by Sarina Bowen
“Now get inside,” he says. “Let’s clean some motherfucking ice.” He steps past me, opens the rear door and disappears inside.
After practice, I find a voicemail on my phone from Rebecca. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she says.
That sounds a little ominous. On the other hand I have something to tell her, too! I race from the stadium to the Bruisers headquarters to share my Randy Cavanaugh data. I’ve got seven different temperature readings to document the unsafe work conditions. And I’ve got Randy on tape asking for sex. I’ve taken photographs of girls standing on the freezing sidewalk without their jackets, and I have a list of skeevy things Randy has said to us in the dressing room.
I documented all of it. And I can’t wait to find the owner and share it all.
Unfortunately, there’s a press conference that’s just finishing up, so the building is full of strangers. I’d forgotten that today was the day Bayer officially announced his retirement. Rebecca may be tied up, but I have to check.
I skid to a stop in front of Rebecca’s old desk in the outer office where the temp still sits. Same girl. Although a few details have changed. Disgust rises up inside me as I notice the framed photograph of a cat on her desk and the Brooklyn teddy bear on the ledge behind her.
The temp is making this space her own! She’s moving in on my territory. “Hi,” I say, although it comes out sounding surly. “Is Becca in there?” I jerk my thumb toward the office door.
“No luck,” the girl says with a jolly smile.
I feel the irrational urge to slap her. What is with me lately? First the fish, and now this.
“Let me just see if I can track her down, Heidi Jo.”
She even knows my name, and that just upsets me more. It should be me sitting at that desk memorizing everyone’s name! I’m good at it, too!
Then I die a little inside. Because the temp picks up her phone to summon Rebecca. And it’s a Katt phone. Only permanent members of the organization get those. The temp is no longer a temp.
I am filled with grief and rage.
Spinning on my heel, I march away, leaving the temp behind.
“Heidi Jo!” the young woman calls.
I ignore her. I must find Becca. It’s already too late, but I’m going to plead my case. Mama always said not to deliver a sermon in the heat of passion, but I’m going to do it anyway.
Or I’m going to try. But Rebecca is not in the press room at the end of the hall. So I poke my head into every office down the row. She’s not in the travel department. She’s not in marketing.
The last place I look is publicity. I stick my head around Georgia’s partially open door, and there’s a woman standing there by Georgia’s desk. It’s not Becca, but…
I do a double-take. It’s Miranda Wager, the journalist. Her phone is lit up in her hand. And she’s alone.
“What are you doing in here?” I blurt out.
“Looking for Georgia,” she says immediately. “I have a question about the charity event next week.”
The hair stands up on the back of my neck, because I know she’s lying. For one thing, there is no charity event next week. The team is traveling to Minnesota and Ottawa. And Miranda wouldn’t be standing so close to the desk if she weren’t snooping. “You,” I say in a heavy voice, “were reading the papers on her desk!”
The journalist’s lip curls. “Don’t be ridiculous! I walked in here about one second before you. I haven’t read a thing! I was looking for a sticky note to leave her a message.”
The explanation slows me down for a second. It almost makes sense, but my spidey senses are still pinging like crazy. I glance toward the hallway, hoping Georgia appears. No luck.
Miranda’s eyes narrow, and she steps away from the desk, slipping her phone into her pocket. “Whatever you’re thinking about me, just go ahead and think it. I’ve nothing to hide. I’m not the one having a top-secret relationship with Jason Castro.”
“What?” I yelp. But then I cringe. Because Jason and I are absolutely having a thing. Even if our thing is confusing the heck out of me right now. But that’s no reason to stoop to Miranda Wager’s level. I won’t lie. “It’s not top secret,” I admit. “We’re having a thing.”
“A thing? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Her eyes brighten. “So Daddy knows? How is your father holding up, anyway?”
“Yes, he knows.” And here I thought Miranda Wager was a real journalist. “Like I said—I don’t have anything to hide. I don’t need to sneak around like a thief.” Like you are. The unspoken words just sort of hang there in the air between us.
Miranda’s eyes narrow with anger as she realizes she hasn’t fooled me. I’ve never had a cat fight before, but today could be the day. I’ve already fought a six-foot fish, so this should be a piece of cake.
“If you’ve nothing to hide,” Miranda hisses, “maybe you’d like to make a statement?”
“About what? Jason and I? That’s not news. Nobody cares.”
“No?” She gives me an evil grin. “How do you feel about dating the league’s only Hispanic player?”
I blink. “He is?” That can’t possibly be true. And what a ridiculous question! “I…” How to shut her down? “It’s a non-issue! He’s just Jason. We don’t sit around and discuss his father’s heritage. Why would you even ask that?”
“No?” She steps around me, wearing a smug little smile. “What color is his dick?”
I literally gasp with outrage. Jason was right about Miranda. She’s a horrible human being, and a ridiculous one. “It’s rainbow-colored!” I shriek. “And it sings to me in Spanish! Are you kidding me right now?”
She laughs. “I was, actually. Later, Hockey Barbie.”
Miranda slips out the half-open door, leaving me with nothing but outrage and the sound of her heels clicking down the hallway.
I just got played. She got me off the topic! She changed it from snooping in Georgia’s office to... Jason’s penis.
My mind whirls. What was she looking for in here, anyway?
Feeling shaky with outrage, I step closer to the desk, putting myself where I found her three minutes ago. I glance around as quickly as I can, but Georgia’s office is a bit of a disaster. There are shelves over her desk lined with every kind of hockey memorabilia. There’s even a photo of my father and some other retried players at the Brooklyn ribbon-cutting ceremony three years ago.
The photos trigger something in my subconscious. Miranda was gripping her phone when I came in, and the screen was lit. Then she tucked it out of sight. Maybe she took a photo, too? Of what?
When I glance down at Georgia’s desk, I get a shock. Right there on the blotter is a print-out of an old newspaper clipping. Tragedy strikes senior class. Hockey team raises money for victim’s funeral. Jason stares up at me from the accompanying photograph. He has his arm around a beautiful, smiling girl. Melissa Skinner would have turned nineteen years old next month, reads the sad caption.
Jason’s smile, though. That’s what really grabs me. It’s so open and happy. It’s the smile of a boy who hasn’t a care in the world. I want him to smile like that again. So badly. The back of my throat burns, and my eyes get hot.
Beside the clipping is a legal pad where Georgia has scribbled: Minneapolis Center for Organ Donation, 2pm CST arrival for 2:30 photos. There’s a photographer listed and some phone numbers.
The meeting! Jason didn’t tell me it had already been scheduled. My heart drops. I asked him if it had, and he changed the subject.
I take a deep breath and try to calm down. Jason didn’t want me to know about this meeting. But now Miranda Wager has the details. She stood right here and took a photo of Georgia’s desk. I’d bet my trust fund on it.
Now she’s going to write a story about this painful part of Jason’s life. That’s just cruel. I won’t let her do it. And there isn’t much time to stop her.
I fly out of Georgia’s office and run down the hall toward the stairs.
35
Jason
“What’ll we have for lunch?” Silas asks as half a dozen of us file through the lobby.
“Anything but pizza,” I suggest.
“I was kind of thinking about pizza,” Silas confesses.
“You’re always thinking about pizza.”
“How about Chinese?” Trevi counters, opening the street door. “Georgia wants to come with us, and she is always up for Chinese.”
“Sounds good,” I say quickly, before Silas can argue.
“Is Heidi coming, too?” Trevi asks. “Where’s she going so fast?”
I’m about to ask what he means, but I spot her as I step out the door. Heidi is flying down the sidewalk, and I don’t know why. As I glance up the street, I see another woman, hand in the air, trying to hail a taxi.
The next few seconds seem to happen in slow motion. I see a Yellow Cab pull an illegal left turn off York to try to get the fare. He swings around fast. And I see Heidi suddenly leap off the curb, toward the woman, as if to catch her.
There’s a deafening squeal of brakes as the cab tries to stop in time. Bile rises up in my throat as Heidi lurches, trying to change her body’s direction. But momentum causes her to tip toward the street.
She goes down. My mouth is wide open in a silent shout, because nothing comes out.
Heidi
“What the fuck was that?” Miranda screeches. “Are you fucking insane?”
Everything is noise—the taxi brakes, the cab driver who’s standing beside the taxi, cursing at me in a language I don’t understand. There are players shouting at me from the curb, I think.
Breathless and freaked out, I pick myself up off the asphalt. There are little bits of grime imbedded in my skin. “Don’t write the story,” I wheeze. “Give me your phone.”
“You are one crazy little bitch,” Miranda says. “You don’t get to tell me what to write, even if you do have a death wish.”
“He doesn’t deserve that invasion of his privacy!” I straighten my shaky spine and look her square in the eye.
Miranda steps back, opens the cab door, and positions it between herself and me, proving that I must look as deranged as I feel. “You can’t protect him, Heidi. He’s got a fiduciary responsibility to the entire league. Financial prudence is a job requirement. Now get out of the street, you idiot.” She gets into the cab and slams the door.
Not one word Miranda just said makes any sense at all. I’m trying to play them back in my head when two strong arms lift me bodily off the street and then deposit me on the sidewalk.
“What the fuck was that?” asks a voice that’s too angry to be Jason’s. Except it is. When I turn around he’s standing there, fists clenched, eyes flashing. He looks like a bomb that’s about to go off.
“I…” I swallow hard. “She was snooping in your business. Taking pictures, I think. I wanted to see her phone.”
“So you jump in front of a moving car?” he shouts. I’ve never seen him this angry. I’ve never seen anyone as angry as he is right now. “What the actual fuck?”
“I’m sorry,” I say immediately. Because that’s what you say to someone who looks like he’s about to lift the parked Audi beside him and hurl it across the road.
“You’re sorry,” he snarls. “You’d be even sorrier if that cab’s brake pads were any worse off than they were.”
“Calm down!” I squeak. I’m already shaking. I don’t need my boyfriend yelling at me in front of the team.
Leo Trevi speaks from somewhere behind me. “Take a breath, Jason. It’s okay now.”
It’s not, though. Nothing is okay. There’s a vein bulging in Jason’s neck. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” I try. “I know you have some bad memories…” My brain is finally catching up with the situation, but there is a giant lump in my throat as I try to make myself clear. “I know you said yes to that meeting. But you didn’t tell me about it.”
“So fucking what?” he snaps. “Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not,” I insist. “You’re freaked out. I’m sorry. But you’re taking it out on me.”
“Bullshit!”
“No, you are.” This isn’t a great conversation to have on the sidewalk, but he isn’t giving me a choice. “We’re a thing, with no definitions, right? I didn’t mind before. Except now I do. Because a thing is apparently not the kind of relationship where you tell me when you’re upset. A thing means I’m only allowed to guess and try to wait you out and not feel bad.”
“You are way off topic.” His eyes are full of thunder.
“I’m not,” I insist. “And just now I was trying to stop Miranda from writing about you. Because someone has to. You’re welcome. I care about you, even if you’re a mess and you won’t admit it.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Is it? Were you ever going to tell me about that meeting? Did you think I wouldn’t care?”
He shrugs. That’s all I get. A shrug. That’s the gesture of a man who doesn’t care. So it’s time I read the handwriting on the wall. He’s still a sad Romeo who’s in love with his Juliet. And no amount of wishing is going to untie that knot.
“Well,” I choke out. “I guess we just found the limits of our ‘thing.’”
“I guess we did,” he agrees.
The words are a cruel blade slicing through me. But I’m standing in the cold, with half the Bruisers looking on in sympathy. “I see,” I say stiffly. “Good to know. I think you need some space, then. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
“Sounds okay to me,” he grinds out.
“Castro, you idiot,” Silas whispers from a few feet away.
My eyes get hot and my throat is scratchy. I’m not a crier, though. I take a deep breath through my nose and lift my chin. I turn my back to Jason and to the four or five teammates standing there gawking at me.
Georgia is jogging toward me and the group. “Are we going to lunch? Did something happen?”
Why yes it did. My heart got shredded right here on Hudson Street at the corner of York.
Nobody says anything for a beat. And then Georgia’s husband Leo speaks up. “We’re, uh, gonna need to drag Jason off and calm him down. Maybe you and Heidi should have lunch without us.”
Georgia blinks. “Um, okay?”
“I need to talk to you, anyway,” I say, finding my voice. “There was an incident in your office.”
Her eyes widen. “Let’s go. I know just the place.” She hooks her arm in mine and gently leads me down the sidewalk.
Georgia is a very smart woman. A genius, probably. “You should apply for Mensa,” I say, leaning back in the massage chair while someone else rubs lotion into my bare feet. If anything can calm me down, it’s a pedicure.
She smiles from the chair beside me. “Happy to help out. Becca and I get lunchtime pedicures whenever we need a break from the office. None of the men ever come in here, obviously. It’s the only place we ever felt we could talk freely.”
“I don’t know if I want to talk freely,” I grumble. “I don’t have anything nice to say.”
“Ladies!” I look up to see Rebecca hurrying towards us. “What did I miss?” She tosses her jacket onto the last pedicure chair.
“Heidi chased down a journalist who was snooping in my office. And then there was a close call with a taxi making a U-turn,” Georgia says. “Poor Jason has car-accident PTSD and lost his shit. The boys dragged him off to calm him down. Hopefully not with liquor because it’s game night.”
Rebecca blinks. “How close a call?”
“Not that close,” I say. “It probably looked bad, though. And I’m sympathetic to everything that’s going on inside his head. But he won’t talk to me.” Instead, he cut me loose in front of his friends.
That hurt so much.
“Men,” Georgia says, shaking her head. “Leo is not a sharer, either. The bro code pretty much says that you shouldn’t express your feelings.”
“They’re not all bad,” Becca chimes i
n. “Nate is pretty good at sharing.”
“Really?” Georgia says, shaking a nail polish bottle. “It took that man five years to tell you he loves you.”
“Fine,” she says, and I smile. “But he’s good at it now.”
“So they’re educable,” Georgia agrees. “But you have to be strict with them.”
I try that idea on, and I’m not sure it has merit. Jason either loves me and he needs space to grieve, or he doesn’t love me at all. Either way, I can’t make him share himself, even if he needs to. This morning he bought me some beautiful flowers. I would rather have had two minutes of real talk instead.
“Jason has been through a lot,” Becca says. “He can still recite every word of Romeo and Juliet. One drunken night he told me that he rereads it every year so that he won’t forget. It’s his last connection to her.”
Ouch. I care too much about a man who’s still grieving. It’s nobody’s fault, but it still hurts.
“This is the first time he’s dated anyone,” Georgia says carefully. “He’s come a long way.”
“I know,” I admit. “But maybe he’s come as far as he can.”
They’re nice enough not to agree with me out loud. Instead, Becca reaches past me and grabs the bottle of nail polish out of Georgia’s hand. “Pink again?”
Georgia grabs it back. “I like pink. If you want to experiment on somebody, torture Heidi.”
“Nobody torture Heidi,” I complain. “Like this day isn’t long enough. I have to skate with the Ice Girls tonight, too.”
“No you don’t,” Rebecca says. “You’ve done enough time. I thought you said you were done?”
“I am. And I have one last recording for you. But I still have to show up tonight and skate with the girls. If I don’t show, there won’t be enough people. And Randy will be extra horrible and yell more often.”
“You’re a good person, Heidi Jo,” Becca says.
I’m not feeling like one right now. “I could also use the paycheck.” I need a place of my own, even if it’s terrible. Which reminds me that I have a burning question. “Rebecca?”
