Defeated.
Callen had never thought of himself as the kind of guy to give up, but when that buzzer went off, announcing the end of the game, he thought about quitting. Not quitting hockey, but giving up hope of reviving this season. He stumped off the ice and threw his stick as hard as he could against the wall leading back to the locker room. Magnum, one of his other teammates, slapped his hand across his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Cali. Your game will come.”
Callen simply nodded and made his way to the locker room. He tried to sneak out, but the press was everywhere. It seemed like the media got a little worse every week. He went through his usual media scrums then disappeared into the showers. By the time he came back out, they were all gone. Only the players remained. He put his suit back on, grabbed his coat, and hightailed it out of the place. As soon as he rounded the corner, he ran into Drew.
“Hey, man—” Drew stepped back, grabbing him so he didn’t lose his balance and fall over. “Where are you going in such a rush?”
Callen caught his breath. Drew looked so much like his big brother, it was starting to get hard to tell him and Henrik apart. Drew had spent the fall playing hockey for a minor-league team, so Callen hadn’t seen him very much. Drew had officially been back in Manhattan for a month. He figured out his true passion was coaching. He missed his old job working at the hockey development center. That, and he missed Sam. “I’m going home.”
“You’re not going to dinner?”
“Not tonight.”
Drew didn’t release his hold on him. “Don’t worry. I won’t let the girls barter you off to random women if that’s what you’re worried about. Come eat with us. I’ve barely seen you since I’ve been back.”
Callen maneuvered his way out of Drew’s hold. If he didn’t get away now, the others would soon catch up, and he’d never get away. “I can’t help that you’re a big deal now, and don’t have time for us anymore.”
Drew’s smile widened. “You’re coming to dinner.”
“Damn right, he is,” Austin said, rounding the corner.
Callen groaned. “Guys…I appreciate the concern, but I’d really rather be alone.”
Drew rolled his eyes. “Of course you would. That’s always what you prefer. But tonight, what I prefer outweighs what you prefer. Got it?”
“And why is that?”
Drew stepped in front of Austin and took a wide stance. “Because it’s my birthday.”
Callen deflated. “Shit. I’m sorry. I totally forgot.”
Drew laughed. “It’s okay. I know you’ve had a lot on your mind lately.”
“No excuse,” Austin grumbled under his breath.
Drew threw his arm around his shoulder, ignoring Austin. “So, will you come to my party?”
“Of course.” He couldn’t believe he forgot about the party.
“Good.” Drew beamed then wiggled his eyebrow at him. “Because I invited some girls I know.”
“What?” Callen spun around. Suddenly, he didn’t feel so sorry for Drew’s forgotten birthday.
Drew busted out laughing. “I’m only kidding. I was serious before. I won’t let my sister and Maggie pawn you off on anyone tonight.”
“Thanks.” Callen continued to grumble under his breath while he threw his bag over his shoulder. “I have a feeling I will need the backup.”
***
The bar was crowded. It looked like a mosh pit at a Beyoncé concert. The music thumped to a beat Callen didn’t recognize as he weaved and dodged his way to the nearest bar. The place was three stories high, and a woman hung, suspended from giant ribbons from the ceiling, doing acrobatics level with the second story. The crowd didn’t look as bad up there, but Callen refused to climb stairs for a fucking beer.
He waved his hand to get the bartender’s attention, but his gaze ran over him and straight to the set of five brunettes next to him. He couldn’t possibly hate this place more. Then the girl at the end of the row of look-alikes turned around. “Would you like me to get you something?”
Callen waved away her offer. “Nah. I’ll wait my turn.”
She inched closer. Her smile was thin and suggestive. Callen inched further away. “I don’t mind,” she said in a sweet singsong voice loud enough for him to hear above the music.
“I have to get drinks for my friends too,” he said, trying to explain away his rudeness.
“You mean there are more of you?” Her gazed ran appreciatively down him then she smiled, glancing behind her at the group of girls.
Callen panicked. “Well, yeah, but they are either married, engaged, or gay.”
The girl pursed her lips. “And what about you? Are you married, engaged, or gay?”
He tried to wave for the bartender again. This time a little more desperately. “Yes.”
She laughed like it was a joke. “Which one?”
His fingers tapped impatiently on the bar. “All of them?”
Suddenly her eyes narrowed as she pulled his shoulder around to make him look at her. “Are you trying to be an asshole?”
He sighed. “No?”
Why did he keep answering questions with more questions? Damn, he was nervous. Not because he wanted to talk to the girl, but because he didn’t want to talk to her. And he had no idea why. She was pretty. Not Penny kind of pretty, but she was all right.
“So, if you’re gay and married…where is your husband?”
Callen glanced around and spotted Sam coming toward him from the other end of the bar. “Right there.”
Sam came up and threw his arm around his shoulder. “Have you managed to get a drink yet? I’ve been trying to flag down that bartender for half an hour. This place sucks.”
Sam looked around and noticed the pissed off face of the girl across from them and immediately backed up. “I’m sorry. Did I interrupt something?”
“This is your husband?” The girl’s tone was snarky. “I recognize him. He’s the guy who was on the news for an entire week for being the first hockey player to publicly come out. Aren’t you supposed to be dating, like, your teammate’s brother?”
Sam’s eyes rounded as he turned to Callen. “What the fuck have you been telling her?”
Callen stood and grabbed Sam by the arm. “You’ll have to excuse my hubby, here. He’s still upset about the breakup. We don’t talk about it. We should probably go.”
Callen shoved Sam in the direction of their table and followed behind him. Sam glanced over his shoulder. “What the hell was that?”
“Nothing. Just run!”
They sifted through the jungle of people back to their table. Drew perked up when he saw them. “Hey, where are our drinks?”
“No drinks,” Sam said, throwing Callen a sideways look. “But I did get a husband while I was at the bar.”
“Look—I’m sorry, all right? I panicked. I would have claimed marriage to anyone I saw at that point.”
Drew grabbed Callen by the arm and stopped his retreat around the table. “First of all, that’s my boyfriend you’re claiming marriage with. And second, I thought if you changed your mind on your straightness status, you were going to call me first?”
Callen rolled his eyes and Drew laughed. “Why were you claiming marriage to Sam, anyway?”
Sam sat at the table next to Drew. “Because some girl was trying to hit on him. A hot girl.”
“She wasn’t my type.” Callen found a seat and threw himself in it.
Austin cocked an eyebrow at him. “I’m sorry. When did hot and willing stop being on your list of requirements?”
Callen placed his face on the table. He was exhausted, both physically and mentally. This horrible day refused to end. “Can we just sing happy birthday and go home?”
Magnolia leaned over and whispered to Austin. “We’re going to have adopt him, aren’t we?”
“Yeah,” Austin agreed. “I figured we’d build him a shed to live in behind our house and let him grow old there.”
Callen didn’t even bo
ther to get mad at their joke. “I like Pop Tarts,” he said, never picking his head up off the table. “And satellite television.”
They all laughed, but he was serious. He had a problem, and it was real. He would die alone. Drew stood. “How about we move this party somewhere a little quieter? We obviously aren’t going to get any drinks at this place.”
Sam stood behind him. “What about that place over by Callen’s apartment?”
Callen’s head popped up off the table. Not the Bistro. Please…not the Bistro.
Drew thought about it. “You mean El Rio’s? Is it open this late?”
Callen’s heart started to beat again. He hadn’t realized it stopped. Thank goodness Sam hadn’t meant Penny’s place. He didn’t know what he would do if they all wanted to go piling in there. “I think it stays open late,” Austin said, grabbing his jacket. “I used to stop by there after games.”
“All right, then,” Drew announced to the group. “This party is moving. Let’s go.”
Callen followed them out of the bar, and they caravanned to his parking garage beneath his apartment. Once out on the street, Callen couldn’t help but look toward the Bistro. It was about to close, which meant Penny would still be there. They would walk past it on their way. He might, if he could manage to look extremely casual, peek into the window and get a glimpse of her. Once they got close, Callen slowly maneuvered himself into the back of the group. Betsy stood behind the counter attending a customer. He didn’t see Penny anywhere. He got distracted by the customer, an older lady waving her hands around. She looked upset, and so did Betsy.
He studied them closely at they approached the building. The customer yelled at Betsy. Callen stopped in front of the door. What could that woman possibly be upset with Betsy about to cause that kind of scene?
He grabbed Henrik’s arm. “Go on, and I’ll catch up with you guys in a second.”
Henrik nodded, and Callen stepped back to go in the door of the Bistro. “You’re lying,” the enraged customer screamed.
Betsy simply crossed her arms over her chest. The bell rang as the door shut, and the woman whipped around. Her hair was a chaotic mess, and her eyes…they were burdened and bloodshot. At the sight of him, she sneered. She turned back to Betsy. “I’ll be back. I know you’re lying.”
The woman stalked past him, slinging the door open, and disappeared out of it. Callen looked back at Betsy. “What was that about?”
Betsy let out a sigh of relief. “I don’t know. She came in here in a huff, demanding to see someone named Esa. I told her that no one by that name worked here, and she completely freaked out and called me a liar.”
“Where’s Penny?”
Betsy ran her hand through her hair. “She left a couple hours ago. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning, so we switched shifts.”
“Are you about to lock up and leave?”
Betsy glanced at the clock. “Yeah, I should have left five minutes ago.”
Callen stepped back to stand next to the door in a defensive position. “I’ll wait on you and walk you to the train.”
Betsy smiled. “Such a gentleman.”
Callen shrugged. “I wouldn’t feel right letting you go by yourself after that. She looked a little off her rocker.”
“Give me a second to finish cleaning up and grab my things.”
Callen waited for Betsy at the door, and then scanned the street for any sign of the crazy lady while Betsy locked up. There was no angry customer, but instead, his entire group of friends stood down the street, watching his every move.
The nosy bastards.
He shot them the finger before Betsy could turn around. Thankfully, the train was the opposite direction, so he didn’t have to walk past their stares. “Thank you again,” Betsy said as they started down the street. “I’ve never had a customer do that before.”
“Not a problem.”
Betsy glanced over at him, eyeing his suit. “Were you going somewhere?”
“My friend’s birthday party, but they can survive a few minutes without me. I’m the odd one out, anyway. I doubt they’ll even miss me.”
Betsy smirked. “I find that hard to believe.”
Callen grinned, sticking his hands in his pockets. Betsy nudged his elbow. “Why didn’t you invite a date?”
“Besides the fact that I completely forgot about the party until it was time to go?” Callen sighed. “I don’t know. It’s easier said than done, I guess.”
Betsy laughed. “You’re kidding me, right? Look at you.”
Callen glanced over at her, and Betsy poked him in the ribs. “They could sell bottles of you to reverse the effects of menopause.”
Callen busted out laughing. “What?”
“You could get a date,” Betsy said, a little more seriously this time. “All you have to do is ask a girl. Any girl.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.
Betsy poked him again. “You do that.”
They came to the subway entrance and Betsy turned around. “I appreciate the company. Now go back and have fun at your party.”
He’d go back, but he doubted if he would have very much fun. The memories from the game were still too engrained in his head. It would only get worse as the night went on. Once his friends were gone, and he was back at his apartment alone, that was when the scenes from his horrible game would start to replay themselves. Each torturous moment a little worse than the last.
“Will do,” he said, giving her a wave.
Maybe one day he would be able to say it and actually mean it.
Chapter Four
PENNY’S NEW NAME
Penny remained in bed despite the sun shining through her window for the past three hours. She stared up at her ceiling which held a hundred glow in the dark stars. They didn’t glow in the light, but she could see the outline of the shapes spread across her ceiling. They’d been there when she moved in, and she hadn’t the heart to take them down. She would have loved such a thing in her bedroom as a child—that was, if she would have had an actual bedroom. Penny tapped her toes against the sheet to the beat of the song that played from her age old clock radio she’d found in her grandmother’s basement. It was her meager attempt to not think about Callen Copley for five whole minutes. No brown eyes. No fond ‘surprising him on his jogging route’ fantasies, even though those were the best possible fantasies ever. No, she would not think of him today.
At least not for the next five minutes.
Five long, uneventful, ‘there’s nothing good left in the world’ minutes. She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured a giant teddy bear. Anything but him. She did really well for about thirty seconds, until the teddy bear started talking, his voice highly similar to the six-foot wet dream she called a regular customer.
Finally, she gave up. Even if the whole talking-to-Callen doesn’t pan out, that didn’t mean she couldn’t pretend. Pretending sucked, though. There weren’t coy, little smiles three feet from you, begging to be kissed when you pretended. Why did he have to be so fatally perfect? If he’d been some hairy, toothless douche bag, then she could have seduced him with her innocent charm and interrogated him…slowly and precisely until she got the information she required.
Callen Copley wasn’t hairy, toothless, or a douche bag.
He was simply desire in its purest form. And she wanted to know what it tasted like…what it felt like…what it sounded like in the late hours of the morning when his breath caught in his throat, her hands in his hair, his lips…
Pretending sucked. It really, really sucked.
She’d watched his game during her final hour of work last night. Due to covering for Betsy, she could have left earlier and made it home to watch the last period from her couch, but she didn’t want to risk missing part of it. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. He wasn’t playing well, and you could tell by the tight lines of his expression he knew it. She hurt with him.
She shouldn’t because everything about her prese
nce in Manhattan was already so complicated, and allowing herself to feel this way for Callen Copley was dangerous.
For him. For her heart.
Penny dragged herself out of bed, assuring herself that worrying about it would only make everything worse. Her morning chores wouldn’t finish by themselves, and with the week’s worth of sunshine scheduled for the city, her flowers would need extra attention. And she needed a distraction that didn’t leave her palms sweaty and her heart all fluttery and prancing around like an elf on Christmas Eve. She slipped on her shoes and filled her giant Snoopy watering can to the brim. She started with the flowers in her bedroom, and then the ones sitting in the windowsill in the living room. She bent down and smelled the familiar aroma. She could always picture her grandmother, the vision so clear and vibrant every time she smelled roses. They were her favorite. Yellow and pink were her colors of choice. The back yard had practically been overrun with them. Penny preferred daisies. They were simpler. Less ostentatious. Their beauty was subtle, but powerful. They reminded her of her grandmother. Her phone buzzed from the table behind her as she finished up all the flowers inside. She’d have to make a trip to the rooftop garden soon.
She grabbed her phone, and a New York number Penny didn’t recognize flashed on the screen.
She pressed the button to answer it. “Hello?”
“Esa?”
Penny fell into the seat at the table. “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.”
“I know it’s you.”
Penny waited, unsure of what to do.
“I know it’s you,” the voice repeated, and chills ran down her spine.
“How did you get this number?”
Her mother’s voice was shrill and panicky. “I want my money.”
Penny’s hand gripped the handle of the watering can. “You don’t have any money. I told you that. I keep telling you that. Leave me the hell alone.”
“You’ve got my money, and I know you’re using it to get more. I want in. Damn it, Esa. You owe me this.”
“I don’t owe you a damn thing. And don’t call me that. I’m not Esa. I never will be again.”
The Girl With Daisies (Midtown Brotherhood #3) Page 3
