Chapter 32
Present Day
So this meeting you had with Chase,” Darcy says, eyeing me from the other end of her sofa during a commercial break in the hockey game we’re watching. “The two of you… alone? Why didn’t you call and give me the blow by blow?”
“Nobody came to blows, luckily. We were very civil. He even walked me home.”
“Still! I’m not sure you know how this friend thing works.” She picks up the bottle of wine I brought over and tops up both our glasses. “I expect a full report every time you and Chase are alone together.”
“I’m trying not to read too much into every little interaction we have,” I admit. “He seems a lot less angry with me now, which is a good thing. But every time we’re in the same room, I’m still a wreck.”
“Oh, honey.” She flinches. “At least the scenery is top-notch.”
“In every possible way,” I point out. “Forget his abs. The view from his apartment made me feel weak in the knees.”
Her eyes widen. “Wait—you went to The Lair?”
I take a sip of my wine. “You realize that’s a stupid name, right?”
She waves away this objection. “We’ve been over this.
There’s too much testosterone around here to call things by ordinary names.
I was up there just once, when all three of them hosted a holiday open house and invited all the front office staff.
It’s wild, right? Chase’s bedroom has a view of the Empire State Building. ”
“I didn’t spend any time in that room. We talked.”
“You talked.” She gives me a cheeky smile. “You went up to The Lair, where Chase has a sofa the size of New Jersey and a bed the size of New York. And you just…conversed?”
“We also ate some fantastic enchiladas and went over our rehearsal schedule.” I don’t mention the hug, even if it’s playing on repeat in my brain.
Or the way Chase implied that he still liked feeding me.
Those details are confusing, and they really shouldn’t be.
“We’re colleagues working on a charity event.
What about this is so hard to understand? ”
She shakes her head. “Devil’s advocate. Why didn’t you meet at, say, your desk? It’s a nice spot, which I know because I kitted you up with a Legends pencil cup and an ergonomic chair. Just curious.”
“Oh, I would have. But it was his idea to have dinner.”
“Mmm,” she says with a sly smile. “I wonder why? And at his place, too?”
“Stop it,” I say, poking her in the arm. “You’re going to confuse my dumb little heart. And the game is back on anyway.”
We stop chatting to watch our boys play. They took last night’s game against Philly to overtime but then lost it on a freakish rebound. Tonight looks good, though. We’re up by a goal against Pittsburgh.
“Let’s go!” Darcy claps her hands toward the television. “One more! Let’s seal the deal!”
Chase has the puck, and as I watch, he outskates a defenseman to move the puck down the ice to Tremaine. “He’s skating so well,” I murmur after I watch his whole shift.
“You should know. You only have eyes for him.”
“It’s my job to watch him skate,” I insist, and she laughs. “Like you should talk.”
“I have no idea what you could mean.” But at the next commercial break, she turns to me and asks, “Did you see Tremaine’s place, too? He’s right next door.”
An image of Tremaine and his date mauling each other bursts into my brain, and I give my head a quick shake. “I didn’t speak to him.”
Her eyes narrow. “You didn’t speak to him. But did you see him?”
I shrug, but my face flames, because I’m the worst kind of liar. “I passed him on my way into the elevator. He was with some people.”
“People,” she whispers. “Like Mona?”
“I don’t know who Mona is.” That’s not even a lie.
“Aw.” She leans over and squeezes my shoulder. “You are a good friend. You weren’t going to tell me, were you? Was Mona there? Brown hair? Six feet tall? All legs?”
I nod. “That does sound familiar.”
Darcy lets out a small sigh. “She’s an underwear model, for fuck’s sake.
Who could compete with that? But I almost feel sorry for the girl.
They started off as fuck buddies, but he keeps breaking it off.
Then a month or two will pass, and she’ll start texting him again.
He always gives in eventually.” She lets out a little sigh.
“Hell, Mona is responsible for my little crush on our fearless captain.”
“How’s that?”
She sips her wine. “I’ve always thought Eric was just the greatest guy. Mature. Kind. Smart. Gorgeous face. Perfect, right?”
I nod.
“But I assumed he was just too nice for sexytimes. A girl likes to be thrown around a little, you know?”
Again I nod, even though I don’t actually know. I’ve been to bed with exactly two men—one of them was teenage Chase, so I can hardly remember the sex itself. I was too caught up in the emotions.
The other was my husband. He never threw me around, however that’s supposed to work. I used to lie there and think about choreography while waiting for him to finish.
“Then, this one time, I was on a road trip to LA with the team? And Mona turns up at the team hotel. I went up to the rooftop pool to swim a few laps, and there was nobody else up there but me.” She grins.
“Or so I thought! On my way out, I heard a strange banging noise coming from this alcove full of potted plants. And when I peeked in there, I saw them, up against the wall.” Darcy puts a hand to her chest and takes a shaky breath.
“He was magnificent. Who knew a guy could be so nice and also so nasty? My mind was blown—I haven’t been the same since. ”
“Oh my.” I gulp my wine.
“He’s, like, my ideal perfect guy.” She sighs. “And Mona’s, I guess. Poor thing. She wants a relationship, and he doesn’t.”
“How do you know?”
She shakes her head. “Don’t let their muscles fool you. Those men gossip like a bunch of hens in the henhouse. I hear things.”
I laugh.
“Meanwhile, I go on terrible date after terrible date. Last night’s was another horror show.”
“Oh no. What now?”
“His photos on the app were cute enough. But up close? His beard had crumbs in it, and he reeked of cigarette smoke.” She makes a face. “He reeked. My eyes were watering. I ended up faking a family emergency to get out of there.”
“You make dating sound so appealing,” I say, eyeing the TV to make sure we haven’t missed anything.
“It’s rough out there.”
“I don’t need a man anyway,” I announce. “Too distracting. I just need to keep my job. Hey—did you give those scouting reports to Sharp for me?”
“Of course.”
“And?”
She winces. “He took one look and said, ‘Still too wordy.’”
“God damn it.”
Darcy waves a hand. “That was barely a criticism. We grade on a curve when it comes to Mr. Sharp.”
“I guess.”
The game starts up again, and I watch Jean-Luc Moreau defend the puck against one of Pittsburgh’s best. He uses his bulk to hold off the attacker. But as soon as he has to move the puck down the ice, he’s overtaken.
A Pittsburgh winger skates off with the puck, and Darcy curses. “Can you please fix that man? Watching him skate causes me physical pain.”
“It’s on my to-do list,” I assure her. If he ever shows up for a session. He’d better turn up for my master class the day after tomorrow, or I may not be responsible for my actions.
“Oh, here we go!” Darcy shouts at the TV. “Come on, hottie!”
Tremaine has the puck back, and the Pittsburgh defense is caught off guard. He and Chase make a series of quick passes that has their opponents scrambling.
We both hold our breath as Chase weaves around a D-man and Tremaine passes again.
It happens almost too fast to see—the puck kisses Chase’s stick and then shoots toward the goal.
The lamp lights, and we both shout with victory.
“Job done!” Darcy announces.
And that’s exactly what I text to Chase the next evening. Job done! Great goal in the 3rd!
He replies immediately. Felt good. See you in class tomorrow. Check your inbox for messages about our music and my measurements.
You are my favorite student, I tease him.
Except it’s not really teasing. He is my favorite, and I don’t know how to make it stop.
I don’t even know if I want to.