by Sarina Bowen
FOUR
SATURDAY, MARCH 12TH
Ari watched the Detroit game from a seat behind the visitors’ bench. O’Doul was back in tonight, and she spent much of the game watching him. I need to know how he uses his core muscles during a game, she told herself. But if she was truthful, the more she knew of O’Doul, the more compelling he was to watch. On the ice he was flashy and confident. But up close in person he was one of the more cautious souls she’d ever met.
Maybe it was none of her business, but she wanted to know why.
Tonight he exhibited his usual defensive brilliance. Wherever the other team needed to go, there he was, skating backward, blocking every impulse with his muscular bulk and his fast feet. His stick was an extension of his body, always in the way of his opponent’s puck.
By the middle of the third period, there had been no fight. Yet. Ari hoped he could have a night off from brawling.
But with five minutes left on the clock, a Detroit player flattened Castro and was given two minutes for high sticking. It looked ugly as Castro went down, but he popped back up again and skated to the bench.
“Aw, hell,” the fan beside Ari said to his buddies. “Crazy rookie was looking for a fight right there. That’s what that was.”
Ari tensed. And sure enough, after the power play, O’Doul circled the youngster who’d drawn the penalty. He argued with him for a moment and pointed at the home team’s bench.
The kid’s response was to throw off his gloves. The second they landed, every Motown fan stood up at his seat.
O’Doul stared the kid down and shook his head. Then, with what looked like a sigh, he threw off his own gloves, too.
The fight lasted about five seconds. The kid got two swings in before O’Doul grabbed him by the jersey and punched him. Ari closed her eyes. The stadium made a noise of unhappiness. When she opened her eyes, the guy was lying on the ice holding his face, and O’Doul was shaking out his fist, looking sour.
After that, the Bruisers scored twice more, finishing the game five to two. Ari had mixed feelings that became even more mixed as she made her way through the locker room. Most of the team was either showering or celebrating. Someone blasted the team’s win song—“No Sleep Till Brooklyn” by the Beastie Boys—from a set of portable speakers. The new publicist, Tom, and a journalist were interviewing Beringer in a corner, but the room was in happy chaos.
Castro, who had been jabbed by the rookie, had a bruise on his shoulder. But it couldn’t have hurt much because he was dancing—in his towel—with Trevi. And smiling.
That was the vibe—except for O’Doul. He was seated on a bench in the corner, his hair damp from the shower, wearing a towel and a don’t-talk-to-me face.
“Is he okay?” Ari asked Henry with a nudge to his elbow.
The trainer cast a glance toward O’Doul. “Sure. He just gets like this some nights. Kinda withdrawn. He likes to be left alone.”
She didn’t leave him alone, though. She made her way over to the captain and put a hand on his shoulder. “How are you?”
He looked up with deadened eyes. “Fine.”
No, not so much. “What hurts?”
He shrugged, then shook out his right hand.
Ari grabbed it and smoothed his fingers between her hands. The knuckles were bruised. “Are you injured?”
He shook his head. “No. But I broke that kid’s jaw.”
She jerked in surprise. “Really? How do you know?”
“Felt the pop.” His voice was flat.
“Come here,” she said, tugging on his hand. “I want to get a look at your hip.”
“It’s fine,” he said, but he allowed himself to be guided around the corner into the alcove where her table had been set up just in case.
She grabbed a towel off the shelf and flung it onto the table’s surface. O’Doul climbed on without argument, flattening himself onto his stomach, turning his face toward the wall. She went to work on his shoulders first. He was tight. But when she worked her hands up into his hairline, he closed his eyes and sighed.
“Tell me about the fight,” she said, expecting to be ignored.
“It was stupid,” he muttered. “I told the kid he’d been a dick, and that his enforcer had better come out and answer for that bullshit on Castro. But he says, I’ll fight you myself. I told him that sounded like a stupid idea.”
“And . . . it was?” She worked her hands down his spine, aiming for his lower back.
“I spent hours watching their enforcer’s fight tapes.” He lifted his head. “We all do that.”
“Of course,” she said quickly. But she hadn’t thought about it before. Made sense, though. If you had to fight a guy, you’d want to know his habits.
O’Doul dropped his head back onto the towel. “But this kid wanted to do it himself. And now he’s gonna be having lunch through a straw for a month.” The weary tone of his voice gave Ari a shiver.
She almost said, it’s not your fault. Except it really was. “I’m sorry,” she said instead.
“It’s not my break,” he growled.
Ari wanted to call bullshit on that, but she knew better than to say so here in the testosterone tank. The fight had hurt two people tonight. There weren’t any winners. Maybe one guy had gotten all the visible injuries, but the one on the table was suffering, too.
She worked her hands up and down his back, then moved down to his hamstrings. He lay perfectly still on the table, more cooperative than he’d ever been. He was ill positioned for her to work on his hip, but she decided not to disturb him. She slid one hand beneath his hip and did the best she could. “How is this tonight? The same as after your last game? Or different?”
He shifted to give her better access. “Not as bad,” he grunted eventually.
“Well. There’s a shred of good news.” She kept up her ministrations while he stared at the wall.
“Doulie!” someone yelled from around the corner. “Hockeybrawls.com has you at ninety-nine percent!”
O’Doul said nothing.
She left his hip and went down to his feet, pulling off the flip-flops he wore and dropping them on the floor. This was all she had left to give. If a deep tissue foot massage couldn’t cheer a man up, then it couldn’t be done. She dug into the ball of his foot, and he actually moaned.
Finally. Victory was sweet.
She worked in silence for five or ten minutes, and the set of his shoulders began to look more relaxed, and less haggard. She had already gotten used to the silence when he spoke up suddenly. “Does Castro really propose to you every time you touch his feet?”
The question was so unexpected that she let fly a peal of laughter. “Yes, he does. We could be married a hundred times over by now.”
His back rose and fell with a chuckle. “God. Tell him to get in line behind me.”
“Why, Patrick O’Doul”—she gave his calf a pretend slap—“I’d almost think you liked this.”
“It’s tolerable,” he grumbled.
And that’s how she knew he was feeling better.
FIVE
SUNDAY, MARCH 13TH
Standings: 3rd place in the Metropolitan Division
15 Regular Season Games Remaining
O’Doul didn’t go out with the guys after the win. They were in third place again, but celebrating felt premature. And Ari’s impromptu massage had relaxed him enough that he thought he could sleep, which he did.
The jet was wheels up at eight thirty the next morning. Everyone on board looked a little hungover, but O’Doul felt refreshed. Although he should have faked a nap because Tom, the new publicist, decided to sit next to him and review the burgeoning interview request list.
Good times.
When they landed at LaGuardia, O’Doul was just musing over where he might eat lunch. He planned to skip the optional skate and take a rare a
fternoon off. But—damn it—Henry corralled him at the baggage claim with a bunch of questions about his hip.
“And you have a massage this afternoon.”
“I had two yesterday!” he complained.
“Good work.” Henry clapped him on the shoulder. “But you’re due in Ari’s treatment room at two. Don’t be late.”
So much for an afternoon alone.
He kept the massage appointment like a good Boy Scout. But this appointment was his least favorite so far. In the first place, Ari was wearing a soft pink shirt that somehow managed to emphasize her chest. It wasn’t revealing, but the fabric draped in such a way that the pleasant swell of her breasts was hard to ignore. And he was all too aware of the soft sound of her humming along with the Stone Temple Pilots as she worked on his hip.
Now that he’d decided Ari was no longer a threat, his subconscious had apparently decided it approved of her. A lot. In order to keep his body under control, he spent the whole hour thinking about upcoming hockey fights. Occasionally he made himself picture Sister Odegerde, the unfortunately vile-breathed nun who’d looked after him at the group home where he’d spent his teen years.
The result was a less-than-relaxing hour. “You’re so tense today,” Ari kept saying, clucking her tongue.
“Sorry,” he apologized, wondering what to do. He might ask the trainer if the team had any other massage therapists on call. But that would make Ari look bad, wouldn’t it? Christ. It wasn’t personal.
When his hour was up, they were both relieved.
O’Doul gathered up the personal items he’d dropped onto Ari’s counter and got the hell out of there, stopping for a sixty second shower before donning jeans and a sweater and beating it outside again. It was three thirty, and his evening off could finally commence.
The practice rink was on the very edge of Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood, so he pointed his feet down Front Street. The sun was out, and the ever-present breeze off the river was warmer than he’d felt in months. The pleasant weather had brought out the stroller brigade. There were young families rolling babies down the sidewalk, diaper bags draped over the handlebars. Not one of them spared him a glance.
The anonymity of Brooklyn was perfect for him. While Nate Kattenberger and his fleet of marketers and publicists spent serious coin to try to raise the team’s profile in Brooklyn, O’Doul was happy to go unrecognized. Sometimes people approached him in bars, especially if he was accompanied by other players, or wearing the team jacket. But to most of New York City’s eight million people, he was just some dude walking down the street.
As it should be.
He crossed under the Manhattan Bridge as the subway train rumbled overhead on its way into Manhattan. In addition to the women and children on the sidewalks, there were couples admiring paintings in the windows of the art galleries he passed. That made it a weekend. It was Sunday if he wasn’t mistaken. Professional hockey was a seven-days-a-week job during the season. He played three or four games a week, and the other days were dotted with meetings and weightlifting and charity events. It was disorienting. But it was all he knew.
He claimed a stool in the tavern on Hicks Street and ordered a cheeseburger. The place was mostly empty due to the odd hour.
“Good game against Detroit,” Pete, the bartender, said when he delivered O’Doul’s Diet Coke with a wedge of lime. O’Doul didn’t drink during the day, and this guy remembered. It was a perk of being a regular, not of being semi-famous.
“Thanks, man,” he said, taking a sip. He set his Katt Phone on the table. The guys had talked about heading into Manhattan tonight to celebrate Castro’s birthday at some new Asian fusion restaurant. In a couple hours the texts would start rolling in with the plans and the challenges. Who’d be drinking the most. Who’d be paying for it. And they’d goad the married guys who didn’t want to leave their families into yet another night with the team.
He’d probably go along with the plan, whatever it shaped up to be. What else was he going to do?
His phone was oddly silent, though. O’Doul ate his burger and watched some college basketball on replay. He drank another soda and finished his fries. The afternoon slipped peacefully into evening. When his phone finally began to light up with texts, he was watching the last two minutes of a surprisingly close Kentucky game.
“Good game, right?” Pete asked, wiping down the wooden surface.
“Yeah. Their record is something else.” He picked up his phone and scrolled to the top of the text stream. But these weren’t texts from his teammates at all. In fact, he didn’t recognize the sender’s name. Somebody named Vince. And the dude was seriously pissed off.
YOU FUCKING CUNT, was his opening gambit. GET DOWN HERE AND OPEN THE GD DOOR.
Yikes.
He pressed the home button on his phone, then laid his thumb on the verification spot. But it didn’t unlock.
DENIED the screen insisted.
Weird.
The screen lit up again with another diatribe, so he tried again to unlock his phone. He tried several more times, but the damn thing wouldn’t unlock. Meanwhile, the texts came thick and fast. SLUT, I WILL FUCK YOU UP. DON’T PULL THIS SHIT. NOT SMART, BITCH.
Christ. And each time a new text came in, the phone made an irritating, audible ding. He’d changed the phone’s settings so that it would never do that.
Oh.
Oh, fuck. This wasn’t his phone. He was holding someone else’s Katt Phone. Everyone on the team and on staff had the same model.
He stared at the thing in his hand, and then a chill climbed right up his spine. Ari. These texts were for her. “Pete!” he barked. “I need a phone.”
“You do?” The bartender raised an eyebrow, probably because O’Doul was holding a phone.
He dropped it on the bar as another irate text came through. “I switched mine with someone by accident. And she’s in trouble. Quickly, please.” He stood up fast, as if that would somehow get him to Ari faster. He didn’t have a clue where she lived, or whether she was at home at all.
Pete handed him a phone, unlocked.
O’Doul tapped in his own phone number and then jammed that sucker up to his ear. It rang once. Twice . . . too many times. Then went to voice mail. He heard his own stupid voice say, “Leave a message.”
Fuck.
Maybe she wasn’t home. She might be in the middle of a massage, without a clue she’d switched phones. That was the best case scenario. He could try to reach her at the practice rink. But he didn’t have the Bruisers’ numbers memorized because Nate had passed out the Katt Phones before they’d even moved to Brooklyn. He tapped the browser and then began tapping the team name into the tiny window with his fat fingers. Fuck. “Pete, does that computer have Google? I need to know the clubhouse office digits.”
The bartender didn’t ask questions. He just brought up a browser and began typing on the bar terminal. “Try this,” he said and began rattling off a 718 number.
It went to a goddamn voice mail. Press one for ticket sales. Press two for the stadium. “Fuck!”
“I’ve found the admin page,” Pete said, still bent over his computer. “Who do you need?”
“Uh . . . Becca. Rebecca Rowley.”
Pete gave him another phone number to try. And all the while it rang in his ear, more threatening texts kept rolling through. Fuck. His next move would be to just run for the rink and hope she was still there.
“Hugh Major’s office, this is Rebecca.”
“Becca, it’s O’Doul,” he said quickly. “We have an emergency. We need to find Ari—she and I switched phones. Is she still in the building?”
“Nope!” Becca dashed his hopes. “Saw her leave about forty minutes ago.”
“Fuck. Okay listen—some dick is texting her really threatening things. Sounds like he’s at her house.”
“No!” Becc
a gasped. “Her ex is a real douchewhistle.”
“Where’s her place?”
“Vinegar Hill. Right on Hudson Ave in one of those little brick houses, across from that restaurant.”
“Address?”
“I’m looking . . . Seventy-one!”
He hung up, tossed the phone onto the bar and ran outside and up Hicks Street. After sitting still for a couple of hours, his hip flexors complained at the sudden burst of activity. But fuck it. It was less than a mile to Ari’s house, and he was wearing sneakers.
This time he wasn’t quite so invisible as he streaked down Front Street. People got out of his way, either cursing or staring. “Where’s the fire?” someone yelled. But nobody stopped him. So it didn’t take long before he was slowing down to make the turn onto Hudson, forcing himself to breathe deeply. He didn’t want to be out of breath if he was about to face off against some crazy jackass. Becca had called him a douchewhistle, and he’d have to be to send threatening texts to a woman like Ari. Or any woman, for that matter.
He forced himself to walk the last half block, and to listen.
It wasn’t hard to find the guy. There was only one asshole peering up at a Hudson Avenue address from the side of the building, holding a brick in his hand and screaming. “If you don’t get your slutty ass down here I’m breaking another window!”
When the guy turned his head at O’Doul’s approach, the situation got even worse. Because O’Doul recognized this particular asshole. The guy worked at a nightclub in lower Manhattan—the same club where he’d made an unfortunate and illegal purchase a month or so ago.
“What do you want?” the guy spat. “I’m not taking orders right now.”
“Yeah, you are,” O’Doul growled. “Put that shit down.” He took a step forward, chest first. Somewhere above him—in a window maybe—Ari gasped. But he didn’t take his eyes off the prick with the brick.
The guy’s eyes widened a little at O’Doul’s aggressive stance. “Get the fuck out of here.”