Chapter 11
MAREK
I have no patience for the elevator, so I take the stairs; I’m only on the third floor. I jog down one flight, grinding my back molars together.
I’m pissed.
I pause on a landing and take a breath. First, I vowed that I’m over her. Then that disaster happened and I was sick with worry. I finally got to see her, to make sure she’s okay, and she sort of is… so I should be good.
I’m not good. I’m fucked up.
She’s not really good either. I can see it. I didn’t want to leave her and I’m still worried about her. I still feel a connection with her. But obviously she doesn’t.
I’ve never had to work hard with women. They’re usually there, interested, willing. I’m not about to force myself on a woman now. It’s for the best. I’m better off unattached. I’ve always known that.
I continue down the stairs at a slower pace and exit into the foyer of the building. I nod to the doorman and stride past him. But I lurch to a halt at the exterior doors.
A bunch of people are gathered outside on the sidewalk and across the narrow street. Many of them are holding cameras. What the fuck?
As an NHL player, this has happened to me a few times, but it’s not typical. And nobody knows I’m here. They must be waiting for Nikki.
Fuck that.
I spin around and stomp back to the stairwell. I pause. “How long have they been out there?” I ask the doorman with a jerk of my head.
He eyes me uncertainly. “They’ve been there on and off for days.”
Huh. Somehow I missed that when I got here.
I take the stairs up two at a time and rap on the door of 3C.
It opens seconds later to reveal a bewildered Nikki. “Hi?”
I give her a grim smile and push past her into her apartment. I stride to the living room windows that overlook the street.
“What are you doing?” she asks from behind me.
I gesture at her to come closer, then point down. “A bunch of paparazzi.”
She leans closer and peers out. “Shit.” She turns and her face is so close to mine I can see the gold sparkles in her eyes. “Are they looking for me?”
“No, they’re looking for the Easter Bunny. Have you been crying again?”
“No.”
I heave a sigh and move to the middle of the room. I tip my head back and stare at the white beams that cross the ceiling. “Okay. I’m not leaving after all.”
“Marek! You have to go to practice!”
“Yeah.” That is a problem.
She throws up her hands. “What do you think you’re going to do here, anyway?”
“Keep you safe.”
“You can’t stay here twenty-four seven.”
That is a fact.
I pace across the room, then back. “I could go to practice. Pack up some things at home and come back. But I don’t want to leave you. You could come with me.” I stop. “Yeah. You could come with me and stay at my place. They won’t find you there.”
She gapes at me. “That’s ridiculous. I can stay here. It’ll be fine.”
But I see the misgiving in her eyes.
“You’re going to deal with them every time you go out?”
“No. I just won’t go out.”
I give her a come-on look.
“Instacart,” she says. “Door Dash. .”
I still look at her.
“I won’t be able to go to the gym,” she adds with a twist of her pretty lips. “Not that I really want to anyway.”
“I have a gym in my building.”
She blinks at me.
“But my things are here.” She gestures at the piano in her living room. I also saw one of her bedrooms has other instruments and equipment in it.
“You can do without for a while.”
She gives me a weird, troubled look. Like she’s afraid.
“I want you to be safe,” I add in a gentle tone. “And happy.”
With a slow side to side movement of her head, she says in a small voice, “I can’t be happy.”
“Maybe not right now,” I agree. “But you will.”
Her mouth droops, her expression doubtful.
“Pack a bag,” I rumble. “I’ll help.”
After a long, loaded moment, amazingly she complies. Still in her cotton pajamas, she trudges down the hall to her room. I follow.
“I need to get dressed.” She shoots a look over her shoulder at me.
“Okay. Five minutes.”
“My big suitcase is in the spare bedroom closet.”
Perfect. I hike in there and find it then cool my jets waiting for her to open the bedroom door again. She does moments later, now wearing loose jeans and a black Radiohead hoodie. The song “Creep” comes to mind.
What the hell am I doing here?
I lift the suitcase onto her bed and she starts tossing stuff into it.
“Jesus.” I grab a T-shirt, shake it out, and fold it neatly. I continue with that as she flings clothing at the bed. Until she tosses a bunch of lacey little panties and bra things. I stare at them, forgetting what I’m doing. Where I am.
I snap out of it when Nikki returns from the bathroom and chucks a big flowered bag loaded with… stuff into the suitcase.
She looks around the room. “I don’t even know what I need.”
I check the time. I need to get going or I’ll be late for practice. If traffic is bad, I’m screwed.
“If you have enough for a couple of days, we can come back.”
She nods distractedly. “Okay.” She starts to zip up the suitcase and I help her, then heft it to the floor.
I have to smile when she slides a pair of sunglasses onto her face and pulls the hood over her head. “Think that’ll disguise you?”
“Probably not. But at least they won’t see my swollen eyes.”
I follow her to the door. “What would be wrong with that? After what just happened, that seems pretty normal.”
She pulls a bright blue fake fur jacket out of the closet.
My eyebrows shoot up.
Catching that, she says, “No?”
“It’s a little, uh, flashy.”
“You’re right.” She exchanges it for a more anonymous puffy black jacket, now looking gangster with the hood over her head and dark glasses.
She pauses at the door of her apartment, lips pushing out sadly. “I was so happy to be here.”
“We’ll bring you back. Once things have died down.”
She nods and we leave.
“I’m going to get my car,” I tell her in the elevator. “You stay back and I’ll text you when I pull up out front.”
“Oh, shit. I forgot my phone.”
I roll my lips in and push the button to go back up. I’m going to be in so much trouble if I’m late.
I ignore the people on the street as I step out of her building and stride down the sidewalk, rolling Nikki’s suitcase along with me. I had to park two blocks away and around the corner I start jogging. In my SUV, I check the time again. Fuck me.
I have to go around a couple of blocks because Nikki’s street is one way.
When I get there, vehicles are parked on both sides of the narrow, tree-lined street, so I stop double-parked, searching for Nikki at the door of the brick building.
She appears and hustles out and toward my BMW X5 that I described to her.
She’s in the front seat before the photographers even realize it’s her.
“Good job.” I put the vehicle in gear just as someone behind me lays on their horn. “Fuck off, I’m going, I’m going.”
Nikki gives me big eyes.
“Are you okay?” I ask, pulling away.
“Yes. Someone yelled my name, so they did see me.” She bites her lip and rubs her palms over her jeans. “Where do you live?”
“Hoboken.”
“Right, right.” She swallows.
I turn onto Columbus. “This is a nice area. You’re really close to Central Park.”
“Yes. It is nice. Normally I can go out to the park or for coffee at one of the little places on Amsterdam or Broadway. To the bodega.” She sighs. “That’s the nice thing about New York. Nobody cares who I am. Until now.”
I try not to lose my shit as I maneuver the vehicle through traffic until we’re in the Lincoln Tunnel and zipping along, my gaze darting to the clock on the dash. Finally we’re pulling into the underground parking of my building.
“Well, this is handy for incognito exits,” Nikki says.
“I don’t usually have to worry about that,” I say dryly.
“Come on.” I haul her suitcase out and we ride the elevator up to the eighteenth floor.
My group chat with the other guys who live in this building—Benny, Crusher, and Dilly—is blowing up with questions about who’s driving today, answered by Benny, then a series of:
Smitty?
Smitty where are you?
What the fuck Smitty we’re going to be late.
I tap in a quick reply.
I’m here now. Just need a few minutes.
How am I going to explain this?
“I am so sorry to dump you here and run,” I tell Nikki. “Make yourself at home. Food, drink. Have a shower if you want.”
Her eyes dart around. “Okay.”
And I’m off again almost immediately. I stop the elevator at fifteen. All three guys are waiting there. They pile in with dirty looks.
“Oh, look who’s finally here,” Dilly says. “Where the hell were you?”
“We came to your place,” Crusher adds. “Benny has a key.”
“What?” I jerk my head around. He stayed with me for a few months last year before he got access to his apartment. “Give that back.”
Benny rolls his eyes. “What if you’d been dead in there? Or out cold on your bathroom floor? Huh?”
“That didn’t happen.”
“But it could. I should keep the key for safety. So where were you?”
I slump against the wall and rub my face. “I was at Nikki’s place.”
They all stare. “Nikki?” Dilly asks slowly. “Nikki Sullivan?”
“Yeah.”
Benny’s jaw is slack. “Whoa. Is she okay?”
“Yeah. No. Fuck. I brought her back to my place.”
Three faces all regard me with equal astonishment.
“Don’t tell anyone that,” I warn them as we load into Benny’s vehicle. “There was paparazzi hanging outside her building. So I brought her here. Sorry I’m late. It was…” I wave a hand.
“Did she ask you to go to her place?” Benny fastens his seatbelt next to me in the back seat.
“Er. No.”
“How did you know where she lives?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Jesus.”
“This is amazing,” Dilly says, roaring up the ramp of the parking garage.
“Easy, there,” I say. “We’re gonna make it.”
“If they scratch us all for being late, we will set fire to your eyebrows,” Crusher growls.
“Jesus. That’s savage.” I shake my head. “And weird. Don’t worry, I’ll tell them it’s my fault. They can scratch me.”
Benny gives me a who are you look.
Okay, yes, there may have been times in my life where I wasn’t the most responsible guy. Never when it comes to hockey, though. That’s the one thing I’ve always taken seriously.
I shrug. I don’t want to be scratched; no one ever does.
But this is my fault and I’ll take the consequences of my decisions.
I had to look after Nikki. I doubt Coach will consider that a good reason for being late.
Or maybe he will if I tell him it’s Nikki Sullivan.
Nah. He probably doesn’t even know who she is.
“You gotta stop trimming your beard over the sink,” Dilly tells Crusher. Then over his shoulder he adds for our benefit, “He plugged the sink yesterday.”
“Where else am I supposed to do it?” Crusher demands. “How about over your bed?”
“Fuck off.”
“Listen, when I cleaned out the drain, I found a lot of things that were not mine. A goddamn hair tie. Not mine. A condom! Not mine.”
“Wait. How do you know it’s not yours?”
Crusher goes silent. “I just know it.”
“I was afraid you were going to say you don’t use them.”
“Of course I use them. Let’s just say it was a… very small condom.”
“Well, it wasn’t mine!”
“Somebody put it there. Which is stupid. Also, there was a fucking marble in there. I don’t think it was a little facial hair that clogged the drain, buddy.”
I tune out the chirping, thinking of Nikki. I’m still pissed and hurt that she had a different perspective on our relationship. Such as it was.
How could she think that was just a one-nighter? I know she felt the connection between us.
Fine. Whatever. I’m better off in the alone zone.
Right now it’s about keeping her safe and making sure she’s okay. I will be her goddamn friend and nothing more.