by Sarina Bowen
“I haven’t even called them yet,” I admit. “I need to focus on hockey first and the chaos of my life later.”
“I can’t even imagine how you’re holding it together.” She squeezes my arm, her face full of sympathy. “I’m sure you’ve had easier months. Just let me know if there’s anything you need. And thanks for coming today.”
“My pleasure.” She gives me another warm smile, and I return it even though my neck feels hot.
Everyone knows about my divorce, giving me either dirty or pitying looks. They’re both a drag. I’ve already cycled through a wide range of feelings—shock, numbness, sadness—but I seem to have landed on embarrassment, instead of utter heartbreak.
If that’s not a sign, then I don’t know what is.
“Hey, Rebecca!” another player says, grabbing the owner’s attention. He’s not just any player. Eric Bayer is one of the veterans I was meant to replace. Bayer is only a year or two older than I am, but he retired last season after one too many knee surgeries. “Did you happen to see… Oh, there it is!” Bayer reaches under the caterer’s table and emerges with a tote bag. It’s covered in bright pink bunny rabbits. He pulls a baby’s bottle out of the sack and begins to shake it. “Just in time,” he says.
I search my brain, trying to remember if I ever met his wife. But I come up blank. I thought he was single.
“Do you need to heat that up?” Becca offers.
“Nope. The little miss likes it cool or warm or any temperature at all.” He pops the protective top off. “Here she comes now.”
I glance toward the half flight of stairs to the house, and my heart fails. Because it’s Bess who’s carrying a chubby little baby girl out into the yard. The baby is propped snugly on her hip and clutches a lock of Bess’s striking red hair in her tiny hand.
Bess is too distracted by the baby to look at me, which is a good thing because I know there’s shock written all over my face.
“Wow, Rookie,” she says to Eric. “That’s a very manly diaper bag you have there.”
“You shut up,” he says with a smile. “Thanks for the free babysitting.”
“Who says it was free?” Bess asks, handing the baby over.
That’s when I remember to breathe. Because Bess isn’t Eric’s wife, and that’s not her baby. Not that I should care. It doesn’t have a thing to do with me.
What the heck is wrong with me? Back in the day, Bess and I weren’t even serious. We had a wonderful, physical fling.
Before she broke it off, without telling me why.
Eric pries his daughter’s fingers off Bess’s hair and casually tips the baby back into his embrace, the bottle sliding into her mouth like he’s done this a thousand times before. All the women in a twenty-foot radius are watching him with hearts in their eyes.
Even Bess. “Need anything else?” she asks, taking the baby’s chubby little bare foot in her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.
“No boss, I got this.”
Her brother Dave calls over to them. “Don’t call her boss, it will go right to her head.”
“That’s the idea,” Eric insists. “It helps to gloss over my general incompetence.” Then he turns his head and spots me listening in on this friendly drama. “Hey, man. It’s been a while since I faced off against you.”
“It has, right?” I say stiffly. “Last fall, maybe?”
“Yeah,” Bayer agrees. “I only got six weeks of the regular season. Welcome to Brooklyn. I’m sure you’re questioning all your life choices right now, but this is a good group.”
“I can tell,” I lie.
“Uh-huh.” He gives me a grin, like he can see right through me.
“What are you up to these days?” I ask.
“Working for this tough lady here.” He jerks his chin toward Bess, who rolls her eyes at him. “Trying my hand as an agent.”
“Oh, cool.” I’d heard that Bess was doing well with her business in Detroit. She’s rumored to be a tough negotiator. And it makes sense that she’d want someone on the East Coast to help her grow the business.
“I’m still learning the ropes,” Eric says. “You’re Henry Kassman’s client, right?”
“True story.”
“Well done, Rookie!” Bess says to Eric. She’s still avoiding my eyes. “Look at the memory on you.”
“Hey, I pay attention. You two must have met Kassman at about the same time?” he asks her. “You must have overlapped by a year or so.”
“Overlapped,” I say slowly. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“Briefly,” Bess stammers, lifting her chin to show me a pair of startled, guilty eyes. She takes a deep breath. “Kassman runs a great shop” she says coolly. “I loved working with Henry.”
I hold her gaze. Now we’re having a staring contest. I win it. Bess’s eyes drop first.
The victory doesn’t sit right with me, though. To this day I don’t know why she cut me loose. We had a really good thing going there for a little while.
But then she cut me off with no explanation. She only said she was too busy to spend time with me. But it was probably the other way around. Her next boyfriend was probably a guy who didn’t spend sixty nights a year on the road.
“Bessie, I’m heading out,” her brother says, interrupting our second awkward moment of the evening. “You sure you won’t come out drinking?”
Bess shakes her head. “You go ahead. I don’t feel like getting as drunk as you’re about to get.”
“How do you know?” he asks.
“Oh, please. One last night in the city with the team?” She waves a hand, like the math is too easy. “Just don’t get arrested. No two a.m. calls from the city jail, please.”
“Like that’s ever happening,” he scoffs. “Bayer, you in?”
Eric looks toward the house. “Probably. But first I’ll make sure Alex and Rosie get home. Text me when you land at a bar.”
“Will do.” Dave crosses a few feet of lawn to kiss his sister on the top of her head. “Don’t wait up. And I promise not to be too hung over to hang out on your birthday.”
Your birthday. Whoa! I’d forgotten the date. But I haven’t forgotten any of the details.
Neither has Bess. Her blue eyes cut right to mine. She quickly looks away again, and I see it—the telltale blush leaking across her cheeks and up her forehead. Nobody blushes like Bess.
And there’s plenty to blush about. I remember everything about our first night together. The hesitation on her face when I’d invited her to my hotel room. The shock and lust in her eyes as I’d kissed my way down her body. The sounds she’d made…
Fuck. That was a long time ago. But it made a powerful impression on me.
“Hey, Tank.” The backup goalie—Silas—arrives beside me. “Coming out with us tonight?”
Beside him, his buddy Castro scowls, as if he can’t stand the idea.
That’s okay, because I’ve had enough togetherness already. “You kids have fun,” I say. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
When I turn around, Bess has disappeared.
Before leaving the party, I make a pitstop in the mansion’s sumptuous guest bathroom. Then, since I still need to shake Nate Kattenberger’s hand, I go looking for the billionaire. Every ground-floor room is more impressive than the last.
I’m just passing the kitchen when I catch a few words the chattering caterers are saying.
“She left him! Can you believe it?”
“He must have a flaming hemorrhoid for a personality, because I wouldn’t kick him out of bed. Did you see those arms?”
Feeling paranoid, I stand there, listening.
“She must love Texas more than she loves his dick,” someone says with a snicker.
“I read that he cheated.”
“Right? All that temptation from puck bunnies.”
“They say he cheated with a teammate’s wife. That’s why he got traded.”
Oh my fucking God. People will write anything on the inte
rnet.
This is why I’d spent the summer hiding from everyone, living in my Russian teammate’s house, taking care of his dogs, trying to decide which Dallas neighborhood would be my home next year.
And then the hockey gods made a completely different choice for me.
I force myself to walk away from the kitchen. I finally locate Nate Kattenberger in his front parlor and thank him for his hospitality.
“Great to have you here,” he says with a firm handshake.
“Great to be here.” Another lie.
After a few more platitudes, I’m free of the party. As I duck out of the garden gate and walk down the sidewalk, I realize I don’t know where the hell I am. I pick a direction and walk a block, but my path dead-ends into a park-like walking path along the river. There’s a terrific view of lower Manhattan, but nowhere to meet a taxi.
So I reverse course, pulling my new phone out of my pocket. Everyone on the Bruisers team carries the same phone. It’s manufactured by the billionaire whose barbecue I just enjoyed. It feels foreign in my hand, and when I open up the Lyft app, I realize I haven’t linked my account to the new device yet. It doesn’t know me, along with everything and everyone else around here.
I walk toward the traffic on what might or might not be Hicks Street. I need a yellow cab, hopefully with a driver who knows where the Marriott is. As I approach the corner, I see a taxi slowing down.
I’m just about to raise my hand when I notice it’s stopping for someone else—a beautiful woman with lush red hair. As I walk toward her, she gives me the death glare that one New Yorker gives another when staking a claim on a taxi.
Then Bess realizes who she’s glaring at, and her eyes widen.
I can’t help but chuckle. Rattling Bess Beringer is the only fun thing that happened to me today. Although the day’s not over yet.
Five
Cinderella Makes a Bad Decision
Bess
Tank stalks toward me, and my heart begins to pound. When it comes to this guy, I have no chill. I never did.
But I finally understand my twenty-one-year-old self a little better. She’d made a terrible mistake—an agent should never sleep with a client—but now it’s suddenly so easy to remember why it happened.
All it takes is one look from Tank, and I remember everything. The way his eyes used to darken while he undressed me. The way he used to pin my wrists together in his hand. The way he ordered me to unzip his pants, and how I obeyed, using my teeth.
He made me feel like a real woman. When he pinned me with that green-eyed stare, I wasn’t the neglected little girl I’d been at fourteen. Nor the college jock with frizzy red hair. That look in his eyes made me into someone else entirely. I’ve never been as brazenly sexual as I was with him.
Twenty-one-year-old Bess hadn’t known what hit her.
“Bess,” he says in a low voice. “Want to share a cab?”
“What?” My throat goes dry. “Did you really just ask me that? We aren’t headed in the same direction.”
“We could be.”
“Tank,” I gasp.
“What? Tell me one good reason we can’t. Is there a guy waiting at home for you?”
It takes me several seconds to respond, because I’m so startled. “No. That’s not the problem.”
“Then what is? Maybe you forgot my name for a minute at the party. But we both know you didn’t forget the rest of me.”
“I didn’t forget your name,” I argue. But I can’t have this conversation right here in the middle of Hicks Street.
And now the taxi, tired of waiting for us to argue, abruptly pulls away from the curb and abandons me.
“Hell,” I curse, watching him go. Now it’s just me and Tank. And he’s propositioning me. I think. Maybe he’s just trying to rile me up as payback for acting like an awkward idiot at the party. “You know what? I’m not twenty-one anymore.”
“But wouldn’t you like to be?” he asks in a low voice. “Happy Birthday, by the way. I’m still really good at celebrating.”
I open my mouth to argue when he raises two fingers to his lips and lets fly with a sharp whistle. Another yellow cab pulls an illegal U-turn and stops at the curb. Tank opens the door and steps back, waiting for me.
I’m stuck to the sidewalk, staring at him. Because parts of me really want to be twenty-one again, damn it. My pulse is racing and my skin feels hot. Nobody has made me feel like this in a really long time. Nine years, actually.
“Get in, Bess,” he says quietly. “It doesn’t have to be a big decision.”
Says you. But standing here on the sidewalk gaping at him isn’t a really smart move, either. Anyone leaving Nate’s party might spot us.
So that’s my justification for getting into the cab—it’s better to have this conversation privately. I slide across the seat to make room for Tank. My dress rides up, so I smooth it down primly.
Tank lowers his muscular body onto the seat beside me. “The Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, please,” he says to the driver.
And then? He puts a possessive hand on my knee, and gives it a dirty squeeze.
It should feel wrong. But instead it just feels familiar. My breath hitches. Nine years later, and I’m still anticipating his firm grasp and the heat of his skin.
This is a terrible idea, I remind myself. Get out of this cab at the next traffic light. The Marriott is barely a mile away. I probably have less than five minutes to prevent myself from making another big mistake.
My stomach dips as I imagine what might happen when we arrive. It’s been a while since I’ve been with any man. Maybe it would be awkward and terrible between us.
But maybe not.
Spoiler alert: I don’t jump out of the cab.
The driver looks over his shoulder, and then unleashes a torrent of fan-boy ramblings. “Holy fuck! I got Mark Tankiewicz in my cab! You play for Dallas, da?”
“Yessir. Recently.”
“You know my countrymen, Sergei and Igor Petrov?”
“Of course,” Tank says. “Good guys. I was taking care of Sergei’s dogs this summer. He keeps vodka in the freezer that will scramble your brain.”
The cab driver laughs uproariously and demands an autograph.
Tank agrees. He isn’t even looking at me, but his naughty hand slides slowly up my thigh and under my skirt. I hold my breath.
The cab pulls up to the hotel, and Tank’s hand vanishes as the bellhop opens the cab door. Tank pays the cabbie and autographs his newspaper. I’ve almost recovered my wits when Tank hops onto the curb beside me and tucks an arm around my waist.
“Spasiba!” the cabbie calls. “Thank you!”
Tank doesn’t bother responding. He’s following the bellhop into the hotel lobby, tugging me along. He marches me toward the elevator, and the doors part as if he’s commanded them to.
“Well, you have one fan in Brooklyn,” I say, trying for nonchalance.
“Only one?” he asks. Then he takes my face in his hands and gives me a smoldering look.
I gaze back at him in wonder. I’d forgotten how it feels to have Tank’s undivided attention. The heat in his eyes gives me a high like no drink or drug ever will. I stare at him until he says, “The elevator is here, Bess. Get in.”
Jesus. My heart is racing. I have to get a grip. “Look…” I clear my throat as we step inside. The doors slide shut as he punches one of the buttons. “I’m sorry about the party. I’m sorry I implied that I didn’t remember you.”
“Oh I know you remember me.” He smirks. “That was never in doubt.”
Right. “Here’s something you don’t know, though. I remember something you said to me the first night I met you. And I never forgot it.”
“Was it, ‘Oh baby, don’t stop’?”
I’m trying to make a point. So I step forward, squaring my shoulders to his, and look directly into his eyes. “Shut up a second, would you? I’m trying to pay you a compliment.”
His eyes widen.
“That night we met at Sparks, I was new to the city and new at the agency. I read your file before dinner so I could memorize facts, but I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. I was terrified of screwing up. But you sat across the table from me with that fifty-dollar glass of wine in your hand, looking as comfortable as a king…” I can still picture the whole scene like it was yesterday. “And even though I knew you were just a rookie in a strange city, you didn’t show any fear. In fact, you told the whole table that your motto was: ‘What can I get away with?’”
His smile turns wicked. “That sounds like something I would say. Not that I remember saying it.”
“Well, I never forgot. And I’ve been saying it to myself on and off for the last nine years. When I don’t know what to do, or I don’t understand the rules, sometimes it just comes to me. ‘What can we get away with?’ So…” I clear my throat. “Thank you for that.”
His expression softens. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time.”
“You’re welcome,” I say, feeling a little more rational. A little more like myself.
But when the elevator doors open on the twentieth floor, and Tank waits for me to step out, I’m back to goosebumps and a fluttery tummy. At the end of the hallway, he pulls out a key card and swipes us into his room. Against my better judgment, I follow him inside.
The suite is spacious, with a kitchenette and a dining table. Soft lighting shows off the sleek lines of the low, leather sofas. I skirt the edge of the room, trying to keep my distance. It’s surreal to be alone with him after so many years. It’s even more surreal that I woke up this morning thinking about him.
The coincidence is easily explained by the date of my birth, and the start of hockey season, but I still feel like I’ve somehow conjured him with my thoughts.
With forced nonchalance, I stand in front of a set of floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over Brooklyn at twilight. The bridge is lit up in the distance, with the skyscrapers of Manhattan just beyond. The Empire State building is illuminated in green and blue. And a million other lights twinkle in the span between.
