ERICA #2
“Probably for the best,” I say instead, because I have a crew to assemble, a family name to restore, a heist to plan, and retribution to exact. To quote Prince Humperdinck… I’m swamped. “I make a habit of leaving destruction in my wake. Ask the shirt.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He’s backing toward the door now. Hat, stained shirt, and dignity all slightly worse for wear. And there’s that look again, the half-second of something before he tucks it neatly away. “See you around. Try not to steal anything on your way out.”
“No promises.”
And then he’s gone. Out into the Friday morning, leaving me standing by the napkin dispenser like I’ve just watched the stars and moon go with him, sucking all the air out of the room.
Get it together, girl. You’re here on business.
I’m still staring at the door, several seconds past the point where staring at a door is a normal thing to do, when Zoe reappears from the bathroom. She glances at the door, then at me, then back at the door, and lets out a low whistle.
“Okay,” she says slowly. “Who was that?”
“Who was what?”
“Tall, dark, and covered in muscles who definitely turned back to smile at you. Erica, who was that?"
“Nobody.” I gather up the ruined napkins and stack them into a tidy, guilty little pile. “Just some poor guy I bumped into.”
Zoe doesn’t say anything for a second. Her eyes have gone narrow, fixed on the door, head tilting slowly.
“Why do I feel like I know that guy?”
“You don’t know that guy.”
“No, but…” She’s still staring at the door.
“Wait a minute.”
Her phone is already in her hand, thumb moving, and I watch her scroll slow, then fast, then very fast, with focused, slightly feral energy.
“HOLY MACKEREL.” She shouts it so loud that people turn around. “Erica. Erica. Do you have any idea who that was?”
“A man who is going to need a new shirt? Probably Herman or Germany or maybe Hermione.”
“That,” Zoe says. She’s whispering now like it’s a state secret. “Is Jeremiah Precio.”
I look at the phone. I look at her. “I’m going to need context, Zoe.”
“He’s a hockey player. I didn’t recognize him at first because he wasn’t all worked up and sweaty, but… okay, in fairness, every photo I have of him he’s either sweating or doing groin stretches, so the whole dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up threw me. But that’s him.”
There’s a photo on the screen, a guy mid-stride on some kind of ice rink, helmet on, jersey soaked through, completely unrecognizable as the guy who just walked out the door and my life.
“I didn’t know you were into sports.”
“I’m not.” Zoe doesn’t even look up from her phone. “I’m into hot fictional hockey players. And, apparently, thirst traps. There’s a whole… okay, hang on, I know I saved this.”
“Zoe.”
“I have a whole folder, Erica, it’s very organized, don’t look at me like that.”
“Zoe.”
“There’s a video of him lifting his shirt to wipe sweat off his face after a game, and I want you to understand that I have watched it more times than I am willing to admit out loud, in this coffee shop, to your face. The abs, Erica. The abs. Let me find it, I swear it’s in here somewhere.”
She scrolls through her saved posts, and almost all of them are either shirtless men, men with wings, or shirtless men with wings. And also hockey players.
“You need help.”
“Oh honey, don’t even get me started. There’s a whole genre.
Women who read hockey romance books are suddenly reorganizing their entire personality around men who can skate.
And the thing about him specifically… okay, here, look.
“ She holds up the phone, and there’s a grainy photo, and a comment section I am absolutely not going to read out loud in public.
“Not one single red flag. No scandals, no messy breakups, no leaked anything. Some guy’s grandma met him at an airport and he carried her bags and it got, like, eleven million views. He is, and I cannot stress this enough, the single most eligible athlete currently on my for-you page.”
There’s a glint in her eye that I recognize, because I’ve seen it before.
Right before Zoe says something that ruins my entire week.
“And you,” she says, pointing the phone at me like a tiny, accusatory remote control.
“Are going to get that hot hockey player to take you as his plus-one to the gala.”
“Excuse me?”
“Erica.”
“Absolutely not. Also, he probably already has a date. Men who look like that and carry bags for old ladies do not show up to galas alone, Zoe, that’s not how the universe works.”
“Wrong.” Zoe says it with flat, unshakeable confidence.
Heaven help us all, she’s done research.
“He is a certified, documented, internet-verified goody two-shoes who is not dating anyone. There’s an entire thread dedicated to speculating about it.
The man’s official team account is so corporate it might as well be a press release with a face.
Barely posts, definitely doesn’t have time to date anyone.
The internet has spoken, Erica. He’s single.
He’s available. And he just got matcha spilled on him by the most charming woman in Washington, DC. ”
“The internet,” I say, with weary patience. “Lies constantly. That’s its whole thing. That’s its business model.”
“Not about this.”
“About everything.”
“Think about it.” Zoe pockets her phone, suddenly all business, which is somehow worse than the squealing.
“We’ve been stuck on the gala for weeks.
I’ve been working every angle I can think of and we still don’t have a clean way in that doesn’t involve one of us dressing up as catering staff.
And I’m sorry, but I have seen you in a bow tie, Erica, and it is not a good look.
It’s not a you look. You looked like a Build-A-Bear that lost a bet. ”
“I was having a bad hair day.”
“It doesn’t matter, because we don’t need it.
He’s our ticket.” She lets that sit there for a second, and I can feel the shape of where this is going approximately four seconds before she says it.
“A guy like that walks in the front door, Erica. No kitchen, no milk crate, no name tag that says CATERING STAFF in Comic Sans. Front door. Step and repeat. Champagne on a tray that someone hands him.”
“No.”
“And he’s apparently single, and a Boy Scout, and smiled at you!”
“It wasn’t what you think…”
“Which means,” she continues, steamrolling over me with cheerful relentlessness.
“You, my friend, are going to find that man again, work your considerable Erica Armitage magic on him, and get yourself invited to that gala as his date. For the mission. For me. For…” she gestures vaguely.
“The letters, Erica. Think of the letters.”
“Don’t letters me. That’s emotional blackmail and you know it.”
“Is it working?”
I open my mouth to say no. To say absolutely not, to say I do not have time to romance a professional athlete for access to a building. To say any of the seventeen sensible things currently lined up in my brain, ready to go.
What comes out, against every ounce of my better judgment, every shred of professional instinct, and possibly several treaties I have personally signed with myself regarding men is:
“Fine. When we’re back from the recruitment trip. Full recon. Your hockey guy.”
“Oh my dear sweet child,” Zoe says. “He’s not my hockey guy. He’s your hockey guy.”
Somewhere behind the counter, a barista calls out “Hermione?” one more time, into the void.