"What?" Her tone was a little more harsh than she had meant for it to be. Whatever.
"Um, do you live here?"
"Maybe." The man shifted uncomfortably on his feet, revealing the Detroit Pirates logo on his track suit jacket. "Oh, you're looking for Ryan, aren't you? He's next door."
She didn't wait for the stranger's reaction, balancing the box in one hand while trying to dig her keys out of her bag with the other. She still felt a bit drunk, which wasn't helping.
"Here, let me get that for you," the man said, taking the box from her arms.
Normally, she would've smiled or said a polite thank you, but she wasn't in the mood for niceties today. Instead, she finally found her keys, shoved them in the lock, and wordlessly turned around to grab her box back.
"Oh, I can bring this in for you if you want."
"I don't want. It's been a bad day," she said, taking the box from him. "In fact, if you're going to see Ryan, tell him I'm not coming over tonight."
"What?"
She sighed and put the box down on the condo floor by her feet. Whoever this guy was, he seemed to be confused, but not confused enough to get any sympathy from Sydney. She was all out of fucks to give, as Lucy liked to say. Instead, Sydney just sighed as she stood in the doorway, her shoeless foot still propping her door open.
"My name is Sydney, I live next door to Ryan McCloud, who lives in that condo." She gestured down the hall with an agitated hand. "You're going to see him because you know him from the Pirates, but it's been a bad day so I can't remember how. I was going to hang out with him, but again, bad day. And since I don't want to talk to people, I would appreciate it if you told him I'm not coming over."
"Sure, but um…"
Sydney rolled her eyes, then stared indignantly at this man, expecting him to respond with something completely annoying.
"I'm actually here to see you."
Huh. Well, she wasn't expecting that.
"You're here to see me?"
"Yeah, I'm Andy Mitchell. I'm the trainer for the Detroit Pirates."
She remembered now. The team trainer she saw on television during games, stalking the bench behind the players. The trainer Ryan said he was going to check in with about his pulled muscle.
"So why exactly are you here to see me?" she asked.
He looked at her apprehensively. "Have you not heard about Ryan?"
"Bad day."
"Right." He took a quick glance at the box on the floor before looking back up at her. "So Ryan is in the hospital."
She was not expecting that either. Every nerve in her body went on high alert for the second time today as she tried to process this latest drama.
"Why is he—"
"He's OK," Andy said reassuringly. "It's his appendix, that's all. It's just… gone."
"Where did it go?" she asked seriously.
Sydney closed her eyes and took a deep breath when she realized what she had just said. She apparently had a knack for asking stupid questions today. But Andy seemed to take it in stride, his demeanor softening a bit with sympathy.
"There was an incident at practice this morning, and we had to rush him to the emergency room so the doctors could remove it. But he's going to be fine, I promise."
She sighed and leaned against the door jam to try and get her bearings before straightening up again.
"You shouldn't be telling me this!" she yelled, pointing at him. "This is a violation of doctor-patient something or laws or whatever."
"Again, it's OK," he replied. "The team put out an announcement about it. Everyone knows. You just have to watch the news tonight and you'll see it there."
The news? That was definitely not something Sydney wanted to do tonight. There were cameras and media people set up outside her office building when she left that afternoon. She didn't need to relive all of that by seeing it on the news. Sydney leaned on the door again, her brain officially filled with too many thoughts to make sense out of any of them.
"Um, Ryan said you would have a key for his place. At least I think that's what he said. He's on some weird drugs right now." Andy shrugged. "I just wanted to get a few things for him for the hospital."
She gave him a skeptical look. "And how do I know you're not scamming me?"
"He blamed the bagel you gave him this morning for his current digestive issues," he said.
"When did he say that?"
"In the car ride over to the hospital. He said, 'I bet it was that fucking bagel Sydney gave me.' And then he whined about your constant lack of donuts, which, as his team's trainer, I actually appreciate."
He gave her a small smile and she would've appreciated the compliment if today was any other day. Instead, all she could do was shake her head. That rookie bastard next door was going to blame her for this for a long time, even if it was clearly not her fault.
There were a lot of things that were not her fault today that she somehow got stuck cleaning up.
Sydney pushed herself off the door jam and kicked the stupid box under her end table, then grabbed the keychain she had unceremoniously thrown on top of it when she walked in. She closed her eyes for a moment, balled her hand into a fist around the keys, and somehow conjured up the courage to head next door.
She pushed her way past Andy into the hallway, not paying any attention to his personal space. The keys were heavy in her hand as she searched for the one with the hockey tape on it. Then she realized Andy hadn't followed her and looked up to see him still standing where she left him, staring curiously at her. She could only roll her eyes at the trainer who was on her last nerve.
"Are you coming or what?"
Chapter 2
Things had not been good for Andy Mitchell today.
As the trainer for the Detroit Pirates, it was his job to make sure the players were taped up or patched up or anything else it took to get them on the ice in the least amount of pain. He at least succeeded in doing that this morning. A few guys had some bumps and bruises to tend to and Ryan McCloud complained about a pulled abdominal muscle that Andy made a note to look at when practice was over.
But after the team got off the ice, everything had gone to hell.
Andy was checking on a player's wrist when he heard the commotion in the locker room followed by several players yelling his name. He rushed in to see Ryan lying on the floor, clutching his stomach in pain. Nervous players stood around staring at their teammate with the team's captain, Jordan King, kneeling down next to the rookie.
"He just collapsed," the shaken captain said.
"Help him up and meet me out back!"
Andy sprinted to his car and pulled it up to the back entrance of the practice rink where he found Ryan looking pale and leaning on Jordan for support. The two men eased him into the passenger seat and Jordan helped buckle him in.
Andy was the one who called the team doctor to let him know he was bringing Ryan in. Andy was the one who dropped him off at the hospital's emergency room and then waited for him to get out of surgery. He was the one who made the phone calls to Ryan's parents and the team's coach, updating them on what was going on. And when Ryan finally started to wake up in the recovery room, it was Andy who was waiting by his bed.
That's how Andy got here, knocking on the door of a woman he only knew of because Ryan had mentioned her in the locker room. His stories were usually about how his neighbor, Sydney, saved him from one of the conquests he brought home or what he was binge watching with Sydney. Whenever a player asked why Ryan didn't go after her, he would just shrug and say she was like a big sister watching out for him. But he would also get defensive when a player asked if she was single, as if he was protecting this woman from these jocks that he thought weren't good enough for her. She definitely wasn't like the other women Ryan would talk about in the locker room. Unlike those women, he actually seemed to have a real platonic friendship with her.
It made sense now that Andy had come face to face with the infamous Sydney. She didn't seem totally clear hea
ded at the moment, but she also still seemed self assured, pushing past him in a move that both stunned and impressed him.
"Are you coming or what?" she snapped.
She apparently stunned him so much that she left him standing there staring at her, probably with a dumbfounded look on his face. She was definitely a force to be reckoned with.
Andy got his feet to move, walking while watching her check the keys in her hand. Even after her supposedly bad day, her business suit still looked sharp, her brown hair still lay gently on her shoulders. He was waiting for her to turn around again with the striking green eyes he noticed when she finally looked up at the stranger standing in front of her door. Even with the emotional funk she seemed to be in, there was something so intriguing about her.
He watched her open Ryan's door with her key and slip in as if she was completely comfortable in his place. He followed her in and saw a condo that looked like it belonged to a 20-year-old athlete with lots of cash. Black leather sofas dominated the living area with framed hockey jerseys hung on the gray walls. One side of the room had a big-screen television, video game consoles in the corner, and huge windows looking out on to the bustling Detroit street below. And yet despite its manliness, Sydney seemed to be moving around the space with ease. She had obviously been there many times before, which made Andy wonder exactly what her relationship was with Ryan despite the star player's protests that the two were just friends.
"Let me get you a bag for him." Sydney walked into a room that Andy assumed was Ryan's bedroom and came back with a duffel bag that had the Pirates logo on the side. "OK, so what does Ryan need?"
"Basic things," he said. "Some clothes if you know where to find them. Loose shirt, sweatpants with an elastic waistband or draw string."
"That seems specific."
"Better for the healing process."
"Right," she said matter-of-factly. "Top left-hand shelf next to the television is where he keeps his iPad and some portable video game thing. I can't remember what new one he's been yammering on about lately."
"I can get those," Andy said, trying to sound useful.
He walked back to the duffel bag with Ryan's tech toys and dropped them in as Sydney came back with black t-shirts and some track pants similar to the ones Andy was wearing.
"So, you know Ryan well?" he asked.
"I guess so," she said, walking back towards his bedroom as Andy followed her. "Someone needs to watch out for him, you know? He's in a new city and getting all this cash to play hockey. But his family isn't here so he has no one to help him out."
"And you do that?"
He hoped he didn't come off as sounding jealous, but he was jealous that this spitfire of a woman knew where Ryan kept his clothes — and apparently his underwear as she pulled a few pairs of black boxer briefs from a dresser drawer.
"The only reason Ryan remembers anything for road trips is because I finally broke down and made him an Excel spreadsheet," she explained as she headed back for the living room. "He had to sleep on my couch a few times because he forgot his keys. Won't happen again."
Sydney walked into the bathroom and Andy realized he was having some trouble keeping up with her. He watched as she grabbed a toothbrush, toothpaste and some hair gel before brushing past him towards the kitchen.
"So you said you had a bad day?" he asked. "Was it worse than me taking Ryan to the E.R. for an appendectomy?"
Sydney grabbed a plastic bag from a drawer and threw Ryan's toiletries in it.
"Well, that was the second bad thing that happened to me today if that gives you any idea of what it's been like."
Andy looked at her, his curiosity getting the best of him. She definitely knew Ryan and seemed to care about him. What could be worse for her today than finding out he was in the hospital?
"Exactly how bad has your day been?"
She took a deep breath and walked past him, dropping the toiletries in the duffel bag and zipping it up.
"I can't talk about it."
"Sorry if I overstepped my bounds," he said. "I was just trying be nice."
"It's not your fault," she replied, turning to give him a sarcastic smile. "My lawyer said I'm not allowed to talk to anyone without her present."
Andy could feel his eyebrows raise in surprise. "Must have been one hell of a day."
"Yeah, you could say that."
Her fingers paused for a minute as they hovered over the bag in front of her. It was as if she had zoned out, had gone to another place that was bitter and raw. Then she shook her head and pulled herself back into the present. She looked up with those amazing green eyes and gave him an uncomfortable smile that tried to wordlessly tell him she was moving on. She pulled the bag off the counter and started heading for the door.
"Hey, can you grab Gretzky for me?"
"What?"
Sydney gestured to a fish bowl on the kitchen counter. "Gretzky. He's Ryan's fish. I have no idea what made him buy a fish instead of a dog or something, but I take care of Gretzky whenever Ryan is gone. It's just easier to keep the fish bowl at my place."
Andy turned towards the fish bowl on the counter and found it empty.
"Uh, there's no fish in here," he told her.
She dropped the bag and walked around the kitchen island to stand next to Andy, staring in shock at the fish bowl.
"Gretzky's gone?"
"I guess," Andy said with a shrug.
He could see the tears beginning to pool in her eyes. He hated being around anyone who was crying, especially women. Was he supposed to leave them alone or put his arm around them or… why the hell was this woman crying over a dead goldfish?
He watched as Sydney covered her face with her hands, the quiet of the apartment filling his ears before he began to hear her muffled sobs. His hands felt heavy, but he finally got enough strength in one to pat Sydney's shoulder.
"I'm sure Gretzky was a good fish, and Ryan probably gave him a nice send off," he said, patting her shoulder while internally cringed at how ridiculous he sounded.
Sydney pulled her hands away and stared at the empty fish bowl, using the back of her left hand to wipe away tears that had broken free and were coming down her face.
"He probably just flushed him down the toilet," she said seriously.
She turned and gave Andy a sad smile, and he was irrationally mad at Ryan for being in the hospital instead of here tonight to comfort Sydney. She obviously needed her friend.
She gestured to the duffel bag on the floor. "You can take care of that then?"
Andy nodded. "I would love to."
He cursed himself again. His response to her question about picking up a bag is he would love to? Idiot.
She just stared at him, and it seemed like she thankfully hadn't processed his weird response.
"Can you lock the door when you leave?" she asked, her voice quivering between steady and broken.
"Yeah, of course. No problem. Are you sure you're going to be alright?"
She straightened her posture and put on a stoic face. "I'm fine."
Sydney grabbed her keys off the counter and pushed her way past Andy towards the door. She paused for just a moment before she turned to look over her shoulder at him.
"Make sure you get Ryan home soon."
"I will," Andy promised.
Sydney gave him a slight nod and walked through the door, letting it slam shut behind her. She was gone.
Chapter 3
The duffel bag in Andy's hand felt heavier than it should, probably because of the woman who had packed it. He still couldn't get Sydney's face out of his mind. The way she looked at him right before she left was heart wrenching. It was as if her entire world had collapsed and all Andy wanted to do was promise her he could fix it. Of course, he had no idea what "it" was or why he would even care after only meeting her once. Andy was always the one who fixed people — after all, it was his job — and Sydney just looked so broken.
But Andy had to fix someone else first. He shuffled o
ver to the elevator and pressed the button for the hospital's third floor. It was nearly 10 o'clock at night already, but he wanted to at least drop the bag off in Ryan's room so it was there when the rookie woke up. He expected Ryan would already be asleep after the long day both of them had been through. Surgery can be a taxing thing on the body, even if he was knocked out for most of it. His hard work out at practice earlier in the day didn't help matters.
To Andy's surprise, Ryan was awake when he walked into the hospital room. Well, barely awake.
"Hey, man. How's it going?" Andy asked quietly.
Ryan turned slowly away from the television. "I've been better."
He gave his player a small smile and dropped the bag into a chair by the bed. "I brought a few things for you."
"Beer and pretzels?" Ryan replied with a smirk.
"You shouldn't have beer with your painkillers."
"You sound like my mom."
Andy looked down at the patient, his tone becoming more measured. "Did you talk to your parents yet?"
Ryan flopped back on his pillow. "Yeah, I did. Thank you for calling them, by the way," he said, his eyes blinking slowly.
Andy simply nodded, remembering the dreaded phone call he made earlier in the day to Ryan's family. His parents were actually very calm after he told them their son was in the hospital, but that he was going to be fine. He could tell they had dealt with Ryan's hockey injuries before by the questions they asked. Then they immediately started working on a plan with Andy to get Ryan's mom to town and take care of her son. Usually it was the doctors who handled the family phone calls so this was the first time he was given that dreaded task. But by the end, it was Ryan's parents who were reassuring him that it would be OK, which made him thankful he called the McClouds.
Buried Treasure (The Detroit Pirates Book 2) Page 2
