Just Bent

Hadley sighed, leaning back in her seat and sliding her feet out of her heels underneath her desk as she ran her hands through her straightened hair. It was only one in the afternoon, but it felt like five o’clock and she desperately wanted to go home to take a nap. She hadn’t been sleeping well since Sidney had shown up at her house a week before and it was showing.

“Roth, Rubenstein and Associates, this is Hadley speaking.” She answered the phone, her eyes still closed and shoes still lingering under her desk.

“Yes, I’d like to make an appointment with one of your executives?” She knew the voice on the phone was familiar, but she wasn’t sure.

“When would you like to make the appointment?” She asked, pulling up the Google Calendars of all the attorneys.

“I would say about five minutes from now.” She looked up to see that the voice was coming from the doorway of the office where Claude was standing. He made a warm blue sweater and jeans look impeccable as they stretched across his body.

“My savior.” Her smile made him warm inside and she looked damn near inappropriate in her white blouse and fitted black pencil skirt. He couldn’t imagine anyone getting any work done around her in that outfit.

“Lunch?” He asked, walking forward and taking in the small desk that was considered to be her office.

“Let me send off one last email and I’m all yours.” She grinned, clicking a few windows on her desktop and clacking on her keyboard as he looked around her little space. There was a small Pitt collegiate banner and a 3x5-framed photo of her and a younger boy that had her same nose and hair color. “No practice today?” She asked, knowing that their morning skates usually lasted until around this time.

“Nope, next three games are home games and every other day, so coach wants us to rest up a bit.” She stood from her chair and slung her forest green longchamp to her shoulder, grabbing her cell as they exited the office together.

“I’m so happy you’re here! Today has already been so slow and I’m just exhausted. This is the perfect pick me up.” She complimented as Claude held open the door to his low-slung little Mercedes Benz that he somehow figured was more appropriate for winter than the Camaro – even if she didn’t understand why.

“I figured that Mondays are a little rough.” He shrugged, “plus I did have to prove to you sometime that I don’t make every single one of my meals.” He teased. “Sushi okay?” He asked, knowing of a place that wasn’t too far from her office with an awesome rainbow roll.

“Sushi sounds like actual heaven.” She said excitedly. “I could eat sushi every single day.” She added. Soon enough they were being ushered to a table near the back of the restaurant and Claude ordered a small bottle of rice wine and glasses of water.

“I’m going to have the spider roll, the crunchy roll, the rainbow roll and an order of shrimp and veggie tempura.” Hadley flashed a dazzling smile at the waiter. Claude laughed before ordering almost the exact same thing plus a rainbow roll.

“So how often do you work out?” He asked as the waiter left their table, causing Hadley to look at him innocently over the rim of her water glass.

“Um I took a Zumba class last month at the gym in my building.” She said brightly, making the gears in Claude’s head turn. “I’m not much for physical movement.” She added, making him laugh.

“Well then you were blessed with a metabolism.” Claude shook his head. “My sister would kill for that.”

“You have a sister?” Hadley asked, eyeing up the sushi bar where the Japanese men were making their lunch in a big hurry.

“Yep, a big sister named Isabelle and that’s it… I guess now I have a brother in law, too, but growing up it was just the two of us.” He nodded, taking a drink of his rice wine.

“That’s so fun, I always wanted a sister.” She smiled warmly.

“How about you, you have two brothers, right?” He asked, adjusting the military style cap that was pushed down over his rust colored curls.

“Oh yeah, one older, one younger.” She nodded.

“What are their names?” He asked.

“My little brother is Danny and my older brother is Tanner.” She replied, wishing some of their food would get to the table so she didn’t have to talk about her family.

“Was it hard growing up with brothers?” Claude asked, “I used to ask for a brother every year from Papa Noel.” He grinned, trying to keep the conversation going as Hadley rarely spoke about her family to the guys.

“No, growing up with them was great.” She smiled softly. It was once we grew up that it started to become awful…

“You should invite them out to a game sometime, that would be fun, right?” He asked. Claude Giroux was by no means a talkative guy, but he was really pulling out all the stops that day.

“Yeah maybe, they’re big hockey fans, so that could be fun.” She replied. He noticed that with every question he asked, her voice grew quieter and quieter until it was merely a whisper. “I’ll have some of that wine now.”

- - -

Hadley began to slowly distance herself from her group of friends that played hockey for a living. She could feel them getting to know too much about her, her family, and her love life to the point that she felt they were always going to be asking her questions that she didn’t know the answer to.

Another week had passed since her impromptu lunch with Claude and while she greatly enjoyed his company, she was worried he was interested in a lot more than she could give him.

It was a Sunday afternoon when she realized she had officially run out of food at her apartment and needed to make a stop at the grocery store if she was going to eat something other than Dominos and Jimmy Johns for another week.

Packing up her Longchamp, she headed down to her parking space and headed out of the parking garage in her old Toyota Camry to the nearest Whole Foods. If it weren’t payday, she would have gone to Acme Foods, but today she had a little extra money to blow.

Pulling her grocery list up on her cell phone, she picked up a large basket and started filling it with fruit, almonds and chips. Deciding that she was going to need something a little more filling than snacks, she turned to the frozen food aisle to grab her favorite whole-wheat crust pizzas that she could only find at Whole Foods.

“Hey stranger.” She looked to see Luke standing right in front of the section she wanted to get into.

“Hi Duke.” She smiled in return, stepping into his arms for a hug.

“Where you been?” He asked, “I text you a few times the other day and didn’t get anything back. Claude said he’s been trying to get ahold of you, too.” He frowned, not letting her go from the hug as he reared his head back to talk to her.

“My phone took a dip in my tub and I had to conform and buy a gazillion dollar iPhone.” She held up the new gadget and my other phone was so old that they literally didn’t have the technology to transfer my contacts from my old phone to my new one.” She shrugged. “And I had to get a new number with my new plan, so that’s why I haven’t gotten back to anyone.” She sighed, setting her little basket down for a moment and reaching into the frozen cabinet.

“Hads, it’s literally been like two weeks since I’ve heard from you. You couldn’t shoot me a message on Facebook message or anything?” He frowned.

“Duke, I’m sorry! Between breaking and getting my phone and dealing with work, I literally haven’t even had time to bathe and feed myself!” She huffed. “Besides, you’ve been gone a lot for games and stuff, I mean you’re busy, too.” She insisted. Luke nodded with a shrug, taking her phone out of her hand and texting himself.

“Well now you have my number and I’ll pass yours along to Brayden and Claude and Coots.” He said with finality. “Can I help you carry your groceries out?” He asked. “How about you let me cook dinner tonight.” He suggested. As much as Hadley wanted to go home, put on sweatpants and eat an entire pizza to herself, she knew that she owed Luke that much and it wasn’t like it was an inconvenience to spend a night with him.

“Sure, yeah” She nodded. “Just let me finish up with these and I can put them away then scoot over to your place.” She finished. They wandered through the rest of the store before checking out. Hadley put her groceries away as fast as possible and changed into a pair of yoga pants and her favorite Pitt sweatshirt before heading back to her car.

Hadley wasn’t so sure she made the right choice when she rolled up to Luke’s apartment building, already recognizing Claude’s car in the guest parking space next to Luke’s spot. She was sure that if Claude was there, so was Brayden. Her building anxiety was enough to make her just a bit jittery upon entering the apartment, only soothed in the slightest when Claude wrapped his arms around her. She held on for just an extra moment and she liked the way his body enveloped hers. Hadley enjoyed that Claude didn’t tower over her like Luke or Sean, but she fit into his chest just perfectly.

“Miss you, Had.” Claude said, running a hand over the back of her head.

“Missed you too, G.” She smiled.

“Look me up once and a while, eh?” He joked, making her giggle as she nodded, glad he could break the tension in the room once again.

“Jee-zus Christ, Hadley, you fall off the face of the planet or what?” Brayden asked loudly as he appeared out of the kitchen.

“A little bit.” She replied, squealing loudly when he picked her up and swung her around in a circle.

“G’s lonely without you in his life!” Brayden announced, unable to see Hadley’s cheeks flush pink.