by Grey , S. R.
“That looks like Maisie’s writing,” I murmured as I reached the suite.
Ripping the note from the door, I read what was written on it.
God, I felt like I was punched in the gut.
“What the fuck?”
Maisie was gone?
Where did she go?
Back home?
It certainly sounded like it.
But what was up with this “we can never be” and “I’m just an illusion” crap?
Maisie was the most real person I knew. That was one of the reasons why I’d fallen in love with her.
Fuck, why hadn’t I told her as much?
I glanced around.
Maybe she was still in the hotel?
Or maybe she was hiding in her room?
I had to find out, but when I tried the handle, the door was locked.
Shit.
I searched the floor for someone, anyone, who could help.
I eventually found a hotel employee, a girl who looked to be in her early twenties.
Good, I could work with that.
It took some cajoling, and a lot of flirting, but I finally talked her into opening the door to Maisie’s room for me.
As soon as I walked in, I knew she was really gone. All of her things were missing, and the room just had an empty feel to it.
The employee had a tablet device, so I asked, “Can you check to see if the occupant is checked out?”
She was hesitant at first, but when she saw how upset I was I think she took pity on me.
“Okay,” she acquiesced. “I’ll check for you.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “I really appreciate it.”
The girl tapped on her tablet for a few seconds, but then suddenly stopped.
“What is it?” I asked, heart hammering.
Staring down at the screen, she said, “It’s just that something is very odd.”
“What’s odd?” I asked.
Looking up at me, she said, “It says here this room is still rented out, but not by a girl.”
Huh?
“What?”
“Yes, look. See here…” She turned the screen to me, and I could see a bunch of charges for food and such, but they were all listed under the name of some dude named Gary Tarrington.
“Who the hell is that?” I bellowed.
The girl shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. I’m new here. But he appears to have this suite rented for the rest of the year.”
I let out a surprised, “Huh? What are you saying? That this guy rents this suite for the whole year? The dude must be loaded. More importantly, though, who the fuck is he to Maisie?”
The employee had no clue, of course, and neither did I.
But I sure as hell intended to find out.
Vegas, Baby
I touched down in Las Vegas early the next day.
Robert, as promised, had given me a few hundred dollars in US currency so I could make my way home to Two Palms.
Yeah, right.
I had no intention of ever going back to Arizona. That‘s where my jilted mother was. And after all her betrayals, she was the last person I cared to see.
I decided instead to use the cash to rent a cheap motel room in Vegas. I figured I’d just stay there till the money ran out.
Or maybe I can get a job and stick around for as long as I like.
That sounded like a better plan.
So over the next few days, I applied at a bunch of different places. Thanks to my cashier experience from back in Two Palms, a small convenience store hired me right away.
It sucked a little, as it was kind of far from my crummy motel.
But just as I’d done when I put in the application, I’d simply take the bus.
Maybe it was for the best. I’d be working in a safer part of town. The convenience store was right where the bus line ended, and a fancy new suburb of freshly constructed homes was located just around the block.
It would be like it always was for me—I’d be on the outside, looking into a life I’d never have.
You were so close, Maisie.
Too bad I’d blown it.
Lies, deception… Noel was probably happy to be rid of me.
Too bad I still loved him and missed him like crazy.
“I can cover any shift you need,” I told my new manager.
I planned to work as much as I could. Not just for the money, but to help me forget about Noel. Hopefully it would work.
Unfortunately, it didn’t.
As the first couple of weeks of my new employment dragged on, I still felt sad and lonely. I missed Noel every second of every day. I knew I should try to make connections, find some friends.
But I couldn’t.
My heart just wasn’t in it. It ached far too much.
The people at work were nice, but I kept my distance, leading my life of solitude.
That was fine. I deserved nothing more.
My new existence consisted of taking the bus to work, putting in my hours, and returning to my motel room, where I slept and sometimes watched TV.
The only thing I allowed myself that was in any way reminiscent of how I’d lived my summer in Sweden, was to learn everything I could about hockey.
It was my last and only connection to Noel, and I could feel close to him without the possibility of hurting him again.
My mom, surprisingly, was still paying my cell phone bill, so I had an internet connection. And Google was my friend. All my searches were hockey related, and I began to learn a lot more about the sport.
It pleased me to think how, if things were still good with us, Noel would have been so impressed.
Too bad he’d never know.
Besides my own commitment to stay away from him, he’d already given up on me.
I knew that because the first week or so after I’d left Sweden, he left tons of voice mails and texts.
But then he’d stopped.
No matter, it was for the best. That was why I deleted each and every one of his messages, never listening or reading a single one.
What would be the point?
The content was most likely about how much I’d hurt him, and how he totally hated me.
I couldn’t take that.
Of course, even though his efforts to contact me had ceased, my interest in him hadn’t waned. It was like I needed to know what Noel and the Las Vegas Wolves were up to.
So I kept up my research.
The regular season was only a few weeks away, and training camp was nearing. Some of the guys were already streaming back into town, including Noel.
My heart!
There was a huge interview with him that had been published on some hockey blog.
I ate that up.
Most of the questions were hockey-related, but there was one about his love life.
When I greedily read what he had to say, my soul was crushed. I knew for sure that he’d moved on.
Interviewer: Tell us, Noel. Is there a special lady in your life these days?
Noel: Uh, there was someone I met in Sweden. Let’s just say, though, that it didn’t work out.
Interviewer: So you’re telling us that you’re available?
Noel (laughing): Yes, I guess you could say that.
Interviewer: Single and ready to mingle, huh?
Noel: I suppose.
Even though my heart was broken, I knew it was for the best.
Noel Sandlund was better off without me.
Bumfuck Nowhere
Before I left Sweden, and after I arrived back in Las Vegas, I left Maisie a ton of messages.
Voice mails, texts, all with me pleading for her to please get back to me and tell me why she had left in such a rush.
Whatever made her run could be fixed, right?
I mean, I loved her, damn it.
And love could fix anything, even misunderstandings or misrepresentations of oneself.
That’s right. I didn’t buy any of the things she’d written in her note, especially no
t the “illusion” crap.
I didn’t care what she thought. I knew the real Maisie, and I knew what was in her heart.
That was why I had to find her.
I left Stockholm the day after I found her note, and then I spent the next week or so messaging her.
When I received no responses, I decided to quit.
Trying to reach Maisie electronically just wasn’t working.
I was in no way done, though.
On the contrary, I knew it was simply time to take the bull by the horns. And by that I meant I was taking a trip to good ole Two Palms, Arizona.
Maisie Troy was not getting away from me that easily. I was one determined motherfucker when I needed to be.
That was how I had discovered who Gary Tarrington was—a fifty-something dude who owned a huge juice company.
There was no way in hell Maisie had any interest in him.
First, she wouldn’t have been able to keep him hidden from me in Sweden. I was in her hotel suite way too many times, and there was never a hint of any dude staying there.
Then there was the fact that Maisie didn’t even like juice all that much.
No way was she humping a Juice King.
But still, the question of how she had ended up in his room in the first place lingered.
I thought about it for hours.
What I eventually came up with was that maybe the friend she’d been traveling with had hooked up with this Gary guy.
Yeah, that was plausible.
Hadn’t Maisie mentioned the night I met her that her friend had taken off with some dude?
Yes, yes she had.
That had to be why she’d had the suite all to herself.
It was starting to all make sense.
It was also probably why Maisie wrote in her note that she was just an illusion, because the suite wasn’t really her room.
Didn’t she realize I didn’t care about crap like that?
Why she’d even think such a thing would bother me, I had no clue.
I’d have to ask her once I got to Two Palms.
Speaking of which, I was almost there.
I started out this morning, and it was now near noon. I’d already crossed the state line and exited the highway, but I was beginning to wonder if maybe my GPS wasn’t working.
I’d been driving in desolate desert for quite some time, with no civilization in sight.
I hit Recalibrate, but the GPS assured me I was traveling in the right direction.
“Okay then, let’s do this.”
GPS was right.
I soon saw signs for Two Palms, popping up along the side of the road, looking like lonely sentinels in the arid, barren landscape.
“Maisie sure lives in bumfuck nowhere,” I muttered.
I was going pretty fast, but I had to slow down to swerve and avoid a lizard sunning itself in the middle of the road.
“Yeesh, it really is no-man’s-land out here,” I lamented as I watched the little guy scurry off in my rearview mirror.
My eyes returned to the road and up in the distance, finally, a tiny town came into view.
Small would have been an understatement in describing Two Palms.
There was one good thing about that, though.
In a town that tiny, there was no place Maisie Troy could hide.
Damn Wolves Are Everywhere
It was nearing evening, and my shift was done in an hour.
Thank God.
It’d been an especially trying day, and I couldn’t wait to grab the bus and return to the motel.
Noel had been on my mind more than usual, which was really saying something since I pretty much thought of him all the time.
Some days were like that—twenty-four hours of constant reminders of Noel.
Things got even worse when a new employee at the store, a young girl around my age named Fiona, wouldn’t stop going on and on about hockey, specifically the Wolves.
She wanted to talk about the players, the team, and the upcoming season.
Figures, I’d be stuck working with the Wolves’ biggest fan.
As we stood there at the register in the front of the store, during an unfortunately quiet lull, she said, “Oh, Maisie, I really hope they keep Dylan Culderway and Noel Sandlund together. It’s been weighing on my mind like you wouldn’t believe.”
“It has?” I queried.
“Yes. They’re one of the best defensive pairings in the league. You must know that, Maisie. You live here, right?”
“Right,” I glumly replied.
Ugh.
It hurt to hear Noel’s name. But I had to play dumb to end this discussion. Otherwise, I’d tear up and that would look really weird. Fiona would wonder why hockey talk made me cry.
So, clearing my throat, I said, “No, I wasn’t aware of that. But thanks for the update.”
I thought the conversation was dead right there.
But no, it took a turn for the worst.
“Which one do you think is the hottest?” Fiona asked as she toyed with one of her auburn braids.
“I told you I don’t follow hockey,” I snapped.
My attitude didn’t deter her in the slightest.
“That’s not a problem,” she said, whipping out her phone and tapping on the screen.
To my horror, she then turned it my way.
“Here are headshots of all the players,” she said. “They’re on the team website. That’s pretty convenient, huh?”
“Er…”
“So which one do you prefer, Maisie? Noel or Dylan?”
Of course she flipped right past Dylan’s pic and stopped on Noel’s.
It was clear who her favorite was—my freaking man!
Or, at least, he used to be.
Wearily, I stared at Noel’s face on the screen. It was such a good picture of him, capturing not only how handsome he was, but also his kind demeanor.
He looked so freaking happy in the shot too, kind of how he once looked with me before I ruined everything.
I better answer her question.
I didn’t want to open my mouth just yet, though. Fiona would wonder why my voice was cracking. It would too, seeing as pesky tears were already blurring my vision.
Too late, you’re busted.
“Hey, are you okay?” Fiona lowered her phone.
I swished my hand in front of my face, like that would make it all go away.
Too bad it didn’t work.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” I blathered. “There’s something in my eye, I think.”
Thank God Fiona believed me.
“Oh, that’s not good.” She frowned. “Why don’t you go back to the bathroom and fix it? I’ll cover for you.”
I was thinking of taking her up on her offer, simply to get away, but then the door jingled open and a customer walked in.
The next thing I knew, and before I had a chance to turn around, Fiona grabbed my arm and exclaimed under her breath, “Oh my God, Maisie! There’s one of them now. I can’t freaking believe it. A Wolves player just strolled into our store!”
Say what?
No!
I wasn’t about to turn around and look, because what if…?
“Which player is it?” I asked shakily.
Please don’t be Noel. Please don’t be Noel.
To my relief, Fiona said, “It’s the new guy, Blake Cavaletti.”
“Oh, thank heavens.” I blew out a breath.
“Here he comes, Maisie.” Fiona shook me. “You can’t leave me. In fact, you have to wait on him. I’m too nervous, and I don’t want to make a fool of myself.”
I had no choice, not really, so I muttered a flat, dead-sounding, “Sure, whatever.”
There was no harm in waiting on this Blake dude. I’d never met him, and he had no clue who I was, or that I knew Noel.
When I heard him step up to the counter, I spun around to face him.
Fiona just kind of hung behind me, drooling.
I knew
that because when I ventured a glance back, she was staring at Blake all dreamy-eyed.
Oh, Lord.
I pivoted back to Blake. There was no denying he was an extremely good-looking guy. Italian features, with slicked-back black hair, deep brown eyes, and bronzed skin.
Hmm…
Sexy and hot were words that came to mind.
Still, he had no effect on me. I only had eyes for Noel, even if we weren’t together.
Flashing me a sexy grin, Blake placed a big energy drink on the counter.
“Is that all?” I asked, ringing it up.
“Yep, that’s it,” he replied.
And that’s when, for no reason I could discern, things got really weird.
Blake narrowed his eyes at me. Not in any kind of bad way. No, this was more like he was trying to place me or something.
But that couldn’t be right. There was no way in hell he knew who I was.
Yeah, I probably just looked like someone from his past.
Giving it no further thought, I said, “That’ll be $4.75, please.”
Blake handed me his credit card.
I swiped it, then said, “Thanks. Have a nice evening.”
I handed him his receipt, and his eyes held mine intently.
When I frowned, he looked away. “Yeah, you too, miss.”
After he left, Fiona grabbed me by the arm.
“Maisie, Maisie, holy hell. Blake Cavaletti was looking at you like he totally knew you. Have you met him before?”
I shook my head. “No, never.”
“Ooh,” she trilled, “maybe he likes you, then?”
“I don’t think that was it.”
“Then what was it?” Fiona pressed.
I shrugged and replied honestly, “I have no idea.”
I was a little worried, though. There was no denying there’d been recognition in Blake’s steady gaze.
But that’s impossible.
Yeah, I just wasn’t feeling myself today.
I was reading too much into it.
There was no way in hell Blake Cavaletti knew I was the girl who broke his teammate’s heart.
Holy F*cking Shit
Finding Maisie’s trailer wasn’t difficult at all.
The first gas station I stopped at, which appeared to be the only gas station in town, I found an old grizzled male attendant who knew exactly where the Troys lived.