by Sarina Bowen
Our boys just lost to Dallas. Georgia screamed her heart out every time Brooklyn had the puck. I’m surprised she can still speak. But it wasn’t enough. Our boys didn’t play well, and Dallas took the first game. We’re both feeling miserable.
Georgia gets up from the bed. She goes into the bathroom for her toothbrush, which she puts in her purse. “Look. I’m going to sneak into Leo’s room and see how he’s doing. You are welcome to stay here. You are also welcome to tell me what the hell is going on with you. For twenty-four hours you’ve been hounding me about wedding favors and I want to know why.”
“Because the wedding is…”
She holds up a hand to cut me off, and her gaze is fierce. “Bec, cut the crap. Something happened and you haven’t told me what. But I have theories.”
Oh boy. “Like what?”
“Something went wrong with Nate. And it’s probably not all his fault, or you would have told me already.”
Well, ouch. I always knew Georgia was a smart girl. “I’m mad at him. But I’m also confused.”
Her expression softens. “Tell me why.”
So I do. I tell her the whole sorry tale, about the hotel room and the medical bills. “I thought he listened. And then he just ignored what I’d said.” I wave the hotel manifest around like a crazy person.
Georgia takes it out of my hand and scans it. “He puts Lauren in a suite sometimes when they travel.”
“Not in his suite.”
“Why is Nate’s name on a different room, then?” She points at the second column of names.
“What?” I snatch it out of her hand and read, Nathan Kattenberger: room 512. “But…” This makes no sense. “He asked me to stay in his suite with him.”
“And you said no.” Georgia’s voice is gentle—the way you address a crazy person. “So he switched them to give you the suite.”
“Oh, fuck,” I whisper. “I yelled.”
“Everyone yells sometimes. And he really should have asked before paying your doctor’s bills. Even if he did it because he loves you and cares what happens to your big stupid head.”
With a groan I collapse on the comforter. “It is! Big and so stupid. But I don’t think I can make it smarter.”
Georgia sits down beside me and pats my hand. “I think you’re just stressed out. In your defense, nothing about these last two months has been normal. You were injured and scared. Work has been really stressful. Your sister and her boy toy have taken over your apartment. That’s some big stuff happening.”
“Nate confuses me. We’re not equals and we can never be equals and so I freak out every time I feel cornered.”
“Equals,” Georgia says slowly. “I don’t know if I agree.”
“Oh, please. Don’t flatter me.”
“What makes me and Leo equals, though? What makes anyone?”
I lift my head and squint at her. “Neither you nor Leo runs the world.”
“Well, it’s true that I couldn’t buy and sell a small country before breakfast tomorrow,” Georgia admits. “But maybe that doesn’t matter in Nate’s head at all. Maybe he’s just a guy, standing in front of a girl, asking her to climb into a Jacuzzi tub with him.”
“Maybe,” I admit to the comforter.
“It’s not like you to be intimidated by Nate. When you met him, were you intimidated?”
“No,” I snort.
“Then why now?”
Because now he can crush my heart. I take a deep breath and let it out. “Maybe it’s not Nate that’s intimidating me. Maybe it’s taking a risk on a man. I don’t usually do that.”
Georgia slaps me on the ass. “The truth is revealed! You are getting smarter. Look at that.”
“Shut up or I’ll choose tacky wedding favors for you.”
“Like I’d notice.” She gets up again. “Bye for now. I’m going to strip Leo naked and see if I can’t cheer him up.”
“I love you!” I call as she heads for the door.
“Back at you, babe.”
When she’s gone, the room is too quiet. I lay there for a while feeling stupid. I miss Nate. He had box seats tonight and I avoided the box. I wonder what he was thinking about during intermission, and whether he looked for me. There would have been a dozen people hovering, the glitterati of Dallas all turning up to shake his hand.
It’s weird to be Nate. He didn’t ask to be important. I know this because I watched the whole thing go down. He invented some things the world needed, and it just happened. Our office stopped being a pizza-stained Ping-Pong refuge and became a global destination.
Maybe Georgia is right that recent events have ruined my mojo. But it’s really hard for me to picture a future where I’m at Nate’s side as he shakes the world’s hand. And that’s the thing I can’t get past—this idea that I’m just temporary fun, and that he’ll wake up one morning and decide it’s time to plan his future in real terms.
And I won’t be in it.
Even so, I owe him an apology. I pick up the house phone and dial room 512. It rings and rings. So I pull out my phone and text Heidi Jo. Did you happen to see Nate after the game? Any idea where he might be? Maybe I’m feeding her gossip right now but I can’t help it.
New York, she replies immediately. He flew home after the game. I put him in a car to the airport.
Ah, well. Now there are several empty hotel rooms.
Do you need anything? Heidi Jo asks.
As always, I’m tempted to say no. But the truth is that she’s been really helpful lately, and I haven’t held up my end of the bargain. If you wouldn’t mind, please help me remember to make a therapy appointment tomorrow. I need to get back in there.
Good idea!!! She replies instantly. Three exclamation points. But they make me smile instead of annoying me. The girl is really growing on me. If I weren’t such a raging lunatic these days I might have appreciated her sooner.
Get some rest, I say. Good work today.
She replies with three different styles of heart emoji. Of course she does.
26
Rebecca
June 5, Dallas
We win game two, but Nate is not in attendance at all. After the game, Leo Trevi buys me a glass of wine, which I drink quickly. Having no tolerance for alcohol anymore, it gets me drunk. So I proceed up to my big empty hotel suite with the lonely Jacuzzi tub and I drunk-dial Nate.
I get his voicemail, which should have bailed me out of this bad idea. But no. I leave a message.
Hi. I’m alone in this beautiful hotel room but I yelled at you and you’re not here at all and I know you hate Dallas but we won tonight in overtime even though the team looked a little skittish. They miss Beringer. Fucking injuries. What was I saying? Oh I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I can’t read a hotel manifest and that I didn’t notice you’d switched our rooms, which means you did listen to me when I thought you didn’t. I’m still mad about the doctor’s bills because you should have asked first. But I don’t know what that proves because you’ll always be the guy with the money and I’ll still be the girl who didn’t finish school. And I obviously can’t get over that. Or maybe I can, but the playoffs are going on and I need to go back to therapy and take a damned deep breath. So I hope you’ll let me do that.
Or something like that.
Maybe it wasn’t quite that bad.
No, it probably was. My apology was in there somewhere, buried under piles of angst and indecision. If I haven’t already convinced Nate that I’m really just too much trouble, that phone call probably seals the deal.
“Bingley?” I ask, staring up at the ornate ceiling. Even the ceiling of the suite is a cut above your average hotel room ceiling.
“Yes, Miss Rowley?”
“Call me Becca.” I’m sort of drunk.
“Yes, Becca?”
“I just left a long voicemail for Nate. Could you erase it, please?”
“I’m sorry, but that is not within my powers. Voicemail resides with the cell phone carrier. KTech phones emplo
y the carrier’s software for this function.”
“Well, that is a bug, sir,” I complain. “I can’t believe Nate didn’t write that software himself.”
“I will tell him you’re displeased.”
“No!” I sit up quickly and the room spins. “Don’t do that. Don’t ever tell Nate I’m displeased about anything.”
“All right, miss. One word from you shall silence me forever.”
“That’s a little dramatic.” I yawn. “Good night, Bingley.”
“Pleasant dreams, miss.”
* * *
Nate obviously listened to my voicemail. Now that we’re back in Brooklyn for games three and four, he’s giving me space. Lots of it.
Which I asked for, I guess, when I said I needed to “take a damned deep breath.”
Lesson learned. No drunk-dialing ever again. He’s obviously avoiding me. Or maybe he’s busy running the world and I’m an idiot for assuming he was thinking about me at all.
I go to therapy two days in a row, and it kicks my ass. Ramón makes me jump on that damned trampoline for hours.
Then, during game four, my heart does a few rounds on the trampoline, too. If we win this one the series will be tied 2-2. I watch from a seat in row B, courtesy of injured veteran player David Beringer.
He sits beside me, his hands white-knuckled on the armrest. If I’m in agony watching our boys play, his pain could only be double, knowing he should be out there helping them win.
Note to self: there’s always someone who has it worse.
“Man on!” Beringer shouts to Castro. “Trevi’s open!”
I give a nervous little shriek as Castro makes the pass. “Come on, boys, you can do this!”
And yet the first period ends scoreless. I spend the intermission touching up my makeup in the bathroom and pretending it’s not because I want to look pretty for a certain technology tycoon.
Meanwhile, Heidi Jo is in the corporate box, blowing up my phone with nattering questions. Should I offer Nate another Diet Coke? What does Stew drink?
Don’t bother, I reply grumpily. They both have two functioning hands. They can pour it themselves.
You know the game is tied, right? Why so glum, chum?
I don’t answer because it won’t be a friendly response.
My mood improves during the second period, though. We pick up two goals, and ultimately Dallas can’t catch up. It’s a sweaty, fast-moving third period but we finish the game 4-2.
I am weak with relief. Dave is hoarse from yelling.
“Thank fuck,” he says, squeezing my shoulders. “That took a year off my life, Bec. Come to the bar with us for a celly?”
“Okay,” I say immediately. Blowing off steam with my friends sounds like a fine idea, especially since I’ve discovered I can have a drink or two now without face-planting. “The Tavern on Hicks?”
“Naturally.” He stands up. “I’ll go early and ask Pete to reserve the back room.”
“Good plan. I’m going to find my intern and invite her.” Seems only fair, since I’ve been such a grumpy bear. The Tavern after a win is a good time.
Beringer gives me a fist bump and leaves. Texting Heidi Jo while I walk, I head slowly downstairs to the press conference, because I can’t stay away. It’s been days since I’ve seen Nate. The post-game adrenaline is still hitting me hard, filling me with optimistic glee.
I want to see his face, dammit. And apologize sober.
The usual mayhem outside the locker rooms doesn’t help calm me down. Players and family members are hugging and celebrating. The locker-room door opens and closes repeatedly as players emerge, freshly-showered, to congratulations.
“Press room, people!” Georgia shouts. “This way. Three minutes!”
My best friend’s job isn’t done for the night.
“There you are!” Heidi Jo says, sidling up to me and snatching my phone out of my hands. “That’s enough screen time.”
“Hey! It’s you who’s been texting me!”
She shrugs. “Couldn’t be helped!”
“That is…” so irritating! I swallow down my displeasure. “The players are drinking at The Tavern on Hicks tonight. I came downstairs to invite you.”
“Oh!” Her face lights up. “I’m in. Do they have darts and a pool table?”
“Sure?” I never play those games.
“I’m kind of a shark,” she says with a giggle.
“Can’t say I’m surprised.” Heidi Jo isn’t stupid. Just overenthusiastic.
Georgia’s press conference is starting. She stands at the podium as the rear door opens behind the dais. Nate, Coach Worthington, O’Doul, and two other players step out to applause.
I put two fingers in my mouth and wolf-whistle loudly, causing Heidi Jo to clap her hands over her ears.
“Thank you for being with us tonight as we make our way toward victory,” Georgia says at the podium. “The club owner, Mr. Nathan Kattenberger, would like to thank you as well. Please hold your questions until after coach’s remarks. Thank you.”
Georgia steps aside for Nate, who thanks his players and his coach for their impressive effort tonight.
I don’t hear a word of what he says, because I’m too busy giving him a laser-like come hither stare. I’m sorry I’ve been acting nutty, my eyes say. Or rather, they try. But Nate doesn’t happen to look my way. As a short person trapped against the back wall of a crowded room, my odds of being seen aren’t great.
“Mr. Kattenberger!” a female journalist calls out. Immediately I see Georgia’s eyes narrow, because questions are prohibited during the introduction. “Is it true that you have a personal grudge against the Dallas team?”
I can’t see the journalist from where I’m standing. She may be vertically challenged, too. But many heads turn her way.
Nate’s eyes widen, and I feel a sudden chill on the back of my neck. “Personal? No.” He clears his throat in a very unNatelike way. “Though I hold a grudge against anyone standing between my team and the Cup.”
Georgia pipes up. “We’ll take questions at the end…”
But the reporter cuts her off. “Did you buy a hockey team to get revenge on the Dallas player who stole your fiancée?”
Wait, what?
“That’s ridiculous,” Nate says, each word a chip of ice. “I’ve been a hockey fan since I could talk. I bought a hockey team so I could bring major league sports back to Brooklyn…”
This woman must have a death wish because she cuts him off again. “Didn’t you walk in on Dallas captain Bart Palacio and—”
“Excuse me,” Georgia says, stepping in front of Nate and the podium. “You will hold your questions until after coach’s comments!” Her face is red and splotchy.
And Nate? He turns the podium’s microphone off, turns around, and leaves the room.
The click of the door closing behind him seems to echo in the silence that follows.
Georgia blinks. “Coach Worthington has some comments about the game,” she says crisply.
My head is spinning. The captain of the Dallas team is the same guy with whom Juliet cheated?
I pat all the pockets in my shoulder bag until I realize Heidi Jo stole my phone. “Phone!” I hiss. But she doesn’t move fast enough, so I hook an arm through hers and bodily steer her into the hallway. “I need my phone! Whip it out.” Then I spot it in her blazer pocket and help myself. I do a quick web search for Nate’s name and “Dallas” and boom. The journalist already filed her story. She was just hoping to add a moment of on-air embarrassment at Nate’s expense.
I’m going to cut the bitch.
I wait for the story to load, turning the phone sideways to try to make the text larger. Stress has made my vision dance, and my gaze feels squinty after a long day.
“Here, let me,” my intern says. “What are we looking at? Oh,” she says suddenly. “Yuck.”
“Read it,” I demand.
“This headline.” She makes a tsk sound with her tongue. “Scandal
: Owner Nate Kattenberger’s Secret Beef with Dallas Hockey Star.”
“Fuck!” It’s the most clickbaity thing I’ve ever heard. “Nate’s not like that!”
“Shh!” Heidi Jo hisses. “If you want to keep your thing with Nate secret you’re going to have to lower your voice.”
I growl but she’s right. And Nate doesn’t need any more gossip right now. “Keep reading.”
“Five years ago the billionaire owner of the Brooklyn Bruisers caught his fiancée in their bed with a professional hockey player. This week Nate has a shot at revenge as his team takes on Dallas in the Stanley Cup finals.”
“Holy shit,” I breathe.
As Heidi Jo reads on, I learn that Juliet is now Mrs. Bart Palacio. She owns a chain of Dallas fitness gyms, and she married Bart back when he played for the Rangers. Now he’s captain of the Dallas team.
“Holy. Shit,” I say again. Then I snatch my phone from my intern’s hands and skim the story again, because I just can’t believe it.
“I didn’t know Nate was once engaged!” Heidi Jo whispers. “She’s pretty.”
“She is,” I sigh. “They were together from college. I never liked her.” That last thing just slips out.
Heidi Jo snorts. “I wouldn’t either. She broke your man’s heart!”
“Shhh!” Poor Nate. His tale of woe has just been smeared across the internet. I do a web search for Juliet Palacio and the screen lights up with photos. She has a daughter—a little toddler. In the photo she’s standing with the baby on her hip beside her husband. They’re all wearing matching jerseys with his number on them, and I throw up a little in my mouth when I see it.
“Cute kid,” Heidi Jo says. “You didn’t know his ex was married to the captain?”
“I didn’t know she was married at all,” I stammer. “Never looked her up before.” But now I wished I had. Standing here in the emptying corporate box, a whole lot of things are starting to make more sense to me.
Nate hates Dallas but never says why.
Nate wouldn’t take that interview about why he owns a hockey team.
Nate asked me to sit beside him at the Dallas games. Where he knew he might see his ex. He wanted me at his side. Yet I said no.
