Overnight Sensation(12)

“Shit! Really?”

“Tommy is not a happy man. He says to call him right away.”

I steer my baby off the next exit and stop in a convenience store parking lot. “Show me this picture.”

Wearing a grim expression, Silas hands me my phone.

And it’s bad. Silas is right. The shot was taken just after we got out of the car in front of my apartment building. Right after I’d scooped Heidi up off the pavement where she’d tripped.

That should be no problem. The caption I’d have given this moment of my life is: Dude lifts woman who’s trying to nap on the ground. And images don’t lie, right?

Well, this one misleads. I guess it’s the violent expression on my face—I’ve seen it before in photos where I’m lunging for the puck. In this photo, I’m frowning like a grumpy beast while holding Heidi in my arms, and she looks blotto. The overall effect is somehow menacing. And the blogger writes, Bruisers are aggressive on and off the ice.

A sick feeling rolls through me. “That is so wrong.”

“Just call Tommy,” Silas suggests. “But do it from the road, or else we’ll be late.”

Fuck! Showing up late will only add to my difficulties. So I tap the control panel to open both the driver’s and the passenger’s doors. They lift like wings to let us out. “You drive.”

Silas makes a little noise of glee and climbs out of the car. We pass each other in front of the hood. “Hell, I’d have taken that picture myself if I knew it meant I could drive.”

“Not. Funny.” I glance at the picture one more time, hoping it won’t seem as bad the second time I see it. But, fuck. It does. “Christ almighty. Hulk hauls blond princess back to his lair. I’m so screwed.”

“She does look awfully helpless,” Silas concedes.

“She was helpless. And I helped her.” But we both know that some people will assume that I also helped myself to the goods.

Silas’s forehead wrinkles as he fastens his seatbelt. “The picture isn’t that bad, dude. It’s just a moment’s worth of gossip. The tricky part is that the commissioner is probably on the guest list for this shindig tonight. I’ll bet that’s what Tommy wants to tell you.”

“Fuck my life!” That hadn’t even occurred to me, although the commissioner had been at the event last year. Last fall was my first season as a full-fledged team member. I spent the two prior years getting bounced back and forth between Brooklyn and the minor-league team in Hartford.

Last year I was as happy as can be to play in the golf tournament and be one of the boys. I had a great season. All my dreams were coming true. Until a certain shot didn’t find the net during game seven.

And now this bullshit.

I press the button to return Tommy’s call. Might as well take my licking now, or else I’ll have to endure it in a crowded changing room later.

“Jason,” Tommy says when he picks up. “What the hell is that picture?”

So I guess we’re skipping the small talk. I don’t know this new publicist at all, but already I don’t like him. “That photo was taken by a ride-share driver with a death wish. He’s getting a one-star review for sure,” I tell him. That’s the only possible explanation, unless there had been somebody else lurking across the street. “Heidi got toasted and fell down outside the cab. I picked her up.”

He’s quiet for a second. “The photo has multiple interpretations.”

“Yeah, I noticed that, too, because I have eyes.” I leave off the end of that sentence which is, you dumbass. Because I’m nice like that.

“Hey—I’m on your side, here. Are you and Heidi Jo a couple?”

“No. And not that it’s anyone’s business, but Miss Pepper and I have never had, uh, an intimate encounter. Not last night, and not ever.”

I’m making that point awfully loudly. But now I have my hackles up. This is one of those situations where I can’t help but wonder if the publicist would ask different questions if it wasn’t the team’s only brown guy in that shot.

Am I paranoid about this? Maybe.

He sighs. “So that photo is just the office intern getting some assistance from a team member.”

“Right.”

“She’s the office intern, but she’s also drunk and underage.”

“Under…what?” I feel ill.

“She doesn’t turn twenty-one until next month.”

“Oh.” Phew. For a second there I thought he was saying she’s a minor. That would have stunned me, but I’ve been stunned before. “A twenty-year-old in a bar is not exactly a national scandal, Tommy. Girl gets drunk a month before her birthday. Film at eleven.”

“It doesn’t help to be flip,” the publicist growls. “Did you buy her the drinks?”

Well, fuck. “I bought a bottle of very good tequila and served it to everyone who was there last night. Don’t make my generosity into a plot point.”

“You’re the only two in the photo.”

“You think it would look so much better if there were seven guys hauling her drunk little butt off the pavement?”

Tommy actually laughs, giving me some hope that his sense of humor hasn’t been surgically amputated. “So you helped her off the pavement, and then what?”