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[spine-buster]

The President Wears Prada (William Nylander) | Chapter 4

September 28th 2019

Aberdeen Bloom was letting it all out.  

Siena had called, cooped up in her room in the house she rented with two other girls, taking a break from studying for torts law or shorts law or whatever type of law it was that she had to study.  It was these moments – moments when Siena caught up with her younger sister – that reminded her that she was slaving through law school because Aberdeen would probably need a lawyer one day after doing something colossally stupid.  She’d usually start the conversations with “You can’t tell mom and dad…” and Siena would promise not to.  And, well, she’d keep that promise.  Because sisters never told.  They only ever told on Camden.

Aberdeen told Siena about the night with William in June – she told her about a week later, after Siena was finally settled back into her place in Ottawa.  They’d talked about it for a while and had come to terms with the fact that Aberdeen would never see William again because of the whole Sweden thing and because of the fact that Toronto was a city full of a few million people.  They’d accepted it and moved on.

But then, of course, William showed up in the elevator on her first day of work and the floodgates opened.  

“Wait…hold on a second,” Siena held her hand up.  “You’re telling me you hooked up with a Toronto Maple Leaf.”

“Yes.”

“A hockey player.  That guy was a hockey player.”

“Yes,” Aberdeen stressed.  

“And now…” Siena paused.  “You work for the president of the team that he plays for.”

“Precisely.”

Siena let out a long, loud sign, facepalming before rubbing her temples.  “I don’t know how you get yourself into these situations, Aberdeen,” she shook her head.  “I honestly don’t.”

“I don’t, either.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

Aberdeen looked at her sister weird.  “There’s nothing I can do about it.  It says right in the employee handbook that no employee and player are allowed to hook up.  I can’t tell Brendan and William can’t tell the rest of the team.  That’s that.”

“Are you scared he might?”

Aberdeen considered the question.  “I really don’t know.  On one side, I feel like if he really wanted to tell them he would have told them already, and Brendan Shanahan would have found out through the grapevine and I would have already lost my job.  Like, I wouldn’t have even gone to Newfoundland.  On the other hand, I feel like the comments he’s been saying to me just make it seem like this is a game to him and he’s waiting on the most opportune moment to tell.”

“Comments?” Siena asked.  

Aberdeen sighed.  “I went to dinner with a bunch of them in St. John’s because Jason invited me, and he asked me who my favourite Leaf was in this really flirty way,” she explained.  “Then a few days later he found me alone and told me I should have said him.  Or at least have said he was fucking awesome because that’s what I said that night after we hooked up.”

Siena facepalmed again.  “Oh, Aberdeen…”

“I know, Siena.”

“Does Kasha know?” she asked.

“Of course Kasha knows.”

“Kasha won’t tell a soul.  She’s good like that.”

“I know.  My problem here is William.”

“Listen, Aberdeen…this is a fucked up situation but it’s…I mean, technically you didn’t hook up with him when you were employee.  It was months before.  You had no idea who he was.  That’s what my lawyer brain is telling me right now.”

“I don’t know if that matters,” Aberdeen said.  “I keep getting told that this is the dream job, that if I do well with Mr. Shanahan I can have my pick of any job in any field that I want in Toronto, including writing.  That’s how well connected he is.  I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side at all.  I have to be on my best behaviour and I have to keep doing well.”

“Then keep being on your best behaviour.  Keep doing your job,” Siena encouraged.  “And keep William away.”

***

September 30th, 2019

With only two days until the start of the season, Brendan had a lot of meetings with a lot of people.  There were meetings with hockey ops, meetings with the head scouts, meetings with player development, meetings with analytics.  It was a much busier time than just three weeks ago.  A lot more coffee runs.  More ordering of catered lunches.  More running around like a chicken with her head cut off, like Brendan said she would.  And this wasn’t even the start of the season.

Brendan wanted her to sit it in on the meeting he had now with basically the entire senior management so they could go over upcoming events and initiatives they’d put on throughout the season.  Kyle Dubas would be there.  Brandon Pridham and Laurence Gilman, the assistant general managers would be there.   Dave Morrison, the director of player personnel would be there.  Brad Lynn, the director of team operations would be there.  Stephen Hare, the director of finance would be there.  Steve Keogh, the director of media relations would be there.  Alison Rockwell, the director of business relations would be there.  Leanne Hederson, the manager of hockey operations would be there.  

Aberdeen was clearly studying the employee directory.  

They had a list of things to talk about, and talked through them all.  Aberdeen had her notebook and tried to take notes, but she felt like she was writing a foreign language and none of this would make sense when she went to read them again.  There was talk about “You Can Play Night”, about galas, about charity golf tournaments, about community outreach programs, about the alumni events, about the MLSE Launchpad initiatives…

Then they started to talk about alternate jerseys.  She thought there was only home and away jerseys, but no, there was apparently a third for a special night.  A “St. Pats” jersey.  It was green.  A definite change from the blue, but they kept going on and on about it.  Do we do this?  What about this?  How about this?  It was incredibly pedantic.  She felt like she was in science class again, doodling instead of taking notes since she had no clue what was being said or what was going on.  

“Do you think we should go with the same one from last season, or should we choose a new design?” Dave Morrison asked.

“It’s hard to say.  If we go with last year’s design, jersey sales may stagnate or decline if we compare it on a year-by-year basis, but a new design will boost that,” Stephen Hare said.

“Well, listen.  It’s the 2019-2020 season.  We can go with the design from 1919-1920,” Brandon Pridhan said, pulling up the mock-ups of the jersey.  Aberdeen took into account the green and white, the lettering, everything.  “Or should we balk the season number and go with this one, the 1926-1927 season design?” he held up the other mock-up.  It was basically the exact same design, except the colours were inverted.  

They were having an extremely serious and long discussion about this?  Aberdeen snorted from the corner.

Suddenly, when she looked up, every eye in the room was on her.  The smile immediately dropped from her face.  Brendan was looking at her.  “Something funny?”

Oh shit.  Oh shit.  Ohfuckohfuckohfuck.  “No, no…” she began, trying to cover for herself.  “It’s nothing – you know – it’s just that they look exactly the same to me.  I…you know, I’m still learning about all this stuff.”

“This…stuff?” Brendan asked, repeating her words.  The look that he gave her – she never wanted to be looked at like that again for the rest of her life.  “Oh…okay.  I see.  You think this has nothing to do with you.  You get hired by the Maple Leafs and you sit in on this meeting with, oh I don’t know, that iPad Pro which the company paid for, and you scoff because you think we’re taking this too seriously, and you don’t care about what jerseys fans put on their back.  But what you don’t know is that this hockey sweater is not just blue and white, it’s not just green and white, it’s actually a symbol,” he paused, moving from his spot at the table, walking around it.  “You’re also blindly unaware of the fact that in 1919 the Toronto Arenas were about to go under, only to be saved by a group of investors who renamed the team the Toronto St. Patricks, and who later made Conn Smythe their managing partner and their eventual owner.  Conn Smythe ended up changing their name in 1927 to the Toronto Maple Leafs because that maple leaf was the national symbol of Canada and, as he said, a badge of courage and a reminder of home of when he was a Canadian Army officer during World War One,” he picked the design he liked most from Brandon and pinned it onto the board, taking another from the pile.  Aberdeen’s heart stopped beating.  “The blue and white, he said, represented the Canadian skies and Canadian snow.  The name has changed, the investors have changed, and the logo has seen design changes, but that maple leaf is a symbol that represents the identity of Toronto, the history of this city, and the pride of the country.  It represents millions of dollars and countless jobs, and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you ever made a choice that exempted you from caring about these jerseys when, in fact, this city’s identity and one of the most well-known national symbols were selected for you by the people in this room who ran this hockey club.  All because of the influence of this stuff.”

He held onto a picture, holding it face up.  She broke eye contact to look down at it, only to see it was the maple leaf that was currently on the jersey.  The thirty-one points, meant to represent 1931 and the opening of Maple Leaf Gardens; the 17-vein detail, meant to represent when the franchise was founded in 1917; the 13 veins at the top, meant to represent the 13 Stanley Cup championships.  She realized what this symbol meant to not only the people in this room, but to the city, to the fabric and identity of it, to its storied past and bright future.  She realized the history behind it, the countless people who wore the sweater or jersey with pride for over a century now.  She realized how wrong and careless she’d been.  

When she looked back up, Brendan was staring at her.  So was everyone else still seated at the board table, some of them with amused looks on their faces.  “I’ll be outside if you need me,” she said, barely above a whisper because she was too embarrassed to even speak.  She clutched her iPad Pro and took the picture, walking out of the room.

The second the door closed behind her, she burst out into tears.  The tears streamed down her face as she escaped into the washroom, slamming the stall door behind her and locking it before breaking down in the bathroom stall.  Brendan Shanahan had just embarrassed her in front of some of the hockey world’s most important people and she deserved it.  She couldn’t believe she could be so fucking stupid and so dumb and callous and just such a…such an idiot.  And now here she was, crying about it in a bathroom stall.  She’d never be able to recover from this.  Brendan would think she was an idiot until the day she died.  He’d die before her and in heaven he’d still think her an idiot.

She stayed in the bathroom stall for a while, crying it all out and eventually stopping because she had no more energy to cry.  She opened the stall door and looked at herself in the mirror, trying to wipe away the tears.  Her eyes were red and of course, her cheeks were stained with tears, but she was thankful that she wore waterproof mascara that day.  She tried to collect herself, even though she had just made a complete ass of herself.  She still had a full day of work to do.  She still had to make it until 5pm.  Somehow.  

When there was nothing more she could do to fix her appearance, she sighed and decided to head back to her desk, ready to face whatever punishment Brendan was going to give her when he got out of the meeting.  There was nothing more she could say or do.  She swung open the door to the washroom and stepped out into the hallway.  

Although when she did, she crashed into a body.  When she looked up, it was, of course, none other than William Nylander.  Because her day couldn’t get any better from here.  “Hey,” he said, smiling at her.  

“What do you need?” she asked, not bothering to greet him.

He noticed the tone of her voice and the redness of her eyes and immediately changed his demeanour.  “What’s wrong?”

She side-eyed him.  As if he cared.  “I just made a complete ass of myself in front of Brendan.  No biggie,” she huffed.  

“Did you get a coffee order wrong or something?”

Now she really side eyed him.  She understood the stereotype of personal assistants, but this was not the time to start making jokes and devaluing her job.  “What do you want?  Why are you even in the offices?” she asked.  

He shrugged his shoulders.  “I wanted to see you.”

She scoffed.  “Oh, get a life, William.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t know why you feel the need to keep taunting me when we’re on the job, but it needs to stop,” she said.  “Don’t you have drills to go through?  Don’t you like, I don’t know, need to tape a stick?”

It was his turn to give her a look.  “Hey, don’t be mad at me just because you screwed up at your job today.  I came up here to see you because I wanted to see you.  I’m trying to be nice.”

“Taunting me at my job isn’t being nice,” she said.  “If you can’t tell, I’m not having a good day.  So I’d appreciate it if you just…wouldn’t.”

“Whatever you did can’t be worse than sleeping with a Maple Leaf and then working for his boss,” William retorted.  

Okay, now she was angry.  She grabbed his arm and dragged him towards the small kitchen – the one she’d retreated to when she walked in on them in their underwear – and shut the door behind them so they could have a private conversation.  “Listen to me,” she began, her voice as steady and as intimidating as it could be.  “I know I’m not saving the world or anything, but this job means a lot to me.  This isn’t a fucking game to me like it is to you.  This is my life.  This is my livelihood.  This is my career prospects in any industry in Toronto if I do a good job here.  And you, William Nylander, are not going to take that away from me.”

“I’m not trying to take that away from you,” William declared.  “Don’t you think that if I didn’t want you here, I would have told the guys or told Brendan already?”

Aberdeen thought back to the conversation she’d had with her sister, where she brought up the exact same point.  She shook her head.  “Then stop with the comments.  Stop with the ‘coming to see me’, flirting in front of your teammates, and the flirting in general.”

“I can’t do that,” he responded.  

“Why not?” she demanded.

“Because I want you.”

The words hung in the air for an uncomfortable amount of time as William and Aberdeen stared at each other, his blue eyes piercing her hazel ones.  Her jaw dropped at his words, and she tried to respond but she couldn’t think of anything to say.  There was nothing to say.  He just dropped a bombshell and she had no way to recover.  He wanted her.  He wanted her.  He…wanted her?  “W…What?”

William didn’t respond.  He only smiled.  He didn’t say anything else as he left those words with her, opening the door and leaving the kitchen, leaving her completely dumbfounded.  

***

Later on that night, as Aberdeen was walking back to her condo after the day’s work (and not seeing Brendan again – probably for the best, since she was going to write out and rehearse her apology she’d tell him tomorrow if she didn’t get a call that she’d been fired tonight), her phone buzzed in her pocket.  She assumed that it would be Kasha, wanting to know what they were going to do for dinner.  But when she looked at her screen, it was an unknown number that texted her.

i promise im not going to tell anybody. im not going to tell any of the guys, or kyle, or brendan, or anyone what happened in june. that stays between us.

im not that guy.  i wouldn’t do that to you.

She stopped dead in her tracks.  A pedestrian behind her almost crashed into her and yelled at her to watch where she was going.  She collected herself and moved off to the side so people could pass by her and she could read the texts over and over and over again.  She didn’t even want to know how he got her number.  She didn’t want to know what covert operation he pulled.  

She gulped.

***

October 1st, 2019

Aberdeen was impatient in the backseat of the town car as she and Lou waited for Brendan to appear.  Her leg was bobbing up and down and she was pretty sure she would have chipped all her nail polish off by now if it wasn’t shellac.  She had written out and rehearsed her apology to him and knew exactly how she was going to deliver it.  She knew she had to makes things right.

“Miss Bloom,” Lou said from the driver’s seat, looking at her through the rear-view mirror like he often did.  “Nervous energy.”

“I’m sorry Lou,” she apologized, trying not to bob her leg.  “I just need to say something to Mr. Shanahan.”

“Something bad?”

“How many apologies have you heard in this car?” she asked.

Lou chuckled.  “Many, Miss Bloom.”

“How does he react to them?”

Lou shrugged.  “Depends.”

She gulped.  As if on cue, Brendan emerged from his house.  Lou got out of the car to open the door for him.  

“Good morning, Aberdeen,” he said, his voice cheery as he got into the backseat.  He already had a stack of newspapers with him.  He was acting as if nothing was wrong.  “How are you this morning?”

“I’m…good,” she replied, confused.  She decided she should just get right into it.  “Mr. Shanahan, can I speak to you about something?”

“Brendan,” he corrected her like he always did.  He was focused on the newspaper in front of him.  “And yes, Aberdeen, you may.”

“Can you look at me?”

That caught his attention.  He lowered the newspaper and took off his glasses, waiting for her to begin.  She took a deep breath.  “I want to sincerely apologize for my comments yesterday in the meeting,” she began.  “It was really insensitive of me to scoff, and then to make that comment – just really callous, and I want to apologize.  I don’t want you thinking that this job means nothing to me, because it does.  It means the world—”

“Aberdeen,” Brendan interrupted her, holding up his hand.  She stopped talking, and could tell he was thinking of what to say.  “First of all, thank you for your apology,” he began.  “What I said to you in that room, in front of everybody – I just wanted to make sure you know the importance of the work we do here.”

“I do.  I mean – I do now.”

“Hockey in Toronto is not just hockey,” he began.  “It’s a living, breathing entity in and of itself.  The sooner you realize that, the sooner you will see the importance of not just my work, or the work of anybody else that was in the room that day, but of your work too.  You are part of the Toronto Maple Leafs now, Aberdeen, whether you like it or not.  You have a role to play here in the success of the team just like anybody else.  Just because you’re an executive assistant, it doesn’t mean you don’t.”

“Yes sir,” she nodded her head.  

“I know you have a steep learning curve to go through.  I knew that when I hired you.  You’ll go through it.  And you’ll make a hell of a lot of mistakes along the way.  But you’ll go through it.  And you’ll come out better.  With more knowledge.  Understood?”

“Yes sir.  Absolutely,” she nodded her head.  Brendan sent her a quick smile before putting his glasses back on and focusing on the newspaper again.  “So…I guess this means I’m not fired?” she asked, just for reassurance.

That actually got a laugh out of Brendan.  “No, Aberdeen.  I could never fire an Etobicoke girl.”

***

October 2nd 2019

The season opener was just pure insanity.  There was no other way Aberdeen could rephrase it besides that – just pure insanity.  Brendan had meetings, she had to coordinate this, she had to run for coffees, she had to go get notes from someone, the phone was ringing off the hook…Lou even had to take her in the town car up to Yorkville, to Prada and to Gucci and to Hermes, so she could pick up ties for him to wear once all the media came rushing in.  It was a complete shit show.  She barely had time to eat, drink, or even think because she was so busy trying to get everything done.  

But something happened to her once she and Brendan made their way up to the media gondola to sit in the President’s private box with Kyle Dubas and Brandon Pridham: she watched the game.  From start to finish, she watched the Toronto Maple Leafs dominate the Ottawa Senators 5-3 to win the game.  She saw Auston Matthews score two goals – and William assist beautifully on one of them.  It was textbook perfect.  She saw the comradery of the boys on the bench.  She saw Brendan and Kyle seem excited.  

She remembered back to how excited the people of Newfoundland were at just a practice and an exhibition game.  She saw how excited the crowd was tonight at the way the team played and the outcome of the game.  

She began to get it.

She followed Brendan out of the gondola so they could head down to the locker room about five minutes before the game was going to end.  When the team began to come in, she wondered if she should clap – her questions were answered when she saw the equipment personnel fist-bump the boys.  She held out her hand to show her support.  Brendan laughed.

“Wooooo!  Let’s go baby!” Auston screamed as he looked directly at her, fist-bumping her with his enormously large hockey glove.  In that moment, she was sure one of them was going to knock her over one day.

“Good job boys!” she yelled out as they trickled in.  John was next, giving her a fist-bump and a quick nod.  

Morgan saw her and screamed at her.  “Wooooo!”

“Wooooo!” she mimicked, smiling from ear to ear as she fist-bumped him.  She held her hand out for Andreas, for Kasperi, and for Sandin.  William filtered through, and when she caught his eye, a large smile appeared on his face.  “Good job boys!” she yelled out again as they fist-pumped.

As they boys filtered into the locker room and began to take off their gear, Brendan walked in, motioning for Aberdeen to follow him.  She stood behind him and Kyle Dubas as they watched Mike Babcock make his post-game speech and present the team with one of the Raptors’ game used balls from their championship run.  One player would get it after every game won.  Auston got it tonight for scoring two goals, and he did a few tricks.  

Aberdeen helped usher Mike into a separate room so he could do post-game media before they went into the locker room.  She watched as a horde of reporters stuck microphones into his face and asked him questions about the game.  When Brendan called her back into the locker room, he told her he was free to go.  

She looked up at one of the TV monitors that was broadcasting Mike’s interview from the other room live, wanting to hear what good things he had to say before she left.  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw William approach her, the bottom half of his gear still on, chucking something into the garbage.  He stood beside her, looking up at the monitor too to listen in.

“Can you speak to Matthews’s goals tonight?  The assist from Nylander must have looked good on your end,” one of the reporters asked.

“Yeah, the goals were good.  Looked really good.  The assist looked better than the one’s from last season, that’s for sure – he’s clearly been practicing,” Mike began.

Aberdeen didn’t hear anything else he had to say as she furrowed her brows.  She knew that she didn’t know anything about hockey, but she thought the team played fantastic tonight.  They won, for heaven’s sake.  If she was a casual viewer and thought they played well, and that William’s assist on Auston’s goal looked incredible, that had to speak for something, right?  A person who wasn’t even a fan being impressed?  She didn’t know.  But when she looked over at William, she saw a defeated look on his face.  He clearly took the comments to heart, and it killed her to see his excitement die down over a stupid comment.

“Does he always give you backhanded compliments?” she asked quietly, looking at him.  

William noticed her looking, and gave her one of those tight-lipped smiles as he shrugged his shoulders.  “Don’t worry about it.  I’m used to it.”

Aberdeen didn’t like that answer.