18. Just Sex
JUST SEX
brETT
It’s just sex.
Everything in me recoils as Chelsea’s voice, those words, echo in my brain.
And it pisses me off. After all, that’s why I came over in the first place, right?
I drag a hand down my face at my own stupidity.
I never learn.
I walked into the kitchen earlier on top of the world. No one has ever made me breakfast before. Not since the first grade, when my mom leaving the cereal box on the counter for me was the height of being taken care of, because it meant she wasn’t too drunk to remember.
I snatch my tie off the floor and shove it in my pocket before I take a seat on the couch to pull on my socks.
It was stupid of me to think the things she’d said last night extended beyond sex. She didn’t mean that I make her braver or better. She meant that I fuck like a pro-athlete. I have stamina, because my body is how I make my living. Taking care of it is my job.
I get up and grab my coat from the chair on my way to the front door.
So she likes my body. So what? It doesn’t mean anything. Janelle liked my body, too.
“You fuck like a machine,” she used to say. At the time, I took it as a compliment.
In retrospect, it’s probably one of many harbingers of doom that I’d been too blind to see in the moment.
“Brett, I’m... I totally forgot she was coming over this morning.”
“No big deal.” I can’t bring myself to look at her, so I focus on shoving my feet into my shoes instead.
I don’t give a shit what Shanna thinks of me. It’s my own reaction that’s got me on edge right now.
“I asked her to go. And it is a big deal. She doesn’t understand…” She rakes a hand through her hair, searching for the words. “Our arrangement.”
A bitter chuckle slips out before I can stop it. “And what exactly is our arrangement?”
She frowns up at me. “We’re just having some fun together. Aren’t we?”
I take the blow like a champ, just like I’d taken Leclerc’s shots the night before, although Chelsea’s hurt more. “Fun. Right. Yeah.”
Jesus. I need to walk away right now, take a minute to regroup, but something’s gnawing at the edge of my brain, something that won’t let go.
“Did you know who I was?”
She stops cold at that. “What?”
“That night in the bar. Did you come up to me because you knew I played hockey?”
She looks stunned for a moment, but it morphs into anger too quickly for me to figure out if it was more stunned at getting caught or stunned at being asked.
“Of course not! Why would you even ask that?”
The latter, then.
I kick at the edge of the doormat with the toe of my Prada Oxford. “Because in there, it felt a lot like you might be slumming it, like maybe all this fun we’re having is just your plan to get back at Daddy for not giving you that promotion.”
“That’s what you think?”
“What the hell am I supposed to think? What are you doing with me?” I shake my head. I’m such a moron sometimes. “Look, I get it. I’m the team screw-up. Not a long term prospect. But that doesn’t mean I’m looking to be your revenge fuck.”
She looks like I slapped her, but doesn’t deny it.
That silence speaks volumes.
I know she sees it now—that I’m not the kind of guy you keep. Just the kind you fuck when you’re angry or bored or trying to feel something.
Even if she didn’t mean to use me, she sure as hell didn’t have to try very hard. I never learn.
“I should go,” I say, hating the part of me that’s still hoping she’ll ask me to stay. That she’ll say something that explains it all away.
She hesitates. But she doesn’t reach for me. She doesn’t argue.
“Yeah, maybe you should.”
Goddamnit.
I push through the door, and make my way to the rental vehicle, letting the cold wind have a shot at numbing the sensations roiling under my skin before I finally pull on my coat.
I’m not sure how long I sit in the SUV, staring blankly ahead, pretending I’m just letting the engine warm up.
The sudden buzz of my phone saves me from staying there all day.
It’s a text from Ehrhoff, telling me to stop by anytime today if I’m still interested in the apartment.
I put the Navigator into gear. No time like the present.
Nik meets me in the lobby, and if he feels any kind of way about the fact that I’m wearing last night’s suit, he doesn’t let it show.
Which I appreciate. We talk hockey for a couple of minutes before the dude from the building joins us, waxing poetic about “luxurious amenities” and “utmost discretion” and “short-term leases.” In my experience, those are just the bullshit keywords that savvy guys like Armand drop to try to woo athletes who have money and fame, but might get traded at any moment.
At this point, a place is a place, and after the way this morning went, I can’t handle being dragged around the entire building and shown features I don’t give a shit about anyway.
I glance over at Hoff. “You like it here?”
“No complaints.”
“Where do I sign?”
An hour later, things are mostly in order. I make a quick call to my brother-in-law. Cooper was traded a few times during his hockey career, and he gives me the name of a lifestyle management company that can furnish and stock the place after I leave tomorrow on the Wolfpack’s two-week road trip.
Elite is more than happy to take me as a client, and Armand assures me, with a big smile and a hearty handshake, that he will work personally with Elite to ensure that next time I walk into his building, I’ll be walking into my new home.
Cheesy? Sure, but at least something has gone right today.
When we’re finally out of Armand’s toothy vortex and back in the lobby, I shake Ehrhoff’s hand. The guy has gone above and beyond. “Thanks for setting this up. I appreciate it.”
“No problem.” Nik brushes off the gratitude with his usual easygoing charm. “I think you’ll like it here. It’s quiet. Not a lot of drama.”
Not a lot of drama. A novel concept, but after the morning I just had, not an unwelcome one.
“You want to come up? Play some video games?”
The words are clipped with the barest edge of an accent that I would never have pegged as Swiss German if I didn’t already know that’s what it was.
“Sure.”
Not like I have anywhere else to be.
And three hours, several hundred digital kill shots, and half a pizza later, I’m in a much better frame of mind.
First of all, Decker was right. Nik Ehrhoff is good people.
And second of all, this is exactly where I should be—bonding with my teammate, far away from the drama that comes with having fun with the boss’ daughter.
I’m not in Montana to get laid. I’m in Montana to play hockey. The sooner I remember that, the better off I’ll be.