Chapter 3 #2
The faint sound of a car horn blaring snapped Brooks awake.
He blinked groggily at the rim of sunlight showing around the edge of the hotel’s blackout curtains.
Definitely morning, and late at that if the dim noise of traffic was anything to go by.
That was no surprise. There’d been very little sleeping last night, as the fresh aches in his body attested to.
It was, to his mind, the very best kind of sore.
Already hard again at the memory, and wondering if he could coax Aspen awake for a lazy round of morning sex and a massive room service breakfast, he rolled over.
The bed was empty.
Brooks sat up, looking toward the bathroom. But the door hung open and the lights were off. He was alone. In her room. Where the hell was she?
Stretching a hand out, he touched the sheets on her side of the bed and found them cool. So she’d been up for a while. Maybe she’d gone after coffee or breakfast? A glance at the clock told him it was getting on toward ten. Caffeine was definitely climbing the priority ladder.
Switching on the bedside lamp, he dragged himself out of bed and spotted a note propped up in front of the TV. Unfolding the piece of hotel stationary, he read her looping scrawl.
Brooks,
I had some existing plans that couldn’t change and had to leave this morning. Please know that this was not some effort to ghost you. Thank you for being part of my memories of the Big Apple and for an absolutely incredible night. I’ll never forget it or you.
I got you a late checkout, so take your time.
Aspen
That was it. No last name. No phone number. No invitation to email her or ever contact her again.
Brooks let the paper drop to the floor along with his mood and scrubbed a hand over his face.
How could she just be… gone? Apart from the fact that the sex had been amazing, she’d been the first thing that had made him want to live and be and do things again.
He’d really thought they’d made a connection yesterday.
How long ago had she left? Could he catch up to her? Maybe she’d said something to the front desk about where she was headed when she’d arranged for that late checkout.
“No, dumbass, if she wanted more time with you, she’d have left you a means to contact her.” His morning-rough voice sounded too loud to his own ears in the empty room.
Aspen hadn’t signed the note with her phone number and an invitation to call her. They’d had an amazing one-night stand, and she didn’t want more.
On a groan, Brooks flopped back onto the bed.
He wanted to wallow and bury himself again.
But that wasn’t an option. He needed to get his shit together, get up to his own room, and clean up so he could make the drive to the Berkshires for this summer camp thing that Grady and Colter had signed him up for.
Maybe that would be better. Get away from the city where he’d just made a hell of a lot of good memories with a woman he’d never see again.
Damn it.
Not quite up to doing the walk of shame to his own room yet, he availed himself of the hotel toiletries and showered in hers, washing off the night.
Somewhere in the midst of letting the hot water pound on his aching muscles, it occurred to him that maybe she could’ve programmed her number into his phone or done that airdrop thing for her contact.
Buoyed by the thought, he ducked his head under the water to rinse the last of the shampoo and grabbed for a towel, hitching it around his hips and striding from the bathroom, still dripping.
The clothes that had been in a pile on the floor were neatly folded in the chair, his phone set on the table beside it. Brooks lunged for it, swiping open the screen and scrolling his contacts looking for her name. But it wasn’t there. Because she hadn’t somehow left it for him.
Under the renewed weight of disappointment, he dropped back onto the edge of the bed. This was really it. No more Aspen. No more honeyed Southern drawl. No more smile that warmed his cold insides.
He swiped off Do Not Disturb to check the drive time up to Camp Firefly Falls. His phone began to ding and vibrate like a chihuahua on speed as dozens of notifications and messages hit at once.
Dread curdled in his belly. Nothing good ever came from this many notifications. It usually meant some kind of PR nightmare, and he really did not want to deal with more of that. Maybe he could ignore it.
“Right. Because that always works so well.”
Still, he could wait a little while. Finish drying off. Get dressed.
The phone rang in his hand. Colter.
That seemed safe enough. Maybe he was just checking in. Or maybe he had news about the trade. Hell, maybe the trade was what all this hoopla was about.
“Morning.”
“Holy shit, dude.”
“What?”
“Don’t you ‘What?’ me. You’ve got some explaining to do.”
Brooks stared at the phone for a second. “About what?”
“About this. I just texted you a link.”
Toggling over to his messages, he found the thread with Colter and clicked.
The browser opened to Stick Side Scoop, a well-known pro-hockey gossip blog.
Right there on the front page was a photo of him and Aspen kissing at the top of the Empire State Building.
Some enterprising soul had zoomed in to circle the engagement ring clearly visible on her left hand.
The one she hadn’t gotten around to swapping back.
The headline screamed “Hennessy’s Hat Trick: Hockey, Heart, and Now a Fiancée?”
Someone up there had recognized him and capitalized on a private moment. Not only that, but they’d leapt to some big conclusions. Never mind that was the fiction Aspen had spun back at the bar. That had been of the moment. Not intended to go beyond that one rescue.
Heart thumping, he lifted the phone back to his ear. “It’s just a gossip blog. I’m not engaged.”
“That’s sure as fuck not what everyone is saying. And I do mean everyone. This has gone mainstream.”
“How mainstream?”
“Google yourself, and you’ll see.”
So he did. And found page after page of results speculating on who the mystery woman was. After just one day, the entire world thought he was really engaged.
“Well, shit.”