Overnight Sensation(59)

She doesn’t respond right away. A couple of women approach Silas and me, asking for autographs.

“Great game,” says the smiliest one. “Well done tonight.”

“Thanks,” I say, signing her cocktail napkin. “It was fun.”

I don’t invite her to sit down, though. Any other night I might have, but I’m waiting for a text from Heidi and nobody else will do.

It takes a while until I can check my phone for Heidi’s response. When I finally read it, I’m instantly disappointed. She wrote: Glad to hear it.

“Four words?” I yelp, staring at the screen.

“What’s the matter?” Silas says, waving down the bartender for a check.

“Nothing.” I shove the phone in my pocket. “Let’s call it a night. I’m so tired I can’t feel my legs.”

I can’t believe Heidi didn’t comment on our victory. Didn’t she tell me to beat Denver? And didn’t I just make Denver cry?

What is going on in that girl’s head? Maybe I’ll go upstairs and call her.

“You know it’s after one in the morning in Brooklyn,” Silas says as he slides off the barstool. I swear he reads my thoughts.

“Oh. Shit. And get out of my brain.”

He grins. “You are so goddamn entertaining. I should sell tickets.”

“Fuck you,” I say, and he laughs so hard I want to smack him.





We land Thursday at one p.m., and there’s a meeting with the offensive coordinator at three. So I only have time for lunch and for dropping my luggage off in my sparkling apartment.

Heidi isn’t there. But I leave her a note on the coffee table. We’re home! I’d love to catch up with you. Text me if you want to catch up later.

Hours pass, and I get no response. None.

I don’t make it home again until evening, because the guys drag me out for a fried-chicken dinner. I text Heidi to see if she wants to meet us at the restaurant.

Again—no response.

After the check is paid, the boys want to head over to the whiskey bar. “I’m beat,” I tell them, peeling off from the group.

“Night, weakling,” O’Doul says with a laugh.

I don’t even give him the finger. I just walk home by myself. When I open the apartment door, the living room is dark, and I only hear silence. My disappointment is swift and fierce.

But then I spot a glow of light coming from the open door to my bathroom. Hope springs up inside my chest so fast I can’t even believe it.

Now there’s something to contemplate later.

Kicking off my shoes, I walk on silent feet toward the bathroom. And then I’m rewarded—Heidi is there, humming to herself while she picks up about fifty different beauty products she’s scattered around my bathroom. One by one she’s dropping them into a quilted overnight bag.

My happy buzz dies instantly. “Going somewhere?” I ask.

She lets out a shriek, whirls around, and lunges at me with a hairbrush.

“Ow!” I yelp as the brush connects with my chest. “What the hell?”

“Jason!” she squeaks. “You scared the bejesus out of me. Don’t sneak up on a girl!”

“I do live here,” I point out, possibly unreasonably. “What are you doing?”

She glances into her bag. “Packing up. Who wants to know?”

“I do.” And now I’m getting the feeling I’ve fucked things up in some fresh new way. “What’s the matter?”

“Not a thing,” she says briskly. “And luckily I don’t have a heart condition. That’s the second time today that you scared me senseless.”

“I haven’t seen you today!”

Her eyes narrow. “No kidding. But your lovely housekeeper Esme has now seen me naked, seeing as you didn’t mention you had a housekeeper. We startled each other this morning right after my shower. The poor woman dropped a bucket of water. It took us a half hour to clean it up.”

“Uh-oh,” I say slowly.

“I’ll say.” She zips up her bag and sets it on the floor.

“But back up. Why are you packing? Where are you going?”

“I don’t have all the details worked out yet.”

“Where will you sleep tonight?”

“In your teammate Bayer’s bed.”

“Say what?” A hot pang of jealousy shoots through my chest.

“Before I go…” Heidi sets down her bag and grabs a folded paper out of her pocket. “Here’s your itemized grocery receipt, as well as your change.”

I open the receipt and scan it. “Forty-three dollars. Thank you.” The amount of change is a puzzle, though. “Didn’t I leave you two hundred bucks? There’s only seven dollars here.”

She points at the last line on the page. Assorted gratuities, $150. “You tipped the concierge for helping me bring twenty-seven grocery bags into the building—a dollar a bag. You tipped Esme for her trouble. You tipped your drycleaner delivery person, the FedEx guy, and someone who delivered a shipment of hockey tape to the rink earlier. He looked like he was having a bad day.”

“Wow. I’m so generous,” I say drily. “Did all my teammates display the same largesse?”