Chapter 34
The following day, Nick clicked the edge of the chair in the lawyer’s office with the tips of his fingernails. He kept them short, and so he had to get the angle just right in order to get the click. It took a little bit of concentration. Finally Dante Freeman looked up from the desk and laid a hand across the contract as though keeping it from blowing away. He had a chunky ring on one finger that would have weighed down a whole book.
“Yeah, there’s nothing you can do about this.”
Nick grimaced and twisted his head to the side in disgust. “Seriously?”
Dante nodded. “The contract is clear. The agency has the right to use images of the finished work in promotional materials of all kinds. That includes print, online, and TV ads. He looked up at Nick. “You really want to block it?”
“Absolutely.”
Dante rolled his thumb along the backside of his ring and looked at the contract Nick had signed, the one Stacey had tricked Alyssa into giving him. “You could try paying her off.”
Nick pulled his head back. “What?”
“Just offer her cash to rip up the contract. If you do that, let me draw something up for you that terminates the relationship.”
“So you’re suggesting … I bribe her?”
“No, it’s business,” Dante said matter-of-factly. “Happens all the time. She gets money and you get privacy.”
“Doesn’t that mean she wins?”
“Is it actually a competition?” the lawyer asked.
Nick thought for a moment about Stacey’s smirk when she stood outside his door with a cameraman. “Might be,” he said. “I’m not sure.”
“Well, you’d better decide. Because you’re going to have to deal with this woman one way or another.”
As he took the stairs down to his car, Nick thought about what the lawyer had said. Was it that bad if his apartment was all over the internet? What was the worst thing that could happen if people in Detroit saw the soft green walls Alyssa had painted for him, or the luminous yellow in his bedroom? It’s not like they’d know what happened during the painting. His place looked great, and he hadn’t cared what anyone thought even when it didn’t. He reached his car, swung in, and gripped the wheel, looking straight ahead. Why did this bother him so much? He admitted the answer to himself: it damn well was a competition. And Nick hadn’t gotten into the NHL by not caring if he lost.
Stacey texted him twice while they were in Buffalo having their asses handed to them by a worse team. He ignored the first text because he wanted to, and the second because the coach was reading them the riot act.
Friday morning, his lawyer called. “Stacey Treblor called me. She says you’ve been ignoring her texts.”
“Yeah. I also told her to bother you instead of me, and she kept texting anyway. Is there a harassment suit in that?”
“No.” Nick made a guttural noise and filled a glass with water. “She’s coming over at two PM today with a cameraman. If the time doesn’t work, you can set another one, but you have to set something up today, or she’s ready to file a breach of contract suit.”
“She might get some bad publicity from that,” Nick said, pouring the water into a ceramic pot holding some plant that had defied the odds and was still alive.
“She’d get publicity. Then people would know the ads are coming, and they’d get more traction.”
“So what do I do?”
“You let her in today at two, or you arrange another time. She has a legal right to enter when you’re present and to take photographs or film the place. She can’t touch anything without your permission, but she’d only want to bring in flowers or something like that anyway.”
Nick thought about that for a minute. “She can’t touch my stuff?”
“No. Does that help?”
“Yeah. It does—thanks.” Nick signed off. He moved the shells into Sammy’s closet. They were personal. Then he finished watering the plants, got the apartment ready for Stacey, and played a game on his laptop until two o’clock. When his doorbell chimed, he buzzed her up, standing outside the door while she and a cameraman climbed the steps. “Hi,” he said. “What time would you like to come through?”
That made her pause awkwardly on the step.
“The lawyer said you wanted to come through today or set a time,” Nick said.
She looked up at him. “We’re here now. You knew we were coming now.”
“Right,” Nick said. “So let’s set a time. How about Monday afternoon?”
Stacey stomped up the stairs. She had to switch to the left side of the staircase because of the way he was standing. He knew how to take up space and how to make the opponent take a longer route to get where they were going.
“I intend to come through now,” Stacey hissed. The cameraman looked deeply uncomfortable.
“Huh. The lawyer said we could make an appointment for a later—”
“But if you let me come all the way out here …” She glared at him. He didn’t flinch. He’d been stared down by NHL defensemen. “You’re just trying to make this as difficult as possible.”
“Yep,” Nick said. He was kind of enjoying this. He was absolutely going to drag it out and make this as hard for her as possible. It served her right, and not just because she was strong-arming him. She’d also fired Alyssa—and humiliated her in the process. If he could make Stacey walk the long way up a staircase or have to return another day, he was damn well going to do it.
“If you don’t let me in, I’m suing for breach of contract.”
He shrugged. “Then you can walk through, but the cameraman can’t come in today.” He turned to the man. “Monday afternoon. Say, one o’clock?”
“Works for me,” the guy said. He looked relieved not to go in. Nick guessed he hadn’t known much about the situation—that Nick was unwilling to have his apartment featured in this ad.
Stacey’s nostrils flared. “Alright, Mr. Sorensen. I’ll do a walk-through now so I know what I’m dealing with. Then we’ll come back to film on Monday at one.”
Nick hesitated at the door. Maybe what he’d done was stupid. Okay, it was definitely stupid. “Did you fire Alyssa because of me?”
Stacey gave him a smile as warm as a Zamboni towel. “Yes.”
Nick waited for some explanation, some excuse, but she just stood there, looking smug. He swung the door wide open.
He’d pulled his living room chairs over to the entry and laid them on their sides. There was a three-foot triangle inside the door. To get beyond, you had to climb over furniture. “Remember, you’re not legally allowed to touch anything,” Nick said, squatting and leaping over a chair cleanly, landing lightly on the other side. He stood back to give her room. Stacey stood in the triangle, fuming at him, then took her shoes off and climbed over his chair, stepping on the side of the arm. He pulled his phone out and snapped a picture, and the cameraman quietly raised the camera and filmed a few seconds, lowering it quickly when Stacey turned around. Nick gave him an appreciative grin. Probably nothing could be done about her touching his stuff, but it was worth documenting.
Stacey strode around the place, opening his kitchen cupboards—which seemed entirely unnecessary and designed to maximize the intrusion. She walked into his bedroom and looked around, then adjusted the angle of the quilt folded at the end of his bed.
“You’re not allowed to touch things.”
“Get over it.” His eyes flew wide at that. Her acrylic nails tapped his bedside lamp, turning the nightlight feature on and off. “Not the lamp I would have chosen,” she said.
He thought about that. Alyssa had never said anything about that lamp, just showed him how it worked. She could have easily said, “Flip the top switch for reading, touch the base for middle-of-the-night-panics.” But she hadn’t. She’d left him a little dignity—and he’d insulted her stupid pond flowers. He’d been hurt when she rejected him, and he’d been petty.
“We’ll be back on Monday at one o’clock,” Stacey said. “Have your furniture upright. I’ll be bringing flowers for the table.” She turned back to look at him. “I won’t put any incriminating cards in them.”
“I’ll try to hose the place down. I’m hosting an orgy tomorrow so it’ll be iffy.” The cameraman laughed. Stacey walked over his chair again and climbed over. She was pretty limber for her age, he’d give her that. “Hey,” he said to the cameraman as she left, “can I talk to you for a second?”
“Yeah,” the man said. “I’m sorry about this. I didn’t realize it was a problem.”
“Can I hire you to make an ad for me?” Nick said. “I’ll pay you twice—”
“Don’t care,” the guy said. “Nick Sorensen? I’m in.”
Nick mass-texted his teammates. He was going to need help to pull this off. Because what did he know about marketing?
Nick: Party at my place right now. Urgent. Pick up food and drinks, please. Bring women.
Nick: This is not a drill.
Nick: Wear pants. You’re going to be on camera.
Then he sat at his computer, opened a design program, and sketched out the sign he’d seen in Alyssa’s apartment, the one for the business she hoped to open. He wasn’t sure he had it exactly right, but it was close. He had an eye for that kind of thing. He hit “Print” and handed the paper to the cameraman. “Can you do the whole thing? The editing and, I guess, producing?”
“Sure,” the guy said. “My years of film school will finally pay off.” Nick shook his hand.
His teammates arrived half an hour later—eleven guys, six with their wives or girlfriends. A few other guys had texted that they were intrigued but out on a lake or otherwise occupied, and a few guys hadn’t seen the text yet. Eleven Red Wheels were more than enough. Nick threw his door open and let them stream in. “Get everything,” he said to the cameraman, and the man nodded, filming silently from the corner.
Devin walked in with a bottle of wine and a tray of cookies. He stared at the apartment. “Alyssa is amazing,” he said. “This place sure looks better than the last time I saw it.” Nick beamed and glanced over to make sure the cameraman caught that.
He was about to shut the door when Jakub, the Czech left wing, walked in wearing a purple suit. He had this week’s girlfriend, a leggy blond in a low-cut dress, on his arm. He clunked two bottles of vodka on the counter. “Emergency party!” he shouted. “I am here for you, Nikolai!” He patted Nick’s cheek.
Pretty soon the disco light he’d bought when Alyssa was painting was rotating with a soft grind, and they danced. Then one of the guys turned the TV to a game, and they tumbled into his living room to watch. They snacked, told jokes, poked fun at one another, and laughed. Even Nick forgot the camera was there, and once he’d explained his plan, the other guys had ignored it too. Considering it was a party for show, they had a lot of fun. When it was over, they collected the leftovers and wandered out, complimenting his place and thanking the cameraman, who beamed and asked for autographs.
“You can get it done?” Nick asked him.
“It’ll be tight, but yeah. I texted the station while I was filming, and you’re good for tomorrow.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. I explained and they rearranged some things. Basically, once people knew it was for you, they made it work.”
Nick tightened his mouth. It was the crash. Dead friends got you favors, but also that’s why you needed them. “Thanks so much. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.” He shook the man’s hand.
“I’d have done it just to see Jakub Cermak sing ‘I’m a Slave 4 U.’ That was … something.”
Nick laughed. “Yeah, I was afraid he was going to strip a little too far.”
“Let’s shoot the intro, and then I can get to work,” the man said. “There’s a lot to edit.”
“Basically anything with Jakub …”
“… needs to be cut,” they said together, then laughed.
Nick stood in his living room, ever so slightly drunk, loose from hanging with his friends. Turned out he had friends who would answer the emergency beacon of a cheap drugstore disco light and show up in the middle of the afternoon, no questions asked. God, this was a good life. It was. He should be more grateful.
“Hi, I’m Nick Sorensen,” he said. “And this is my apartment. Alyssa Compton decorated it for me, and she did a great job.”