Chapter Five
Five
Jaylen
Lucy follows me into the night, practically jogging to keep up. I’m not sure why anyone would insist on wearing such clunky boots; they look like they weigh about ten pounds each.
“Usually when someone says ‘Let’s get out of here,’ they mean ‘Let’s go back to my place’ or ‘Let’s get a hotel room.’ They don’t mean ‘Let’s run a 5k in the middle of the night.’ My feet hurt,” she whines as she thumps along beside me.
We’ve hardly walked three blocks from Trolls Bridge. I might be from the Midwest, but I’ve lived in New York for the last six hockey seasons; everything is a short walk away if you have the right attitude. Even my hotel room. At least I think it is. It’s possible I made a wrong turn. I also wasn’t entirely expecting Lucy to follow me and the longer we walk the more nervous I get at the thought of inviting her up to my room.
After falling a few paces behind me, Lucy succumbs to her fatigue and slumps down on the dirty curb.
“No, get up. We’re so close. I think…” My protest lacks the necessary confidence to persuade her. She pouts at me, and I reluctantly sit down beside her for a rest. I do my best to repress the thought of the million microgerms currently attaching themselves to my pants.
As my attention shifts from what I’m sitting on to what I’m sitting across from, my mouth falls open. “Look at that sign over there,” I blurt out. I point across the deserted street like a kid spotting cows on a long road trip. She follows my finger to Lucky Thirteen Tattoo. Dangling from the awning is a colorful stained-glass number thirteen about the size of a sheet of paper.
Turning, she snaps, “I said I wasn’t going to talk about my tattoos.”
“I’m not asking you about your tattoos. I’m asking you to look at the dangling sign.”
“The stained-glass thirteen? What about it?” Her eyes narrow.
“We’re going to steal that sign,” I say with conviction. It’s as serious as I’ve been all night. After meeting Lucy tonight, a beautiful, mysterious woman with a thirteen tattoo on her wrist, I see it as a sign. Well, obviously, but not just a sign, a metaphorical one too. Plus, if I can’t have the jersey number thirteen anymore, then they can’t either.
I’m not usually this reckless, but somewhere among the beers and Lucy’s heavenly hazel eyes, I’m wrapped up in the moment. It’s been years since I’ve felt this free from myself, so I’m going with it.
She laughs at my absurd request, only I’m not laughing with her. “You can’t be serious. Who do you think you are, Nic Cage in National Treasure ?”
“You were bragging about being an accomplished thief back at the hobbit bar. This should be an easy lift.” I tread a fine line between persuasion and peer pressure.
“It’s way too high for me to reach,” she says.
I scope out the area. The sign dangles at least ten feet in the air, well above both our heads. Difficult, but not impossible. A bit like Lucy, and man, do I love a challenge.
“I’ll put you on my shoulders,” I try to assure her.
“There are security cameras. You might be gone tomorrow, but I live here.”
“The cameras don’t point at the sign.” I’ll have an answer for any excuse. And I’m right; the store sits at the corner of the street, but the sign hangs to the far side of the building, well beyond the store’s front door and any other nearby security cameras.
“Why do you even want it?” Lucy asks, delaying us.
“Thirteen is my favorite number.” I furrow my brow at her like what I said justifies petty theft. I thought she would be immediately on board with this plan. After all, she’s the one with the number thirteen inked into her skin forever. I desperately wish I could bring up her tattoo, as a point of leverage or at least justification, but I promised to not mention them. So far, I’m going to respect that wish.
“What is this, Little League? Who still has a favorite number?” Lucy laughs at me.
“Forget it.” I’m getting nowhere with her. At this rate, it would be faster to try to scale the wall and get it down myself. I didn’t want to have to do this to her, but she’s left me no choice.
I discreetly push up the sleeves of my T-shirt and I lean back on my arms. My muscles flex under the weight of my torso. I turn to her and flash a smile, showing off the results of three years of orthodontics when I was in middle school. I am shamelessly peacocking for her. I might as well rip off my shirt and start flexing in front of her like Michael B. Jordan in every single one of his movies. I figure I won’t have this body much longer; I might as well put it to use tonight while I’ve still got it. And I know I’ve still got it, because she rolls her eyes and groans.
“Fine. I’ve made far worse decisions for far uglier people. Let’s go.”
I jump up with a jolt of energy and turn to extend a hand to help her off the curb. My hand engulfs hers entirely, and I pull her to her feet with ease. I don’t want to let go of her, but she drops my hand before darting across the street.
“But if we go down for this, I’m giving them your name,” she turns to shout back at me.
I chase after her, yelling, “How do you know I gave you a real one?”
I kneel on the sidewalk low enough for Lucy to jump on my back. I can’t help but giggle as we almost topple over. With her thighs wrapped around the back of my neck, I try my best to forget that she’s wearing a skirt. I pop up from my squatted position with ease, gripping on to her legs to make sure she doesn’t fly off the back of my shoulders. I hope she isn’t afraid of heights.
“You ready?” I call up to her as I paw the ground like a bull ready to charge.
I have to keep things silly or else I’ll be too tempted to turn my head and ask to kiss her inner thigh. Her legs are soft and smell like sugar, and I do my best to ignore how far up her tattoos reach.
“Just walk to the sign,” she says, annoyed with my theatrics.
I don’t walk—I run. She almost flies off the back of my neck. Lucy clings to my head like she’s reading a crystal ball. This is not what I had envisioned when I thought of her running her fingers through my hair, but I’ll take it.
Right as we pass underneath, she reaches up and with a swift tug, she brings the sign down. With Lucy gripping my head for dear life, I continue to run up the street for another block as she giggles uncontrollably.
“Okay, okay, put me down,” she says, having gotten a hold of herself.
Lucy hands over the stolen property and I cradle it gently like my precious . “What a thrill. I get why you do it.”
“Don’t let it become a habit. I’d hate to be a bad influence on you.”
My grin cracks into a full smile. She bites down on her bottom lip to stop herself from smiling as widely as I am, but she can’t hide her red cheeks so easily.
“Isn’t that what tonight’s all about—being our worst selves?” I remind her.
“Then you’re welcome.”
I laugh at Lucy’s casual cockiness. Confidence comes so naturally to her.
The side street is silent; it’s just us, two strangers standing under the moonlight with a stolen sign. We are all alone, and yet I want even more privacy. I tuck my hands in my pockets, partially for the warmth, but also because this next part of the evening is a bit awkward.
Picking up women in random cities for one night of fun isn’t a foreign concept to me, but it’s also not something I ever made a habit of doing regularly. Hockey is so physically demanding that by the time the opportunity ever presented itself I didn’t have much game left to contribute to my off-ice extracurriculars. Maybe in my first year in the league, when I was playing well, but not lately.
When everyone thinks you’re the worst hockey player in the world, you start to feel like the worst person too. No one wanted to meet me; they wanted to meet the kid who was drafted first overall. Lucy doesn’t know Jaylen the top prospect; she knows Jaylen the guy who’s wearing the wrong shoes. The clock is running out on tonight and I have one shot left.
“Good news for your sore feet, we’re really close to my hotel. Do you want to come up? Or I could get you that Uber you wanted. It’s your call.” I take my hand out of my pocket and rub the back of my neck while staring down at my feet. It’s cold, but I’m less caught up on the fact that Lucy is braless and more focused on the fact that her nose isn’t the only place she has pierced. I brace myself to be turned down and sent packing, again.
There’s an unignorable knot in my stomach that’s almost never there. It was the same knot I felt during the NHL draft, the same knot I felt before taking my rookie lap in my first NHL game, and the same knot I felt before I met my baby nephew for the first time. It takes a lot to make me nervous, but since the moment I met Lucy, I’ve felt it.
“If they start to hurt too much, I’ll make you carry me again,” she says, slipping her hand into mine.