Knock Me for a Loop

by Heidi Betts

  As soon as they’d gotten home, she’d helped him get settled, then packed up the remainder of her things and moved back to her own apartment. She hadn’t seemed angry or upset when she’d left; if anything, her demeanor had been calm and accepting. But she hadn’t taken Bruiser with her, leaving the dog to keep Zack company instead.

  That’s when he’d realized she was gone and she wasn’t coming back. She was cutting ties with him, leaving him and everything that reminded her of him behind.

  One would think that after being dumped by her once before and spending so many months certain that he would never see her again, this wouldn’t come as such a shock to his system.

  But then she’d come back into his life. Moved back into his apartment, helped him get back on his feet, and let him back into her bed.

  Idiot that he was, he’d thought it meant something.

  Or maybe hoped was a better word. He’d hoped it meant something. Hoped they were building up to renewing and reviving their relationship.

  Now that he knew differently, though, it was time to move on. No more moping, no more trying to convince her of something she obviously wasn’t going to believe no matter how many times he repeated himself, how loud he shouted, or how hard he banged his head against the wall.

  Nope, that was over and done with, and as soon as the alcohol content of the beer in front of him hit his bloodstream, he thought he might even start to feel okay about that.

  The door behind him opened, letting in a blast of cold air. The temperatures had been warmer when they’d first returned from New York, but in the past couple of weeks had dropped again, bringing a few new inches of snow and ice to the city.

  Gage and Dylan tromped in, stomping snow from their shoes and heading directly to the table where he was sitting. They took one look at the empty Coors bottles already littering the flat surface, and brows went up.

  “Guess you’ve been here a while, huh?” Gage asked, shrugging out of his black leather jacket and draping it over the back of his chair before taking a seat.

  Not as long as he might suspect, Zack thought, but didn’t say so. He didn’t say anything at all.

  Dylan followed Gage’s lead, removing his coat and taking the last empty chair at the table. Raising a hand, he signaled Turk, the bartender, to send over fresh drinks.

  “I take it you haven’t heard from her, then,” he said.

  This was the first time they’d met up in person since Zack’s return from New York, but they’d talked a couple times. They knew how the trip had gone, and that for a brief, flickering moment, he and Grace hadn’t been at each other’s throats…at least not in the usual “Die, demon, die!” way.

  “Not unless she’s sending up smoke signals and I’m not seeing them,” Zack replied dryly, bringing the beer he’d been nursing for the past twenty minutes to his lips and taking another long swig.

  A waitress came with bottles of beer for Dylan and Gage, disappearing again without a word.

  Gage twisted the cap off his Coors and took a drink before returning it to the table with a soft clink. “I suppose this means you won’t be needing the polygraph test I went to so much trouble to set up,” he said, his annoyance at being put out for no good reason clear in his tone and the wrinkling of his brow.

  “‘Spose not,” Zack responded, unable to find it in him to feel guilty when he was busy feeling so many other, more important things.

  “Shit,” Gage bit out. “Do you know how hard it was to schedule the equipment and get the guy to agree to administer the test off the books? Do you know how bad a whipping I’m going to take if anybody at the precinct finds out about it?” He shook his head and took another swig of beer. “This is why I said no in the first place. This is why I didn’t want to get involved.”

  “Jesus,” Zack cursed, though there was no real inflection to the word. “Stop your bitching, Mrs. Marshall. I’ll take the damn test, if it’ll make you happy. Maybe I’ll get a parakeet to keep Bruiser company while I’m on the road, and I can use the results to line the bottom of its cage.”

  Gage harrumphed, and turned his head to take another sip of his drink. Zack drank, too, still waiting for the booze to take effect.

  “You don’t think it will make a difference, even if it shows you’ve been telling the truth the entire time?” Dylan asked, reaching for the bowl of peanuts in the center of the table and tossing a handful one at a time into his wide-open mouth.

  “I don’t think it would make a difference if I had a time machine and took her back to show her I didn’t fuck that woman. She’s made up her mind. And I’m moving on,” he added decisively. “Life’s too short to spend it mooning over one woman.”

  One beautiful woman. A perfect woman. The only woman he’d ever opened himself up enough to love, asked to marry him, or planned to do the whole “till death do us part” thing with.

  But, hey, it was only his heart, crushed and broken and skewered beneath her size-seven stilettos. No big deal, right?

  “I’m going back to work next week,” he said, changing the subject and hoping it would stick. “The doctors have cleared me for some light scrimmages, and I’m going to travel with the team to practice games in the spring.”

  A beat passed before his friends responded, and then it was with less enthusiasm than he’d expected.

  “Great.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Yeah. It’ll be good to get my head back in the game. To move on,” he added more softly, his gaze shifting away from his friends so he wouldn’t have to see the pity in their eyes and on their faces.

  And while he was on the road, he was going to bang every puck bunny who batted her overly mascaraed lashes in his direction. Tall or short; big tits or little; blonde, brunette, or redhead…He didn’t even care if they were particularly attractive, not at this point. After all, as the saying went, you didn’t look at the mantel while poking the fire.

  And it wasn’t like he had anyone to be faithful to.

  Not anymore.

  Row 22

  Grace shouldered her way into her apartment early Friday evening, hands and arms full with items for French Night. Ronnie and Jenna would be here any minute, so she left the door unlocked, kicking it closed with her foot before heading for the kitchen to portion the quiche Lorraine she’d just picked up at a local eatery. She also needed to find her fondue set, and start cubing and melting the brie she’d bought earlier in the week.

  Setting the warm bakery box on the counter, she yanked off her coat and boots, and dumped her bags from work on a nearby chair. It would have been easier to make a couple of trips to get everything in, but who wanted to run back and forth out into the cold, especially since she hadn’t even eaten any rich French food yet? She would worry about burning off extra calories after she’d enjoyed copious amounts of cheese and wine.

  Moving around the kitchen, she quickly dealt with plating the quiche, starting the cheese to melt, and moving everything to the living room, where they would spend the rest of the night watching sappy and pretentious French films and speaking with truly deplorable, but hilarious, French accents.

  After collecting wine glasses and getting everything pretty much set, she took a breath and wandered back to where she’d left the rest of her stuff, digging through for the day’s mail. Before she had a chance to study it, however, a knock sounded on the door, and her friends poked their heads in.

  “Alio, allo,” Ronnie called, letting herself into the apartment, Jenna close on her heels. She held up two sagging fabric totes and waggled her brows. “We come bearing wine and bread crusty enough to break a tooth.”

  “Not after we soak it in cholesterol-tripling brie,” Grace laughed, taking one of the bags of wine from her friend and leading them into the kitchen.

  “We also have Chocolat and chocolat,” Jenna added, holding up the movie DVD in one hand and a nice-sized bag of dark chunk candy in the other.

  “Bien.’ “

  Grace grabbed a cut
ting board and bread knife, and the three of them moved into the other room after shedding their heavy winter outerwear. Crowding around the low coffee table, they started the movie and dug in to the bevy of food spread out before them.

  An hour or so later, they sat back, stuffed to the gills.

  “Okay, this skirt was a really bad idea,” Ronnie groaned, rubbing her stomach. “Remind me to wear only stretchy materials with elastic waistbands for Girls’ Night from now on.”

  It wasn’t the first time one of them had said such a thing…or forgotten what pigs they made of themselves on Friday nights.

  “I’ve got sweatpants, if you want to borrow a pair,” Grace offered.

  “Nah, I’ll just pretend I’m a man and undo a couple buttons,” she said. Then she tipped her head in the direction of the television screen and whispered, “Just don’t tell Johnny.”

  Grace and Jenna both chuckled as she did exactly that before stabbing her fondue fork into another chunk of bread and going right back to enjoying her meal.

  “Uh-oh, looks like we’re out of chardonnay,” Grace said, topping off Ronnie’s glass with what was left of the single bottle they’d brought in with them. She hopped to her feet and headed toward the kitchen, the empty bottle and a few dirty dishes in tow. “No worries, I’ll get some more.”

  On the way back, this time with a nice cabernet sauvignon, she grabbed her mail and glanced through, just to see if there was anything of interest in the pile. Unlikely, but worth a look-see.

  Bill, bill, one-time offer for better cable (of which she’d gotten six such one-time offers already), letter from a long-distance friend, catalog, catalog, manila envelope, magazine.

  The only thing that caught her attention was the manila envelope, mostly because it contained no return address. Tearing open the flap, she slid out the contents and read the note scribbled on a plain yellow Post-it stuck to the top of a sheaf of papers.

  Thought you should see this, was all it said. And it was signed simply, G.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” she muttered, peeling off the note and holding it out to Jenna without taking her gaze from the documents in her hands. “But isn’t this your husband’s handwriting?”

  Jenna took the Post-it and looked it over, frowning in confusion. “Yeah. I mean, I think so.”

  “Why is Gage mailing you something?” Ronnie asked, putting voice to the question running through all of their minds.

  “I have no clue. I don’t even know what it is.”

  She turned the pages one way, then the other, but saw nothing more than a bunch of spiky lines, all in different colors. They looked like something a child would create with one of those Spirograph games, only going up and down instead of round and round.

  She pulled those pages away—or rather one very long piece of paper folded accordion style—and passed it along for the others to study while she began to read the typed lines on the pages beneath.

  The more she read, the harder her heart began to beat. Her breaths came faster, as though trying to keep up with her eyes as they scanned the paper.

  “Oh, my God,” she murmured.

  It was a report of sorts, written in question-and-answer form, dated three days before.

  Is your name Zackary Hoolihan? Yes.

  Were you born March 22, 1972? Yes.

  Are you a goalie for the Pittsburgh Penguins? No.

  It went on and on like that for the first two pages, questions with simple yes or no answers meant to establish a baseline. And beneath each, in bright red ink, was a statement declaring the testee’s response as being either truthful or deceptive.

  So far, every one of Zack’s responses was one hundred percent truthful, according to the polygraph operator. And those guys had to be trained and certified, right?

  She swallowed past the lump forming in her throat and skimmed ahead.

  Did you invite a woman other than your fiancée, Grace Fisher, to your hotel room in Columbus, Ohio, while you were on the road with the Rockets last summer? No.

  Truthful.

  Did you have sexual relations of any sort with the woman in your hotel room in Columbus? No.

  Truthful.

  Have you ever had sexual relations with any woman other than your fiancée, Grace Fisher, since becoming engaged? No.

  Truthful.

  Have you ever had sexual relations with any woman other than your fiancée, Grace Fisher, since the two of you started dating? No.

  Truthful.

  “Oh, my God,” she said again, tears pricking behind her eyes.

  “What?” Ronnie wanted to know, leaning forward in an effort to get a glimpse of what she was reading. “What is it?”

  “It’s a lie detector test,” Grace whispered, voice thick with emotion. “Zack took a polygraph test to prove he didn’t cheat on me.”

  “I thought you said he’d already told you he didn’t cheat on you, on the way to New York, and you believed him.” Jenna’s brows drew together. “And he took a lie detector test to prove it, but why would Gage send you the results instead of Zack showing them to you himself?”

  Grace didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure she cared. Her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath, regain her equilibrium. Her vision clouded, there was a dull ringing in her ears, and the pages were actually trembling in her shaking hands.

  “I don’t know,” she replied softly, lifting her head to meet her friend’s questioning gaze. “Why don’t you call that husband of yours and find out.”

  Licking her lips, Jenna nodded, then climbed to her feet to retrieve her purse and cell phone. She dialed, waited while it rang, and began to speak as soon as Gage picked up on the other end. Explaining the situation as quickly as she could, she came straight to the point, asking why he’d sent the polygraph results to Grace instead of Zack.

  Grace watched intently as Jenna inclined her head, occasionally uttering a soft, “Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” Then, “I don’t know yet. I’ll call before I leave. Okay, love you, too.”

  She hung up, and Grace was on her feet, arms crossed beneath her breasts, waiting, even before her friend had shifted to face her. “Tell me,” she demanded.

  “He says Zack asked him to set up the test before you two went to New York. When you got back, he didn’t want to go through with it anymore, but did because Gage had gone to so much trouble.”

  “And the results?” she pressed. “Why didn’t Zack give them to me himself?”

  Cocking her head to the side, she glanced at Grace, a sad sympathy darkening her eyes. “Zack told him it wouldn’t make any difference and to throw them away. That he’d told you the truth, and you’d either believe him or not, on your own. He also, um …” Jenna bit her lip, looking reluctant to share the rest.

  “Go ahead,” Grace said, bracing herself. “I want to know.”

  It took a second for her friend to work up the courage to relay whatever else she had to say, but finally she added, “Gage said Zack seems resigned to the fact that you’re gone, and is moving on with his life.”

  A pain unlike anything Grace had ever felt before stabbed through her heart, through her soul. It nearly doubled her over, ricocheting inside her like a runaway bullet.

  For a minute, she couldn’t think, couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen into her lungs to keep her brain cells functioning. And then, suddenly, she did.

  Her chest swelled as she inhaled deeply. Her tongue darted out to wet her dry lips. And her brain was not only working, it was shrieking.

  “The hell he is,” she muttered.

  She darted around the apartment, climbing into her boots, yanking on her coat, hat, gloves, grabbing her purse and the polygraph results, which she shoved back into the manila envelope.

  “Where are you going?”

  Ronnie was on her feet now, too, both of them watching her warily, matching expressions of concern etched on their faces.

  “Over to Zack’s,” she replied without slowing down. “He doesn’t get to write me off
just because I needed a little time to think. Just because I wanted to be sure.”

  She jerked open the front door and started to rush out.

  “Wait!”

  Ronnie and Jenna were behind her, hurrying into their own coats and shoes.

  “He’s not home,” Ronnie told her, words ragged in her rush to gather her things and catch up. “There’s a game tonight. He’s at the arena. Dylan said he’s not back on the ice yet, but he’s still attending games until they give him the okay to play again.”

  Grace exhaled a huff of frustration. That would certainly make things less convenient.

  “Fine, then I’m going to the arena.” She spun on her heel and marched down the hall.

  “Wait!” her friends called again. “Wait for us!”

  They slammed her apartment door shut, joining her as she pressed the button for the elevator.

  “We’ll go with you,” Jenna said, her pale cheeks rosy with anticipation.

  “What are you going to do?” she wanted to know. “What are you going to say to him?”

  The elevator doors slid open and Grace stepped inside, her best friends in the whole world flanking her on either side like military backup.

  “I don’t know yet,” she murmured quietly, “but whatever I come up with, I’m pretty sure I should have said and done it weeks ago.”

  The noise in the Quicken Loans Arena was deafening. The Rockets wereahead by six points, and fans were going crazy with every new shot of the puck.

  Grace couldn’t have cared less about any of that; her only interest was in finding Zack, and since he wasn’t on the ice, she wasn’t entirely sure where to look.

  Her gaze scanned the crowd nearest the glass and bench on the Rockets’ side of the ice, since she highly doubted he’d be anywhere near the visitors’ side.

  “There he is,” Ronnie said close to her ear.

  Grace followed the line of her pointed finger, her stomach jumping like Mexican beans when she spotted Zack.

  His blond hair was ruffled, longer and slightly scruffier around the edges than when she’d last seen him. He was wearing a team jersey, even though he wasn’t playing tonight, and when he shot to his feet to cheer his team on, she saw that he was using a cane now rather than crutches.