Big Sky

The coffee maker gurgled and beeped to signify that it was done brewing, yet I couldn’t be bothered to get up from the armchair I had been sitting in, arms over my face, since Eliza ran off like a scared deer.

I was just tired. This girl was nothing short of an enigma, and it exhausted me to no end that she didn’t just succumb to my name and famous athlete title- something I hadn’t dealt with since college.

Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

After a good half hour of catatonia, Kaner finally decided to grace the world with his presence. Strutting out of his room like a peacock, he stretched and hopped from foot to foot lithely, as if warming up for a race.

“Good day to get the old testosterone flowing and shoot some guns, eh, Tazer?” he said, referencing the fact that we were going to shoot clay pigeons and targets at a gun range this afternoon. I could practically hear him obnoxious toothy grin on his face.

My arms still covered my face, so I just grunted.

Realizing I wasn’t in the mood to talk, and realizing Eliza wasn’t here, I think he put two and two together and I heard him disappear back into his room.

After a few moments of muffled talking and the shifting of the bed, he reappeared, this time with Shae.

I finally decided to get up and get some of the coffee I had made before Kane inevitably drank it all, leaving me an empty pot. Shae hurried around to find her shoes and jacket, then stopped and considered me with concerned eyes.

I raised my eyebrows. “What?” I muttered.

Shae approached me like slowly, like she wasn’t sure how I’d react, and placed a hand on my shoulder. Standing on the tip of her toes to kiss my cheek quickly, I realized how much shorter than Eliza she was.

“I’ll talk to her,” she said and I just weakly shrugged. I wanted to play it off like it didn’t matter, but I really wanted her to.

She planted a rather passionate kiss on Kane’s mouth and ran out the door with a wink, again leaving him with that ridiculous puppy-love face.

I groaned, “Kaner, you make me sick.”

He flipped me off and poured himself some coffee. Sitting at the kitchen island, he sighed, “I don’t care man, she’s something else.”

Asking the question I knew he was thinking about, I pressed, “So what happens with you guys after this?” I was referring to being here, in this weird little alternate universe we were in for the week.

His shoulders slumped slightly, losing that puffed-up strut he had earlier.

“We agreed that it would be best if we just went our separate ways. She’s got a life here and obviously I have to go back to Chicago. It is what it is.”

This disappointed me slightly, but I wasn’t surprised. I liked Shae, she kept him on his toes. She was a good match for Kaner, and definitely not the typical puck bunny sort he went after.

He grinned again. “But I told her to call me if she was ever in Chicago,” he winked.

Supressing a tiny grin, I rolled my eyes at him. Still, I said, “I like her. She’s good for you.”

“Thanks dad,” he muttered, sarcasm thick. I threw a wadded paper towel at his head, but he continued, just to anger me. “But you should see what she can do-,” he boasted, making some suggestive hand motions.

“Kaner, shut the fuck up, I don’t really want to hear it” I barked at him, a little harsher than I anticipated. I knew he was just razzing me but I didn’t want to talk about his awesome hook-up when mine had went really well until it crashed and burned.

“Jeez, you’re awfully crabby for someone who got laid last night,” he said, making a couple lewd hip-thrusting motions.

Setting my cup down, I turned to him, “She ran off like she had made the biggest mistake of her life.”

Kane, never serious, said, “I figured you’d suck in bed, Captain Serious, but I never thought it was that bad.”

Not feeling much like formulating a witty response, I ignored him and flopped onto the couch.

He held up his hand dramatically as if to prevent my nonexistent next sentence and pulled out his phone.

He held the device up to his ear, pretending to place a call, “Hello, yes this is Patrick Kane. I need a line into the press. THE Jonathan Toews wants a girl that didn’t even know his name a week ago! Whatever will the millions of loyal fan girls do?!”

“Kaner I’m going to beat the living fuck out of you next time we’re on the ice together,” I muttered, my face pressed into the crevice between the back of the couch and the arm.

He was silent for a solid half a minute, practically a record. “Dude, you’ve got it bad,” he said, all traces of mocking gone from his tone. It was a softer one, one that didn’t often come from Patrick Kane.

I started to protest but the color rising in my cheeks sold me out.

Sitting next to me on the couch, Kaner looked at me, “Dude I’ve never seen you like this over a girl. This isn’t the bench, where I can tell you to pull your head out of your ass and play better. You have to talk to her.”

I shook my head, “She didn’t seem much like she wanted to talk this morning.”

He frowned, “Do you like her?”

Almost too quickly I said, “Yeah. I do.”

He threw his hands up, exasperated, “Then talk to her, you idiot!” He said it like it was the simplest thing to comprehend.

While I knew it wasn’t that easy to resolve, talking to Kaner a bit about it, and knowing Shae would put a good word in for me lifted my mood slightly. I don’t know what was compelling me to pursue this girl, knowing I would have to leave soon but she was just so… different. Talking to her came easily and there was no pressure to be the famous athlete Jonathan Toews. Everything was candid and unforced when Eliza was around. She doesn’t care who I am, but I care very much about who she is.

I was quiet for a second, before leaping up and grabbing Kaner in a headlock. He struggled against my unexpected assualt, almost wriggling out, but I have a few inches of height and a decent amount of weight on him, giving me more leverage.

“And for the record, Peeks, my performance last night was great, the likes of which you could only imagine,” I said, ruffling his hair as he thrashed around.



Kaner and I arrived at the gun range after Duncs and Shawzie. As we walked up, the two big bastards catcalled and whistled.

Shaw, being the loudmouth he is, calls, “Nice of you to join us finally, loverboys.”

Kaner calls back, “I don’t know about Jon here, but I didn’t get much sleep last night, sorry guys.”

Feigning a stretch and a yawn, I told him, “Yeah, I was pretty preoccupied last night. You guys look well rested though.”

While it shut up Keith and Shaw, Kaner was doubled over with raucous laughter with a classically overkill reaction. He often found it especially funny when I gave a good chirping, as it didn’t happen as often as with some of the other guys.

Pushing a still breathless Kaner out of the way, I wandered over to the kiosk with the artillery and ear protection. Duncs was already ignoring us, shooting at a target with a compact handgun, and Shaw was asking Kaner for the details of his evening with Shae.

Surprisingly, Patrick was being coy with Shawzie. Typically, he’d spill the juicy details, but for some reason he was kind of clammed up, giving the most generic possible responses, and went as far as pulling his ear protection on and signaling for the attendant to shoot the clay pigeons before Shaw backed off.

Something tells me that Kaner has it just as “bad” as I do.



The next morning, I woke up too early feeling restless and cagey, and I wanted nothing more than to put on some skates and run some drills, if only to clear my head. Since there obviously wasn’t any ice around, I was going to have to make due with a long run.

Having actually been damn well wiped out, I went back to the cabin and went to bed early while the other three goons sat around drinking in Keith and Duncs’ cabin. I slept well, but waking up at 5:30 wasn’t ideal when I knew there was no chance of the other three being up until at least ten.

After re-tying one of my shoes, I took off down one of the many paths that criss-crossed the property.

I ran hard, not slowing down when my lungs burned and the muscles in my legs screamed for a rest. It felt good after a week of not working out in a consistent fashion, and allowed my mind to focus on the primal need for breathing instead of the weird teenager-like angst I was having over a girl.

Making a big loop away from the main buildings, I ran through a wooded area, near pastures with cows grazing and up and down some rocky bluff. There were no clouds and the sky was vast and blue with crisp mountains etched along the horizon. Eliza was right. This place has a knack for making you feel insignificant.

Five miles later, I was dripping sweat and my calves ached with exertion but I felt better. It was still early in the morning, but the sun was already starting to beat down. As I walked toward the main part of the property to cool down, I could see the movement of someone out in the big sand arena in front of the biggest barn.

Getting closer, I could tell it was Eliza, riding the same horse we had seen her on the last few times.

Though far enough away that she didn’t notice me right away, I was still close enough to watch her work. It was obvious this is what she is best at. The way she made it look incredibly effortless told me that what she was doing is not at all easy and she had put years of effort into perfecting her art.

A quality I found admirable as an athlete. And one I found incredibly attractive.

I definitely noticed the way her tanned, toned arms made the subtlest motions to correct and guide her horse. Her hair flew out behind her like a flag, contrasting starkly with the blue of the sky. Murmuring soft praises and commands to the sweating animal, I could see her gorgeous, full lips moving.

Finally, she pulled him up to a halt, and let him rest, giving him a pat on the shoulder. Taking a moment to look around, she looked panicked again when she came to the realized she was being watched.

Well, maybe it wasn’t that she was being watched as much as being watched by me.

I held my hands up, palms towards her, hoping she would recognize it as a peaceful motion, the physical embodiment of a white flag.

She relaxed back into the saddle for a moment, and I caught the way her eyes looked up and down my now shirtless body. Suddenly, I was thankful for the early morning heat as it had caused me to pull it off while running.

Fighting the urge to smirk triumphantly at her blatant appraisal of my physique, I just said, “Hey.”

She cleared her throat. “Hey,” she muttered, not looking directly at me. Rather, it was like she was staring through her horse’s ears.

I rubbed my hand across the back of my neck awkwardly. I honestly hadn’t thought this far ahead.

“Look, El-,” I started, but she hopped out of the saddle lithely, and turned her and her horse away to walk back to the barn.

“Jon, I get it, let’s pretend it never happened, okay?” she said over her shoulder.

I groaned in complete exasperation, “I don’t want to do that, Eliza!” I almost yelled it.

She stopped abruptly. Relief flooding my brain, I stammered out, “I just-I…well, fuck, Eliza, I like you. I don’t know!”

Smooth one, Toews.

She turned back to me, perplexed. The arch of her eyebrow reminded me of how animated some of her expressions were, something I found extremely cute.

“What?” she slowly said.

I stared at the ground, trying to formulate a coherent sentence. I wanted to blurt out that I wanted to know every detail of everything about her.

Instead I said, “I want to get to know you.”

Her face softened, and I would swear she almost smiled.

“You’re kidding,” she said.

“Let me take you to dinner. Tonight,” I said the only thing I could think of.

She rolled her eyes, “Jon, you leave in two days. You don’t have to take me to dinner to feel less guilty about sleeping with me.”

“That’s not at all why I want to!” I nearly choked trying to get the words out as quickly as possible. “Just come on.”

It felt surreal to be begging a girl to go out with me. Usually I want to beg them to leave me alone.

Still looking skeptical, she nodded slowly. Crossing her arms, she said, “Fine, but I’m picking the place.”