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It is 2 AM on the day of her graduation, and Alicia is still arguing with her parents over the phone about her future.
“Alicia, you know you can always come home,” her father says. “We can find a job for you while you’re still figuring out what you want to do.”
But that is the problem, Alicia wants to shout. She does not want her parents to find her a job. She is twenty-two, for God’s sake. She should be able to get her act together.
From the corner of her eye, she sees the calendar on her wall, the one that has May 29th circled in red marker. Graduation! her handwriting reads, and it seems to mock her. When she wrote that early last fall, she had had visions of being settled and being ready and having plans by the time commencement rolled around. Look where she is now.
“Alicia? Darling?” her mother asks.
“I don’t wanna go back home,” Alicia says. She is self-aware enough to know that she sounds a bit like a child.
“Darling,” her mother says again, and it is times like these that Alicia hates that pet name. “Your father and I know you love acting, but don’t you think it would be good to start somewhere?”
Alicia absently sifts through a stack of papers on her desk. If she had a dime for every time someone told her acting was not a good career choice, she would not have to act, she would be so damn rich.
Suddenly her fingers land on a small business card. Ford Models, it reads, and Alicia had completely forgotten the incident several months ago, when she and her friends were in Cambridge and a man in a well-tailored suit had come up to Alicia with this card in his hands. “If you’re ever interested,” he had said, and Alicia had been flattered but uninterested.
Now she is interested.
“I am starting somewhere,” Alicia tells her parents.
There is a second of confused silence. “Darling, didn’t you just say –” her mother starts to say.
“Yes, but I’m not actually looking for a job,” Alicia interrupts. “I have one. Being a model.”
She can imagine her parents’ looks of despair. “Modeling?” her father echoes, and his tone reveals exactly what he is thinking: that is even worse than acting.
Alicia tries to not be a spiteful person, but sometimes, it gets the best of her. “Yeah, modeling,” she replies. “I’m going to be a model.”
Her parents sigh, but they do not argue back, and Alicia is suddenly glad this conversation is happening after midnight. If it had been at a more reasonable hour, her parents certainly would not have been this easy.
In a twist that surprises even Alicia herself, she does get a modeling job. Even more surprising is a year later, when she lands a role in a TV series.
“I suppose spite can get you some places,” her mother says over the phone, and Alicia laughs even as she signs the lease to her new apartment in Los Angeles.
Hockey was never a thing for Alicia Zimmermann. She was a West-Coast girl from the United States – if there were any sport she would be interested in, it sure would not be hockey. Going to Samwell exposed her to a large population of Boston Bruins fans, but Samwell’s hockey teams sucked, so she never went to a game, even though her roommate’s boyfriend captained the SMH team their senior year.
Alicia moves to LA and yeah, she hears about the Kings, and she guesses they are a decent team, but she does not really care about them.
Not until she meets Danny.
Ford Models liked Alicia enough that her moving across country did not phase them, nor did her delving into acting. She has connections with their LA office, and sometimes she is roped into going to various functions and events with some of their other models.
This time, a group of them are sent to a casino to look pretty for the LA Kings, and usually Alicia can grin and bear her way through “looking pretty,” but she spent the day on set with a grouchy co-star and an even grouchier director. She is trapped in a room with hundreds of strangers, her dress is uncomfortably tight (screw the person who decided lycra was fashionable, seriously), and when the fifth giant with a beard and a crooked nose crowds her space and starts making lewd comments, Alicia smiles falsely for as long as it takes to escape from him before she hurries out of the main room to find the restroom.
She cannot find it, though, so she instead ends up in the hallway leading to the coatroom, and there she yanks off her heels, sinks to the floor, and lets herself cry. God, does she hate crying, but Alicia also knows that releasing a few tears right now will let her survive the rest of the night.
So of course someone chooses that moment to come down the hallway.
Alicia is quick to turn her face away and wipe her cheeks, but the stranger is not fooled. “Miss?” he asks, voice deep but soft. “Are you all right?”
Alicia clears her throat and starts putting her heels back on. “Yes,” she says dismissively, still not looking at the newcomer, “You know, it’s the shoes, they are so – just so –” Her fingers are fumbling with the straps of her heels, and suddenly large hands gently nudge hers out of the way.
“May I?”
Alicia inhales sharply and looks up into kind green eyes. He must be one of the hockey players, Alicia supposes – his nose is not crooked, but he is taller and more muscled than the majority of the security guards at this casino. Alicia sniffs and nods, and the man puts on her shoes, treating her feet and ankles like they are made of porcelain.
“Thank you,” Alicia says, and the man smiles.
“Was it really just the shoes?” he asks.
Alicia sighs. “It’s been a long day,” she admits.
The man stands, offering a hand to Alicia, and he pulls her up effortlessly. “What’s your name?”
“Alicia.”
“I’m Daniel.” He is at least a foot taller than her; he curls his shoulders towards her when he speaks. “Is someone out there looking for you?”
Alicia shakes her head. “I’m alone tonight.”
“I’d be happy to accompany you for the rest of the night, if you’d like.”
It sounds like it could be a pick-up line, but Daniel says it with such quiet sincerity that Alicia knows, in her gut, that he does not have any hidden intentions.
“I’d like that,” Alicia says, and Daniel offers her his elbow before they leave the hallway.
Daniel is a complete and utter gentleman. They find a card table where some of Daniel’s teammates are playing blackjack; they all call him either Danny or Patches, and they are all civil with Alicia if not genuinely nice. Daniel is awful at blackjack, and Alicia does not want to embarrass him in front of his teammates (though if he were not such a stranger, she totally would), so after they lose spectacularly, they move on to one of the dinner tables and sit and talk.
By the end of the night, they exchange phone numbers, and Alicia thinks she is halfway to falling in love. It is too bad she is unlikely to ever see Daniel again.
She did not mean to become obsessed with hockey – really, she did not. But one lonely Saturday night, when she was far too tired to get dolled up enough to go out in public, Alicia flips the channel on her television and suddenly it is there: the LA Kings versus Boston Bruins game, live at the LA rink. She only has to watch for about three minutes before she figures out that Daniel’s full name is Daniel Patrickson, he is number twenty-eight, and he is a defender.
She ends up watching the rest of the game, an entire two and a half periods, and she is more than confused by the commentators the majority of the time, but when the game ends and the Kings win 5 – 4, Alicia is still inexplicably exhilarated.
She swears, she did not mean to become obsessed. But only four weeks later, Alicia finds herself at a diner with several of her costars, reenacting the overtime goal in the King’s game from the night before with spice shakers and drinking glasses for players and napkins for goals, and in the back of her mind, Alicia realizes:
Oh, wow. I’m so gone.
Alicia’s obsessions are never really quiet things, so it does not take long for her friends to catch on to her whole hockey thing. They tease her about it, but Alicia does not think they make all that much of it until on her birthday, when she opens a card from Barbara and several tickets fall to the floor.
Alicia reaches down to collect them and nearly drops them again when she realizes what they are. “Kings tickets?” she demands excitedly. “Really?”
Barbara exchanges looks with Jeff and Walter, and they all roll their eyes. “You won’t shut up about them,” Walter says.
“You know more than I know, and my cousin is in the NHL,” Jeff adds.
“Also,” Barbara cuts in, “You’re pining so hard for Danny.”
“I am not!” Alicia retorts, her cheeks flushing, but she still smiles. Tickets! To a live hockey game!
The game is a week from her birthday. Bundled up in a jacket and a scarf in a way she has not been since she left Samwell for Los Angeles, Alicia and her friends settle into seats only four rows up from the ice. When warm-ups start, Alicia is instantly absorbed in watching the players carving up the ice, and though Barbara and Jeff and Walter all tease her, they cease after a few minutes and settle into the game.
The Kings win, and once everyone is through with celebrating the victory, Alicia expects that they will head right out and find someplace to eat dinner. However, as they are leaving their seats, an attendant in a Kings jacket approaches them – or approaches Barbara, specifically.
“Excuse me, Miss Thompson,” the man says. “If you and your companions have a minute to spare, there are several members of the team who would like to meet you.”
Barbara looks completely surprised, and Walter has to nudge her elbow to get her to respond. “Of course,” she says, eyes still wide, and that is how the four of them end up in the hallway outside of the Kings locker room.
The first to come out is the captain, a Canadian man nicknamed Toto, and once he introduces himself to all of them, he starts talking to Jeff about Jeff’s cousin, who is playing for the Islanders this year. Toto is quickly followed by several more of his teammates, and it is not long before the next person out of the locker room is Daniel.
Alicia’s heart skips a beat, and she immediately starts blushing. He does not notice her right away, instead acknowledging Barbara and Walter first, but then his eyes land on her, and his face instantly breaks into a smile. “Alicia,” he says, his voice deep and calm, and Alicia reminds herself to breathe.
“Daniel! Hi,” she replies and then immediately feels like an over-enthusiastic idiot.
Daniel is not perturbed. “I didn’t know you were coming to tonight’s game,” he says politely.
“I didn’t either, until a week ago,” Alicia replies. “My friends got tickets for my birthday.”
His smile, if possible, turns warmer. “Well, then,” he says, “A win for your birthday.”
Alicia’s insides are melting. “Best birthday present.”
Daniel adjusts the cuff of one of his jacket sleeves. “How have you been?” he asks, shifting a little closer to create, with his broad body, a slightly more private space between them. “I haven’t seen you since the Casino Night.”
“Well, thank you,” Alicia says. She is far too concerned about breathing normally to provide a more lengthly answer. “And you?”
“I’ve been well.”
At that moment Walter appears at Alicia’s side, lightly touching her elbow. “Sorry, Ali,” he says, “but we have to leave. We have a reservation in half an hour.”
Alicia gives Daniel an apologetic frown, but the large man merely shakes his head, taking a half-step back. “It was good to see you, Alicia,” he says.
“If you ever want to meet up,” Alicia says, “You still have my number, right?”
“I do,” Daniel says. He is smiling again, and Alicia barely has time to smile back before Walter is dragging her away.
(Later that night, Barbara yells at Walter for interfering between Alicia and Daniel, and Alicia’s face flares bright red at Barbara’s exclamations of “true love” and “knights in hockey helmets.” Jeff pats Alicia’s hand consolingly, and the topic is eventually dropped.)
Alicia is not really sure if she was actually expecting Daniel to call, but a few days after the game she attended, her landline rings and the voice on the other end of the line is unexpectedly deep. “Hello?” it rumbles. “This is Daniel Patrickson.”
“Daniel!” Alicia gasps and has to keep from squealing. Her heart is pounding embarrassingly fast. Why is she like this? She does not usually get like this around the people she likes.
It turns out, Daniel is calling to ask for her company at another formal Kings team event, and it is with the deepest regret that Alicia has to say no – she is scheduled that same night for several hours of nighttime shooting for her TV show, and there is no way out of it. “Next time?” Alicia asks hopefully, biting her lip, and Daniel agrees:
“Next time.”
But next time, Alicia has another conflict; and then, when Alicia finally has the confidence to invite Daniel to a screening event, his team is departing for a long road trip the night before. The pattern of conflicts goes on for weeks, until Alicia is nearly resigned that this might never work out.
“It’s like fate is working against us,” Alicia observes one time, only half-joking, and Daniel laughs dryly.
“Perhaps it is not meant to be.”
But fuck what fate thinks, seriously – Alicia is still going to be fawning over Daniel, even if she is halfway across the country from him. Which is exactly what is happening, starting this winter.
The end of her TV series is less of a wrap-up and more of an axing by the station, so when Alicia is offered a role in a movie she had auditioned for on a whim, she immediately snatches it up. She has always been a bit terrified of being unemployed, if only because that would give her parents a reason for her to come back to her hometown and maybe find a nice man to marry. So even when she finds out that the movie is going to be filmed in Pittsburgh, Alicia does not complain all that much. Within a week, she is all packed up, and next thing she knows, Alicia is standing in an apartment provided by the film company, a tiny little box of a room that will be her home for approximately the next six months.
Once she is settled in and knows how to get to set without getting terribly lost, Alicia goes on a hunt for a few essential locations: a grocery store, a gym, a salon, and a massage parlor. It takes another week or so to find these locations (or ones that are satisfactory to her, anyway) and by then, Alicia finally feels settled in.
She tries to keep up with the Kings, but there is no way in hell a West Coast team would be broadcasted in Pittsburgh, so aside from an occasional newspaper article, Alicia does not hear much about her LA team. Daniel recedes to the back of her mind, and the weakening of her crush is almost a relief to Alicia. She hardly needs that type of distraction in her life when all its solutions reside in LA.
LA has more actors, but Pittsburgh has less paparazzi, so it is with relative peace that Alicia goes about her life. She wakes every morning, makes a small breakfast, goes to the gym, returns to her apartment to clean up, and then goes to set, where she is filming for anywhere between four and nine hours. Most people do not recognize her, or if they do, they are too grumpy to care to approach her – winter, Alicia has discovered, tends to make this city cranky.
It is one overcast morning, when Alicia’s doorman had responded to her smile with a scowl, that it happens.
Yoga tends to make Alicia a little spacey. Something about becoming calm, listening to a soft and soothing voice – it clicks with Alicia’s mind, and she is left floating for about half an hour, which is why she is completely out of it when wandering through the halls of the gym until someone sprints straight into her.
Alicia yelps, suddenly alert and certain that she is about to hit the ground, but the same force that knocked into her is steadying her, keeping her upright. Arms, Alicia notes, and damp and sweaty fabric, until she finally registers a voice, close to her ear: “Calisse – I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you coming – are you all right?”
“I –” Alicia gasps, her lungs heaving a bit. God, that felt like getting hit by a brick wall. “I’m fine,” she manages to get out. “Just – wind knocked out of me.”
“If I let you go, can you stand?”
“I think so.”
The stranger lets go of Alicia, and Alicia takes a half-step back so she can see the person who bowled into her and caught her. He looks vaguely familiar; Alicia is pretty sure she saw him a couple times last week. He is only a bit taller than her, with pale skin and dark hair equally drenched in sweat. His sleeveless shirt sticks to his skin, and it is incredibly easy to see how built he is.
“I’m so sorry,” he says again, and Alicia notices he has a slight accent of some sort.
“I’m fine,” Alicia says again. “Why were you running?”
The stranger rubs the back of his neck, expression sheepish. “Ah, I usually do my sprinting here,” he says.
Alicia wonders why he does not just use a treadmill. She absentmindedly skims her hand over her ribcage, and the man frowns with concern.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asks.
Alicia nods. “Yeah. Actually, I need to go –”
The man steps back, allowing Alicia to pass by, and she grins. “Try not to kill anymore passerbys,” she says, and the man splutters a bit, but Alicia is already moving on.
Even though Alicia swears she had seen the man who ran into her only a few times before, for the next fews days, Alicia sees him, without fail, every morning at the gym. Sometimes he is doing sprints or agility ladders, and sometimes he is lifting weights, but he always makes a point to smile and wave at Alicia (usually, he is too out of breath to say hi).
On the sixth day that Alicia walks in, the man, who is standing next to a weight rack, actually comes up to her instead of simply smiling. “I feel bad for never introducing myself,” he says, holding out a hand. “I’m Robert.”
Alicia shakes his hand. He has large hands and a firm grip. “Alicia,” she replies.
“Alicia,” Robert repeats, and Alicia absolutely does not shiver at the way her name sounds in his accented baritone. “I’ve wanted to ask –”
“Bob! We’re under a time limit, here.”
Alicia turns at the same time as Robert; standing at the weight racks Robert just abandoned is a man Alicia can recognize as the trainer who usually works with Robert.
Robert turns back to Alicia, a bit sheepish. “Sorry,” he says, and Alicia shakes her head.
“We can talk another time,” she suggests, and Robert beams before returning to his trainer.
The next day, Alicia expects to see Robert, but he is nowhere to be found at the gym. Perhaps he got sick, Alicia supposes, but then he is not there the next day … or the next … or the next …
It is an entire week before she sees Robert again.
Alicia is prepared to leave the gym without even acknowledging him – she spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about him in the last seven days, wondering why he had taken the time to introduce himself if he was just going to disappear – but Robert spots her as soon as she leaves the yoga studio.
“Alicia!” he calls, lifting a hand in greeting.
Alicia forces herself to keep a neutral expression as she changes course to come to Robert. “Where’d you disappear to?” she asks, and, okay, some of her annoyance slips into her tone.
Robert picks up on it, and he looks chagrined. “Sorry,” he says, “I had to go on a – I travel frequently for work.”
Alicia nods. For a split second, she considers asking him what he does for a living, but the question following that is always what does she do for a living, and Alicia has seen, before, how people treat her differently once they know she is a model and an actress. It is usually a change she does not like. So instead she asks, “Was it a nice trip?”
Robert grins. “Bit of a tough one,” he admits. “Had to go up to Canada. Lots of memories, there.”
“Are you from Canada?”
“Yes. Montreal.”
He does not say it like Montreal but like Mo-hrey-alle, and Alicia has a flashback to her French seminar at Samwell, in which one of her classmates was a Québécois girl who aced every single essay.
“Have you been in Pittsburgh for long?” Robert asks.
Alicia shakes her head. “About a month,” she answers.
“Why did you come to Pittsburgh?”
Alicia shrugs. “Just work,” she says, schooling her tone in a way that makes her job sound disinteresting, and it works – Robert does not ask about it.
“I’ve been here for a couple years,” Robert says, “so if you ever need anything, need someone to show you around … let me know?”
He sounds so hopeful, and his smile is so honest, that Alicia cannot help smiling. “I’ll let you know,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and Robert turns his face to the floor, but Alicia can still see his cheeks flushing
She never does take Robert up on his offer – she has her cast and crew mates to show her around, and besides, she hardly has time to be exploring Pittsburgh when she is filming a movie – but she does start talking to him more. She learns that Robert’s trainer doubles also his physical therapist, and that Robert has to take care of an old knee injury. Robert now warns her, when he is about to take off for a business trip, but when he is around the gym, they talk when they are not working out, and sometimes even when they are working out.
One day Alicia is on a stationary bike next to Robert, who is chatting with his trainer – Gary – when Robert says, “But next week –”
“Wait,” Gary interrupts, “You heard about the Islanders, right?”
Alicia perks up. “Are you talking about the trade?” she asks.
Gary and Robert exchange a surprised look. “With the Bruins,” Robert says.
Alicia nods. “The deal right now is Russell Jones and Andrik Bolesky for Roy Danvers and – that Karkaroff guy, right? The defenseman?”
Robert tilts his head. “You follow the NHL?”
Alicia shrugs. “When I can,” she says truthfully.
“What do you think of the trade?” Gary asks.
Alicia shrugs again. “I don’t follow the Islanders or the Bruins all that much,” she admits, “But I’m pretty sure Danvers going to the Bruins isn’t going to be a good fit. They focus more on a hard-hitting forecheck and – well, hard-hitting, all around. Danvers has never liked contact. He prefers speed.”
Robert glances at Gary again and then smiles at Alicia. “Exactly what I was thinking,” he says, and Alicia smirks.
“Then you’re a very smart person.”
Robert laughs, and Alicia basks in the sound of it.
One Sunday evening Alicia is in her apartment with Ruth, playing a game of Scrabble while they chat about inconsequential things, when Ruth suddenly slams down her bottle of beer and exclaims, “Oh, my God, Alicia, you’re so fucking in love with Robert.”
Alicia jumps, more startled by Ruth’s violent tone than anything else. “What?”
“This is the sixth time you’ve mentioned him in the past two hours alone!” Ruth shouts.
“Why are you shouting?” Alicia yells.
“Because you and Robert need to get a fucking move on!”
“Ruth,” Alicia says, quieting down again, “I don’t like Robert.”
Ruth glares at her. “You spent ten minutes telling me about a conversation you had with him, word-for-word, about hockey.”
“So?”
“I don’t like hockey, Alicia. I have zero interest in it!”
“That doesn’t mean I like Robert!” Alicia protests.
Ruth groans at the ceiling. “You’re hopeless,” she moans.
“But I don’t!” Alicia insists.
Later that night, when Ruth has left and Alicia is curled under her bedsheets, she lets herself consider, for a moment:
What if I do like Robert?
Even if Ruth does not like hockey, Alicia does have cast mates who do, so it is not terribly difficult to convince Vickie and Glenn to come see the Kings play against the Penguins when LA comes to the Steel City. Glenn grew up playing hockey, and since Vickie is from Pittsburgh, she is a die-hard Penguins fan, and Alicia has heard her rave about “Bad Bob” Zimmermann more than once.
Vickie is not the only one crazy about Zimmermann; walking into the stadium, it seems like eight out of every ten Penguins fans is wearing his jersey. Of course Alicia has heard about him – a person cannot follow the NHL without hearing about him and how legendary he is – but she has never paid too much attention to him. She is a Kings fan, after all.
“I wish we’d known we’d be doing this earlier,” Glenn says as they settle into their seats. “If it hadn’t been so last minute, we would’ve gotten better seats.”
They are in the third row, but they are squished into a corner at the curve of the boards. Alicia does not mind all the much, other than the fact the during the second period, she will not be able to see Daniel all that well.
The thought surprises her. She has not thought about Daniel in several weeks, Alicia realizes. Honestly, it is not that weird – Alicia has been busy with filming – but at the same time, Alicia never expected it to be so easy to let go of Daniel. Back in LA, she could not go more than a few hours without thinking about him. She briefly wonders where all that attraction has gone, but when brown eyes immediately flash in her mind, Alicia stuffs that thought away.
“Alicia! Puck drop,” Glenn says, and Alicia returns her focus to the game in front of her.
The Kings and the Penguins are both at the top of the league this year, and the first period is as fast-paced and exciting as expected. They are tied at two goals apiece when Vickie suddenly nudges Alicia. “Look!” she says, pointing up.
Alicia follows Vickie’s finger to see the three of them on the big screen, and even as she sees it, she hears the stadium announcer call out, “A special Pittsburgh welcome to Vickie Van Andel, Alicia Faucher, and Glenn Jackson!”
Vickie locates the camera that must be focusing on them, and she begins waving enthusiastically. Alicia laughs and flushes a bit. She has never been a fan of being recognized at large public events.
Play recommences down at the ice, and Alicia watches, only half-paying attention, as the Penguins win the face-off. Kruger carries the puck up the left hand boards before sliding it across ice to the forward on his line that Alicia does not know. That forward skates backwards, and then Zimmermann zips into the center from seemingly nowhere, and all it takes is a pass – a couple little dekes – and suddenly the puck is in the back of the net.
Alicia smiles in disbelief. Zimmermann is ridiculously talented, she thinks as the Penguins try to converge on the scorer, but Zimmermann is skating away from them, towards the corner of the boards –
“Oh, my God, why is he coming over here?” Vickie asks, but Alicia cannot reply, her mouth hanging open in shock, because now she can see the face underneath the helmet –
That is Robert.
Robert, who is pointing at her, a broad grin splitting his cheeks, and Alicia barely catches his wink before his teammates surround him.
Vickie and Glenn turn to Alicia. “Did he just point at you?” Glenn asks.
“Was he flirting with you?”
“I –” Laughter hops out of her throat, high and disbelieving. “That’s Robert.”
It kills Alicia that she has to sit through another two periods and then wait until she goes to the gym again before she can talk to Robert. Robert, who is actually the living legend Bad Bob Zimmermann. These things usually do not go unmentioned, do they?
“You had no idea?” Vickie demands once the first period ends.
“I’m a Kings fan!” Alicia protests. “I didn’t start watching until this season!”
Vickie huffs. “Only you, Alicia.”
“There are probably a million Roberts out there! How was I supposed to know this one was Bob Zimmermann?”
Glenn bursts out laughing, and Alicia wants to hide.
The Penguins win 5–3, and Alicia does get to watch Daniel for a bit, but she is rather distracted by Robert. Zimmermann. Bob? She does not even know how to refer to him anymore. As the two teams shake hands, Alicia almost wants to laugh when she sees Daniel, towering over Robert, offer his hand, and suddenly Vickie is tugging on Alicia’s arm. “Do you want to say hi to him?” she asks.
“Vickie, we can’t just go find them –”
“They’ve asked for you, Miss Faucher. All three of you.”
Alicia had not even noticed the Penguins aide appear at their row, but hey, if she gets to speak to (or maybe yell at) Robert now instead of later …
“All right,” Alicia says.
Of the three of them, Glenn is by far the most famous, so it is no surprise that when the Penguins start trickling out of their locker room, showered and dressed in game day suits, they mostly converge on Glenn, though a few try their luck flirting with Vickie. Most of them say hello to Alicia, but none of them keep her in conversation long, and Alicia wonders if Robert has told them about her.
“So you’re an actress.”
Alicia whirls around, a hand flying to her chest. Somehow, Robert snuck by her, and now he is staring down at her with his stupid smile, and Alicia feels so overwhelmed –
“You let me believe you worked some dull office job!” Alicia retorts.
She sounds angry, but she is not really, and she is pretty sure she is smiling. Robert bites his lip and rubs the back of his neck. “Sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all, and Alicia glares until Robert gives into his laughter.
“In all seriousness,” he says, “You never told me you were in movies.”
“This is my first movie,” Alicia says. “And – well, there was a reason why you didn’t tell me your full name, wasn’t there?”
Robert nods. “I have something,” he says, then digs into his jacket pocket and produces a puck.
Alicia takes it, a bit puzzled. “Thank you?”
“It’s the goal I scored for you.”
Alicia almost echoes, For me? but one of Robert’s teammates bumps into Robert and says, “Real smooth, Bobby. Really.”
“Go away, Leo,” Robert immediately responds, and Alicia grins, entertained by their easy banter.
“Do you prefer Robert or Bob or Bobby?” she asks.
Robert shrugs. “Doesn’t matter much to me.” His expression softens. “But I like it when you call me Robert.”
Knowing Robert is Robert Zimmermann simultaneously changes everything and nothing at all.
They still see each other at the gym and either chat for a bit or do their workouts next to each other. But their conversation is freer, now – Alicia can talk about filming and her modeling past, and Robert no longer refers to road trips as business trips.
“I still cannot believe I thought you spent your trips in an office,” Alicia says one day before Robert is flying out to the West Coast for a short roadie, and Robert grins.
He is not grinning when he comes back five days later. Alicia cannot stop her gasp when she sees him. “What happened?” she asks, stepping up and taking hold of Robert’s chin before she can think twice.
Robert has a black eye and a line of stitches across his left cheekbone. “Olesky tried to bait Leo into a fight,” he says, “So I stepped in, but Kassanoff didn’t like that, so … stick, meet face.” He gestures at the general area of the stitches, and Alicia winces.
“Does it hurt?”
Robert considers, then shakes his head. “You’re here,” he says, as if that is any sort of reasonable explanation, and Alicia takes a step back, rolling her eyes even as her cheeks burn.
“Go see Gary. He found a new squat routine for you to try.”
There is no denying it, by this point, that Alicia likes Robert. He is kind and funny and handsome, and he smiles at Alicia like her mere presence makes him happy – and sometimes, it seems like it does. Her cast mates tease her mercilessly about it, particularly because she and Robert have not actually gone on a date, but Alicia is content with where they are. He waves to her on her way to yoga, she nods at him whenever he is busy lifting weights, and sometimes they cool down together, biking side-by-side as they talk. Robert is still Robert, and to Robert, Alicia is still just Alicia, and that makes Alicia happy.
“Can you skate?” Robert asks one morning.
It is a rare morning when they are both leaving the gym at the same time. Robert walks beside her, his coat collar turned up and a hat pulled low, but his arm brushes against Alicia’s shoulder every few steps.
“It’s been a few years, but I think I still can,” Alicia replies. “Why?”
“I’m not sure if you already have plans for the holidays,” Robert says, “but on Christmas Eve, the team is having a get-together at the rink – a holiday skate, we call it.”
“That sounds like fun.”
“Would you like to come? With me?”
Today, Alicia feels bold. “Depends,” she replies. “Is this your way of asking me on a date without actually saying the word date?”
Robert bursts out laughing and reaches out to grab Alicia’s arm to stop her in her tracks. He moves so he is standing right in front of her, his hands on her shoulders and his warm brown eyes looking right at her. “Alicia Faucher,” he says, exaggerating his accent on her name, “will you go on a date with me?”
Alicia tilts her head, pretending to consider. She takes her time, and Robert starts getting antsy, until he caves and says, “Alicia, mon dieu, please just answer –”
“Oh, all right,” Alicia says and then shouts when Robert unexpectedly picks her up and spins her in a circle. She is laughing by the time he settles her on the ground again, and when they continue walking towards Alicia’s apartment, Robert takes her hand and laces their gloved fingers together.
Turns out, Alicia does not really remember how to skate.
“Bend your knees – Alicia, bend –”
Alicia shouts and nearly wipes out, but Robert reaches out and catches her – again. Robert laughs, and Alicia sighs, resting all her weight against him. “I swear I used to be better than this.”
Robert spins, and in an instant, he is skating backwards, holding Alicia’s hands and tugging her after him. “Showoff,” Alicia says.
“I could just leave you to yourself,” Robert suggests.
“Fine! I can do it. I don’t need your help.”
Robert laughs. “You wouldn’t last a lap.”
He pulls her closer, until her skates are between the two of his, and Alicia shakes off one of his hands so she can tap his nose.
The afternoon has been fun, despite Alicia’s inability to skate. Robert’s teammates tease Robert about everything, Alicia realizes, including Alicia, but to Alicia they are all perfect gentlemen. “You are much too good for this Canadian,” Leo tells her jokingly, and Alicia grins.
“I think he’s much too good for all of us.”
When things start winding down, Robert takes Alicia back to the bench and helps her unlace her skates. “Are your toes cold?” Alicia asks. She can barely curl hers.
Robert grins. “I don’t feel the cold.”
“Oh, ha ha.”
Robert hands her her boots and sits down next to her to take off his own skates. “Do you have any plans for tomorrow?” he asks.
Alicia shrugs. “I’m going to call my parents, and Vickie offered for me to join her and her fiancé for dinner, but that’s about it.”
“Would you like to spend the day with me?” Robert offers. “My parents are visiting from Montreal, and I understand if it’s a bit much, so soon, but … I’d like for you to be there.”
Alicia bites back a smile. “Do your parents know you’re seeing an American girl?”
“I told them about you the day I ran into you.”
Robert says it so earnestly, so unselfconsciously, so easily, that Alicia’s cheeks flush. “I took some French classes at Samwell,” she says.
Robert perks up, his eyes bright. “Vraiment?”
“Oui, je sais le français.”
“Ah, but there’s the problem,” he says, leaning into Alicia’s side. “I’m afraid you’ve learned français. I’ll have to teach you québécois.”
Alicia presses back into Robert, her lips curling in a smile. “Mmm. Teach me.”
His brown eyes are dark and warm, and they fall shut as Robert kisses her cheek.
“Si tu voudrais que je t’enseigne, je le ferai.”
Laurent and Chloe Zimmermann are among the nicest people that Alicia has ever met, and it is almost unfathomable that they would raise a son as well known for picking fights on the ice nearly as much as he is for scoring goals. They speak in heavily accented English, for Alicia’s sake, though they do spend an hour or so being amused as Alicia stumbles her way through rusty French.
They are settling down in the living room after dinner. Laurent and Chloe take the two armchairs, so Alicia is left to the couch. Robert enters just after them, a wrapped present in his hands and a smile on his face, and Alicia immediately starts protesting.
“You told me not to get anything, because you promised you wouldn’t get me anything!” she cries.
“I never promised,” Robert says, and Chloe clicks her tongue.
“Robert is always very deliberate with his words,” she says.
Robert sits next to Alicia, one arm resting behind her shoulders as the other extends the gift to her. Alicia tries to glare, but it is ruined by her uncontrollable smile, and she settles against Robert as she unwraps the present.
It is a necklace, a thin chain with a small blue stone hanging from the pendant, and Alicia inhales sharply. It is gorgeous.
“Do you like it?” Robert asks quietly.
Alicia pulls the necklace out of its box. “I love it,” she breathes out.
“I thought it matched your eyes.”
Alicia looks up into Robert’s eyes and – God help her – she gets so lost in them that she hardly notices when Robert takes the necklace from her fingers and puts it on for her. His fingertips linger on the skin of her neck, and Alicia suppresses a shiver.
“Oh! The perfect choice, Robert.”
Alicia jumps. For a moment, she had forgotten that they were not alone, but when she looks over at Laurent and Chloe, they are both smiling at her and Robert, and Alicia’s chest fills with warmth as she smiles back.
Two weeks later, it feels like all the blood freezes in her veins when Robert is rammed into the boards –
And he does not get back up.
The Penguins are immediately going after the one guy on the Flyers who hit Robert, and suddenly the entirety of both teams is on the ice. Alicia, along with many others, stands in her seat, straining to see Robert. Robert slowly rolls into a sitting position, awkwardly holding his left arm with his right, his face twisted in pain.
The referees eventually sort out the scrum, and two trainers help Robert off of the ice. There are only twelve minutes left in the game, but Alicia spends each minute on the edge of her seat, wondering what exactly happened to Robert and if he will be all right. Almost immediately after the final horn sounds, a Penguins aide comes up to Alicia, and she follows him through the tunnels of the stadium until they come to the training room.
“Robert!”
Robert opens his eyes and shifts to prop himself up higher on his cot. “What happened?” he asks.
“Six to four,” Alicia immediately answers. “Leo and Kenneth scored.”
Robert relaxes, a faint smile tugging on his lips. “That’s my team,” he says, tired but proud, and Alicia’s heart swells.
She rests a hand on Robert’s knee. “What happened to you?” she asks.
The smiles disappears. “Fracture,” Robert says shortly, “the ulna, I think they said.”
Alicia looks at Robert’s arm. It looks relatively normal, but Alicia supposes that not all fractures are huge and dramatic. “How long will you be out for?” she asks.
“Five weeks, is the estimate. But it’s really week-to-week.”
He looks miserable, and Alicia reaches out to push some of his hair back from his forehead. It is still damp with his sweat. “I’m sorry,” Alicia says softly.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
Robert gestures for Alicia to come closer, and Alicia obliges, leaning in to just catch Robert whisper, “Can you hold my hand?”
Strangely, the request makes Alicia want to cry, but she does not think she or Robert has the energy to deal with tears, so instead, she takes Robert’s good hand between her own and presses a kiss to Robert’s forehead.
Robert is miserable throughout the recovery period. He is unable to travel with the team for road games, so instead Alicia goes to Robert’s apartment and watches the games with him, provided that her filming schedule allows it. He cannot relax, watching his team compete without him, and it is never until the game ends that he sinks back into the couch and sends Alicia an apologetic look.
“Sorry,” he says, and Alicia just shakes her head.
“It’s okay.”
And really, it is okay – for some reason, Alicia gets it. Robert lives and breathes hockey, lives and breathes for his team, and nothing is going to ever change that for him. So she laces her fingers between his, rests her head against his shoulder, and says, “Leo had some great forechecks tonight.”
Robert grins. “Finally learned how, didn’t he?” he says and launches into a detailed recount of the game he and Alicia just watched. Alicia rests her ear against Robert’s chest and gets lost in the vibrations of his voice.
Robert gets better. Once he is allowed to skate again, he takes Alicia to the rink with him every Sunday morning, and after Robert has finished his actual skating and conditioning, he does his cool down with Alicia in tow. Alicia is there to watch him transition from skating to stick-handling to hitting, and the five weeks of recovery simultaneously feel like the slowest and fastest weeks of Alicia’s life. The Penguins do all right, without Robert in the line-up, but when he returns, they go on a seven-game win streak and clinch their spot in the playoffs.
“We’ve done well against the Rangers this year,” Robert tells her over the phone one night. “And there’s no way the Capitals will edge out the Islanders, so once we get by the Rangers, we’ll still be in New York –” He cuts himself off with a laugh. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s one game at a time.”
Alicia grins, tugging her pillow tighter to her chest. She is familiar with Robert’s mantra by now. “One period at a time.”
“One shift at a time.”
“Good luck,” Alicia says.
“Luck doesn’t win games.”
Alicia rolls her eyes. “Then play well, Bad Bob,” she amends fondly.
“Yes, mademoiselle.”
They play well, but not well enough.
Alicia watches the end on her television. Game six is decisive: the Rangers win in regulation 7 – 3, on the scattered Penguins defense in the first period and the Rangers excellent goaltending in the third. The cameras primarily focus on the celebrating Rangers, but there are some shots of the Penguins: Kruger commiserating with their goaltender, Kenneth and Leo with their arms around each other, and lastly Robert, on his knees at center ice, stick loose in one hand and his head hanging.
Alicia does not doubt, in the slightest, that Robert largely blames himself for this loss.
The Penguins return to Pittsburgh late on Saturday night, and on Sunday morning, Alicia gets a phone call from, unexpectedly, Leo.
“Tough loss,” she says once Leo identifies himself.
“About that,” Leo says. “Bobby … he doesn’t do so great with losing.”
Alicia absently stirs her coffee. “I figured.”
“He’ll be at the rink, right now, if you wondered why he hasn’t called.”
“Makes sense.”
There is a short pause, and then Leo says, “Usually – usually everyone just stays away from Bobby. No one can convince him to take a break, but – but. Alicia. I think you might be able to.”
Alicia double-takes. “What, me?”
“You mean a lot to him, Alicia. You should see his face when he talks about you.”
Alicia bites her lip. “Should I go?”
“Please. We worry about him.”
Alicia exhales. “All right. I’ll go.”
“Thank you,” Leo says, with utmost sincerity. “I’ll let the staff know, so they won’t bother you.”
An hour later, when Alicia exits the same tunnel that she has seen the Penguins emerge from what seems like a countless number of times, she instantly sees Robert. It is not that hard when he is the only one out there on the ice. She watches him for a moment as he takes several hard slap shots at the net; only half of them make it in, and then he takes off, sprinting all the way around the rink before collecting the pucks and carrying them to the opposite blue line, where he takes several more shots and repeats the entire process.
Alicia watches him go around the rink three or four times before she moves forward again, coming out of the shadows of the tunnel to go to the Penguins’ bench. Standing at the boards, she spares a moment to be grateful that she decided to wear her jacket into the building; at the ice level, the air is actually cold without the press of the warm bodies of a crowd filling the space.
Robert notices her the next time he goes around the rink, but he does not stop until he had collected his pucks and brought them to center ice. He stops right on top of the face-off dot and looks in Alicia’s direction. For a few seconds, the only sound is Robert’s harsh breathing; then Robert asks, his voice rough and rumbling, “Are you going to make me stop?”
He says it like he is expecting Alicia to fight him, and Alicia suspects that people have tried to stop him before when he gets like this. Yet somehow, deep in her gut, Alicia knows that this crazed workout is the only thing that will give Robert eventual peace of mind in the wake of the his team's elimination. The last thing Alicia wants to do is deny Robert that.
She shakes her head, and Robert just stands there, still staring her down. Already, he is recovering his breath – but in the next second, he rounds up his pucks, and his sprinting-shooting cycle recommences.
Alicia takes a seat on the bench, sticking her hands into her coat pockets, and watches Robert skate. As she sits there, her eyes track Robert and the pucks as they fly up and down the ice, and the relative silence of the arena is occasionally punctuated by Robert swearing gutturally in French or one of his shots pinging off of the goal frame. Though Robert is so obviously angry, Alicia somehow finds all of it calming – the sound of a puck hitting a stick, of skates carving up the ice.
About an hour has passed by the time Robert takes one last shot, and instead of taking off down the ice, he remains standing, shifting his weight back and forth ever so slightly. After a moment, he pushes off and slowly gathers up all of his pucks. Alicia watches intently. Robert has always looked so graceful on ice; it is a wonder to Alicia how a man of his size can move with such fluidity. When she realizes he is coming to her, Alicia rises and moves to stand up with her hips against the boards.
Robert sets his pucks on the boards and drops his stick into the bench before he shucks off his gloves and removes his helmet. His hair, still unusually long from the playoffs, is a mess, and sweat beads and drips off of his forehead and his nose. He looks physically exhausted, but his brown eyes are still vibrant, bright and shining with energy.
“You didn’t stop me,” he says between one deep inhale and the next.
Alicia shrugs, fiddling with one of the gloves Robert set on the boards. “You needed it,” she says simply.
“Alicia.”
Alicia looks up and is taken aback by Robert’s expression. She does not immediately recognize it, the half-parted lips and slightly raised eyebrows, but then it occurs to her: that is a look of utter adoration. Maybe Leo was right, Alicia thinks.
“Robert,” she breathes out.
His names appears to be some sort of confirmation for him, and in the next instant, Robert leans over the boards and kisses her. He takes hold of her waist, and Alicia cradles his face in her hands, even though his jaw is sweaty. His kiss is soft and sweet but still moves with the intent of something more, and when they part, Robert does not let her go far, pressing his forehead against hers.
“I love you,” Robert whispers, and Alicia’s heart swells in her chest.
“I love you, too.”