More Than a Game (2 page)

“So, how was he? Did you kiss him? Completely jump his bones? I swear, he looks like Prince Harry with that red hair of his. So gorgeous,” Sonya gushed on the phone the following morning.

“Sonya, really. Give it a rest. Nothing happened. It’s just work.”

“Come on, Leslie. You can’t tell me that you didn’t think about it. You dreamed about him, didn’t you?”

“For cripes sake, Sonya! It’s not even seven a.m. and I have to finish getting ready for work. We don’t all get up at four like you do.”

“Alright, alright. I have to go anyway. I have a customer.”

“Talk to you later,” Leslie replied, ending the call.

Sonya was notorious for early morning phone calls. She owned a sweet shop downtown and got up with the chickens so she could begin to bake, so by the time everyone else was up and about, she was wired and wanted to chat. Leslie laughed as she walked back to her room to continue getting ready for work. An hour later, she was sitting at her desk, looking at other hockey games to get a feel for how they operated, though she couldn’t understand them fully. She glanced at her phone as a message from Shane popped up in the background.

Practice for tonight was cancelled due to an ice problem at the rink. You want to come over and play hockey at my house instead?

She looked at it for a moment and wondered what he was talking about. Obviously, she didn’t know how to play hockey and surely he didn’t have a rink at his house if she did. Finally, she could only imagine what sort of clobbering she would get pitted against someone his size and with his skill even if she could play. She typed a response and waited.

I’m afraid I left my hockey pads at home.

Almost immediately, her phone buzzed again with another message from him.

No pads needed. Video game. Learning by submersion. You’ll be able to play with the best of them in no time.

Leslie looked at the message for a moment. It might be good to play a similar game with someone who understood how the real game was played. He would be able to tell her what he liked and didn’t like about the game they were playing, as well as what she might do to improve play for a mobile app. The flip side was that she would be alone with him at his house and she barely knew him. Rather than respond right away, she picked up her phone and called Felix.

“What’s up?” he asked from the other end.

“Shane O’Hannon invited me to his house to play video games.”

“Yeah? Doesn’t sound like the most romantic date in the world, but I guess it suits your purposes.”

“Please. It’s not a date. You know he is helping me learn how to play hockey. You set it up and thanks for that, by the way. I really owe you.”

“You do and don’t think I won’t collect at some point.”

“I am sure you will. My question though, is whether or not it is safe to go to his house alone.”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Well, you know these professional athlete types. They have some pretty bad reputations sometimes, you know, with women.”

“Not Shane. He’s a good guy. He might be a real rough guy on the ice, but he’s a kitty cat off of it. You’ve nothing to worry about with him.”

“Good to know. Okay. Thanks. I’ll let you get back to work.”

“Okay, Leslie. Good luck with your date.”

“It’s not a date,” she replied, hearing only a little chuckle as he ended the call on his end.

Why did everyone think she had a thing for this guy after only having met him once? Before Felix had given her his name a few days ago, she had never even heard of him. Granted, he was gorgeous in an unconventional kind of way. A lot of women found red-haired men unattractive, but she had to admit that she had always had a weakness for them. It was for precisely that reason that she should suggest some other way of immersing herself in the game, but she found herself responding that she would be there, instead. They agreed on seven p.m. and she went back to looking at apps on her phone.

After work, she changed into something a bit more comfortable. Rather than tossing on jeans and a sweater, as she normally would have for a laid-back evening with a friend or acquaintance, she changed several times. Finally, she selected a pair of jeans, but with a button-down silk top and strappy sandals to dress them up. She didn’t want to look like a slouch, but also not like she was trying too hard. She chastised herself once again for making such a big deal of things and headed to the address he had given her.

Pulling up at the large iron gates that led to Shane’s house, she couldn’t help but feel out of her league. She could see the huge white pillars that adorned the front of the mansion that he lived in. She had expected more of a modern penthouse apartment or perhaps even an upscale brownstone,
but this wasn’t at all what she had pictured. The large antebellum-style house looked completely out of place on the outskirts of the crowded city that was just beyond. A guard waved her in and instructed her to park on the circular drive in front of the entrance and she did just that, still marveling at the house as Shane walked out to greet her.

“Wow, Shane. This is not what I expected at all.”

“What did you expect? An ice rink? An igloo?”

“Nothing quite that extreme, but just, well, not this.”

“I know. It’s a bit ridiculous. The guys all make fun of me too, but I got a great deal on it from the estate company that was liquidating it. I just couldn’t say no.”

“Did someone die here?”

“Only on video games,” he laughed. “The owners didn’t die. They went bankrupt and sold it at auction.”

“Good to know. Well, that no one died in it. No so much that they lost it. That must have been rough for them, though lucky for you,” she replied, then stopped herself, feeling like she was babbling. “I guess we should go in and play some hockey then.”

“Absolutely. I made us some snacks in case you are hungry. I would have offered to cook for you, but my cooking usually involves a call to the local fire department and sometimes, hazmat unit.”

“Surely it isn’t that bad,” she laughed as they walked inside. Once again, she found herself marveling at the opulence of the house. It was gorgeous but didn’t give off an air of comfort and hominess. She could only surmise that he didn’t spend a lot of time here.

“I know it looks like a museum,” he said, as if reading her mind.

“It’s beautiful. It just doesn’t really seem to suit your personality from what I’ve seen so far.”

“You’re right. One of these days I will find time to redecorate it and make it more to my tastes. So far, only the bedroom and game room are more like me. I spend most of my time in them anyway.”

Shane led her down the hallway as he spoke, opening the double doors to a massive room that would make any serious gamer weep with joy. The large flat-screen mounted on the wall was flanked by shelves filled with enough games, CDs and DVDs to fill a small store. In one corner stood a row of pinball machines and a very familiar stand-alone console.

“No way! You have a Pac-Man machine?”

“Yes. You want to play it?”

“Absolutely, but I can’t. I need to learn about hockey right now.”

“Okay. We will get you sorted on hockey and when you aren’t in such a tizzy to get that done, you can come over and play whatever else you like.”

Leslie smiled and glanced at the air hockey table that stood near one side of the room. She remembered playing it at the mall with friends as a teenager. What she knew about hockey existed from that game. The object was merely to get the puck in the other person’s goal. If only the actual game was so simple.

“Shall we get started then?” she asked.

“We shall. Right this way.”

Shane pointed her toward an oversized sofa with a small table in front of it. A tray held a variety of finger foods and a tub of ice sitting beside it contained a variety of drinks. He had everything set up for game play.

“This place is incredible. Teenage boys would salivate over this place.”

“Only person I’m interested in making salivate is you,” he replied as if it was just an ordinary remark.

Leslie blushed and looked away, trying to regain her composure and reminding herself that this was just business, once again. She felt almost euphoric at the idea that he seemed to be interested in her, but it was tainted by the knowledge that it was just a bad idea.

“Maybe we should get started with the game.”

“Sure,” he replied, sounding a little wounded at having been shot down.

Leslie felt like maybe she should say something to let him know that it wasn’t that she didn’t feel drawn to him, but that would only complicate the situation. Sometimes, it was better to just let things lie.

True to his word, Shane had her up to speed on the game within no time. They spent hours playing, with her asking questions and him sometimes pausing the game to explain things to her. When they had begun, he was winning by a landslide, but after a while she was able to at least hold her goal to prevent him from scoring so easily. She doubted that she would ever beat someone with his real-world hockey skills in the game, but at least she could now grasp the dynamics of the game.

“Let’s take a break for a while,” he said finally.

“Sounds good. My fingers are going numb.”

Shane cleared away the remnants of the snacks he had prepared while she went to the restroom just down the hall. When she returned, he was waiting for her with a glass of wine in his hand. She thanked him and settled back down on one end of the sofa by him with her notepad in hand.

“When I came to watch you play the other night, you were in the penalty box quite a bit. Don’t you get in trouble with the coach for that?”

“Yes and no. It’s like those warning labels that you get on some things. The manufacturer tells you only to hand wash a garment, use the kid gloves on it because it is delicate. You ignore it because you owned one before and always tossed it in the wash with no problem, so you continue to do that. The warning is there to protect them so that if you ruin it in the wash, you can’t blame them for it. It’s the same with hockey.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t follow.”

“It is against the rules to foul someone, to play too rough. If you get caught doing it, you end up in the penalty box and could even be ejected from the game or suspended for some time. However, the coach knows you are going to do it. It’s a rough game and you need to be as rough as the other people playing it or you’ll only get run over on the ice. Even though they warn you not to foul people, they know you will and just hope you don’t get busted by the officials. Like the clothing labels, they are just protecting themselves so they aren’t culpable if you get nailed for it.”

“You seemed to have been in the penalty box more than anyone else.”

“Yes. I don’t hold back. I give the game my all and if someone comes at me, I put them on the ice. It’s how the game is played. The truth is, the coach makes a point of chastising me in public but pats me on the back in private. I play the game like he wants me to play but can’t instruct me to do, if that makes sense.”

“That’s just crazy.”

“That’s hockey. It’s a brutal sport. If I go too far, the coach will throw me to the wolves. I know it and he knows it. He has no choice but to do so and players have to accept that if they push the limits, they might cross a line from which there is no return.”