Page 1 of Powder
ONE
Jack
“Not to be unkind,but is thisreallyall your stuff?” I stared around the last two boxes of hockey memorabilia at my sister, Fiona. She was the prettiest thing, and no, that wasn’t me being biased because I’m her older brother. Long strawberry blonde hair, bright blue eyes, slim and fit, and the owner of two dimples that flashed when she smiled. I nodded as I put the boxes of old sweaters, milestone pucks, and skates as old as Fiona onto the kitchen counter. “Christ, Jack, that’s fucking depressing.”
Oh, and she was also brutally honest, but thank the saints she’d learned to curb that, or her job as a private flight attendant would have ended on day one.
“I wanted Paula to be well-settled,” I mumbled, knowing full well my darling sister would come unglued over that comment.
“‘Settled’ is one thing. Giving her the house, the cars, the dog, and everything else she demanded is another.”
I’d heard this all before. A hundred times. Maybe five hundred. And while I loved that my sibling was on the defensive about me even though she was a hundred pounds lighter and eight inches shorter than me, she was known to get in a person’s face to stick up for me. My ex-wife Paula was one of the biggestexamples. Fiona and Paula had never gotten along. The divorce had not improved that strained relationship. Fiona called my ex a horse, and my ex called Fiona an ogre. The two of them fought way more than Paula and I did throughout our marriage. You have to care to fight, and Paula didn’t care how it turned out.
“Fi, please, I’m not in the mood,” I said, then sighed as I looked around my brand-new bachelor pad. One bedroom, one bath, a spacious but empty living room, a kitchen, and a tiny laundry room. All very nice, quite expensive, and overlooking the Walnut Street Bridge, a famed bridge that’d been closed in the seventies but was now used by pedestrians and bikers for access to City Island. It was home now. Not exactly the sprawling three-bedroom, two-bath, two-thousand-two-hundred-square-foot with a two-car garage I’d bought for Paula after our wedding ten years ago in Elizabethtown. I mean… not even close. But it was mine. Empty. Which was kind of how my chest felt whenever I thought about how I’d failed my wife.
“Do keep in mind that she did cheat on you so that should have earned her nothing over the fifty-fifty split the state says she was owed,” Fiona fired back as she shimmied up to sit on the smooth white counter, her long red/gold ponytail sliding over her shoulder. A nice summer breeze blew in through the window over the sink. May was already warming up nicely. “Not sure why you felt that she deserved so much in the settlement when all she did was sit around, and sleep with her yoga instructor.”
I rolled my eyes. “For the last time she wouldn’t have gone looking for another man if I’d been home more,” I repeated clearly and slowly in the hopes she would absorb it.
She reached out to flick my forehead. With a porcelain nail painted soft pink. It stung. “Jonathon Patrick Killian O’Leary, you’ve taken too many hits to the head if you really believe that. Loads of spouses are faithful when their men or women are on the road. She was just using that as a reason to do a double downdog split up the ass with Sage Happy Hatha for three years while you were out bleeding all over the ice.”
“I rarely bleed all over the ice, Fiona Katherine Margaret Shillelagh O’Leary. I make other men bleed all over the ice.”
She flicked my brow again. “Do not add that walking stick moniker to my name. The three plus the surname are bad enough.” I snickered. “And it will not dissuade me from talking about the nag who now owns your dog and drives your cars.”
God, she was tenacious. “The dog was hers, a gift, and the car was also hers. I have my truck. I don’t need or want a pink Audi. How would it look for the captain of the Railers to pull up to the barn in a bright pink car with fake eyelashes over the headlights?”
“Seriously, why does she have to be such a real-life Barbie?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. Paula had been a few years younger than me, yes, and so stunningly beautiful that I’d never quite felt fit to be with a young woman of such incredible beauty. She’d modeled in New York before we got married. I’d never found her fondness for pink or her affinity for tiny purse dogs odd. She’d been bubbly and fawned over me. For the first few years. Then it all started to go wrong. I was away too much, she was lonely, life wasn’t as glamorous as she’d expected, and on it went.
“You’re too nice.”
I shrugged. Yeah, maybe so, but when I loved someone, I showered them with affection. That was how men were supposed to act around their heart’s desires. Our father had spoiled our mother terribly. Forty years of wedded bliss they’d had before they’d lost their lives to a drunk driver one dark winter night back home in Montpelier. God, I missed them. They would have been heartbroken and so disappointed in me for allowing my career to ruin my?—
“Ow, fucking hell, stop doing that,” I snapped after another hard flick to my forehead. “I’m going to dunk you in the Schuylkill if you do that again.”
Fiona gave me a soft push on the chest. She knew I was full of hot air. I’d throw myself into the river that flowed through Harrisburg before I chucked her in it. Now, when we were kids…
“Okay, I’ll drop it. For now. Do you want me to call a designer to come in and add some life to this place? It has nice bones, Jack, it just needs some color and maybe a picture on the wall that isn’t of a hockey rink?” I leaned my ass on the counter. The place was sparse, but I really didn’t care about all that silliness. “Right, I see that pucker on your forehead so what I’m going to do is make sure you have things like drapes, a nice bedding set, as you left all the sheets and towels in the house for your horse of an ex?—”
“Fiona…”
She flipped her ponytail, then winked. “Sorry, it’s her teeth.”
“Her teeth are fine.” They should be. I’d spent tens of thousands of dollars on them. Not that she had modeled again once we’d gotten married, but she liked to be pretty. I liked to look at pretty women, and some men on occasion, and I had the cash, so why not give her what she wanted?
Fiona waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll outfit the place for you because I love you and know that if I don’t get you set up properly, you’ll be drying yourself on paper towels after a shower.”
You do that one time in college, and your sister never forgets.
“I also wanted to talk to you about taking a vacation.” I must have made a noise as she tsked me instantly. “No, no, do not make that Dad sound. He always did that when he disliked something. Sucked air between his teeth. You need to get out into the world, Jack, meet new people, maybe have a wild affair.”
“Nope, I… no, I donotwant to have a wild affair with anyone.” I walked out of the kitchen to the living room, folded my arms, and planted my feet. This was my captain’s stance. Next, I locked my jaw. My captain’s expression. Men of great size and meaty fists would see me like this and not push.
Fiona, on the other hand…
“Honey,” she cooed as she followed me into the cavernous room. I really did need a couch to soak up the sound. “I’m not saying you have to propose to anyone. Please, don’t. But just get your willie wet with some bouncy beach babe or surfer dude. Flush that rancid memory of Trigger from your mind and heart.” She came around in front of me, tipped her head back, and met my glower with a loving look before snuggling close for a hug. I kept my arms crossed for about a millisecond before opening them and embracing her. She smelled like vanilla and a flowery scent. “I want you to be happy again. You’ve been so sad since the divorce decree. I know it was a letdown for the team to get knocked out in the first round, too, so all of this is sitting on your chest. Let me see if I can find a nice sunny destination for you. Somewhere packed with singles, where you can lounge on a beach, sip drinks with paper umbrellas, and reacquaint yourself with how damned charming and handsome you are.”
