Interesting enough that I know I’m not going to kill him… at least, not yet.
CHAPTER SIX
DONOVAN
I don’t understandhow these are garbage.
I know fuck all about art, but as I stand at the kitchen counter in my apartment smoothing wrinkles out of napkins, I can’t see anything but talent here. The lines of what Shiloh drew aren’t perfect, but that’s their beauty. I’m captured in every swipe of ink he placed, and I can see even the details of my hair flopping onto my forehead and the freckles that dot my skin. He says they’re trash, and I should probably trust him because he’s the art guy, but I know what I like and I like these sketches.
I like that in them, I’m not playing hockey.
There’s no mask covering my face or pads guarding my skin.
I’m just some dude in a diner, and it’s been a while since someone looked at me and saw just that. I haven’t been in Boston long enough to make friends outside the team, and all the connections I have are because of what I do for a living. My friendships centre around the gym and the ice, and when I come home, I’m alone.
Smoothing out the last few wrinkles, I glance around my apartment looking for a space I could put them, but I don’t exactly have a bunch of empty, napkin-sized frames kickingaround. With a small grin, I glance at the fridge and the shit ton of magnets littering the front of it. I’ve managed to collect one from every city I’ve ever played hockey in over the years, and they haven’t had much of a purpose beyond decoration at this point.
Time to put them to good use, I suppose. I take the small stack of thin papers and carefully hang them on the fridge, smiling as I step back and see the small gallery I’ve made for Shiloh’s artwork. I wish I’d thought to get his phone number so I could snap a pic and text it to him, then he’d know that when I’d said it was good art, I’d meant it. I mean, he’s probably had his work hanging in much more important places than on my fridge, but it’d be nice if I could show him I meant what I’d said about him being talented.
My phone pings with a text message and I reach for it, grabbing it off the counter behind me. Oakley’s sent back a text about the outcome of his game, a simple “W” sitting on the screen. I click into the message, sending back a thumbs up and he responds quickly.
2G, 1A.
Two goals. One assist. My best friend is fucking killing it up there in New York. The Eagles are lucky to have him. The guy’s a machine on the ice, with hockey IQ for days, a first rounder who hit the ground running the moment his plane touched down in the States. If he keeps this shit up, he’ll be contender for Rookie of the Year awards down the road for sure.
I send back a congrats and then glance at the artwork on the fridge, remembering the way Shiloh’s fingers looked as he scribbled on the napkin at the diner. The way his lips pursed as he stared at his own work and the disgust at what he saw written into the fine features of his face. I frown a bit as I rememberhis shitty evaluation of what he’d done, and wish again that I’d remembered to get his number so I could text him to show him my new art gallery where he’s the star artist.
My phone pings with a new text from Oakley, a photo of himself and Nico Vakanainen, New York’s other star forward, sweat slicked and shirtless, grinning at the camera. A few years older than us, Nico was also a first round pick for New York in his draft year and has been slowly building his own incredible career up there. I’m still fucking floored that Oakley just knows these people now. That he can call up people like Nico and go hang out with them on a day off or attend parties at their houses. All these guys we looked up to as teens, and now he’s one of them.
And he knows I had the biggest crush on Nico back when he was drafted.
Asshole.
I laugh softly as I try to come up with a response, but every time I try to muster up some witty remark, I find I’m drawn back to the artwork on my fridge and the artist who created it. Shiloh is unlike anyone I’ve ever met in my limited circle of friendships and connections. I’m used to men like Nico, with perfect haircuts, sweat-slicked bodies, and gym shoes. Everyone I’ve dated has been some form of the same, regardless of gender. Athletic and tall, broad and muscled. A far cry from the slight man with a mess of curly black and green hair that sat across from me tonight, yet I can’t quite shake him from my mind.
His lips and how they parted slightly as he drew the lines of my face.
His fingers and how the chipped nail polish gripped the pen tight while he outlined the thin strands of my hair.
I can’t quite forget how he looked at me with tiny glances, like he was checking to make sure he was capturing me completely as best as he could. I send a simple thumbs up to Oakley, then putmy phone down, stepping close to the fridge to admire Shiloh’s work again. I’d love to see what he considers to be good art if this is considered trash. He did say that I’d look better in paint, and I can’t help but wonder what he’d do if I was in front of him right now, in a real art studio, letting him paint me on canvas or even real paper or something.
Not that I’d even know where to find him. I can guess that he probably studies at the art and design college that’s sort of close to the arena. A lot of artsy people hang out around there, and he might be one of them. I hate that he refused to answer even the tiniest questions about himself, and that he studies art, maybe, is the only thing I really know about who he is as a person. He reminds me a bit of the small handful of odd kids back in Bow Island who would go against the grain, listening to heavy metal music and dying their hair black when everyone else was dressed in Wrangler jeans and hitting the rodeo on the weekends. I got brave and kissed one of them once, at a party out in some farmer’s field when I was home from playing in Ontario for the summer. It was the most exciting thing I’d done up to that point in my life, and a memory I took back with me to Oshawa when I left again in August.
Was that Shiloh in high school? I can picture him sitting beneath the bleachers with them, painting his fingernails black with sharpie markers and heading down the highway to Calgary on the weekends for concerts in venues I didn’t even know the names of back then. He’d have fit into that world, I bet, the one so removed from my own it feels like a different universe entirely.
Who was he?
Actually, scratch that. A better question is, who is he?
It’s frustrating to not have answers, but even more frustrating that I won’t quite have a way to know if I’ll ever see him again. I invited him to the game on Friday, but I don’t reallyknow if he’ll show. My refrigerator art gallery might be the only thing I have from these last few strange days, and that kind of sucks.
With a sigh, I open the freezer and grab one of my prepared breakfasts from inside. Doing meal prep was one of the things I picked up early on in my career, because I am the worst at doing things in the mornings. I tend to value sleeping in a bit later instead of waking up early to cook breakfast from scratch every day, but if I don’t eat right, I’ll be fucked out there on the ice. Every little bit of my life is carefully managed so I can someday, hopefully, crack an NHL roster and go play up there with the people I’ve looked up to my whole life like Oakley gets to. The sugar donuts and greasy food I ate earlier is very much not part of the day-to-day plan, but when Shiloh mentioned he wanted to eat, I couldn’t resist giving in to the little gremlin that sits in my head and whispers that one donut won’t hurt.
That one greasy meal in the company of someone exciting and new couldn’t do any real damage.
My phone starts ringing, and I don’t even have to look at the screen to know it’s Oakley. I grab it and answer the call, offering a “What’s up?” as a greeting.
“I sent you a picture of half-naked Nico Vakanainen and you gave me a thumbs up. That’s what’s up,” Oakley comments, his voice smooth on the other end of the call.
