Overnight Sensation(89)

Jason’s smile, though. That’s what really grabs me. It’s so open and happy. It’s the smile of a boy who hasn’t a care in the world. I want him to smile like that again. So badly. The back of my throat burns, and my eyes get hot.

Beside the clipping is a legal pad where Georgia has scribbled: Minneapolis Center for Organ Donation, 2pm CST arrival for 2:30 photos. There’s a photographer listed and some phone numbers.

The meeting! Jason didn’t tell me it had already been scheduled. My heart drops. I asked him if it had, and he changed the subject.

I take a deep breath and try to calm down. Jason didn’t want me to know about this meeting. But now Miranda Wager has the details. She stood right here and took a photo of Georgia’s desk. I’d bet my trust fund on it.

Now she’s going to write a story about this painful part of Jason’s life. That’s just cruel. I won’t let her do it. And there isn’t much time to stop her.

I fly out of Georgia’s office and run down the hall toward the stairs.





35





Jason


“What’ll we have for lunch?” Silas asks as half a dozen of us file through the lobby.

“Anything but pizza,” I suggest.

“I was kind of thinking about pizza,” Silas confesses.

“You’re always thinking about pizza.”

“How about Chinese?” Trevi counters, opening the street door. “Georgia wants to come with us, and she is always up for Chinese.”

“Sounds good,” I say quickly, before Silas can argue.

“Is Heidi coming, too?” Trevi asks. “Where’s she going so fast?”

I’m about to ask what he means, but I spot her as I step out the door. Heidi is flying down the sidewalk, and I don’t know why. As I glance up the street, I see another woman, hand in the air, trying to hail a taxi.

The next few seconds seem to happen in slow motion. I see a Yellow Cab pull an illegal left turn off York to try to get the fare. He swings around fast. And I see Heidi suddenly leap off the curb, toward the woman, as if to catch her.

There’s a deafening squeal of brakes as the cab tries to stop in time. Bile rises up in my throat as Heidi lurches, trying to change her body’s direction. But momentum causes her to tip toward the street.

She goes down. My mouth is wide open in a silent shout, because nothing comes out.





Heidi


“What the fuck was that?” Miranda screeches. “Are you fucking insane?”

Everything is noise—the taxi brakes, the cab driver who’s standing beside the taxi, cursing at me in a language I don’t understand. There are players shouting at me from the curb, I think.

Breathless and freaked out, I pick myself up off the asphalt. There are little bits of grime imbedded in my skin. “Don’t write the story,” I wheeze. “Give me your phone.”

“You are one crazy little bitch,” Miranda says. “You don’t get to tell me what to write, even if you do have a death wish.”

“He doesn’t deserve that invasion of his privacy!” I straighten my shaky spine and look her square in the eye.

Miranda steps back, opens the cab door, and positions it between herself and me, proving that I must look as deranged as I feel. “You can’t protect him, Heidi. He’s got a fiduciary responsibility to the entire league. Financial prudence is a job requirement. Now get out of the street, you idiot.” She gets into the cab and slams the door.

Not one word Miranda just said makes any sense at all. I’m trying to play them back in my head when two strong arms lift me bodily off the street and then deposit me on the sidewalk.

“What the fuck was that?” asks a voice that’s too angry to be Jason’s. Except it is. When I turn around he’s standing there, fists clenched, eyes flashing. He looks like a bomb that’s about to go off.

“I…” I swallow hard. “She was snooping in your business. Taking pictures, I think. I wanted to see her phone.”

“So you jump in front of a moving car?” he shouts. I’ve never seen him this angry. I’ve never seen anyone as angry as he is right now. “What the actual fuck?”

“I’m sorry,” I say immediately. Because that’s what you say to someone who looks like he’s about to lift the parked Audi beside him and hurl it across the road.

“You’re sorry,” he snarls. “You’d be even sorrier if that cab’s brake pads were any worse off than they were.”

“Calm down!” I squeak. I’m already shaking. I don’t need my boyfriend yelling at me in front of the team.

Leo Trevi speaks from somewhere behind me. “Take a breath, Jason. It’s okay now.”

It’s not, though. Nothing is okay. There’s a vein bulging in Jason’s neck. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” I try. “I know you have some bad memories…” My brain is finally catching up with the situation, but there is a giant lump in my throat as I try to make myself clear. “I know you said yes to that meeting. But you didn’t tell me about it.”

“So fucking what?” he snaps. “Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not,” I insist. “You’re freaked out. I’m sorry. But you’re taking it out on me.”