Overnight Sensation

by Sarina Bowen

  Out of the corner of my eye, Jason visibly braces himself. “Melissa Skinner.”

  Georgia nods.

  “Wait,” I whisper. “That’s Lissa—your high school girlfriend who died?”

  “Right,” he grunts.

  “Did you know she was an organ donor?” Georgia asks softly.

  Jason is quiet for a moment. “I only have hazy memories of the week she died. But there was something about organ donation.”

  Georgia clears her throat. “I hadn’t heard that story before. After I got this call today, I googled Melissa Skinner. There are some old news articles about you and Melissa and the accident. Your hockey team raised money for Melissa’s funeral. I’m so sorry, Jason. I didn’t know you lost your girlfriend when you were…”

  “Eighteen,” he bites out. “That was a long time ago. I don’t think about it so much anymore.” Although his tone makes him a liar.

  “Well, I’m still sorry for your loss,” Georgia says.

  “What does the girl want?” he asks, probably hoping to get to the end of this conversation. “Money?”

  “Not exactly. See, she’s pretty happy to be alive and playing goalie for her college team. She was hoping to meet you when the team travels to Minnesota. Her name is Carrie, and she runs a campaign every year at her school so that other students know how important it is to check the organ-donation box on your driver’s license.”

  “Oh,” he says slowly. “That’s a good cause.”

  “It is,” Georgia agrees. “She’s in touch with another organ recipient, too. Both women feel a lot of gratitude toward Melissa. They’d like to meet you.”

  “Me?” he asks. “Why? The other woman plays hockey, too? What are the odds?”

  “No,” Georgia says quickly. “Only Carrie plays. The other girl—they’re just transplant buddies.”

  He frowns. “She got a transplant, too? Of…?”

  Georgia looks really uncomfortable now. “Eyes.” Her voice cracks on the word. “She was blind.”

  “Eyes,” he repeats. “I see.” And then, as I watch, Jason’s face drains of color. His face turns white and then grey, and even his lips go pale. “Excuse me,” he grunts. Then he walks away from me without a backward glance, flinging the door open so hard that it bangs against the wall.

  He disappears, and for a long moment afterward, Georgia and I just stare at the doorway where we last saw him.

  “Holy cow,” Georgia says, recovering first. “I didn’t mean to upset him. I had to bring this to him, though. Didn’t I?” She turns to look at me with wide eyes.

  “Sure,” I say, although I’m not sure about anything at all.

  “There’s no road map for this,” Georgia says.

  “Right? I’ll give him a few minutes and then track him down. I’ll make sure he’s okay.”

  “Would you?” she asks. “Text me, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  Georgia leaves, still looking worried. I throw away my ice pack, gather up my things, and go in search of Jason.

  But by the time I’ve checked the locker room and the equipment room, Jason is gone. He’s already on the team bus, from what Jimbo can tell me.

  I check my phone. No messages.

  31

  Jason

  I’m lying in bed in a luxurious room on an upper floor of the Fairmont Hotel. I’ve left the lights off and the drapes open, and the Silicon Valley sparkles out the window in the distance.

  Only I’m not really here at all. I’m back in Quebec in a stadium with my juniors team. We just won our third tournament game in a row. I’m covered in sweat and grinning like a maniac. But then my coach pulls me aside. Come here, Castro. Sit down, son. There’s been an accident.

  A car accident, as it turned out. And Lissa was just gone. I remember sitting there on the bench in the stinky locker room, trying to process what he was telling me.

  But it took me hours to understand and another day or so to cry. Because your girlfriend can’t just up and die when there are so many complicated things between the two of you.

  Except it turns out that she can.

  Most people don’t learn this lesson at eighteen. Some people never learn it at all. I still envy everyone who doesn’t know what it’s like to have a major chunk of your world ripped away on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It’s a kind of violence on your soul.

  And violence always leaves a mark. I felt physically ill tonight when Georgia explained who wanted to meet me. Bile rose suddenly in my throat, and I fought it back all the way to the hotel.

  Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow. Lissa and I had starred in Romeo and Juliet at school in ninth grade. To this day I still have every line memorized. “A Shakespearean Tragedy” our local paper had titled the story of Lissa’s accident.

  That play will forever be snarled with November and loss in my mind.

  Jesus fucking Christ. I can’t meet somebody who has Melissa’s eyes. I’ll write a big fat check to whatever charity these girls are supporting. But I don’t want to meet them.

  I roll over and stare at the hotel room ceiling. I need to pull myself together. That’s something I had to learn at eighteen, too. A man doesn’t fall apart. There are too many people depending on me. Even at eighteen, I had the dysfunctional mother of the deceased blubbering in my arms at the funeral. And my own family watching me warily—my mother soaking her way through a supply of tissues.

  You don’t cry when anyone else is around. They need you to be okay. They’re counting on it.

  Across the room, my phone lights up with another text. My parents always reach out after a game to let me know they watched. And my teammates are probably wondering why I’m not down at the bar.

  Then there’s Heidi. This afternoon I slipped a hotel key into her pocket and told her to meet me here later if she could. But then I pulled a runner tonight after that weird little meeting with Georgia. Heidi is almost certainly wanting to know if I’m okay.

  And I will be soon. I always am.

  Sleep comes for me eventually. I drift through its shallowest waters before slipping under the surface entirely. I barely register the beep and click of my hotel room door opening. A few moments later, a soft body curves toward mine. My arm is lifted and then lowered again. My hand—relaxed in sleep—comes to rest on smooth skin.

  I inhale, taking in citrus and warmth.

  Heidi.

  I’d begged her to come to my hotel and warm my bed. But I hadn’t counted on needing a night of solitude to get my crazy head in line. So now I lay very still and slow my breathing, asking my body to sleep. It’s the only way to get out of my head.

  But Heidi’s scent is too present, her skin too warm, her curves tucked against my greedy body. Unbidden, my thumb strokes the underside of her breast. And the sigh she makes is full of awareness and heat.

  My blood stirs. Of course it does.

  Right after Lissa died, I assumed I wouldn’t think about sex ever again. But I was an eighteen-year-old guy. My libido barely took a vacation. I spent the year after I lost her horny and upset about it. Then I went off to college, where nobody knew me as the boyfriend of the dead girl. So I started hooking up on the regular. No relationships, of course. Just sex.

  And that was the way it went for six years. Until now.

  Heidi tries to roll over, reaching for me. But I can’t let that happen. She’ll see all the pain I’m in.

  So I use my strength to stop her. I force her to remain on her side, facing the other way. So what if she lets out a shocked gasp at my rough treatment? She likes me in control. I kiss the back of her neck as a show of tenderness. She tastes sweet, and I let my tongue linger. Meanwhile, I give each of her nipples a rude pinch.

  She moans, and I close my eyes against that sound. It feels wrong to do this. I shouldn’t fuck one girl while I’m all tangled up over another one. Worse—I shouldn’t shut Heidi out. She cares about me. I know in my gut th
at she’d want to hear what’s on my mind.

  If I stopped right now—if I wasn’t slipping my hand down between her legs—she’d be happy to listen. She’d hold me and say all the right things. There’s probably a unit at charm school for what to say to the fucked up and grieving.

  But I don’t do the right thing. I lock my arms around her, dipping my fingertips into her pussy, sliding her wetness over her clit until she clenches her thighs around my hand. I suck on her neck and tease her until my hand is drenched, and my cock is so hard I can’t stand it.

  Heidi and I have the kind of sex that you don’t have with strangers. It’s raw and trusting and free. I’ve really let down my guard with her. I see that now.

  And maybe that was a mistake. As I lift her leg and line up my cock, I feel unhinged. So much for keeping my emotions on lockdown. With a broken cry, I push inside her slick heat. No condom. We discussed this already, so it’s not a violation of her trust. We’re protected against pregnancy, and I just got tested.

  But I’m not protected against losing my ever-loving mind. Tonight I’m all about the pain and the self-torture. She feels so good that I have to hold still for a moment, groaning into her hair, clenching my muscles around her small body. My eyes are hot, and my skin is on fire.

  I don’t deserve to experience such intense physical pleasure. My heart shreds itself into tiny pieces as I begin to move. I’ve got Heidi in an iron embrace. She struggles, clenching her sweet body around my cock, rocking her hips—or trying to.

  But everything is on my terms. It has to be. Anything else will break me tonight. So I slow my breathing and fuck her slowly. She moans every time I slide deeper inside. Her smooth hands are locked onto mine. They’re begging me to touch her further.

  I close my eyes and try to hold on to this exquisite moment. My mouth explores the side of Heidi’s neck, as I try to drown all my senses in her body. My teeth find the cord of muscle between her neck and her shoulder. I bite down gently, and Heidi whimpers.

  Then she gets impossibly wet, and my control begins to slip. I fuck her more urgently. I slip a hand over her pussy, and she sobs in gratitude, riding my hand, taking my cock in heated thrusts.

  Usually I run my mouth during sex. Tonight words fail me. In the silence, I hear Heidi take a deep, shuddering breath. Then she gasps as she climaxes around my aching cock. I feel every ripple, every flutter as she comes. And I just lose it. I make a broken sound, and shoot inside her, biting my lip, groaning, and trying not to remember that the last person I filled up with my come had disappeared from this earth forever.

  “Jesus,” Heidi breathes into the sheets a moment later.

  I still can’t make myself talk. But I do roll her gently onto my chest and kiss her mouth. My hands wander lovingly through her hair, and my fingertips caress her back.

  Right now I’m two people. One of them is closed off and silent, unable to get past the horror of years past. The other one is a tender lover, returning affection like a good boyfriend should.

  “Are you okay?” she whispers, curling closer to me.

  “Yeah,” I lie. “Of course.”

  32

  Heidi

  “Heidi, slow down,” my sister says into my ear. “You’re not making a whole lot of sense right now.”

  She’s right. I’ve been rambling into the phone at her, because everything is wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it.

  “Let me get this straight—you said Jason is acting too much like a boyfriend. And then you said he isn’t acting enough like a boyfriend. Do you see why I’m confused?”

  “But it’s true,” I hiss. “He went completely caveman-protective of me, and I didn’t like it.”

  “That wasn’t a fair fight,” my sister argues, and I bristle that she’s taking his side.

  “You watched?”

  “It’s on the Hockey Fights website,” she says.

  “Really? What’s my rating?” I hear myself ask. I can’t help it. I was born with a competitive streak.

  “You have fifty-five percent!” she hoots. “That’s better than O’Doul got in his fight.”

  Unbelievable. “Then it was a fair fight. Statistics don’t lie.”

  “Sure they do!” my sister scoffs. “Everyone loves an underdog. Plus, that butt wiggle…” She giggles.

  I groan. “Okay, forget the fish. The bigger problem is that Jason is sad.” He hasn’t been the same since Georgia told him about the transplant recipients. “I swear he hasn’t looked me in the eye in four days.” We’re in Seattle, on the final leg of our road trip. And Jason is just not himself. He seems cold inside. “I’ve asked him what’s wrong, and he says nothing.”

  My sister makes a sympathetic sound. “The male ego cannot be vulnerable. He’s wrestling with something, but it’s not in his nature to tell you.”

  I know she’s right. But I hate it anyway. “What should I do?”

  “Patience is your only choice. Oh, and sex. Maybe you can boink him into a better mood.”

  “Maybe,” I whisper. I’ve had to stay with the travel crew these past two nights. Coach gave the boys a curfew after two losses in a row. “Tomorrow we go home to Brooklyn. Then there’s the Delilah Spark concert tomorrow night.”

  “I’m so jealous!” Jana says. “Second-row seats with some hockey hotties at a concert? You poor thing.”

  The ticket cost a fortune, though. “First, I have to fight a salmon.”

  “What?”

  “Seattle’s mascot is the Sockeye Salmon. The West Coast really likes their fish.”

  My sister snorts. “Please tell me it won’t turn out like the last one?”

  “It’s fine. I met the mascot already. Swear to God, I outweigh the guy. He’s a fifty-year-old ex-circus clown. It’s going to be fine. We’re doing a mime routine where he’s selling popcorn, and I don’t have the money to pay for it.”

  “Just like your real life!” Jenna says cheerfully.

  “Yeah.”

  “Chin up, Heidi Jo. Give your man some space, and kick that salmon’s hindquarters.”

  “Will do.”

  A few hours later, everything goes off without a hitch. Brooklyn beats Seattle 3-1. Jason gets a goal. And I spend two and a half minutes on the ice, dressed in a bear suit, pretending to steal popcorn from a salmon. It doesn’t make a lick of sense, but I don’t get another black eye so I’m counting it as a win.

  I shower quickly and then help out in the equipment room, pitching in with Jimbo to pack the hockey sticks into their protective tube and gathering all the gear we can before the players are finished in the locker room.

  “Tonight we tell Silas about the concert, right?” Jimbo asks as we stack empty Gatorade bottles into their carrying carton. “He’s gonna die.”

  “Yes! It’s going to be epic.” Our flight is tomorrow morning. We take off at eight a.m. and land at four thirty. I have a reservation for twenty people at Brother Jimmy’s Barbecue for six, and doors open at the concert at seven. “You’re going, right?”

  “Totes!” says Jimbo, grabbing a hockey stick that we missed on the first pass. “Bayer went home to his dad’s place while his knee heals. So he gave me his ticket.”

  “Nice.”

  “They’re done in the showers,” Jimbo says, peering into the next room. “Let’s get the towels. Do you think they’ll wait to tell Silas until we make it back to the hotel?”

  “They better!” I say. “I want to see his face.”

  It takes us another hour to clear the locker room of Brooklyn gear. When it’s all packed away on the truck, Jimbo and I grab a taxi. As we head for the hotel, the first snow flurries I’ve seen this year dance through the fresh air.

  “I’ll take a video when you tell him,” Jimbo says. “We can immortalize this moment.”

  “Deal,” I say, grabbing my phone. “I’m texting Trevi to let him know we’re on our way. He wants to be the one who breaks the news. He’s going to sing a Delilah Spark song in the bar and then hand over the
tickets.”

  “Cool. How come you don’t have a Katt phone like the rest of us?” Jimbo asks.

  “I covet the Katt phone, but I’m not an official employee of the team.”

  “You’re not?” Jimbo yelps. “You’ve done every job there is for the team. You practically run this place.”

  “Dude, I will have the Katt phone or die trying.”

  He laughs as the taxi pulls up in front of the hotel. I pay the driver, file the receipt away in my wallet and climb out. Trevi has replied to my text: We’re right inside at the bar. But come and see me first. There’s something you need to know.

  Hmm. I don’t like the sound of that. But now we’ve arrived, and as soon as Jimbo holds the door open for me I spot Trevi and Jason standing shoulder to shoulder, shot glasses in hand. I hurry over to them. “Hey guys! Great game!” I stand on my tiptoes and kiss Jason on the chin.

  “Shouldn’t you be wearing a jacket?” he asks. “It’s fucking cold out there.”

  I step back, a little stunned. “That is not how a man greets his lady, but I’ll let it pass, because I’m in a good mood.” I turn to Trevi. “Is it time? Are you ready to sing?”

  “Buddy.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “There’s bad news about the concert.”

  “What?” I gasp. “It cannot be canceled! I planned it all out.”

  “It’s going to snow,” Jason says. “Six inches by midnight and twelve by morning.”

  “Our flight is already delayed until noon,” Trevi adds.

  “Noon,” I breathe. “Four hours. So we’ll land at eight thirty. But there’s an opening act, right? She might not take the stage until eight or eight thirty anyway.”

  “It’ll take us an hour to get there, even if we don’t drop off our luggage,” Trevi says, squeezing my shoulder. “I’m sorry, buddy. There’s no way we’re making it.”

  “But…” My mind spins as I try to rewrite the rules of physics. “It was perfect. Maybe the forecast is wrong. A snow storm is like a man. You never know how long it will go or how many inches you’re getting.”