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The compliments are hidden beneath the insults, but I’ll take what I can get. I don’t say it, but it’s nice to know that someone on the team thinks I’m more than a few of my past mistakes—despite the delivery. Especially someone of Ollie’s caliber. He still annoys me with his perfect persona. But underneath it all, I respect the hell out of him.
We’re silent through the rest of our game, concentrating on each shot and nursing our beers. When the game is finished, we settle up at the bar and walk outside. The cold night air cuts through the sweatshirt I’m wearing.
“What do you think about this … companion thing?”
“I think you don’t have a choice. That if you want to be a part of this team—or any team—you’ll take your medicine like a good boy.”
The rideshare we ordered pulls up to the curb.
He opens the door, but doesn’t get in. “And I think you need to remember that actions have consequences. The things you do off the ice matter almost as much as the things you do on it—at least to the suits. And they’re the ones making the decisions. You messed up. You got caught. And now, you’re paying the price. The circumstances don’t really matter. So, settle up and get on with it.” He slides in. “You can always change the narrative.”
“You sound like a self-help book,” I joke as I follow him inside the vehicle, “a messed-up version.”
I won’t show it, but I appreciate his words. They soften some of the trepidation inside my chest.
We change the subject, talking about our upcoming game and hockey strategies on the drive home, and stay away from more delicate topics.
What I don’t say to Ollie—what I haven’t said to anyone—is that I know I’ve made bad decisions. I know this situation is my fault, that I’ve gotten lost somewhere along the way. But for some reason, so far, I can’t find it within myself to care enough to pull myself out of the pit.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EMERSON
I blame the wine.
It’s the thought that keeps circling my mind as the mover places another box in my new room, piling it on top of the others.
What am I doing here?
“That’s the last of it,” a man with sweat stains on his T-shirt and a clipboard in his hands says.
He extends it toward me, and I take it, signing the dotted line to confirm that I’ve received my belongings.
When the door clicks shut behind him, the entire place is blanketed in silence. Sam isn’t here. He wasn’t here when I arrived this morning either, even though this is his apartment. A doorman let me in, like he had been instructed to do so. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t an empty homecoming.
Suki had to work, leaving me on my own today, but she helped me pack my things over the weekend. Mads is busy too. When I first walked into the building earlier to see my new temporary home, I realized instantly that I’m out of my league, and I wondered again if this was a mistake. I’m completely out of my comfort zone. The foyer and doorman dressed in formal attire were my first clues that the place is not in my price range. Even growing up in an upper-middle-class family, I’ve never lived in a home this nice, not while bunking in Suki’s townhouse or while living with my parents. We had money, but not this kind of wealth.
I look around my bedroom at the mess of things that need to be unpacked, but leave the space instead of tackling it. I start exploring the apartment, taking advantage of the solitude. The front door leads into a large, open-concept kitchen and living room. There are high-end appliances everywhere I look, including a fancy cappuccino machine that appears too complicated to work even though I was a barista for years. A long island separates the kitchen from the living room. There’s a huge television along one interior wall and floor-to-ceiling windows along the outer ones. The city is framed in one set of windows, and the lake can be seen through the others. Overstuffed couches and chairs adorn the space, sized for big bodies like Sam’s six-foot-something frame, but fashionable all the same. The walls are mostly bare, making the apartment appear stark and cold. Lifeless. I can picture beautiful paintings hanging along them to enhance the space, and I decide that Sam needs more color in his life.
My bedroom and three guest rooms are to the right of the kitchen, but I haven’t been down the hall to the left. I take it now, feeling like I’m doing something secretive and wrong. I guess I am snooping. But in my defense, there’s no one here to tell me I shouldn’t, so I consider every inch of this space fair game.
My steps are light along the wide-plank hardwood floors. A closed door doesn’t stop me when I reach it at the end of the corridor. I open it. It’s obviously a master bedroom. A huge master bedroom, larger than my entire first apartment back at college. My eyes are drawn to the windows facing Lake Michigan, just like the back wall of the living room. The water is calm today, and the sun is shimmering off the smooth surface like a million tiny golden diamonds.
There’s some furniture spread around the space—a chest of drawers along one wall, an armoire along another, all in a rich, dark wood. A couple of chairs. It has a masculine feel but is devoid of personal items or pictures again, except for a few framed photographs sitting on top of the chest of drawers.
I step closer and lift a frame, noticing that Sam is a mixture of both the woman and man who are standing with their arms around each other, smiling at the lens. I assume these are his parents. I wonder what kind of relationship he has with them. If his dad pushed him into hockey and drowned him in expectations or if he was Sam’s biggest fan. I wonder if they’re estranged, like I am with my parents. There’s another picture of the woman, but she’s wearing a head wrap, hiding her blonde locks. She looks thinner than she did in the first photo. Her smile is just as bright though. I set it down and glance around again.
A massive bed lies in the middle of the room, like the king’s throne with a bench placed at the end. The California-king mattress is shrouded in navy-blue sheets and a fluffy duvet comforter that’s bunched up and unmade. I run my hand along the plush surface and it feels like silk beneath my fingertips. The duvet alone probably cost more than my entire bedroom set put together. It looks luxurious and manly, but has a woman’s touch somehow. Maybe an interior decorator chose these things or his mother. Or a girlfriend perhaps.
Does Sam have a girlfriend? I giggle. Yes, Sam has lots of girlfriends, as I saw when I googled him this weekend. He’s all over the internet gossip sites.
I steer into the master bathroom. It’s huge, too, like the rest of the apartment. There’s a bath that’s the size of a small hot tub with jets layered throughout. A shower that could easily fit ten people.
Maybe it has at some point. I laugh again, and it echoes around the space. The acoustics are good in here if I want to have a concert shower, like I’ve been known to do.
I glance at his shaving cream and razor, where they lie next to the sink. I pick up his cologne and open it, smelling the spicy, woodsy scent. I put it down and start backing slowly out of the space when I hit something solid from behind. It’s too warm to be a wall. I turn to see Sam watching me. He doesn’t look happy.
“Oh,” I stammer sheepishly as my face starts to heat. I didn’t hear him enter. And I never meant to get caught. “I’m Emerson.”
