5. Olivia

5

OLIVIA

“Ladies and gentlemen, AmeriJet welcomes you to Atlanta, Georgia, where the local time is 11:37am. For your continued safety, and the safety of your fellow passengers, please remain seated with your seatbelt fastened and keep the aisles clear until the aircraft has come to a complete stop at the gate. Once again, thank you for choosing to fly AmeriJet, and on behalf of all of our crew, we would like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.”

I hang up the intercom and my smile stays fixed in place until the last passenger has safely disembarked from the plane. Then, I finally turn off my ‘customer-service’ mode, which is basically just a huge toothy grimace and my soothing, almost-a-human-robot voice.

“Phew.” I step out of one of my pumps so I can rub my heel.

“That flight felt like it took fourteen hours, not four,” says my colleague and new friend, Jing, as she grabs a trash bag and begins gathering seat garbage. She winces as she deposits what looks like a used bandaid in the bag. “Gross.”

“Happy Thanksgiving to us, indeed.” I wrinkle my nose as I retrieve my cell phone and flick off airplane mode.

You’d be amazed what people leave in their seats—and we only do an elementary garbage pick-up. I feel bad for the cleaning crew who come in behind us to properly disinfect the plane. They find the worst of it in all the seats’ nooks and crannies. One cleaner told me that she found used underwear stuffed between 36E and 36F once.

Would actually make a great job for my pantie-stealing roommate, Shannon.

Speak of the devil, she texted me during the flight.

You’re away for Thanksgiving, right?

I frown as I type out my reply, idly wondering how long ago she sent the message.

No, I just landed back in ATL. Going out for dinner but I’ll be home later.

Her response is almost instantaneous.

Oh, okay. I thought you were gone for the holidays.

For Christmas. But I’m home today.

I still haven’t gotten my December schedule, but it should turn up in my email in the next day or two. My phone lights up again.

I didn’t know you were coming home.

My frown deepens at her message, until yet another one pops up.

If it looks like someone was in your room, it’s probably just because I went in there to check that nobody was in there.

Should have guessed.

Were you sleeping in my bed again, Shannon?

No, but I think somebody else was.

The sheets already had makeup on them when I went to check that nobody was in there.

Translation: Shannon was, indeed, sleeping in my room while I was gone. Probably while wearing my underwear.

Which serves as my daily reminder that I need to find a new living situation immediately.

Yesterday’s reminder was the e-invite I received from Gregory-the-Scottish-Bagpiper for the “Annual Three-Day Christmas Rave” which will be taking place in our apartment. Because nothing says celebrating the birth of our dear Lord and Savior like EDM music, strobe lights, and ecstasy.

Thank sweet baby Jesus I’ll be out of town for that particular atrocity, working somewhere far, far away, I hope. Although I’ll have to make sure I lock my bedroom door before I leave. And maybe give poor Mrs. Kibitzky a warning that the apparently “annual” tradition will be continuing this year.

My phone pings again and I’m about to tell Shannon to get out of my room and stay out , but it’s Jake this time.

You home yet? Sof has an appointment that might go late so she’ll meet you at the game. Your name’s on the list, so just tell security who you are and they’ll let you through to the box.

Thanks. Good luck today!

I feel like he might actually need it. Since I saw Jake for breakfast early last week, the Cyclones played two games on the road—losing to Baltimore, then tying with Toronto. I’d like to say this was all Aaron’s fault, but I’m not that petty. Or blind. He scored the only Cyclones goal in either game.

Thankfully, he didn’t make good on his threat of pulling a stunt like dedicating a goal to me. Although, a few hours after our breakfast at Essy’s, at midday on the dot, I got a delivery to my apartment that consisted of an Essy’s breakfast burrito, a can of Diet Coke, and a note that said: I know you prefer your eggs soggy, but this will have to suffice for your lunch today .

Which some people might have mistaken for a nice gesture, but they would be exactly that: mistaken. Delicious as the burrito was, it was clearly a signature passive-aggressive Aaron Marino move.

Aaron is clearly the same flippant playboy he’s always been, and I’d do well to remember that. I saw the way he dismissed his date in the bar a few months ago, just as I saw those texts on his phone the other morning.

It’s sad, really, that his neanderthal brain hasn’t evolved from his MILF-loving high school days.

“So what are your plans for this afternoon?” I ask Jing as I start helping her with the trash pick-up.

“Hot pot,” she says almost dreamily. “My grandma’s super secret broth recipe. We eat hot pot every Thanksgiving now, but we also have turkey on the side. And my mom makes pumpkin pie from scratch for dessert because she thinks it’s the best American cuisine.”

“I love it.” I grab a bottle of Prime and toss it in my recycling bag, ignoring the way my chest tightens a little at my own lack of happy memories of my family spending holidays together.

Jing is a third-generation Chinese American, and I think it’s awesome that her family gathers to celebrate the holiday while putting their own spin on it.

“Are you still going to the game?” Jing asks as she ties a knot at the top of her trash bag.

“Yup. Sure you don’t wanna come?”

Jing loves hockey—well, she loves hockey players, to be exact. The woman has clearly read way too many sports romance books, because she seems to have a very skewed version of what these men are really like.

“I totally would any other time, but… hot pot .”

“I get it,” I tell her as I rummage in my bag for one of my nut-free granola bars—all this talk of food is making me hungry. “I’d probably go for the hot pot, too, under different circumstances.”

One of those circumstances being that, since moving here, I haven’t managed to make it to a single one of Jake’s games . Though, in my defense, I happened to be working during every home game so far.

I’m looking forward to seeing the famous Atlanta vs Vegas Thanksgiving Special in person. When I was living in the UK, I watched every one of Jake’s games I could on TV, often staying up until the wee hours. I’m my brother’s biggest fan and am endlessly proud of him… even if supporting Jake means supporting Aaron by default.

I can’t believe they’ve ended up on the same NHL team after playing together at school all those years ago. Jake went on to play college hockey at McGill, eventually getting picked up by Montreal, then being traded to Boston, before finally ending up in Atlanta. Aaron, meanwhile, declared for the draft his senior year of high school and went third. He’s been playing for the Cyclones his entire career.

“I’m honestly sad to miss it.” Jing sighs dreamily. “Blow Dallas Cooper a kiss from me.”

This makes me laugh. “My brother would have a conniption.”

“Fine. Blow one to Aaron Marino instead.”

“I will absolutely not be doing that in this lifetime.”

Jing rolls her eyes at me. “I still don’t understand how you could possibly think he’s not a fine specimen of a man.”

“I never said that,” I correct her. Objectively, Aaron is disgustingly good-looking and I hate that for him. “What he looks like is totally irrelevant to me, because the man is insufferable and lives to make me miserable. Has done so since we were teenagers.”

“Still,” Jing continues all swooningly. “You’ll be sitting with all the players’ wives and families in the box at the game, and then you get to just go and have dinner with them all after. What a dream .”

“Oh, no.” I shake my head firmly. “Dinner tonight will just be me, Jake, and his girlfriend. No one else.”

With any luck, I won't have to come across Aaron’s incessantly annoying path at all today. I’m intending to hurry Jake and Sofia along after the game ends so we can enjoy our dinner in peace.

Besides, I have no idea what Aaron does for Thanksgiving and I don’t care to know. Perhaps he doesn’t even celebrate because he has male pattern baldness and a micropenis and therefore feels he has nothing to be thankful for.

“Happy Thanksgiving, ladies,” calls Benson—one of the pilots—as he heads towards the plane’s exit. With his kind brown eyes, he reminds me somewhat of a labrador puppy.

“Same to you, Ben!” I reply, and he winks at me before stepping out, whistling as he goes.

“That guy wants you,” Jing hisses under her breath as we stack our trash bags in the galley.

“No, he doesn’t.”

“He winks at you like he wants you.”

I give her a look before retrieving our carry-ons from the staff overhead. “That’s what you said about poor old Mortimer, and it turned out he just had a lazy eye.”

“Details, details.” Jing waves a hand airily as we step off the plane and into the airbridge. “I’m right this time, though.”

“Right or wrong, it’s never gonna happen.”

Ben is really nice, don’t get me wrong. Handsome, too. But his reputation precedes him, and I have absolutely zero interest in dating players. No matter the career they have.

“Pity.” Jing’s eyes linger on Benson’s retreating backside. “I think he’d be a total animal in the sack.”

“Gross, Jing.”

And with that entirely disconcerting thought about a man I work with, I bid goodbye to my crazy friend. Then, I duck into the airport bathrooms to get changed before hopping on the train to the RGM arena.

Nothing like spending my first Thanksgiving back stateside in a frigid, stale-beer-and-ammonia-scented arena, cheering on my big brother while doing my best to ignore the man I cannot stand as he skates onto the ice to the cheers of his adoring fans.