Playing Hurt

Clint

odd man rush





She answers the door that night in a pair of jeans and a blue tank top. And instantly I start to sarcastically congratulate myself: Great job, Clint. You and your bright ideas.

I hadn’t even really meant it when I said it—We’ll have to celebrate at Pike’s tonight. I was just talking, the same way I told Kenzie she was welcome to come out with me on the fishing launch. Mrs. Keyes, though—she acted like I’d sent Chelsea an engraved invitation in the mail. What a good idea, she shouted. Of course Chelsea’d love to go!

So here we stand, face-to-face in the doorway, and I can’t quit thinking about the way she looks in that tank top.

Good grief, Morgan, what’s wrong with you? You’re acting like that twelve-year-old girl with the crush.

This was a really bad idea, going out with her tonight …

“Look,” I tell her, “You don’t have to go, if you don’t want—”

“Of course she wants to,” her mother says, popping into the doorway. “Just what you need,” she says to Chelsea, running her fingers through Chelsea’s blond hair. “A night to yourself, right?” She glances sideways when she says it, into the living room of the cabin, where Mr. Keyes sits glaring at the back of Chelsea’s head.

“What kind of place is Pike’s?” Brandon asks, popping into view behind his mother’s shoulder. They look almost exactly alike, Brandon and his mom, with their skinny bodies and big glasses and brown hair sticking out in a hundred different directions.

Chelsea looks like her dad, though—light-haired, tan, athletic. But I get the distinct feeling something’s wrong there; it’s pretty obvious by the way they frown at each other, by the weird force between them. Kind of reminds me of trying to push two magnets together.

“It’s my mom and pop’s place,” I tell Brandon. “In Baudette. Fried food, live music. You know the kind.”

“Live music?” Brandon’s voice goes up at the end, almost like a girl’s.

“Sure. Greg and Todd—the fishing guides? We all grew up playing together. They play music at Pike’s, but they—”

“Wait. Wait. A band. A live band?”

“Couple of guys jamming,” I correct him. “Real informal.”

Brandon claps his hands together once. “Does one of them play bass?”

I shake my head. “N—no—”

“Whataboutasinger?” he asks, smashing his words together in an ecstatic rush.

I bristle reflexively, remembering a hundred different packed-tight hot summer nights at Pike’s, Rosie up there on the makeshift stage, singing to Greg and Todd’s music. “No singer.”

“Do you mind if I play? I sing, too—”

“Well—I wouldn’t mind, but it’s not my thing—they do the music,” I say quickly.

Chelsea frowns. “I thought you said you all grew up playing together.”

I flinch. “Not—not music.” Without meaning to, I’ve let hockey drift out into the open. Actually, hockey and Rosie both.

“What did you play, then?” she asks again. “If it wasn’t music.”

“Mostly they just do instrumental stuff,” I tell Brandon, ignoring Chelsea’s question. I don’t feel like going into hockey, and why I don’t play anymore. Not any more than I feel like talking about the mic Rosie left empty. And why Greg and Todd never tried to fill it. “Sometimes, during the dinner rush, customers will take turns belting out a couple of tunes while they’re waiting for a booth to open up,” I manage.

“You really want to be backup for karaoke night, Brand?” Chelsea says.

Brandon sticks out his tongue. “I sing,” he reminds her. “They’d let me sing. They’re hungry for a singer, I bet. Come on, Clint. What’re you driving? Can you fit my amp in?”

“A truck—yeah—I—” Brandon’s already dragging me toward the back of the cabin, barking instructions.

We load the amp. When it’s time to pile in, I try to tell Brandon to sit in the middle of the bench seat—“You haven’t had hip surgery.” I try to reason with him … three times, in fact.

“That wedge in the middle’s pretty uncomfortable. Let Brandon straddle the gear shift,” I tell Chelsea. “You’d be better off with a seat of your own.”

But Chelsea only shrugs, letting her eyes trail across the rust spots on the tailgate of my ancient GMC pickup, then the sun-bleached bench seat, torn and full of broken springs. It feels like she’s saying, I don’t really think I’d be comfortable anywhere in that thing.

And, in all honesty, she probably wouldn’t be.

“I’ll sit in the middle,” she says. “Brandon’s got to hold his bass.”

“We could put it in the bed,” I try.

Brandon lets out a horrified shriek. Chelsea cringes, touching her ear.

I give in, let my arguments die when she climbs in the middle. But when I slide behind the wheel, it smacks me on the side of the head how long it’s been since a woman has sat in the cab of my truck. Since long hair rippled in the wind. Since the sweet smell of shampoo and soap danced off long, soft arms and up my nose.

I accidentally brush Chelsea’s knee as I shift out of park. I do not want this, my brain immediately starts to chant. But other parts of my body like to disagree.

Brandon wants to talk about music—all the way to Baudette. Which is a little surprising, actually. Way the kid looks, I pegged him for Chess Club Champion. Now, though, as he hugs his guitar case, I notice all the silver hoops in his ears and the vintage Metallica T-shirt.

But at least he takes away the pressure of trying to find something to say. All I have to do is offer a nod and an occasional mm-hmmm or that’s cool to his incessant chatter.

Good thing the AC in my old truck is nonexistent, because that means the window’s down and can’t be hit with spit when Brandon spews out a weird guffaw of surprise. “What is that?” he shouts, pointing at the forty-foot walleye that looms beside a Welcome to Baudette sign.

“The fish your sister caught today,” I quip. Which actually gets the girl to smile—almost.

“A giant concrete fish? Seriously?” Brandon asks.

“Not just any concrete fish,” I say. “That’s Willie Walleye. He’s a legend here. A … mascot.”

The word mascot isn’t really that much of a sports term, but it makes Chelsea’s almost-smile fade just as quickly as it came.

“How many people do you think will show up tonight?” Brandon asks as I park the truck.

“Oh, as many as Pop can fit in—fifty or sixty.”

“Fifty or sixty,” Brandon whispers in awe.

“Leave your amp here for a sec,” I tell him. “I’ll introduce you to Greg and Todd.”

Chelsea climbs out of the cab behind her brother. As Brandon excitedly pushes ahead of me, banging his guitar case through the door, I stare at Chelsea. She’s standing on the sidewalk, the orange-neon glow from the Pike’s Perch sign washing across her face and arms. She points up toward the inscription in the stone façade of the restaurant: Bank—1906. “Is that for real?”

“Pop brews beer in the old vault,” I say, still holding the door open. The sounds of early evening dinner dishes clanking, voices laughing, and chairs scraping trickle out onto the sidewalk.

“My parents own a place kind of like this,” she says. “I mean, not a full restaurant, but a bakery. In this row of shops and businesses that’ve been a hundred different things over the years. Somebody’s taken over the original town bank there, too. It’s an office building now. I’ve always loved that about my town—how it kind of keeps getting reinvented without being torn down. How history sticks around.”

It’s the most she’s said to me since we’ve met. And the way she’s staring at my folks’ place, with that insanely cute smile on her face, makes an uncomfortable warmth spread just beneath my skin.

“Did you grow up working here?” she asks, turning her eyes from the building to me.

“I think I learned to walk bussing tables.”

Her smile grows. “Huh. We might actually have something in common.”

At first I think she’s being sarcastic. And then I remind myself that while I might know her story (or fragments of it, at least), she doesn’t know a single sentence of mine. She has no idea how much we really have in common.

“Hey,” a sweet, happy voice calls from the opposite end of the sidewalk. When I turn, Kenzie’s making her way toward the entrance of Pike’s. She’s all smiles, pushing her hair from her eyes. “I was hoping I’d find you here tonight,” she says, pausing at my side. Just as she puts a hand on my shoulder, she glances toward Chelsea. “The ball player,” she says quietly.

“Chelsea, this is Kenzie,” I manage. “We … grew up together.”

“Lot of training going on at Pike’s tonight?” Kenzie asks me, tilting her head. She clenches her jaw, obviously hurt. Or angry. Or both. “Client,” she repeats through gritted teeth.