because the name was no one I’d expected.
It was a name I had been trying—and failing—to forget for six weeks.
Quinn: I’m in town
Quinn: Fuck, sorry, rain’s making…
Quinn: Jesus fucking Christ I’m in a damn downpour
Quinn: Anyway I’m…
Quinn: Sorry. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with my phone. I’m in town. I’m currently staying at a Residence Inn if you want to pop by and talk. Totally cool if you don’t.
I stared at his words, at his name, picturing his face and the way he smiled for the photographer, only for it to fade the moment the camera was away from him. He had a media face—well practiced and perfected. He was most definitely a veteran of professional sports.
And it seemed like the accident that had busted his knee and ruined his career hadn’t cooked that out of him.
He was called Rhodie by his teammates and his fans. He played for San Jose for three years before being traded to New York. He was with them for another six years before his accident—a drunk driver had careened into him when he was crossing the road to get a coffee, and that was that.
His knee was entirely blown out. According to the poorly worded, frankly insensitive op-ed on the ESPN website, he’d almost lost his leg. The doctors had saved it, but they hadn’t saved the functionality of his knee.
Which was probably what the cane was for. And the limp.
He was retired now, his jersey lifted to the rafters a few weeks after the media announced that he was leaving the NHL. There was a single photo of him looking upward, his eyes kind of wet, though he was most definitely not crying. Then he disappeared for a decade, and no one had seen him again until he came to that photoshoot.
No one had mentioned that it was a fucking miracle he was hanging with us. Everyone just kind of ignored him, and what the fuck, because the dude was a goddamn legend.
Okay, maybe he wasn’t a record-breaker, and he’d only won the Cup a couple of times during his career, but he was old-school, and hockey had been his entire life.
