Page 8 of Sheep Calm and Merry On
He shook his head. “I was never any good at math. Anyway, I went back to work at the school, but it wasn’t the same after. People looked at me with pity, or like they thought I might be guilty after all and had just pulled the—” He stopped, lips quirked.
“Pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes?” Devon suggested with a gesture at the sheep-themed décor on the mantel.
“Something like that.” He shook his head. “So I started keeping an eye out for other openings, an opportunity came up in Traverse City, and….” Another shrug. “I skipped the chapter where Tommy convinced me he needed me around while he worked on some big-deal lawyer shit so I missed my brother’s wedding, but I did. And I thought, this way at least I won’t miss anything else. So I gave my notice, and as soon as winter break started….”
“Couldn’t wait to get here.” Devon got it. “Well, you’ll get there tomorrow, anyway.”
“Thanks to you.” Noah toasted him with the last of his hot chocolate. “Anyway, then I was dumb and almost froze to death and was rescued by a knight in a dirty pickup truck, and that brings us up to speed.”
Chapter seven? Eight?
Devon pushed the thought down. The universe wasn’t that nice to recovering drug addicts. Besides, the story he was about to tell was the opposite of romantic. He set his mug down and nudged Nelson with a foot until he looked up hopefully and scuttled closer. “My turn?” he asked, leaning down to run his fingers through Nelson’s ruff.
He felt Noah’s eyes on the back of his neck as Nelson rolled over for belly rubs. After a slightly too-long pause, Noah said quietly, “You don’t have to.”
No, of course not. But something made him want to, even if his palms were uncomfortably damp.
He rubbed them on his jeans. “Confession’s supposed to be good for you or whatever, right?”
“That’s what the internet therapists say.”
“Right, well. Chapter one: Devon Hughes breaks his arm.” He was pretty sure the arm came first. “Or was it the collarbone? Or my foot.”
Noah winced. “Sounds painful.”
“Sure, yeah.” It had been. “But all that would’ve been fine if it weren’t for the spinal injury.”
“Jesus. I don’t remember that one being announced.”
Devon gave a tight smile. “Upper body, week-to-week. That’s how they phrased it. Botched surgery in the off-season, came back too soon, everything hurt.” His whole life had felt like it was slipping through his fingers—probably the same way Noah’s had. “Until one of the trainers offered me something that made it stop.”
He’d been, what, thirty, not even? It seemed like a lifetime ago. “Anyway. Eventually they fixed my back, but by then my brain was too into hard drugs for that to stop me from taking them. The addiction spiraled and so did I, but I kept playing until I finally got ‘randomly’ drug tested, and the rest is kind of public knowledge until I ended up here.”
Nelson grumbled and batted Devon’s hand away, done with pets.
Half holding his breath, Devon looked up.
Noah was watching him without judgment, his Muppet eyebrows slightly raised. “Yeah, I have to admit that’s the part of the story that’s got my attention. How did you go from hockey to demon sheep?”
Just like that, he relaxed. Devon could talk about the sheep all day. However, he did have to defend their honor first. “Demon sheep?” He feigned offense. “Excuse me. They’re all perfect little angels.” Then, in the interest of honesty: “Well, except Gritty, but that’s probably my fault.”
Noah’s sudden peal of laughter was so loud Nelson huffed about it, as though it had woken him up. Not likely; Devon’d heard the dog’s snores. “You never played for the Flyers, but you have a sheep named Gritty?”
“Specifically a stud ram.” Where to begin explaining this insanity? “It’s not—he’s got the horns, don’t get me wrong, but he’s not aggressive. He’s just a dick. He’ll sneak up behind you and bleat and scare the daylights out of you. You can’t leave your keys where he can see them because he’ll take them and run off. One summer I found him on the roof of the utility shed. And he managed to shit in my boots once. While I was wearing them.”
Noah blinked at him. “And this is the sheep you chose to breed?”
Devon sighed long-sufferingly. “Unfortunately he’s beautiful. Prize-winning ram.”
“Of course he is.” Noah gestured. “Sorry, I interrupted. You were saying…?”
“Yeah, we detoured. How did I get here. Well. I grew up here, so it seemed like a good place to come back to. I still have family here. Somehow I didn’t alienate everyone by becoming an addict, which, wonders never fucking cease.”
Noah tugged the blanket up a little higher. “I don’t know. I mean, you did trudge through knee-deep snow to see if a random motorist needed assistance. Pretty easy to forgive a guy like that.”
Heat washed up Devon’s cheeks and ears. “Stop, I’m blushing.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “So anyway, I was moving back to the area, and my sobriety coach”—after all these years he could say that without wincing—“suggested it would be good for me to find something to focus on. Something that was removed from hockey but that I would have to take responsibility for. And Amber—her great-aunt used to own this place—was looking for a business partner to help her take over, but she was more interested in the wool part of the business. Well, and picking the lamb name themes.” Which was how he ended up with a Gritty—that year’s theme had been NHL mascots.
“Seems like it suits you.”
