Screw you, Ruth. “Thanks.”
“Meeting in—”
“I know.” She glared over her shoulder as she rounded the filing cabinets and cubicles. “I’ll be there for your meeting.”
Ruth didn’t even have the good grace to appear chagrined. She looked self-righteous, standing there in her three-year-old black wrap dress and boots.
We’ll see, Madelyn thought, pushing open the door to her office with her butt. We’ll see who’s self-righteous after this meeting.
She turned in to her office, slamming the door shut behind her, and for a long and confusing moment her brain sent panicked messages to her body to run.
Dressed in an ill-fitting sport coat and a red golf shirt, Billy stood in the middle of her tiny office, not two feet away from her, taking up too much space and air. Space and air she needed.
Inwardly, she reeled, the earth lost beneath her feet.
Numb, she watched his eyes run down her body, taking in the purple sweater and the black slacks. Her straight hair.
Obscenely, she was pleased that he wouldn’t see much of the girl he’d married in her appearance. She was a stranger to him. But he—with his broken nose, that terrible scar, and the forward-thrust jaw, daring all comers to take a swing—he was all too familiar.
Wearing her indifference like a suit of armor, she tossed her water bottle onto the chair Ruth usually sat in.
“You can’t be in here.”
“I just wanted a chance to talk with you before the meeting.”
She arched her eyebrow, fighting with super-human strength the desire to bite her thumbnail. “About what?”
“Maddy …” he sighed, as if disappointed that she wouldn’t play along.
That sigh’s effect on her composure was cataclysmic—the world went red. Her heart pounded behind her eyes and she wanted to push him through the wall.
But, instead, because she was better than what he wanted her to be, because she’d worked too hard to succumb to the controlling influence of anger and hurt, because, damn it, he couldn’t do this shit to her anymore, she reached behind her and calmly opened the door.
“I think you should leave. I’ll see you at the meeting.”
He blinked, waiting as if she might change her mind.
You will get nothing more from me, she thought. Not one more thing.
The words echoed in the room, echoed between them as if she’d screamed them.
“I’m doing this show,” he said.
She swallowed the growl lodged in her throat, where it joined—in the pit of her belly, where nothing ever vanished, where every slight and pain and injustice was kept and preserved—the millions of screams she’d swallowed during her short, disastrous marriage.
“That’s your prerogative,” she said, managing to keep the sneer from her voice.
Careful not to touch her, he slipped out the door.
Billy sat in what had to be one of the messiest conference rooms—in the middle of the stupidest goddamned meeting he’d ever been in—waiting for his chance to fight.
Victor sat beside him and Billy took some comfort in the man’s quiet, sharklike demeanor.
The producer, wearing a Darth Vader T-shirt, kept grinning at Billy. He filled every gap in the conversation with questions about the fight at the end of the last game, like every other bloodthirsty hockey fan who met him on the street.
Maddy sat at the head of the table, her hair slicked back in a tight ponytail, surrounded by newspapers and magazines and women without half her shine.
She’d changed her clothes, taken off the pants and put on a blue dress that showed off how thin she was. She smiled at him, polite and removed, as if he were selling something cheap. And unwanted.
But beneath that chill, she was bothered.
She had to be. Right? Not that she’d seemed bothered in her office. But he had been … and he was now. Flop sweat, sticky and rank, ran down his sides in spite of the air-conditioning.
Back when they were married she would have been screaming at him. Throwing plates, coming at him with curled fingernails. She’d be hurling insults, vicious and true.
Somehow, she’d figured out how to curb all that. The ice queen at the top of the table didn’t look like she ever screamed, and she certainly didn’t look like she’d faced off against Kevin Dockrill in the cafeteria of Schelany High School or destroyed every single CD in Billy’s extensive Bruce Springsteen collection.
No, in fact, the woman sitting there looked kind of stupid. And like she barely gave a shit. She was pretty, sure—but she cultivated a certain emptiness. A cool distance.
For a stark and stomach-spinning moment, she seemed like a stranger.
Incredulous, he glanced at everyone else in the room to see if they bought this act of hers. And it didn’t seem like they found anything strange about that vapid empty smile on her face.
He stared at her, waiting for her to break, to catch his eye. They might have had one of the worst marriages in the history of the world but they’d had years of incredible friendship preceding it.
Finally, while someone droned on about positive PR, she looked at him. Right at him.
What gives? he asked with the lift of his eyebrows.
And those eyes of hers flashed, her lips went taut.
Fuck you, dick-wad.
The room was suddenly electric with her fury. Everyone shifted awkwardly, glancing sideways at one another as if to see who’d farted.
Somewhere under that sleek hair and flawless face and anemic body was the woman he remembered. The woman who’d fought with him, fought for him, when no one else in the world would.
And this was his chance to fight for her. A chance to make right what he’d gotten so wrong.
He cracked his knuckles, ready for his opening.
“It’s a series of five spots,” Ruth, one of the producers, said, with a smile that was thin as melting ice. “First an introduction, we’ll talk to some of your teammates and family—”
“My family?” he asked. “Why?”
“To hear stories about you as a kid,” she answered smoothly.
“Really?” He glanced over at Maddy, but she was calmly inspecting her manicure like she had no idea who his family was. Or what they were. Like she hadn’t been friends with his little sister, Denise, the two of them thick as thieves for a chunk of their childhood.
He shrugged, having made peace with where and how he’d grown up years ago. Of course, that peace came a whole lot easier with a thousand miles of distance between him and Pittsburgh.
“Feel free,” he told Ruth, “but I’ll warn you. I’m like Prince Charming compared to them.”
Maddy laughed, once through her nose. Practically a snort.
“Well, then that will be interesting, won’t it?” Ruth said, brightly. But it was hardly convincing. Ruth clearly wasn’t used to being “bright.” “We’ll also talk to your teammates and friends in order to lay the groundwork for the makeover. For the second episode, we’ll bring in a tailor. A manners expert—”
“Fine.” He agreed quickly, a slap shot they weren’t expecting. “Is there something I have to sign?”
“Let her finish,” Maddy said. “You should know what you’re signing up for.”
“I get the gist.”
“I don’t think you do,” Maddy shot back.
“Let them finish,” Victor said, leaning forward as tensions were getting stranger in the room.
“As I said,” Ruth cleared her throat, glancing sideways at Maddy, “we’ve got a tailor—”
“I understand.”
“No,” Maddy said. “I don’t think you do.”
Silence echoed. People leaned back in their seats.
“We’re going to talk to your family, Billy.” She arched an eyebrow but he didn’t even flinch. “We will get your friends and teammates to tell us what a barbarian you are. How you can’t dress and you act like a buffoon in social situations. How all you’re good for is fighting.
” She paused, waiting for a reaction and even though he felt blood rise up in his neck, making the skin itch under his collar, he didn’t give her an inch.
Her eyes narrowed and she leaned over the table. “And about that tailor. It will be a man—probably flamboyantly gay, because how funny will it be to watch the hockey bruiser get uncomfortable when the gay tailor flirts and measures his inseam.”
“Madelyn—” Ruth said, but Maddy cut the woman down with a glance.
“Oh, Ruth, don’t for a minute pretend you have any motive but making good television.” Ruth was silent, looking sideways at the dude in the Darth Vader shirt, who simply shrugged. Maddy was melting down. The girl he knew was emerging, her hands sweeping the air in front of her, sarcasm dripping from every word. This was the street fighter inside her and no one in this room knew it but him.
Smiling to egg her on, he sat back and watched the show.
She stood, her chair screeching across the floor behind her.
“And the very best television you can make for us, Billy, is letting us rub your nose in your barbarianism. Letting us poke at you and laugh at you, letting us, in fact, get one million viewers to laugh at you. At what an animal you are. Letting us trot you out like a trained ape. And then when we try to clean you up and it fails—which it will, spectacularly!—we’re going to need you to just take it, Billy. You can’t fight. You can’t walk away. You can’t just leave when things get hard.”
Silence boomed through the room.
“Madelyn?” Ruth said, louder and sharper this time, and Maddy’s mouth clicked shut. Everyone, her colleagues and her boss, were looking at her as if she’d turned into a werewolf.
And she knew it. Hives broke out on her neck and she lifted a hand as if she could feel them. Could hide them.
Too late he had doubts. This is how you’re going to use your second chance? Driving her nuts like this? You think it will endear you to her?
This was a mistake. Once again he hadn’t thought his shit out and she was paying the price.
“Perfect,” Victor said. “That’s exactly the kind of situation Billy needs.”
“Needs?” Billy asked.
“Yeah, you need to prove that you aren’t just a fighter. That you have a sense of humor.”
“I don’t.”
Victor laughed. “See right there, very funny.”
“Victor—”
“We’re in.”
“Excellent. So are we.” The station manager leaned across the table and shook Victor’s hand and then Billy’s.
Maddy straightened, a tall goddess, her thin, manicured hands in fists, the blotches like wounds on her neck. “Welcome aboard, Billy,” she said, calm once more. “It will be a pleasure having you on the show. Excuse me, but I have to get some work done for next week.”
Everyone took a big sigh of relief when she left the room.
The producer in the stupid shirt droned on and on about new sponsors. National and local. The room seemed to buzz, and Ruth was suddenly animated, and almost pretty. But Billy’s eyes were fixed on the spot where Maddy had stood, the blue of her dress seared into his brain.
Finally, Victor pushed to his feet, his phone in his hand. “Let’s go get some lunch,” he said, not looking up from whatever crucial business was happening on his phone.
Billy had done it, he was back in her life. Now he had to make sure he didn’t mess it up the second time around.
Madelyn drove slowly down Mulberry Lane, trying to find house numbers on the mansions that were set back from the street.
Having a research team at her disposal was a helpful perk, particularly when she wanted to find the addresses and phone numbers of people who didn’t want to be found.
And in the suburbs, apparently addresses were a big secret. Lots of famous rich Dallasites were out here and for a minute she couldn’t believe that Billy Wilkins had landed in this green suburban neighborhood. Preston Hollow was a long way from 12 Spruce on the Hill in Pittsburgh.
She checked the address on her BlackBerry and looked back up at the discreet numbers on the side of the giant garage attached to a glass and stone mansion.
The flower beds were empty but the grass was green and lush despite the spring heat.
This was Billy’s house.
Getting Billy to back out of the show at this point was an impossibility. The station manager had sent a congratulatory fruit basket to everyone in that meeting. Unheard of. Advertising, giveaways—it had all been set up nearly the minute she walked out of that conference room.
If Billy backed out, they’d all be in trouble.
So she was here to find out what his motives were for doing the show. Because her freak-out in the meeting had to be a one-off. Her reputation, cultivated and groomed like prize roses, required her to be generally emotionless. Other than interest, surprise, and pleasure, she was a blank slate.
Anger, righteous though it might be, was a card very rarely played. Outrage, resentment … people didn’t attach those emotions to her, so she couldn’t afford to show them.
Which meant she and Billy had to come to an understanding. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it her way—which meant they were strangers to each other.
She pulled down the passenger-side mirror and checked her lipstick, fluffed her hair. Camera-ready on a Sunday morning.
As she walked up the stone path to the front door, the muffled sound of music thrummed up from the ground. The glass window in the door rattled in its casing.
Billy still listened to his music like a teenager trying to piss someone off.
He’s never going to hear me, she thought, but she pounded on the door anyway before ringing the doorbell. She waited a few moments and then rang again. Frustration mounted as she stood there, knocking like an idiot, getting angry on about twenty different levels.
Sweat gathered in her armpits and trickled down her sides under the light cotton of her peasant blouse. Her makeup was going to run in this heat.
Suddenly, the door burst open, that muffled bass line coalescing into a familiar Bruce Springsteen song.
“Where’s the damn fire?”
And there was Billy. Big, shirtless, and smooth. Sweat ran down the hills and valleys of his chest and shoulders, the ridged planes of his stomach, connecting the dots of his freckles and the scars from at least a dozen different surgeries across his pale white skin.
She swallowed the gasp that rose up in her throat.
Between the sweat and the daylight and that skin, which he’d inherited from his Irish mother, Billy gleamed. He was marble in sunlight.
There weren’t a lot of people who could say they lived in their bodies the way Billy did. The way he always had. He wore his skin with the kind of confidence she’d never felt in her life.
Except with him, she thought. With him you felt like the most beautiful woman in the world.
“Maddy?”
She pulled her eyes away from a bead of sweat navigating his collarbone and glared at him. “Could you turn down the music?” she yelled.
And put on some clothes?
“Yeah … ah …” He stepped back awkwardly, suddenly boyish. The moment collapsed upon itself and it wasn’t just now, it was twenty-eight years ago and she was going to her new friend Denise’s house for the first time and Denise’s big brother, eight to their six, had answered the door. Without a shirt over his concave little-boy chest.
And then it was summer and they were going to the pool and she was picking him up at his house in the car she’d gotten for her sixteenth birthday, and he was eighteen and fresh from a World Junior Championship. He didn’t wear a shirt that whole summer.
And she was meeting him at the Rochester arena, her wedding band gleaming on her finger, his still hot body steaming in the cold air as he walked to her car.
“Put on a shirt,” she’d cried as he got into the car. “It’s freezing out!”
“I’m hot, baby,” he’d said, kissing her with cold lips.
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She’d seen him like this countless times in her life, shirtless and sweaty, and every time—every single time—the sight of him boomed through her, the echo touching everything visceral and sexual in her body.
Madelyn loved Billy Wilkins’ body.
And that wasn’t just in the past tense.
Oddly enough the realization did not cheer her up.
“You want to come in?” he asked, still yelling over the E Street Band.
“No. I want to stand out here and sweat.”
He smiled at her sarcasm, which was the opposite of her intention, and vanished down one of the hallways leading away from the foyer. And then, despite the wild dogs of her doubt and pride growling at her not to put one foot into Billy’s house, she stepped inside.
In front of her was a big and airy room, with a brown leather sectional on one wall and a giant television on the other. There were pictures on the walls, but she ignored those. She wasn’t interested in the memories Billy chose to treasure.
She did not step past the stone foyer, instead, she braced herself there and waited.
The music stopped and Billy came back down the dark hallway, toward her. Still no shirt, but he ran a towel over his head and down his face, leaving his silky brown hair a mess.
The past threatened to swamp her and she looked away. Focused instead on the view out of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the great room.
It was an ocean of green out there. Apparently he’d never heard of the water ban.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I was working out. Can I … can I get you something? Water? Beer?”
Beer. If he knew how long it had been since she’d had a beer, he’d probably die.
“I’m fine.”
“Okay.” He threw the towel over his shoulder and braced his hands on his waist, his fingers catching on the elastic waistband of his gray workout shorts. Briefly pulling it down over that thick ridge of muscle at his hips. She used to kiss that muscle. Test her teeth against it until he groaned.
She yanked her bag up higher on her shoulder. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry about that meeting,” he said.
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