Hard Hitter

  “You loved it,” Becca insisted. “It was just like old times. We watched trash TV and whined about how hard we work. Although, in ye good old days, we were both sexually frustrated.”

  “Sorry, toots. I still have my moments,” Georgia said. “Leo has always had a NNBG rule, even in high school. But lately the time span is getting ridiculous.”

  “What’s NNBG?” Ari asked.

  “No Nookie Before Games,” Georgia said. “He used to only mean hours before. But as we approach the play-offs, he says he likes to save it up for afterward.” She got a dreamy look on her face, then. “I don’t really mind, because afterward is pretty great. After that win tonight? I’m going to be extra tired at work tomorrow.”

  Becca groaned and flopped back in the airport chair, hands raised into a prayerful pose. “Lord, hear my prayer. Just one hot night! That’s all a girl needs, god! Just send me one.”

  “You and Castro seemed pretty cozy the other day,” Ari pointed out. “Anything there?”

  “Nah.” Becca waved a dismissive hand. “We’re just buddies. He’s fun, and we just kid each other.”

  “Nate didn’t think it was fun,” Georgia said, checking over her shoulder to make sure there was nobody nearby to overhear. “I’ve never heard him so grumpy.”

  “I know, right?” Becca crossed her feet and sighed. “He’s just out to ruin a good time. He thinks I ought to actually work for my paycheck. The nerve of that man.”

  “Bottoms up, girls.” Georgia pointed at the screen of her Katt Phone, the rim of which glowed red. “The jet is boarding.” She leapt up, grabbing her bag.

  “Look at her hurrying,” Becca whined. “She’s going home to a sextravaganza.” She poked Ari in the elbow. “Your plan to stay single just baffles me right now.”

  “I have my reasons,” she insisted. If she could only manage to keep her clothes on, she might even remember what they were.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  SUNDAY, MARCH 27TH

  Standings: 3th Place

  9 Regular Season Games Remaining

  Back at home in Brooklyn in the wee hours of the next morning, O’Doul’s bed felt uncommonly empty. Which was ridiculous, because for years nobody but him had slept in it anyway. They’d won the game, which made him happy. But there was nobody to talk to. For years he’d looked at his married teammates and wondered how they balanced it all. Some guys made it sound like trying to keep a wife and kids happy was another full-time job.

  He got it now, though. Having someone to come home to suddenly made sense. The stats lighting up his Katt Phone predicted a 91 percent chance of making the play-offs, and he had nobody to celebrate with.

  In spite of his brooding, he slept well and woke up feeling optimistic. It helped that he was busy as hell. They had a play-off spot to clinch, so he rose early and went to the optional morning skate.

  Naturally, the next thing on his schedule was a massage with Ari.

  “Good morning,” he said, entering the treatment room with as much of a smile as he could muster. He’d promised her once already to keep things professional in the treatment room. And he’d told her that she was the only one who was allowed to touch him.

  That was all still true.

  “Hi there,” she said, patting his arm as he relaxed onto the table. “I sure enjoyed watching you skate last night.”

  “I enjoyed it, too,” he said truthfully. See? He could do this. He could be Ari’s friend and make small talk.

  She began to work her magic on his muscles. “How’s your hip today? Any new soreness?”

  “Feeling pretty flexible, actually. I had some pain by the end of the game last night, but on balance it’s less than it was ten days ago.”

  “Awesome,” she said, and he felt her smile even with his eyes closed. “Was it okay with you that Crikey took the fight?”

  “Yeah.” He’d admit it to Ari, but maybe nobody else. “He and I are gonna train together some more. We both need to stay injury free. We’ll work something out.”

  “I know you will,” she whispered, and the sound of her breathy voice brought goose bumps to his chest. He’d wondered if it would sting to see her today and to have her hands on his body. It did a little. But it would sting more not to see her at all.

  Life had had fewer ups and downs when he had been happy to be a loner.

  “Turn over for me?” she asked. “I’m done with your hip.”

  “Already?” How odd that he hadn’t noticed. It wasn’t so long ago when the idea of her touching the injury at all made him tense. These days he forgot to worry at all. He rolled, and she adjusted the towel.

  He let his mind drift as she worked over his hamstrings. Trevi’s wisdom about the difference between women and men floated past his consciousness. “Let me ask you a question,” he said, almost slurring the words because he was so relaxed.

  “Anything.”

  “When you need to buy something, do you take a long time thinking it over?”

  “Hmm. It depends what it is, and how much it costs.”

  “Say I needed to buy a coffeemaker.” Her sweet hands moved to his lower back and he sank a little further onto the table.

  “They all just push hot water through grounds, right?” she said, running a hand up his lats. “No point in dragging that out.”

  “Fucking Trevi,” he chuckled into the face cradle.

  “What’s that? Am I hurting you?”

  Only my heart. “No. That feels great.”

  * * *

  O’Doul left his massage whistling. He had a shower and got dressed. But those were the last easy minutes of the day.

  Hugh Major appeared as suddenly as a storm cloud, his phone in his hand, his expression full of doom. “O’Doul,” he growled. “Step into my office. We have a situation.”

  O’Doul had always wondered what the end of his NHL career would look like. He’d hoped it would end with his jersey hoisted into the stadium rafters, and a plaque on his wall. But as the manager led the way down the long corridor from the treatment rooms into the corporate suite, he knew all too well it could end exactly like this. A long walk to the boss’s office. A door closing with a quiet click. The G.M. crossing his arms, looking both angry and disappointed.

  “What’s the problem?” he asked when they finally reached Hugh’s office. As if he didn’t already know.

  “There’s a journalist from the Post.” His lips made a flat line. “She says she can prove you bought drugs in a nightclub. Apparently that’s not enough of a story for her, either. Sounds like she’s going to try to spin this thing into some kind of big doping scandal.”

  The same quiet, focused calm descended on him that he felt during a fight. He played back the manager’s words in his head, and they weren’t what he’d expected. O’Doul had predicted that Vince might try to leverage his dirty secret via law enforcement. But reporters? That might actually be worse. “Hugh, the team doesn’t have a doping problem,” he said. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Yeah,” Hugh said, folding his arms and looking up at the ceiling. “It is. But that still leaves us with a problem.”

  Here it comes.

  “She says there’s a picture. You in some nightclub’s back room, making a buy.”

  Pictures, fuck. This was bad. “What is it that I supposedly bought?” he asked as calmly as possible.

  Hugh huffed out a sigh. “Don’t play it that way, Doulie. Just tell me what the hell happened at that club. I can’t help you if I don’t know what I’m really dealing with.”

  O’Doul hesitated. Hugh had been good to him for more than ten years, but the man’s responsibility was to the team as a whole and to Nate, his boss. It didn’t matter if Hugh was a good man, and he was fair. He had a job to do, and that job was not to save O’Doul’s ass. “I have to speak to my agent,” he said.

  “Seri
ously? After all this time?” Hugh shook his head. “Just talk to me. You think I’m going to just toss you to the wolves?”

  Yeah, if you need to. “I’m calling Tommy. We’ll speak later.” He walked out of the office suite then, just leaving Hugh behind to stew. He crossed the lobby, where a video of him scoring in overtime played in a continuous loop.

  Outside, the air blowing off the river was cool and damp. He turned his face into the wind and took a deep breath. He’d been a hockey player long enough to understand that everything could change in an instant. One minute you might be flying down the ice, the puck under your control. The next second you might be smashed into the boards like a bug on a windshield.

  Bad news worked in just the same way. It didn’t give any warning.

  Quick strides ate up the two blocks between team headquarters and his apartment. The concierge swept the door open for him and he strode into the ridiculously fancy lobby of his building.

  If this was it—if it was all really over—he’d probably leave Brooklyn. There’d be no point in staying two blocks from the team that had ended his career.

  Where would he even go?

  He pushed that worry away and unlocked his apartment. He tossed his jacket on the couch and took out his Katt Phone. His finger already hovered over his agent’s name when he realized his mistake.

  Shit.

  O’Doul shut down his Katt Phone. Then he carried it into the bathroom, placing it on the counter top. For good measure, he turned the bathroom sink on to run water noisily down the basin. He left the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He went to the landline phone—so underused there was dust on it—and dialed Tommy’s number from memory.

  “Doulie?” Tom answered immediately. “Hey, man. Everything okay?”

  “Not really.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Tom said. “What’s up?”

  O’Doul carefully relayed everything Hugh had just told him.

  “When were you at this club?” Tom asked. The man was smart enough not to bother asking if it was true.

  “January.”

  “What did you buy?”

  O’Doul said “uppers,” without hesitation. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t burning with shame just hearing the word come out of his mouth. Dumbest thing he’d ever done.

  “Okay,” Tom said quickly. “When’s the last time you took one?”

  He thought back. “When did I play at Denver?”

  “Hang on.” He heard the clicking of a keyboard. “February second.”

  “That’s the night. We went to Phoenix after that, and my stash was fresh out.”

  Tom sighed. “So that’s . . . more than six weeks.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Anything else in your bloodstream that you wouldn’t want written up in the Post?”

  “No sir. Unless they’re testing for Scotch whiskey.”

  His agent was quiet for a moment. “Okay, man. Here’s what I need you to do—deny this completely. Whatever the picture looks like, it’s not you in it. Or it is you, but you’re paying for a lap dance or some shit. Just deny anything to do with drugs.”

  “You think that will work?”

  “That stuff is only testable for a few days. A week, tops. But, shit Doulie. Buying at a nightclub? Worst idea I ever heard. Those places thrive on blackmail. They don’t make all their money selling overpriced martinis.”

  Jesus. “Not exactly skilled at breaking the law, Tommy. Only bought the one time.”

  “Once?” His agent made a noise of pain. “Then you are one unlucky bastard. You can’t trust anyone, okay? There’s something you think you need, you tell me. I’ll find a guy to get it to you.”

  Oh my fucking god. Now his agent was offering to be his dealer? That was not what he expected to happen. “Are you positive I can’t be nailed on a drug test? Should I just offer to take one to clear the air?”

  “If you’re sure you’ve got the timing right. And if you’re sure your club won’t just lie about your results.”

  O’Doul flinched. If they wanted to put him out to pasture, he’d just made that really easy for them. “Hugh won’t do that,” he decided. “He’s not an asshole, and it would make the team look bad. I think Hugh wants to help me.”

  “Careful,” Tom said. “The only person you can trust is me, because our interests are completely aligned. But Hugh doesn’t have the luxury of being loyal. Give your team a flat-out denial, and offer a test. They might not even test you. In the first place, there’re more recreational drugs in hockey than you can shake a hockey stick at. And Hugh doesn’t want to start a real witch hunt. Nobody will end up looking good.”

  “All right. But forget Hugh for a second. What can the league do to me?”

  “Nothing, except test you if they feel like it. But they can’t test the whole team until the postseason, no matter what the newspaper prints. Now let me go so I can call Hugh on your behalf as soon as we hang up. Don’t forget the party line—whatever they think those pictures show, they’re crazy. And that’s all we have to say on the subject.”

  “All right.”

  “Stay strong, man. We’ll get through this. They’ll be offering you a contract extension in July like we need ’em to.”

  “Thanks.”

  They hung up. O’Doul went back into the bathroom and shut the water off. But he didn’t turn his phone on. Whatever it was that people had to say to him, he wasn’t ready to hear it. He needed to cool his heels while Tom dealt with Hugh and the team.

  It was lunchtime, so he went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Then he caught himself just standing there, staring.

  Don’t trust anyone, Tommy had said. The man was right, too. His whole life he’d been fending for himself. No family. Even though it sometimes felt as though the team was his family, it wasn’t really true. If he let them down, he’d be out on his ass.

  He slammed the fridge and went to lie down on his sofa. It was so fucking quiet in his apartment. The silence had never bothered him before, but now it seemed oppressive.

  Naturally his thoughts went to Ari, as they so often did lately. Today or tomorrow she’d hear about this. She’d see the story in the newspaper or hear it whispered at work. She’d think, What an idiot. There’s a bullet dodged.

  And she’d be right.

  TWENTY-SIX

  MONDAY, MARCH 28TH

  Ari slept uneasily in Brooklyn that night. Georgia had tried to convince her to spend the night in their spare room, but she hadn’t agreed.

  Instead, she kept her panic button close by, and spent half the night listening for trouble, before finally falling into a deep sleep around three thirty.

  She woke up with a start when her alarm went off, and felt immediately uneasy.

  Given all that had occurred in her life lately, that wasn’t terribly unusual. But as she came to consciousness alone in her own bed, it wasn’t Vince she was worried about. This morning she woke with an image of Patrick in her mind, and a tickle of worry at the base of her skull.

  Maybe it was just uncertainty about the gift she’d bought him. Yesterday after her massage appointments ended she walked Atlantic Avenue until she found what she was looking for—a dual coffee and espresso machine, the same model as her own. It made good coffee and it had never let her down. She’d figured she could save him the hassle of shopping and just gift it to him.

  But was that weird? Friends could buy friends a coffeemaker, right?

  She ate a small breakfast in her pajamas at her kitchen table. An hour from now she’d be up in front of the team, teaching a yoga class at the practice facility. Usually she used this time to meditate on what she wanted to accomplish with them.

  But the prickle of unease wouldn’t leave her. It persisted while Ari drank so
me water and changed into yoga clothes. Before she left her house, she picked up the pendant Patrick had given her. It was so pretty, but she felt a twinge of guilt at keeping it. So she put it back down on the dresser. But that didn’t feel right either. So she picked it back up again and put it on.

  The home screen of her Katt Phone glowed with her schedule for the day. Yoga class in twenty minutes, it said. Studio B.

  She slung the shopping bag containing the coffeemaker over one shoulder and left the house. It was a cool morning, and on her short walk to work, she felt the chill all the way to her bones. So when she reached the Bruisers’ headquarters, she stashed her gift in her treatment room, then went straight to the yoga studio to bump up the thermostat.

  Ari loved teaching in this bright, modern room. It had high-tech sprung flooring and soft natural light. She hooked her iPod up to the sound system and straightened the stack of yoga blocks in the corner. Sometimes she looked around this lovely room and thought, I can’t believe this is really my job.

  Players began to trickle in one at a time, placing their mats on the floor facing hers at the end of the room. A yoga class was supposed to begin peacefully, without a lot of chatter, and they all knew the drill. So it was quiet while they assembled.

  Too quiet, though. Today the silence was tomblike. At first she attributed it to the early hour. But one after another the players who unrolled their mats in the room sank down on them, eyes cast low, expressions grim. Ari looked up as Georgia entered the room in her yoga clothes. She always came into the room with a cheery smile. But today she looked tired and drawn. And—this was weird—she didn’t make eye contact with Ari at all.

  At one minute to eight she counted heads. Most every player was there, and members of the training staff. But Coach Worthington, Hugh Major, and Nate Kattenberger were all absent.

  That was a little weird, too. Nate always tried to make her classes, usually scheduling his Manhattan appointments an hour later than usual just so he could begin his day with her vinyasa class. It was his favorite way of staying in touch with the team. Consequently, his management staff usually showed up, too.