News of my nuptials has traveled through the roster, and I notice Colson eyeing my wedding band on several different occasions during dinner. The one time our eyes meet, he mutters something under his breath and turns away in disgust. Next to him, Jordan Trager glares at me in solidarity. I reach for my pint glass in resignation.
We’ve just returned to the hotel and are striding into the lobby when my father-in-law texts to say he’s at the bar and do I have a minute.
“I’ll meet you upstairs,” I tell Shane, who nods and heads up to our room.
Some guys from the opposing team are milling in the lobby wearing their hockey jackets. Eyes widen and guys murmur in excitement when they catch sight of Garrett Graham striding across the lobby from the bar.
“Hey,” he says when he reaches me. He must feel the stares because he rubs the back of his neck and grimaces. “I was going to suggest we grab a drink at the bar, but what do you say we go elsewhere?”
I nod. “Good idea.”
We leave the hotel and give the street a quick scan. There’s a bookstore at the end of the block with an adjacent coffee shop, so we walk toward it.
“I have no right asking you for favors,” Garrett starts ruefully. “I know I haven’t been very welcoming to you. When you came home with Stan for the holidays. When you showed interest in my camp. I probably could’ve been…less dickish.”
I shrug. “All good. I don’t hold grudges.”
“I usually don’t either. But I will say”—he offers a pointed frown—“I don’t love that you didn’t ask for my blessing before you married her.”
I tip my head at him, curious. “Would you have given it?”
“No.”
A snort slips out. “Then, better ask forgiveness than permission, right? Because I would’ve married her either way. I—” My jaw drops. “Holy shit.”
“What is it—”
But I’m already venturing toward the partition between the café and bookstore. I stop near a table of nonfiction books in front of the easel that caught my attention. Displayed on it is a large poster print depicting a barren white landscape bisected by a rushing river. Block letters read:
HORIZONS: THE YUKON TERRITORY
Holy.
Shit.
“What are you doing?” Garrett comes up beside me.
I scan the interior of the store until I see it—the small line formed beside another easel holding the same poster. At the front of the line is a table with stacks of CDs sitting on one side and a pile of headshots on the other. Behind the table sits an elderly man in a red plaid shirt and corn husk–yellow suspenders. Rounding out his outfit are an old-timey cap and black-rimmed frames.
“Dude, that’s Dan Grebbs,” I tell Gigi’s dad.
“Who?”
“The nature sounds guy your daughter is obsessed with. Come on, we need to get in line.”
He’s dumbfounded. “Why?”
“Because Gigi loves him, and I want to get her a signed photo. I’d get the CD too, but she probably already has this track downloaded.”
Ignoring his bemused face, I get in line, which is surprisingly long considering this is an eighty-year-old man who records nature sounds with his own equipment. Dude doesn’t even add instrumental to it, but I guess that’s part of his charm.
Garrett sighs and says, “I’ll go grab the coffee.”
The line moves slowly, so I’m still standing there when he returns with two Styrofoam cups. He hands me one.
“Black okay?”
“Great, thanks.”
He’s staring at me again.
“What?” I mutter.
“Nothing,” he says, but he keeps staring.
The line edges closer. Now I can hear what Grebbs is saying to the woman in front of him. She’s in her fifties, which seems like the appropriate age to be waiting for an autograph from this man.
“…for a lad in his late twenties still craving excitement, the Yukon was desolate. Suffocating even, despite the vast openness all around me. But once I let my mind clear, once I embraced the rush of the Klondike and the brisk kiss of the air drifting toward me from Tombstone Mountain, I was changed.”
“That is…incredible. Thank you for the work you do, Mr. Grebbs. I truly mean that.”
“It’s an honor to bring you these experiences, my dear.” He hands her a CD and headshot.
The couple after her doesn’t linger, just gets their shit signed and leaves, and soon I’m in front of Gigi’s aural idol, feeling out of place and, frankly, stupid.
But Garrett nudges me, and I step forward.
“Uh. Hi. Mr. Grebbs. Huge fan.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Garrett pressing his lips together to stop a laugh.
“Well, really, it’s my wife who’s the fan. She has all your… soundscapes.”
Garrett coughs into his hand.
“Seriously, she listens to you religiously. In the car, on her runs, when she’s meditating.”
“How wonderful.” Dan Grebbs has kind eyes. There’s something as soothing about him as his sounds.
And I will never, ever tell Gigi I just thought of his sounds as soothing. She will use that against me forever.
“What is your wife’s name, young man?”
“Gigi.” I spell it for him.
He picks up a black felt-tipped marker and bends over, studiously inscribing what looks like an essay down the entire side of his headshot. He’s wearing the plaid-and-suspenders combo in the photo. I’m pretty sure it’s the same one.
He hands it to me. “So thoughtful of you to do this for your wife.”
“Thank you.”
We step away to make room for the next fan. I roll up the headshot because I don’t want to fold it. Garrett continues to watch me.
“Quit looking at me like that,” I grumble. “I know it’s stupid.”
He just sighs, shaking his head to himself. “You really love her.”
“Till the day I die,” I say simply.
His fingers curl tight around his coffee cup. “Is she going to avoid me forever?” he asks miserably.
“I hope not. But you know her—she’s stubborn.” I shrug at him. “And she’s spent her whole life trying to please you.”
Guilt flashes in his eyes.
I’m quick to reassure him. “You didn’t put the pressure on her, I get that. She puts it on herself and she’s aware of that. But that doesn’t change the fact that all she’s ever wanted to do is make you proud.”
“I am proud. And not just because she’s good at hockey. Look, I said things in anger. But it wasn’t actually anger. It was fear.” He closes his eyes briefly. “Because I knew in that moment that I lost her. She doesn’t belong to me anymore.”
My head jerks in surprise.
“I don’t mean belonging like property,” he says gruffly.
“No, I know what you mean.”
“She’s my little girl. You’ll understand what that means one day, if you two ever have kids. If you have a daughter.”
He keeps talking as we make our way down the block toward the hotel.
“I wish she’d just let me explain things.”
“She will. Eventually.”