Page 21 of Yard Sale

“That fucker.” I didn’t know why I was so mad about it. If he didn’t quote me, he didn’t break any rules. But he goddamn knew what that was going to do.

He knew people were going to speculate.

It made the phone calls I’d been getting lately make so much sense.

“Whatever,” I said, reaching for the car door. “I don’t care about that troll.”

“Sure, babe,” Alessia said. She grabbed my elbow. “Want the front seat?”

“Why? For the view?”

She was silent, then laughed. “You’re the fucking troll.”

I grinned at her. Her laughter helped take the edge off my frustration, and it was easy to sit in relative silence as Amedeo hit the freeway and drove me all the way home.

“…lying in his hospital bed, looking like he’s steps from death, I knew it wasn’t that serious, but I couldn’t help wondering if maybe Nadeau was using the surgeries and knee injury as an excuse to end his career on a better note than quitting because of his sight. Of course, that’s merely speculation. Nadeau was only quoted saying, ‘We’ll have to see what happens next season, but I’ll always be optimistic about my future with the PPHL.’”

“The fuck I did! I would never say something so pedantic!” I shouted at my computer screen.

Wait. Was pedantic the right word? No. Pathetic? Trite?

“Banal!” I yelled, then slapped a hand over my mouth because yeah, this was becoming a problem.

It was probably a good thing no one was around to hear me ranting. The last thing I needed was to be the insane person shouting at his walls.

Pushing my fingers through my hair, I stood up, then sat back down, then stood up again. Uhg, god, I needed a stiff drink, but I wasn’t allowed to have alcohol, thanks to the muscle relaxers and the painkillers I was taking for my dysfunctional knee.

“I’m going to call him,” I told myself. Not that I had his number, but I knew people. I could call Vanya, who would call Gupta, who could convince him to give out his son’s phone number, and…

No. Nope.

I snatched up my phone and scrolled through my contacts until I hit Micah. It rang four times before he picked up, and I was half expecting voicemail because he was too busy these days walking around his garden and generally enjoying life like I wanted to be doing.

“Hey, bud.”

I took a breath. “I need you to talk me down.”

“From what? A tree? A ledge?”

“That fucking fuck Aravind Gupta wrote another article about me and said that I was quitting hockey because I could no longer see well enough to play my position.”

Micah was quiet for a long beat. “Is that what he said?”

“…in so many words.”

He hummed in thought. “Is he telling the truth?”

“I—well. It…” I groaned, tipping my head back. “No. Maybe. I don’t fucking know. I was kind of having a minor panic attack when I talked to him, and I might have babbled a little about whether or not I felt like I could keep going. Not that it matters because I’m pretty sure my fuck-ass knee is going to decide for me, and⁠—”

“Naddy?”

It had been a while since I’d heard him use my nickname.

“I need you to calm down.”

“Fuck you—” I bit my tongue on purpose to keep myself from saying something worse. Micah was right. I did need to calm down. I took three deep breaths in a row, which immediately made me dizzy, but the rage and panic started to lose their edge.

“Feel better?”