Sure Shot (Brooklyn #4)(38)

It soothes me to send Henry a gift. The man has more money than God and can buy his own books, but I want him to know that I’m thinking about him.

Meanwhile, I’m still catching up on all the little details that went astray while I took my long vacation. I take a day trip to see a young player who’s just been traded to Pittsburgh. And while I’m on the train, I write up a proposal for an endorsement deal. I’m trying to get a national chain of chicken joints—called Chickie’s—to sponsor some female hockey players.

The women are pro-bono clients, basically. There’s so little money in women’s hockey that I don’t charge them to look over their paltry employment contracts. I only take a cut on whatever endorsement money I can win for them. Honestly, it would be more profitable to hunt for lost cash in the pockets of my jeans.

But I keep at it anyway. Raising the visibility of women’s hockey is my hobby and my mission. Someday I’m going to make a few of these women rich. I don’t know how, but it’s going to happen. I’ll probably be a hundred and one years old by then, but…

That makes me think about people who are a hundred and one, and how Henry isn’t going to make it that long. And now I’m crying in the Quiet Car of the Amtrak train.

It’s eight o’clock by the time I get back to Brooklyn. I drop my briefcase in my office, grab a gift bag that I’ve left waiting on my office chair, and head across the street. “Hello, Miguel!” I tell the doorman. “I’m here to see Delilah.”

“Is it gonna be weird to see the apartment?” he asks. Delilah’s new place used to be my brother’s.

“I’m sure it looks completely different already.”

“You’d be right,” he says, waving me toward the elevator. “Go on up. The pizzas just got here.”

“Yesssss.” I give a fist pump and head for the shiny elevators.

When I reach the third floor, the hallway is full of cardboard moving boxes, plus Delilah’s bodyguard. “Hi, Avivit,” I say, giving her a wave. “I heard the pizza just got here.”

She nods and then steps aside so I can reach the apartment door. Avivit is a woman of few words.

“Should I bring you a slice?”

“No, thank you. I don’t eat when I’m on duty.” She gives me a tiny smile.

“You know there’s a dozen athletes literally standing between Delilah and trouble?” I pause, my hand on the door.

“That’s a lot of muscle,” she says. “But it’s what’s up here that counts.” She points at her head, as her dark eyes dance.

“You make a very good point.” And since my job is literally to prevent athletes from doing anything stupid, I should already know this.

When I step inside my brother’s old apartment, the place is hardly recognizable. The living room has been furnished with sofas and chairs in bright, stylish colors.

And when I glance into the second bedroom, the weight bench and treadmill are long gone. They’re being replaced by—

“Is that a giant telephone booth?” I ask the tangle of men who are trying to assemble it.

Several heads swivel in my direction. “It’s a recording booth.” Delilah pops out from behind a bright red panel. “It shipped in pieces.”

“Lots of pieces,” Castro says.

“Confusing pieces,” Silas adds.

“Guys, let’s eat pizza,” Delilah says. “Maybe this will seem simpler after you eat.”

Grumbling, the men lay down the various panels and boards they’re holding. And to my surprise, Tank is one of those men.

My mouth flops open. I wasn’t expecting to find him here, and I hadn’t really prepared myself for the inevitable moment when I’d run into him again.

He gives me a quick wink. It takes me a second to realize that I’m blocking his way out of the room. I make an awkward sideways hop so he can get to the pizza boxes in the kitchen.

The other hockey players file past me, but my focus stays on Tank. The way he’s pushed the sleeves of his long-sleeved T-shirt up onto his forearms. The way he tilts his head to listen to Georgia as she hands him a plate. And the way he fills out a pair of jeans.

All hockey players have great asses. Hockey butts are muscular. That’s why my clients all have to special-order their trousers.

Tank, though. One glance at him and I feel all stirred up inside. It’s not just the muscles, either. It’s the whole guy. And now it’s hitting me that if I want to represent him someday, I’ll have to wrestle everything I feel for him into submission and smother it with a pillow.

Or at least fake it really, really well.

And there’s nobody to blame. I have feelings for a guy who can’t return them. Lots of feelings. He’s that guy to me—the bright, shiny goal that’s just out of reach. The one that got away.

“Beer?” Delilah asks me. “Pizza?”

“Sure,” I say, dragging my attention away from Tank. “But first, this is for you. Welcome to Brooklyn.” I hand her my gift bag.

“Oh! You shouldn’t have.”

“Of course I should.” I give her a quick hug. Silas is my client, and I see these two lovebirds all the time. And I love Delilah. She’s literally a rock star, and yet she’s one of the most modest, normal people I’ve ever met. “Open it. You know you want to.”