“You know I’m proud of you, right? I can’t believe you’re actually coming with me when you wouldn’t have left the house two years ago.” Gwen’s voice cuts through the hum of Atlanta’s vibrant downtown as she navigates her Audi, veering onto a quieter side street.
The quick maneuver sends me tumbling toward the door. ‘Can you not jerk the car so hard? I’m already regretting this whole thing. You know what? Maybe we should just head back to Nashville. I have an exam on Monday, anyway. This was a terrible idea.’
“No,” she retorts without missing a beat.
Gwen’s voice is as unyielding as Atlanta’s skyscrapers. She still hasn’t taken off her powder-blue blazer from her conference call, and we’ve been sitting in the car for over four hours. But she’s wearing my thrifted Grateful Dead T-shirt underneath—that she stole.
She huffs out a breath, blowing a strand of platinum hair loose from her bun. “You’re the one who asked to come, and I have a conference tomorrow that I can’t miss. Micah said you could see them after their game. It’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
I’ve come a long way from the girl who rarely ventured out of her dorm room during freshman year. That girl who canceled on her friends at the last minute. Who holed up under the covers and made promises she knew she’d break. Who constantly spewed hatred because she hated that version of herself.
I’m not that girl, and I never want to be her again.
I retreat into my ritual of breathing techniques, inhaling deeply for a count of four, holding, and then slowly exhaling. I repeat the cycle until my frantic heartbeat slows.
If I’m going to spend three months in Argentina, I need to get used to stepping out of my comfort zone and not relying on anyone to push me.
“You’ll be fine, Nina,” she repeats.
“Okay, I know I’ll be fine. You don’t need to keep saying it. I’m just going to say ‘hi’ to them tonight since they’re flying out tomorrow, and then I’ll meet you back at the hotel.”
When I mentioned to Micah that Gwen had a conference in Atlanta that coincided with their away game, he invited me to come, and because I’m the naive college student who apparently likes torturing herself with older men who are all wrong for her, here I am, driving four hours to Atlanta to see Micah in the hopes that I’ll actually see Rhode.
Maybe I can convince him to treat me like another notch on his bedpost. I’m not marriage material, and I’m well aware that a man like Rhode Tremblay would never fall for an art student. He’s not my happy ending, but we can have fun for now.
We pull up to a fancy hotel that’s all gleaming glass beneath the night sky. They must pay someone a fortune to keep those windows bug-free.
“What should I do tonight? I’m thinking of going to this new wine bar,” Gwen muses as valets flutter around the high-end sports cars. “I could use a night to myself, but I’ll leave a hotel key for you in case you want to come back.”
“Why could you use a night to yourself? Is everything okay with Isaac?”
She flicks her hand, steeling her expression. Gwen buries her emotions deep so they’re never on her face. “Yes. It’s fine. We don’t need to talk about him.”
“You sure?” I narrow my eyes. “He hasn’t been around the house as much. Actually, now that I think about it, I haven’t seen him since the kitchen thing.”
“We’ve both just been busy. How’re things with Rhode?” she deflects.
Despite the bridge we’ve been rebuilding, there’s still this niggling twinge of doubt that refuses to go away. I know it’s ridiculous for me to think, but sometimes, Gwen gets this look in her eye when she asks about Rhode, but I’m pretty sure that’s my imagination.
“Things are amazing,” I say, too bright. “That’s why I made you drive me four hours to see him. We stayed up last night debating the greatest hockey players. He lost it when I said Orr was better than Gretzky.”
He actually called me for once, and we talked until my phone ran out of battery. That’s what gave me the delusional confidence to come see him today.
“It’s honestly so weird to hear you talk about hockey and not random artists.”
“I’ve gone over to the dark side,” I say in an ominously low voice.
The valet swings the door open, and Gwen leans over to peck me on the cheek. I cringe a little, but I don’t pull away. “Tell Rhode I say hi.”
“Yeah, I’m not doing that. Have fun at the bar. Bye.” I hop out of the car, grab my bag, and make my way into the glittery hotel lobby, but at the last second, I run back to Gwen.
She rolls down the window. “What did you forget?”
“Nothing. Just… thanks for driving me. I had fun scream-singing in the car with you for four hours.”
The grin that lights up my sister’s face is so wide that you’d think I told her I found a way to keep her avocados eternally fresh. “You’re welcome. Love you.”
“See you,” I say, avoiding those three little words like a bad habit.
I stride through the glass doors into the gleaming lobby. There’s a group of women crowded around a table full of hydrangea bouquets, dressed in Guardians blue and white. As I head to the front desk to pick up the key card Micah left, I catch a piece of their conversation.
“Oh, definitely Rhode Tremblay. Have you not heard all those stories about him? He absolutely knows what he’s doing.”
“What about Micah Cruz? He seems like he’d be a fun time in bed.”
“All I know is whoever got to make babies with Wyatt Patterson is the luckiest woman on the planet.”
My hands ball into tight knots at the idea of other women going after Rhode. After the Isaac fiasco, I want someone all to myself. It’s too late to back out now, though, since I’m already at this hotel, and there’s also this tiny kernel of satisfaction that I know Rhode in a way they never will.
Unless he told those women to meet him here. A swell of queasiness rocks through my stomach.
I go straight to room forty-three, trying to ignore the wild beating of my heart as I debate turning around. No. I’ll go and say hi. Keep it casual. I get off the elevator, shove my key card in the door, and walk inside, only to be greeted by a shadowy tangle of limbs.
There’s moaning.
Heavy panting.
Clothes are flying off.
My thoughts move in slow motion. I barely have time to register the scene unfolding in front of me before the girl slams the guy into the dresser. “Please. I need you, now.”
I lurch back like I’ve been stabbed, and something withers in my heart at the sight of Rhode with another woman. I’m not going to have a repeat of the Isaac situation, so I swing around to walk out of the hotel room, but my bag knocks over a glass of water on the entryway table, and it crashes to the floor.
The woman shrieks.
“What was that?” a man shouts.
The lights flick on in the hotel room. The glow from the lamp illuminates Micah’s chiseled features in soft light.
Micah.
Not Rhode.
I blink, just to be sure. Micah’s still standing there in a rumpled suit. My shoulders sink with relief. Too much relief, if I’m being honest with myself. The fact that it’s not Rhode shouldn’t affect me this much when he’s allowed to date other people.
I expect to see irritation lacing Micah’s features for interrupting, but when our gazes meet, there’s nothing but gratitude in his small smile. I shoot him a questioning look, but he brushes me off with a sweep of his arm.
The woman, on the other hand, is glaring furiously at Micah. She begins moving around the room like a vanilla-scented tornado. “Shit, you’re his girlfriend, aren’t you? I should’ve known. Ugh, I’m a horrible person.” She glowers at Micah. “And you’re a cheating asshole.”
I rush to defend him. “I’m not his—”
“Yeah, that’s me,” Micah interjects. “The cheating asshole. You better go, Giselle.”
She hurls a pillow at him. “Catalina.”
Micah winces, catching the pillow. “Sorry about that.”
Catalina yanks the champagne from the icy bucket and vigorously shakes the bottle. She flicks off the cork, pointing it at Micah. “This is for being a liar. I should’ve known better than to go out with the NHL’s latest fuckboy.”
The champagne erupts, a fizzy volcano directed at Micah’s face. I’m caught in the crossfire, droplets showering over my shirt. He coughs, swiping away the liquid. “Shit, you got it in my nose!”
“Sorry,” she says to me, sounding genuine. “I was aiming for him, not you, and I feel really terrible about all this. I had no idea you were his girlfriend, or I never would’ve agreed to come to his room.”
“I’m really not—”
“More like you demanded to come to my room,” Micah mutters, using a tissue to dab the champagne from his face.
Her apology hangs in the air as damp as our soaked attire. With one last glare at him, the woman slams the door, leaving us alone in the minimalistic chic room with one king bed.
“Okay, what just happened?” I ask. “And where’s Rhode?”
“He’s trying to get another room since they only had one left for us, and he doesn’t like to share.”
Micah undoes the buttons on his wet shirt, peeling away the fabric to reveal a torso sculpted in bronze perfection. He’s got women sliding into his DMs hourly, but I feel absolutely nothing when I look at his eight-pack. Never have. Though, I do like having someone to text in Spanish to practice.
He plops down onto the foam mattress, shirtless, and spreads out his arms like a snow angel. “Thanks for that, Phil. I owe you one. I didn’t really want to sleep with her, and I was trying to think of excuses and couldn’t. Things just started moving so fast, and I didn’t know how to tell her no, so your timing was great.”
I sit on the cloud mattress. “What do you mean too fast? Last week you sent a picture of you, Wyatt, and Rhode at that go-cart arcade in Los Angeles, and the text literally said vivir la vida en el carril rápido.”
“Yeah, I’m still not sure if that’s how you say ‘living life in the fast lane,’ but whatever. That’s what I get for only using my Spanish to order enchiladas. Also, we need to work on your pronunciation. It sucks.”
“Sorry, we can’t all have bilingual grandparents. So, what happened tonight?”
He runs his hands along his clean-shaven jaw before exhaling a deep sigh. “I just wasn’t feeling it. She wanted, uh… more, and I didn’t want to go there with her because I’ve never done that.”
“You’ve never done what before? Had hotel room sex?”
“No.” He chews on his bottom lip until there’s a sharp indent on his skin. “I’ve uh, never done that at all.”
I tense, trying not to show my surprise. “Oh.”
His face is too tan to blush, but there’s a softness in his features I haven’t seen before. “I didn’t want to do it tonight. She wanted to, which is why your timing was perfect, so thanks.”
My eyes widen involuntarily, but Micah peers at me like he’s watching my reaction, so I mask my expression.
He waves a hand. “Go ahead and laugh. It’s hilarious. The NHL’s rookie fuckboy is actually a virgin.”
His voice wavers a little, so I reach for his hand, giving him a gentle squeeze. “You don’t know me very well if you think I’d laugh at you for that.”
He fists the sheets, avoiding my eyes. “Really? So, you don’t think it’s fucking lame that I’m a twenty-three-year-old virgin?”
“No. Not at all. Who gives a shit? It’s your body. Do whatever the hell you want. But why does everyone talk about how much you sleep around?”
He rests his cheek on my shoulder, relaxing. “It all started when I first joined the League. This one video of me skating shirtless went viral online. So many people slid into my DMs with the dirtiest comments. It was hot at first, but it got weird fast. Tremblay’s the only one who could relate, so I talked to the old man—”
“Stop calling him that. It’s rude.”
“Never. It’s our thing. He calls me kid, and I call him old man. Anyway, he told me to ignore it, but now I feel like I’m lying to everyone. Don’t get me wrong, I fuck around and do other things, but not as much as people think. I just talk a good game to keep up the image.”
“You don’t have to act like that just because that’s what people expect. There’s nothing funny about being forced to be someone you’re not. Wearing masks is exhausting.”
“People like sex. It sells.” Micah shrugs. “I started getting all this attention online because of the shirtless videos, and it got me a lot of followers, so I kept playing into the image. It’s my fault, but I don’t really give a shit. I mean, I do, but I don’t, you know? It’ll be awkward when I fuck someone and only last two seconds, though.” He claps his hands together. “Surprise! No orgasm for you.”
“If someone gets mad at you for that, then they deserve for it to only last two seconds. You can always go again. It takes time to figure out the whole sex thing, anyway. Most people’s first times are awful.”
Micah’s eight-pack clenches as he leans up off the mattress, but he’s got nothing on Rhode’s body. He smiles at me, big and contagious. “Thanks for that, Phil. I needed to talk to someone about all of this, and Tremblay’s always talking about how you’re a great listener.”
I perk up. “He talks about me?”
“Yeah, all the time. It’s annoying as shit. If I have to hear one more time about your speech, or all the pottery you make, or that fellowship, I’m going to shove my head in a toilet.”
“That’s disgusting.” Laughing, I rest my head on his shoulder, and he puts his smooth cheek on the top of mine.
“Yeah, but really, I’m glad you came tonight, Phil. Now, come on. Let’s head out. Tremblay’s gonna flip his shit if he sees us like this.”
“He won’t care.”
“Trust me. He will. He always—”
The door swings open.
Rhode strides into the room in a disheveled gray suit with a banana-print lime green tie. It’s been weeks since I’ve laid eyes on him, and from the way my breath stutters when I see him, I should start digging a grave for my heartbreak.
“Alright, Cruz, they don’t have any more rooms available, so we’re throwing it back to training camp. You’re stuck with me, and we’re building a pillow wall. I swear if you spoon me again with your morning wood, I’ll—” He stops when he sees us sitting on the bed.
His gaze narrows on our intertwined hands, and his eyes flare. I jerk away from Micah. Rhode cocks his head, slow and predatory.
There’s heat in his expression, and I know from that look alone that I’m about to make some gloriously stupid decisions that will probably turn into mistakes. I’ll exchange one magical night for a miserable morning, but it’s the hope of it all that has me swapping out rationality for recklessness.
Rhode’s eyes bore into mine like he’s trying to set my body on fire with his stare. “Cruz?”
“Yeah, roomie?”
“I love you, man, but get out.”
