Page 73 of He Has Pluck

The rest of the team remains intact and will be back next season, stronger and much wiser.

Ruminski liked it but ruined it by adding another line, the bastard. Unfortunately, the documentary was wildly popular and has, so far, been nominated for three awards, including the ESPY for best sports documentary. With this goddam line:

P.S. Jason Tansem and world-renowned videographer Juliette Sullivan are officially in a romantic relationship.

Now I’m getting anything but the kinds of offers I want to do gritty third-world exposés. Some days that bothers me. Most days, I’m too busy having orgasms and working on new projects with all kinds of new people—and old. I still work with Carlos despite the fact that Jason can’t stand him. He’s forever cast Carlos as the interloper, the evil rival for my affections like we’re bit players in an old gunslinger western.

He’ll have to get over that because Carlos is my best friend, and I’m not giving him up. Carlos is as happy as a pig in shit with the fallout of the project, largely because of a cheesy photo he took of Jason and me.

The photo is of Jason in his hockey uniform with an arm around me and my camera dangling at my side. He’s looking at me like he wants to eat me—what else is new?—and I’m looking at him with surprise, though some may see it as a starry-eyed expression, I’m told. Carlos took the shot the moment after Jason told my mother that he was my lover.

Killer moment captured, and then unceremoniously turned into a commercial landmine when Carlos entered it in a contest and won, and then proceeded to turn it into a poster—yes, the one on the wall of The Tea Party, along with every other bar in town, and I don’t want to think of where else it hangs—with a smarmy romantic saying—don’t even ask me to remember what it is.

Carlos convinced me to strongarm Jason into signing the release after I negotiated twenty-five percent of the proceeds. It sold like hotcakes, and when Jason wants to annoy me, he brings up the fact that I could have gotten fifty percent. Not that money is a problem.

“You think O’Rourke will try talking us into buying a house again?” he asks.

“No, I put my money on Finn. I swear he has a piece of the action with his realtor.” I won’t admit it, mostly because I love our love shack—and I don’t say that about many things in life besides photography and filming, not even about Jason. I tuck that thorn back under the bushel of shit where it belongs.

The place has been good to us despite the minor annoyance of fire engines and ambulances screeching past our window on the street out front at all hours at least a dozen times a day. Did I mention Chelsea is a busy place? At least the clientele leaves us alone. People come and go here, but they always seem to know that we’re not to be fooled with, the lore about my ball-busting growing with each iteration of the story passed from old tenants to new.

One of my favorite moments was when my mother decided to drop in for a visit. Jason tried to talk her into meeting at a coffee shop when she came to town, but she wouldn’t have it, and I insisted it would be good for her to reacquaint herself with who I am—not the vulnerable young girl she left behind years ago. No, I’m a slightly older, and in some ways wiser yet still strangely vulnerable, young woman.

She screeched and nearly fainted when Jason met her out front and led her up the stairs. He was nervous as hell, though I knew there was no way she’d hold even this rat trap against him because she is totally smitten with him—almost as deeply as I am.

When she stepped inside our room, she calmed down. I dressed it up considerably, mostly with photos of us and the Brawlers, and a few amenities like good quality bedding, curtains, a high-end blender for shakes and my computer. Nothing else seems to matter.

“I do have a lot of things in storage in D.C.,” I mention. I stowed most of my life away after we sold dad’s Georgetown row house. Jason knows the story of my nomadic lifestyle, but he doesn’t know that I had a few things stored with Carlos in New York City, too, that I had him ship to me. It should be arriving any day. “Maybe we should consider renting something bigger.”

“I’ll ask the landlady if she has any two-room suites.” He smirks, and I smack his shoulder. Then with the contact, I can’t seem to take my hand off him, so I caress the round hard, solidness of his muscles.

He says, “Remember when my mom and brother came for a visit?” He grins.

“Your mother tried to stay positive, though she clenched her bag with a two-fisted white-knuckle grip the whole time.”

“And Joshua laughed his ass off, telling me I’m just like dad.” He sobers up a minute. “He’s the only one who can get away with making that comparison without landing hard on the floor.”

“He’s the only one who knows the truth,” I say. “He knows better.” His brother is Jason’s biggest fan, and I marvel at the total lack of sibling rivalry—at least where hockey is concerned. Jason owns that legacy and wears it proudly, especially where his family is concerned.

I had no idea he came from a big family with various aunts, uncles and a dozen cousins. I shudder thinking of that trip up to Newburgh to meet his family. It had been a true act of bravery and commitment to him—either that or an act of sheer lunacy. After the way they treated him like the second coming, their pride touching and over the top, his big head barely fit in our little room when we got back home.

The most unexpected fallout? Carlos got a call from an ad agency representing a diamond company saying they want to use his photo. I said no way because it would be false advertising. Jason agreed. But Carlos negotiated a deal and forced us to sign on that says if we ever do get engaged, we’ll give the rights for them to use the photo in their ad campaign.

I figure it’s a safe bet it’ll never happen.

“I got permission from your mother to marry you,” he says out of the fucking blue.

My heart goes into drum solo mode.

“You’re lying.” I know he’s not by that dimple denting one cheek and the glint in his hazel eyes, but I need to stall because my knees are literally weak, and I don’t know what to say or think. Now, he’s gone and put my nerves on edge, so I pick up the shot glass filled with my faithful old Glenlivet, the only friend who’s never let me down, and chug it down my throat. The heat calms me, but my hand still shakes as I lower the glass.

“If you really need me to,” he says, wisely not commenting on my sudden need to down a shot, “I’ll show you the string of texts—”

“You asked permission by text? Coward—”

“No.” He suppresses a smile. “I called your mother and asked if I could meet with her or take her to dinner. She asked why and said she’d get back to me. I waited two days and didn’t hear a word, so I called back, but she didn’t answer, so I texted. We finally met up for dinner.” He studies me with an earnest expression, like a boy scout, which he could never be unless boy scouts have badges for giving girls multiple orgasms within ten minutes. He met with my mother for dinner?

“Was her water skier there?” I’m desperately trying to distract myself with inane details.