Chapter 7 #2
“I needed it for the risotto and figured we might as well have a glass while we’re cooking—or more than one.
” She tops off her glass and pours a fresh one for me, dropping in two ice cubes because I like my wine a little watered down, at least the white stuff.
She passes me the glass. “You got a gift basket today.”
“A gift basket? From who? For what?”
She points to the top of the garbage can, where a gift basket sits awaiting its fate. “You have one guess.”
I can tell by looking who it’s from. “How the hell did he get my address?”
“I guess you’ll have to call him if you want to find out. I was going to toss the whole thing, but some of your favorite treats are in there, so I figured I’d let you make the decision.”
I take a hefty gulp of my wine and set it on the counter—otherwise I’m going to chug the entire thing. Today has been a day. “I hate being wasteful.”
“Is there anyone at work who might appreciate it? Maybe you could leave it in the lounge and people can pick at it?” Sophia suggests.
“Maybe. Are there chocolate-peanut-butter pretzels in there?” I ask.
“And movie theater popcorn.” Sophia makes a sympathetic face and pats me on the shoulder. “Don’t feel bad about wanting to keep it.”
“I hate it when he plies me like this. He’s trying to butter me up.”
“Literally with the popcorn,” Sophia jokes.
“I’m not going to let my guard down. Then he’ll come in and try to plead his case. Thank God he lives far enough away and can’t show up on a whim.” I continue stirring the risotto with increased vigor.
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Sophia says.
“There’s no reason for him to move to Illinois.
He travels too much for work.” But as I say it, I wonder how true that is.
Gabriel seems to be ramping up his attempts to get back into my good graces, rather than acquiescing and signing the divorce papers.
He’s proven that he makes important life decisions on a whim—like the way he proposed and how quickly we got married.
He also took a consulting job after that, and secured me a position at the same company without asking.
At first, the surprises seemed impulsive, and mostly well-intentioned, but over time it got to be .
. . too much. After a while, I started to see that he wasn’t doing it to be nice.
He was doing it so he could keep tabs on me.
Sophia makes a noise, neither in agreement nor disagreement. “Let’s worry about the basket after dinner. How was the rest of your day?”
“Odd, to say the least. Maverick came to my office first thing this morning,” I tell her.
She pours a healthy amount of white wine into the pot of creamy rice and mushrooms. “No! What happened? Did you report him?”
I shake my head, and Sophia gives me a disapproving look.
I hold up a hand, the one that isn’t busy stirring in the wine. “Hear me out before you judge my lack of action.” I detail how he came in looking all contrite, that he was apologetic and adamant about wanting to make sure I felt safe. “It almost felt like he wanted me to report him.”
“Then maybe you should. Maybe it’s a cry for help.”
“I considered that, until he passed over the key and his revised paper.”
“What if it’s a copy? And why would his paper change your mind?”
“Because he wrote it based on a personal experience. His younger sister was abducted when she was six, and he was there when she went missing.” I explain what happened, informed by both the articles I read earlier today and his paper.
“Oh, God. I can’t even imagine.” She presses her fingers to her lips and shakes her head. “And she’s okay? His sister?”
“She’s a student here at the school. And she lives with Maverick. When can I stop stirring this?” My hand is starting to cramp.
“Let me test it.” She grabs a spoon and dips it into the pot, blowing on it for a few seconds before she tastes it. “Probably five more minutes. I’ll take over again. You grab the wine.”
I do as she asks and pour until she tells me to stop. I cork the bottle and lean against the counter. “How would I even know if the key was a copy?”
“You can take it to a locksmith. They’ll likely be able to tell you if it’s an original.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t mean he hasn’t made copies and doesn’t have a whole stack of them at home.”
“I already turned it over, so I can’t get the answer to that.”
“Who’d you turn it over to?”
“Someone who worked in the athletic facility.”
“Okay.” She nods pensively. “Well, from what you’ve told me about Maverick, making copies doesn’t seem to fit his profile.”
I swirl my wine, and the ice cubes clink against the glass. “How do you mean?”
Sophia rubs the space between her eyes. “I’m looking at this through a psychology lens, so bear with me. After you first slept with him, before he was your student, you talked about how sexy you found it that he consistently asked for permission before you engaged in—”
“Do not say intercourse.”
“Do you like relations better?” She gives me a cheeky grin.
I make a gagging noise. “Relations sounds like what people in retirement homes do.”
“Apparently people in retirement homes get it on all the time. They have very high STI rates.”
“Why are we talking about grandparents and STIs?”
“We’re not. We’re talking about the sex you had with Maverick.”
“Can we move this along?” I make a go-on motion. “I’ve been actively trying not to think about what the sex was like, and I was doing great until I saw him naked again.”
“I’ll get there. In a minute. There’s a purpose to my bringing this up. You used words like patient, attentive, and I believe fucking magical was also thrown in there. You called him a unicorn.”
“I didn’t know he was going to be my student then.”
“That’s not the point. The point is that during the short span of time when you fucked like bunnies, he was all those things. And now you’re telling me he came to see you, apologized, gave you the key to the athletic facility, and expressed concern for your well-being and feelings of safety.”
“But last night he threatened to blackmail me for sleeping with him.”
“After you told him he could be expelled?”
I cross my arms. “Yes.”
“Okay. So he reacted to your reaction. And then apologized for saying that at all. Now we have another layer to add. A man you have been intimate with handed in a paper before the sauna incident that indicates he’s experienced a very serious trauma. His whole family has.”
“Because of what happened to his sister.”
“Yes, exactly.” Sophia turns off the burner and moves the risotto to a trivet on the counter.
“Can you help me make all the connections here?”
“Today, when he came to see you in your office, his primary concern should have been an expulsion and the possibility of losing his entire future as a result, but it wasn’t. He was concerned about how he made you feel, about your safety.”
“He said there should be consequences for his actions.”
Sophia nods. “Exactly. It’s not what you would expect from someone in his position. His father is a hockey legend, and he seems to be on the same path.”
I grab my phone from my purse, ignore the messages from Gabriel that have appeared over the past couple of hours, and search NHL + Waters + career.
An image of a man who looks very much like an older Maverick pops up on my screen, and his stats and earnings while he was a player are also public.
“It says at one point his father was the highest-paid player in the league.” It also says that Maverick was picked up by Nashville as a first-round pick when he was eighteen.
Sophia arches a brow. “Those are quite the shoes to fill and quite the interesting family profile.”
I drop my phone on the counter, remove my glasses, and scrub a hand over my face. “Do you think I did the right thing then by not reporting him?”
Sophia sighs. “Yesterday I was all for reporting him, but with this new information . . . It’s more complicated than a jock being entitled.
These are unusual circumstances, and your judgment is clouded by your history with him.
You’ve done the right thing by turning in the key.
It might be a good idea to let things lie now and do your best to avoid him for the rest of the semester. ”