Thursday, May 17, 2012

one

“Allo?”  Danny looked around the empty classroom, then crossed toward the office at the back.  “Miss Cardenne?”

“Oh, hi,” said a voice behind him.  “You’re early.”

He turned around to a surprising sight: a young woman with light brown hair and side-swept bangs, wearing black pants and a red cardigan with white polka dots.  She was about 5’7”, smiling, and very, very pretty.  

Damn it, Cameron.

She crossed the room to him, her slacks accentuating the slender shape of her thighs.  Danny directed his eyes farther up.  The top three buttons on her sweater were open, revealing a white tank top stretched across her chest.  Lower, and all he got was the curvy flare of her waist.  He pried his gaze away.

“Mr. Briere, I’m Sara Cardenne.  It’s nice to meet you.”

“Please, call me Danny.”

If Sara had guessed, she’d have expected him to say that.  But in truth she hadn’t expected this at all. At 28, in five years of teaching, she’d never had a student with a famous parent.  Now Danny Briere, hockey star, standing there in a black crew neck sweater and gray pants, coat over one arm, waiting for her to say something.  His face was almost perfectly heart-shaped, accentuated by the fall of his hair around kind brown eyes.  One side was tucked behind an ear that she could have sworn was a little bit pointy.  He was kind of elfin.

And kind of hot.  Shit.

“I wasn’t expecting you... to be you, I mean.  I guess I was expecting Cameron’s mother.”

“The boys live with me, so it’s probably my fault when they get in fights.  At least they hope so - I don’t get as mad as their mother.”  Danny smiled, then quickly remembered why he was here.  It was not to flirt with this very attractive girl.  “I’m sorry, I don’t meant to joke.  It’s very serious, what’s happened.”

Cameron had been in a fight at school.  He was in the fifth grade, hadn’t really started to grow.  The boys in his classes had always been a little awed over Cameron’s father being a hockey star.  Now they were at the age where it would make him as big a target as anything else.

“Would you like to sit?”

Sara turned a nearby chair to the side and motioned for Danny to sit across from her.  At two school desks they looked like kids chatting before class.  It was so much more normal than making a parent sit in the front row while she sat behind her teachers’ desk.

“I’m sorry Cameron troubled you,” Danny said honestly.  He never wanted his sons to receive special treatment because of who he was.  “He told me the other boy was giving him a hard time.  Is that true?”

The concern on his face was so genuine that Sara wanted to reach out and touch his cheek.  Which would have been ridiculous.  But he looked so innocent, almost like a kid himself, and his voice was quiet and as little high-pitched.  Sara knew he’d had a rough and public divorce - the teachers still whispered about it, some kids made mean comments.  Hard to believe someone would put this gentle-seeming man through the wringer.  Without meaning to, she looked to where his left hand lay on his knee.  No ring.

She made a snap decision.

“Listen, Danny.  I’m not supposed to say this, but the other kid deserved it.  He’s a smart mouth who doesn’t know when to quit.  I didn’t hear what he said, but some of the other kids told me.  Cameron wouldn’t even tell.”

Danny looked at this pretty girl, defending his son.  She twisted her fingers together in clear discomfort.

“I’m supposed to say they’re both in trouble and will only get this one warning.  Another fight and either of them would be suspended.  That’s the school rule.”  Sara looked up from her hands.  “But just so you know, Cameron is a good kid.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate that.  I’ll still tell him he’s in trouble.”

They shared a smile over their little secret, and Sara stood.

“That’s it?” Danny asked, getting to his feet.  He had assumed the principal or some other administrator would speak with him, mostly because of who he was.  They always seemed to pop up when he came to school.

“I, uh...,” Sara made an embarrassed face.  “I didn’t tell anyone when we were meeting.  Just in case it really was you.”

He laughed and dropped his head, blushing like a fool.  “Thank you.”

“We have to meet again in a week, with Cameron, just make sure they’re not fighting off school grounds or something.  The more time that passes, the better.  If there were another fight, I mean,” she explained.

“There won’t be, I assure you, but....” He was going to say he’d look forward to seeing her again, this lovely young lady who had gone out of her way for them.

“School rules,” she said, trying not to smile.  If it hadn’t been the rule, she might have made it up on the spot.  When else was she going to get to see Danny Briere again, except on television?  “And I won’t tell anyone when.”

“See you in a week, then.”

They shook hands and Danny noticed how small hers was in his grip.  Sara thought his was perfectly warm.  She showed him to the classroom door with a pleasant goodnight.

Twenty minutes later he was home.  The boys were devouring a bowl of popcorn.  After paying the babysitter, Danny changed into sweats and a t-shirt and called Cameron into the kitchen.  He heard the older boys, Caelan and Carson, making ominous noises.  Cameron had his head down as he climbed onto a stool.

“I met Miss Cardenne,” Danny said in French.  Cameron just nodded.  “She’s nice, eh?”

Cameron nodded again.

“And she told me what that boy was saying about you,” Danny lied.  He hadn’t even asked, because if it was specifically about him or his ex-wife Sylvie he would get mad.  Better just to know it was mean and baiting.  

Cameron bought it though, looking up at his father with wide eyes.  “She knew? I didn’t tell her!”

“She knew.  And you know what she said?”

Cameron shook his head, still looking scared.

“She said the kid deserved it.”

Cameron’s little mouth fell open in disbelief.

“But that doesn’t make it okay, Cam.  You can’t fight everyone who says nasty things.  I would have a fight every game if I did that.  Imagine Claude, he’d spend sixty minutes in the box.”  Danny referred to Claude Giroux, his star teammate and close friend who had been their housemate last season.  “And the things guys say to us are much worse.  So no more fighting, okay?”

Cameron nodded for the third time, but now he was looking his father in the eye.

“If you need something,” Danny said, “tell Miss Cardenne.  I think she might do your fighting for you.”

“Okay Dad.”  Cameron moved around the counter.  Danny folded him into a hug and kissed the top of his head.  He knew his son couldn’t wait to get back to his brothers and tell them he was off the hook.

“And, Cam?”

Cameron looked up.

Danny smiled.  “You could have told me she was so pretty, eh?”

He made a face.  “Dad!  Ew!” and ran off.
____

A week passed, to the date she’d set with Danny for the follow-up meeting.  Sara laughed at herself as she got ready for work.  It wasn’t as if she never wore a dress, just not the norm.  Today she was wearing a sleeveless navy blue number with white pinstripes and a yellow belt.  Tucking her feet into brown mary janes, she knew it wasn’t too dressy.  Just five times more effort than she usually put into a work outfit.

She’d thought of Danny in the days following their first meeting.  It couldn’t be easy as the single dad of three sons.  A quick Google search had told her that in addition to 10-year old Cameron, there were 12-year old Carson and 13-year old Caelan.  She’d looked at one story regarding his splashy divorce - the one involving a porn star and text messages - and decided she didn’t believe it.  He seemed way too nice for anything like that.  Instead she looked at a few photos of him - he wasn’t gorgeous, but Sara was definitely attracted to him.  There was something about Danny that wasn’t captured in pictures.

At lunchtime, she got a message from the front office to call Danny.

Well, there’s his number, she laughed to her empty classroom.  “Hello, Danny?  This is Sara Cardenne, Cameron’s teacher.”

“Sara, hello,” Danny said.  He felt flustered, as if he were breaking a date.  Not that he’d been thinking about Sara that way at all over the past week.  Or at least not every day.  “I’m sorry, but I can’t make the meeting today.  My babysitter cancelled.  Could we reschedule?”

Sara’s stomach clenched in disappointment, then she immediately snapped her eyes back open and stood up straight.  He was the father of one of her students, not some guy she met in a bar.  

A parent-teacher conference is not a date!

“Of course.  I could do any day after school this week,” she said in a hopefully composed voice.

“I, uh... merde,” Danny gasped.  “Sorry!  I didn’t mean to say that!”

Sara laughed, thinking he was really too damned cute.  “Now you’ve got detention.  And extra homework.”

Danny was glad she couldn’t see his red face as he backtracked.  “Sorry.  I have a road trip this week, we leave tomorrow at one.  You’ve still got school then?”

“Yeah, and Cameron has class.  Plus this place is packed, you shouldn’t come then.  When are you back?”

“Ten, eleven...,” he counted, “Twelve days.  Oh, sorry.  I should have thought of this before, I could have come yesterday.  Now it will be two weeks.”

She nearly groaned in frustration - at the delay, and at herself for acting like a teenager at a pop concert.  “No problem, I’m sure I can get them to extend it.  The conference just goes in our files anyway.  They must understand with your schedule that....”

“Does it have to be at the school?” he cut in suddenly.

“Uh, no.  I guess not.”

Danny didn’t know what he was doing, and it definitely wasn’t a good idea.  He’d had this girl in the corner of his mind for a week, knowing he shouldn’t be thinking about his son’s teacher at all.  Something about her stuck with him.  And now she was offering exactly the kind of special treatment that he never wanted his kids to get.  Not much of a role model, he thought.

“Would you like to have dinner?” he asked.  Then he quickly added, “With us, I mean.  I could bring the boys.  We could talk with Cameron though, have our meeting.”

Sara almost dropped the phone.  For a second there she thought Danny Briere was asking her out.  The ‘yes’ was on the tip of her tongue, just waiting to fall to both of their deaths.  An out-of-school conference though, that was a much more reasonable request.  Plus there would still be dinner.

She smiled to herself.  “Sure.  Where should I meet you?”

“How about Dave & Busters on Columbus?  The boys love that place, they can play a game while we talk to Cameron.  If you don’t mind an arcade going on around you.”  Danny realized he was shredding the piece of paper in his hands.  Some first date, Dave & Busters.

“That’s fine.  How’s six-thirty?”

“Perfect, we’ll be there.”

“See you tonight, Danny.”  Sara put her head down but lost the fight against a giggle rising in her throat.  At least she was alone with nothing but library posters and world maps to hear her acting like an idiot.

Danny debated ten seconds while looking at the phone in his hand, hit ‘add contacts’ and put Sara into his phone book.  You never know, I might need to call her again, he pretended.  When I ask Cam to get in another fight so I can see his teacher.
____

“Is this a date?!” Caelan asked when Danny told the boys their dinner plans.

“Shut up, Caelan!” Carson yelled.  “I wanna go to Dave & Busters!”

Danny tried not to smile at the question.  “Boys, stop.  It’s not a date. We’re supposed to have a parent-teacher conference tomorrow and I can’t make it, so she’s meeting us tonight.  You should be nice to her, she has been very nice to us.”  

“Yeah, she stopped Cam from getting his butt kicked!” Caelan teased.  Cameron took a swing at his older brother but Danny easily held them apart at arm’s length.

“I can still cancel,” he threatened.  The boys all ran for the car.
____

Sounds poured from the restaurant - bells and whistles and sports on TV.  Sara nodded at the hostess with a mumbled, “I’m meeting someone.”  It wasn’t too crowded - the bar area was full for happy hour and a few tables were occupied in the front.  Along the far wall some early games of air hockey or free throw basketball had started.  

“Miss Cardenne!”   She turned at the shout and saw Cameron standing up in a booth, waving at her.  

Here goes.  Four sets of eyes watched her cross the room toward their table.

“Hi,” she said brightly, looking first at the boys.  They were definitely brothers - all with shaggy dark-hair and fair skin.  Their father was also there, wearing a big smile and a bright blue sweater.

Thump, said Sara’s heart.

“Sara, thank you for meeting us.”  Danny half-stood as best he could in the booth and reached out to shake her hand.  He’d given himself the ten seconds she was walking over to admire how the slight heel of her shoe showed off her toned legs, and the hint of thigh that flashed when her skirt moved.  Her hair was pulled back, bangs free, and she wore a soft-looking cardigan with three-quarter sleeves.  Minus the three adolescent boys, and the fact it wasn’t a date, it was looking like a pretty good night.

Sara met Cameron’s brothers - the oldest, Caelan had a rounder face and the middle boy Carson looked most like their dad.  They had clearly been made to wait at table until she arrived.  As soon as they said hello, their little faces were pleading to be allowed to play games.

“Alright, alright!  Tell me what you want and go,” Danny laughed.

When the boys had ordered, they ran for the arcade and Sara dropped into the booth across from Danny.  He watched his sons disappear as if expecting to hear an explosion or breaking glass.  When he turned his eyes back to her, a tiny blush rose in her cheeks.

Alone again.

“That is a handful,” she said.  “Do they take good care of each other?”

He nodded.  “Yeah.  Not old enough to stay home alone though, they’d burn the place down.  Hence the babysitter, who cancelled tonight.  Sorry about that. I’m sure you have something better to do than work after hours.”

Something better to do than have dinner with Danny Briere, she thought to herself.  “Not at all.  I haven’t been here in ages.”

Danny wondered if she had a boyfriend.  He wondered how old she was, if she liked hockey, if she was forbidden to date a student’s father.  Tiny silver hoops glinted at her earlobes as she watched at the wall of TV’s behind the bar.  A smile crossed her lips, and she pointed.  There he was on a TV five feet high, scoring and then celebrating a goal in the game two nights before.

“Nice shot,” she said.

“Do you like hockey?”  One question off his list.

“I’ve been to a few games.  Cameron tells me you’re going to win the Cup this year.”

“He says that every year,” Danny rolled his eyes.

Sara just nodded.  “Then one year he’ll be right.”

Danny asked about her job, every word making it feel more like a first date.  Sara explained that she taught fifth grade English in addition to being Cameron’s homeroom teacher.  Since his fight had been at recess, it fell under her charge.  “No one ever fights in English class.  I’d make them act out a scene where two characters duel, then read it for homework.  Takes the fun right out of it.”

The waitress nearly stumbled at the sight of Danny.  Of course working in a sports bar meant she would recognize him.  She instantly looked at Sara, sizing her up, and her expression was not pleasant.  Danny nearly groaned in frustration.

Every fucking time.  

It had been one thing when it was Sylvie, his ex-wife.  She was used to it.  But most dates since then had been Danny running interference between the woman he was with and some other woman who thought that wasn’t good enough.  He tried to be thankful he wasn’t Claude, whose dates had been called names and had drinks spilled on them.  It was all too tiring.  He just subtracted from this woman’s tip for every time she looked down her nose at Sara.

Sara let Danny order first, all four dinners.  She watched the waitress try to hold his gaze and laugh coquettishly at her own jokes.  It was the least creative flirting she’d ever witnessed.  When he finished, Sara asked for a burger and an ice tea.  The waitress glared at her like she was inexcusably rude to expect dinner in a restaurant and strutted away, leaving cold air in her wake.  Sara met Danny’s eyes and made a face.

“Wow.”

“Sorry,” Danny sighed.   

“Does that always happen?”

He nodded silently, looking momentarily older and exhausted.  Sara reached across the table and put her hand on Danny’s arm, just above his wrist.  

“Don’t tell Cameron, but I’m switching my plate with his.  That girl is totally going to spit in my food.”

Danny burst out laughing.  He covered his face with both hands and hung his head.  Sara pinched her lips together in a guilty smile.  They talked for another fifteen minutes about Caelan and Carson’s schooling - Sara hadn’t been their teachers - and about Cam’s other subjects.  Nothing beyond the scope of a parent-teacher conference, except that they were sitting alone at a table in a restaurant, each one having put more than the usual care into their appearance.  Danny almost forgot he wasn’t on a date, then almost forgot she was Cam’s teacher.  Sara was funny and smart and really, really pretty.

“You have to come to a game sometime,” he said.  “And don’t worry, you won’t have to sit with the boys.”

“I’d love to sit with them,” Sara offered.  “I can watch them, and they can tell me what’s happening.”

Un-date, she thought.  A very merry un-date that was going extremely well.  Fucking figures.  Danny was sweet and obviously devoted to his kids.  He knew what classes they were in, what they were good at - he wasn’t an absentee parent and no nanny was raising those boys.  Sara couldn’t help volunteering to spend more time with them.  

“I’m going to take you up on that,” Danny warned.

Their food arrived, delivered by the same waitress.  She asked if they needed anything else like Danny might request a hand job right at the table.  When she was gone, he was the one to switch Sarah’s burger for Cameron’s.  “He will never know.”

Sara got up over Danny’s protests and found the boys huddled around a pinball machine.  “You guys hungry?”
Carson was leaning against the machine, just watching.  “Are you on a date with our dad?”

She put her hands on her hips.  “I’m here because of Cameron, actually.  I guess you could call it a date, but Cam’s a little young for me, don’t you think?”

Cameron made a face and it caused him to miss the pinball right through the wickets.  The game blared “wah-waaaaaah” as he lost.  Caelen laughed at him and Sara ruffled his hair.

“You don’t want to be my date?!” she mocked.  They ran in the direction of the table, Sara hot on their heels.

Caelan and Carson made room for Sara on their side of the table, while Cameron sat next to Danny.  She found herself glancing at Danny and every time, he was looking back at her.  Sara smiled into her dinner as she took a bite.  This was turning out to be the weirdest night.

Am I on a date with their dad, she marveled at the audacity.  What, does he bring his kids on all his dates?

Then she started wondering how many dates Danny went on, and where he met women.  Clearly he was single or his kids would know.  And if Sara wasn’t mistaken, he was flirting with her, at least in the way he kept meeting her eyes.  Of course she could be completely crazy because Danny Briere was Danny Briere and she was not anyone at all.  

Danny turned the conversation to the boys, who told Sara a hundred and one things about what they liked and thought and did in their free time.  She kept up with them, and he just enjoyed watching them interact.  He knew his kids were good kids.  But not every woman was good with them, even if they were interested in Danny.  It had forced Danny to reevaluate his social life over the last year.

Like most divorces, the Brieres’ marriage was over long before the papers were signed.  It got ugly toward the end, and the media made it worse.  Danny buried his hurt in casual relationships and quick fixes, even running with Jeff Carter’s infamous dalliances and deliberately avoiding anyone who expected him to call back.  He simply couldn’t muster the energy.  But after a while the emptiness caught up with him.  He refocused on hockey and his kids, two things that could always improve.  Over the last two years, they had done so greatly.  In that time he’d noticed that while plenty of women wanted his name or his paycheck, and maybe even him for himself, very few wanted to instantly acquire three teenage sons.  But the Briere boys were a package deal.

It was dangerously easy to spend family time with Sara.  He didn’t even know her and she was handling his kids better than some women he’d dated for months.  This is going to be very unfair when she’s not interested in me, Danny thought hopelessly.  With each passing moment, it became more and more clear that he would have to try anyway.

“Boys, Miss Cardenne offered to take you to a game if you teach her the rules.  Think you can behave well enough so she doesn’t hate hockey forever?”

Carson and Caelan looked at each other and smiled.  “Ooooh, second date!” they sang.

“What?” Danny demanded.  Were they calling this a date?  Had they said that to her?  He’d be mortified, she might think he’d told them it was a date.

“She’s on a date with Cam.  They can hold hands at the hockey game!” Carson squealed.

“Nooo, you guys, come on!” Cameron was beet red.

Sara feigned shock.  “Jeez, Cam. You’re not even going to hold my hand?!”

They teased him a little longer, till plates were clean and glasses were empty.  Danny sent Caelan and Carson to play more games while he and Sara talked with Cameron.  The boys made kissing noises as they ran away.

“Sorry Cameron,” Sara said when they were gone.  “I’m only kidding.”

“I know,” he smiled brightly.  “They’re jealous.  Caelan likes a girl in his class and she thinks he’s gross.  At least you’re nice.”


Sara smiled at Danny, who was rolling his eyes.

“Cam, we’re supposed to talk about what happened.  Miss Cardenne was nice enough to ruin her night to be here....”

“It’s not ruined!”  She smacked his arm lightly.  “I’m having fun!  Cam, I just want to make sure you’re okay.  Is that kid giving you any more trouble?”

“No.”

Sara  checked Danny’s eyes to see if he thought Cameron was being honest.  “Not just to you, Cam.  I want to know if he says anything to anyone about you, okay?  I know it’s really uncool to tell a grown up, but it doesn’t make you a tattle tale.  It makes you smart.  If you fight him, you’ll both be in trouble with school - big trouble this time.”  She waited a moment until Cameron looked at her.  “If you let him get you in trouble, then he wins.  Let him get himself in trouble instead.  Okay?”  

Cameron nodded and Sara believed that he understood the best way to beat this kid was by doing nothing at all.  

Danny fought to keep the smile from his face.  A serious conversation was not the time to fall completely in love with a stranger.  A girl with her own life who had twenty-five kids in her class every day and probably wanted nothing to do with them when she got home.  Being good with her kids was her job, and Sara was a pro.  Danny’s job as a father was to be realistic about his family, and he was faltering now.

“Good, because you’re smart, Cam.  Don’t be afraid to be smarter than a bully.”

Danny’s heart was roaring to kiss her.  No big deal.

“Thanks, Miss Cardenne,” Cam said quietly.

“Outside of school you can call me Sara.  Now let’s go, I’ll kick your butt at air hockey.”

Released from interrogation, Cameron jumped out of his seat.  Sara was right behind him.  She came around the table and leaned a knee on the bench next to Danny.

“Come on, Briere.  I’ll go easy on you.”
____

9 comments:

  1. i hate the flyers (go pens!) but you make it so easy to love them!

    ReplyDelete
  2. and i am probably just looking in the wrong spot, but i cant find where to follow this story! please help :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am having the same problem!

      Delete
  3. I can tell I'm going to love this story like I love all your stories! It's about time Danny got some attention. Thank you for swallowing your hatred for this team and writing about two Flyers in a row!! Can't wait for your next update!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow... you are accomplishing the impossible. I am falling in love with Danny Briere. I never thought those words would fall from my mouth.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I can't believe I like this story as much as I do (solely because of my loyalty to the Penguins!) I find myself really liking Danny now. Can't wait to read your next update!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love this story, but then again I've read all of your stories in the past 2 weeks and loved them all. Can't wait for your next update! Keep writing as much as possible, I'll be reading.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You make it so easy to not hate Flyers, esp. Danny. I know I'm going to fall in love with this story.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I just found this story........and am totally out of he loop! I'm going to read my pants off until I'm caught up!!!!

    ReplyDelete