“You got a plan?”
“Skate my ass off. And avoid signing a long-term lease.”
Silas laughed. “Where are you living, anyway?”
“Dunno. Got any suggestions? My folks are less than an hour from here, but that’s probably too far. Can you imagine if I’m late for practice because I’m sitting on the LIE? That’s not what I need. Though Coach is coming from the same neighborhood. Maybe if I offer to be his chauffeur, he’ll like me more.”
“Offer to wash the car.” Silas snickered. “And maybe paint his house. Anything to keep on his good side.”
O’Doul came to a halt in front of their bench. “Watch yourself,” he said to Silas. “The college boy doesn’t like advice.”
Well, damn. “Look, I’m sorry about yesterday. I’m calm on the ice, but not so good in a room full of reporters,” Leo offered. He’d said the same thing yesterday after that disaster of a press conference, but O’Doul had flipped him off and walked away.
“No big,” Doulie said now, his mouth grim. “I don’t get offended. But seems like our new fearless leader doesn’t like you much. That’s your real problem.”
Apparently nobody in the universe had missed it. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
O’Doul gave him one more ornery look and stalked off to the showers. The guy was awfully hard to read. He seemed to work hard projecting a laid-back image, but Leo was pretty sure the captain was wound tighter than a drum.
“Shit,” Silas said. “It won’t help if he can’t stand you either.”
Leo privately doubled the workout he was going to do tomorrow morning. He’d better impress everyone. Immediately. “What time does the practice facility open?”
“Seven. But before you lift there’s yoga.”
“There’s . . . did you say yoga?”
Silas grinned. “Welcome to Brooklyn, man. Don’t worry. You’ll only look like an awkward chicken the first twenty times. And it’s not like they’re gonna make you do a beet juice cleanse afterward.”
“Whatever. I’ll be there.” If the Bruisers did Jell-O wrestling or Falun Gong, then he’d do it, too.
“Look—I got an idea for you,” Silas said. “The guy you replaced on our roster was renting a room in my place on Water Street. That’s two blocks from here. Now that he’s gone, I’m out the cash. I’d give you his spot without a lease, because I can’t really afford the place alone—I’m on a two-way contract. Getting paid minor league money until they pop the question.”
“Huh. Two blocks away?” That sounded like a slam dunk.
“Yeah, the commute is awesome. But you should still think it over. You might not want to say yes.”
“Why? You snore? You have a thing for disco music?”
Silas shook his head. “Negative. It’s just that the room has kind of a revolving door on it. You’d be the fourth guy in there in as many months.”
Leo chuckled. “It’s cursed? Take Silas’s second bedroom, and get booted from the Bruisers?” That was silly. But . . . four guys?
“People believe in stupider shit than that,” the goalie pointed out.
“Yeah, they do. Thanks, man. I’ll sleep on it. Sounds like an easy decision, though.”
“Take your time deciding,” Silas said, stripping out of his garters and socks. “I wasn’t gonna put it up on Craigslist until after our next road trip. If I’m not around to show it, there’s no point in advertising.”
“Cool. I’ll let you know.” Leo dropped the last of his clothes and headed for the showers. The Bruisers had a gorgeous practice facility. He’d played in some pretty nice places, but this one was downright luxurious—generous rooms, good lighting, and a sleek design. The shower stall that Leo entered was done up in white marble tiles, and the dispenser on the wall held several different bath products with expensive-looking labels. The shampoo he chose purportedly contained “sea palm extract” as an ingredient. “For rich, shiny hair.”
Good to know.
While he showered, he decided to take Silas up on his offer. He didn’t really have time to shop for an apartment. If his contract held, money wouldn’t be tight. He didn’t need a roommate. But the coach could still send him down to the minors at his whim, where Leo would be one of the best paid guys who still wasn’t playing for an NHL team. That would suck, but at least if he’d been renting from Silas, he wouldn’t be leaving another signed lease behind.
And, hey, if things suddenly started looked up, Leo could get his own place in a few months if he felt like it.
As for the room’s curse—or jinx, or fate—Leo wasn’t going to worry about that. If he got sent down somewhere again, it wouldn’t be a bedroom’s fault. It would be either Karl’s or his own. To believe otherwise was ridiculous.
He got dressed slowly, wondering where he could find a late lunch in this neighborhood. He’d need to fuel up if he was going to run his engine at a hundred percent, day in and day out.
Tonight he’d stay in the hotel, and tomorrow he’d be lifting weights by eight. Whatever it took, he’d do it.
FIVE
What a difference a day made.
Georgia sat hunched over her desk in jeans and a hoodie, wondering if she should update her resume. Spread out on the desk was the call log from yesterday’s fiasco. Fully half of all the callers had asked about Leo Trevi’s hot mic incident.
And today? There had been two dozen more inquiries. She jotted down every single one on her pad. The requests to interview Leo had come pouring in, and not always from the most reputable news sites. When she’d followed up with the Hockey Hotties request, she’d learned that they wanted him to pose nude for a charity calendar.
They did not, however, ask for an interview with the team’s new coach.
Alone in her office, Georgia grumbled to herself as the phone began to ring again. It was Saturday, and technically the press office was closed, so she didn’t have to answer. She let the call go to voice mail. A minute later the message light lit, so she picked up the receiver to hear what the caller wanted.
“Hello, this is Randy Fenning, a fact-checker for Page Six. I need to confirm that the Georgia Worthington who appears in the Huntington Northern High School yearbook alongside Leo Trevi is the same person as the publicity director for the Brooklyn Bruisers. Please return this call at 212 . . .”
She groaned so loudly that the sound echoed off the lonely walls of her office. It would be bad enough to see her name pop up on blogs with nothing better to do than to speculate about a high school relationship. But her picture? This would be a total disaster. And it wasn’t just the embarrassment factor—a publicist could not be effective when she’d become part of the very story that she was supposed to manage.