It really was a bad decision. I’m about to pick up my phone and call her when it rings. “Hello?” I say in the phone, and I hear the team trainer, Richard.
“Nico.” His voice is low. “There was an accident on the ice.”
I sit up, the hat falling from my hands back into the white box. “What type of injury and who?”
I get up and look over at Lizzie, who is already on her phone, her fingers flying across the keyboard. She grabs her leather folder and zips it closed as she follows me out of my office. “It’s Brendan.” I stop walking. Brendan is one of the top scorers on the team. I got him in a trade with Washington two years ago.
“How bad?” I walk out of the office with Lizzie behind me. I can hear her murmuring to someone on her phone.
“Bad,” he says. “We are on our way to the hospital.”
“What the fuck happened?” I ask, my voice tense.
“He was moving up the ice, and I don’t know what the fuck happened. He must have moved bad or something. He said he heard a pop.”
Pressing the button to the elevator, I ask, “What do you think it is?”
“One of the doctors here thinks it’s his ACL,” he says, and I close my eyes. An ACL can have you out anywhere from six months to a year.
“The plane will be ready in thirty,” Lizzie says from beside me.
“I’ll be flying out in thirty minutes,” I say and rush home to pick up my packed bag. You only have to be stuck without clothes once to always have a bag ready to leave. It takes me ten minutes to get home, and I park right outside the door. I take the elevator up to the third floor instead of the stairs. It might not be faster, but my nerves are all over the place.
Walking into my walk-in closet, I grab the packed black bag and head back downstairs. “I’m ready,” Lizzie says, meeting me in the foyer. My house is huge. It has three floors with a walkway connecting the main house to the two-bedroom apartment over the three-car garage on the other side of the property, which is where she lives. “Any news?”
“He’s getting an MRI right now,” I tell Lizzie as we get into the car taking us to the airport.
We take off as soon as I’m buckled in, and my phone beeps that he is still in with the doctor. We land in Buffalo three hours later, and a SUV is waiting to take us to the hospital.
My finger taps my phone, waiting for it to ring. “No news is good news,” Lizzie says from beside me.
“I hope to fuck it’s not bad news,” I say once we pull up to the hospital. I get out and find Patrick, the team doctor, in the waiting room. “So what’s the verdict?” I ask, and I can see from his eyes it’s not fucking good.
Chapter 7
Becca
I step out of the elevator just after nine in the morning with a Starbucks in one hand and my tan Hermes bag in the other. “Good morning,” I tell the receptionist, who smiles at me.
“I love your look today,” she says. “Very casual chic.”
“That’s what I was going for,” I say of the light pink tight pants that reach just to my ankles and a silk flowy long-sleeved leopard print top tucked in. My shoes match the color of my pants. “Anything for me?” I ask, and she hands me my mail.
I smile at her and pretend it doesn’t bother me that Nico hasn’t acknowledged the gift I sent him yesterday. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting radio silence. What do you want from him? I don’t know, maybe I thought Saturday meant something. I thought I felt something, but maybe it was all in my head.
“Good morning,” I tell everyone I see when I walk in. “Hey,” I say to Erika my assistant. “How are you?”
“Good,” she says, looking up at me and standing to follow me into my office. “I don’t want to say anything to jinx us,” she says, and I look at her when I get to my desk, “but nothing is happening.”
I put down my coffee and mail. “I don’t even know how to handle that.”
“I know, I came in this morning, and there were four emails. Four.”
“Is the server down?” I ask and then yell for Francis. He comes into my office, smirking at Erika. “How many emails did you have this morning?” I ask, and he looks at me confused. “Just answer the question.”
He puts his hands in his pockets and looks over at Erika, who just smiles. “I don’t know. Maybe ten.”
“I had four,” I say. “Do you think something is wrong with the server?”
“What time did you go home last night?” he asks, and I just look at him. “Just answer the question.”
“A little after seven,” I say.
“Well, it could be that you answered everything before you left. You don’t have to be busy all the time, Becca,” he says, and I gasp.
“Don’t jinx me. And to answer your question, yes, I have to be busy all the time. It’s how I function.” He shakes his head and walks out of my office.
“What do you need me to do?” Erika asks. “I can start on a list of things that we need to tackle next month and see if I can get it going now.”
“Yes.” I point at her, and she smiles and walks out of my office. I pull out my chair when my phone rings, and my eyes light up. I pick it up and see that it’s Nico. My heart speeds up just a bit, and the smile doesn’t leave my face. “Well, well, well.” I turn in my chair and lean back, looking outside. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?”
“Well,” he says, his voice coming out gruff. “For one, I’m calling to thank you for the care package.” When he laughs, I hear the rustling of sheets, and I wonder if he’s still in bed. I wonder if he’s dating anyone. Oh my God, he’s probably dating someone. I’m going over everything in my head, and I’m not liking any of it.
“Well, you are more than welcome,” I say, sitting up. My stomach flips and flops at the thought of him with someone else. “I figured the hat was going to a good home.”
“That fucking hat,” he says, laughing. “You were not joking.”
I grab my coffee, taking a sip. “I told you.”
“I would have called you yesterday, but something came up.” He sounds tired.
“Are you okay?” I ask, and I sit up even straighter. “Is everyone okay? What happened?”
“We had an injury,” he says, and my heart sinks. “None of your guys.”
“I mean, thank God but …” I shake my head. “How bad?”
“Bad enough I’m calling you for a favor.” His voice is soft. “Definitely not the reason I wanted to have to call you,” he says, and I wonder what he means by that, “but I need help.”
“I mean, I can try,” I say. “What did you have in mind?”
“I need a right-winger,” he says, and I look up at the ceiling.
“It’s November,” I say. “You know that teams are just starting to get into their groove in November.”
“There has to be someone somewhere who isn’t happy,” he says. “Don’t tell me you can’t do this.”