Fair Play (25 page)

“A few,” said Groveman. “Question One: Do you have any other musicians on your roster?”

“We do.” Theresa named two, an alterna-chick who was currently in heavy rotation on MTV, and an aging British heavy metal band experiencing a resurgence in their fan base thanks to the inclusion of three of their songs in the latest Cameron Crowe film. Groveman nodded, impressed.

“So you don't just devote yourself to hockey players?” D asked with a smirk.

“Uh, no,” said Theresa curtly, caught completely off guard.

“Well, that's good,” Groveman cut in. “Would it be possible for you to put in writing what you just laid out for us, along with an estimate of what your services will cost?”

“I'd be glad to. When would you like it by?”

“Is the end of next week all right?”

“That's fine. I'll have it to you by the beginning of next week.”

Groveman turned to Theresa's desk. “D?”

D nodded.

“Then it's a wrap,” Groveman declared, standing. Theresa rose at the same time he did. She couldn't wait for them to leave. Keeping a pleasant smile plastered on her face, she escorted them to the elevators. Reentering the office, Terrence accosted her immediately.

“Well? How did it go?” he asked anxiously.

“Fine, if you ignore some non sequitur about hockey players.” Terrence winced. “How is it possible that Notorious Devil D is a gazillionaire and I'm not?” Theresa wondered aloud.

“It's one of those mysteries of the universe, hon, like, ‘How many face lifts can Joan Rivers endure before she starts resembling a hammerhead shark?'”

“Mmm.” Despite his delightfully forked tongue, Theresa noticed he looked distinctly troubled. “What's the matter?”

“Here's why they made a crack about hockey players,” Terrence said, slowly pushing his copy of the
New York Sentinel
towards her. “Read it and scream,” he sighed, pretending to busy himself with some paperwork in front of him.

Heart in throat, Theresa opened to the
Sentinel
's notorious gossip page, “Eye Spy.” She scanned it, stopping when Michael's name jumped out at her in bold letters:

Theresa closed the paper. She stood still, mouth filling with sand while invisible talons dug deep into her chest, making it hard to breathe. She pushed the paper back towards Terrence.

“Are you okay?” he asked uneasily.

Theresa opened her mouth to say something, but the right words wouldn't come. In fact, no words would come. It was as if the conduit between her brain and her mouth were blocked.

“It's bullshit, Theresa, you of all people should know that,” Terrence said fiercely. The phone rang. “Oh, shit. Let me get that.”

Theresa nodded. While Terrence took the call, she quietly folded up the newspaper, then grabbed a piece of scrap paper on his desk and began scribbling. When she was done, she handed it to him. “I'm going out, but I'll be back after lunch,” it read. “There's something I need to do.”

“Michael. How's it going?”

Exhaling slowly as he released his left leg from a standing quad stretch, Michael turned to see Ty standing beside him. This evening would be his first game back following his concussion, and everyone, from the trainers to the coaching staff to his teammates, was keeping a careful eye on him. Michael appreciated their concern, but there was no need: He'd gotten clearance to play from both the team doctor and a neurologist.

“It's going well,” he told Ty.

“Good. Don't want you to push it if you're not feeling one hundred percent.”

“I'm feeling great,” Michael answered.

“You sure?”

“Good,” Ty repeated. He patted Michael's shoulder before crossing to talk to Kevin Gill. Michael tried not to stare as the two of them conversed, occasionally turning their heads to glance back at him. It was another minute or two before they separated and moved on to talk to other players.

Chest tight, Michael squirted a shot of Gatorade into his mouth and sat down on a mat, resuming his stretches. He wasn't an idiot. In the space of one week, van Dorn had seized his opportunity and had dazzled the shit out of everyone. He was a better skater. He was better with the puck. He scored goals. Obviously Ty and Kevin were deciding who to dress for tonight's game.

Resentment roiled through him, though he knew it was misplaced. He'd been a professional athlete long enough to know this came with the territory. It was an old story: A veteran player gets hurt, a rookie waiting in the wings finally gets the chance to show his mettle and—
bam!
—be fore you know it, the vet finds himself crying into the bubbly at his retirement party at the advanced old age of thirty-five. Just thinking about it made him grind his teeth. He'd be damned if he'd let it happen to
him.
He still had two, maybe three good productive years left if he maintained his focus and drive. No way was he going to roll over and die for Dennis the fucking Menace.

He was midway through his second set of one hundred stomach crunches when the sound of Tully Webster's voice cut through his fantasy of boarding the little bastard.

“Yo, Mikey. There's some girl out there who wants to talk to you. Says it's urgent.”

Gemma? Theresa?
Puzzled, Michael grabbed his towel and draped it over his neck, ignoring the catcalls and off-color comments of his teammates as he strode across the weight room. He found Theresa waiting for him out in the hallway, leaning against a concrete wall.

“Hey, you,” he said, bad mood dissipating at the mere sight of her. He leaned in for a small peck to her cheek, then thought better of it, slick as he was with perspiration. His sweaty appearance embarrassed him, but there was nothing he could do about it, apart from toweling off as best he could and praying he didn't have killer BO. He pressed his towel first to his face, then to his neck. “This is a surprise.”

“I know.” Theresa's expression was grim, her hands dug deep in her coat pockets.

“Everything okay?”

“No.”

“Is it your dad?” He remembered she'd gone out to Brooklyn the day before specifically to spend some time with her old man. Maybe he was in the hospital?

Appreciation flickered briefly across Theresa's face. “My father's fine.” She smiled wanly. “I mean—relatively.

You know.” Peering past him, she gazed anxiously up the long, neon-lit corridor. “Look, is there somewhere a bit more private where we can talk?”

“Sure.” Michael paused to think. “Follow me.”

He led her to the players' lounge, careful to use the alternative entrance circumventing the actual locker room. He knew a couple of the guys might wander in and out in towels, picking at the muffins and fruit laid out on the long banquet table adjacent to the huge ceiling-mounted TV, but there was nothing he could do about it. Short of asking Ty if he could use his office, the players' lounge was the best he could manage on such short notice.

Eager to put Theresa at ease, he gestured towards the table. “Coffee?” Theresa shook her head.

“Muffin?”

“No, thank you, Michael.”

Her voice was overly polite. Cautious now, he peered at her, attempting to decipher her expression while trying not to give anything away with his own. Her demeanor was tense and businesslike. In fact, it was downright standoffish. Michael's guts began to churn.

Since she didn't want anything to eat or drink, the only thing left to do was sit. He escorted her to the couch closest to the TV. Distracted by the chattering voices of women coming from the set, he turned it off before sitting down beside her.

He forced a smile, determined to sound upbeat. “What's up?”

Theresa was uncharacteristically poker-faced as she extracted a copy of the
New York Sentinel
from her briefcase and handed it to him. Confused, Michael's eyes scanned the page until he spotted his own name in bold type, carefully reading what was printed there. When he was through, he handed the paper back to her.

“Everyone knows half the stuff that's printed in that column is bullshit. Don't let it get to you.” Seeing his words had no effect, he gently pried the paper from her fingers, dumping it in the trash.

“You don't get it, do you?” Theresa stared at him. “Not only does that witch Lynette Homes insinuate that Lubov might not have assaulted me, but she makes me sound like a goddamn puck bunny!”

“So?” Michael repeated. He couldn't believe she was getting bent out of shape over what some low life, muck-raker had written. “Who cares what this bimbo says?”

“I do! Janna and I are trying to expand our business,” Theresa said in frustration. “We're trying to drum up new clients. What do you think the odds of us succeeding are if the public thinks I'm some slut who brings frivolous lawsuits and bangs jocks for fun?”

Michael blinked with incredulity. “Who's going to think that?”

“Anyone who reads that column!” Theresa railed. “
Jesus,
Michael!”

Her voice was loud enough now to draw the attention of a couple of his teammates, who poked their heads around the door in curiosity. When Michael leveled them with a look that could curdle milk, the heads disappeared. He turned back to Theresa. “What's going on?” he asked.

His aim was to sound patient, but he could hear the edge in his voice, defensive, challenging. Theresa's eyes grazed the floor, the opposite wall, anywhere but his face. “Look at me, Theresa,” he commanded. Every muscle in his body tensed as he waited for her to force her glistening eyes to his.

“I'm really sorry, Michael, but I can't go out with you right now. My career's at stake, and I just can't risk it.”

“You're kidding, right?”

Theresa squirmed uncomfortably. “Michael—”

Instinctually, his left hand shot out in a gesture meant to silence her. It worked. The only sound in the room was that of their breathing.

Michael just stared. Theresa's face seemed to break up right in front him. Fragments of eye, delicate nose, sensuous lips—all of it broke apart like a puzzle being slowly dismantled while behind his eyes, the red of anger pushed at the sockets, insistent, threatening to blow his head open.

“Career—?”

He couldn't even finish the sentence. Maybe she hadn't said it. Maybe his mind had manufactured it. He narrowed his eyes, trying to put her face back together again, trying to hold back the red baying for blood, but it was no use. Something inside him broke, and it wasn't just his heart. It was the dam holding back months of frustration at being told to wait, being told to woo, being told that no matter what he did, whether on or off the ice, it simply wasn't good enough.

He began laughing. Quietly, at first, then loudly, uproariously, the sound harsh to his own ears, tinged as it was with a hint of mania. He was laughing so hard tears rolled down his face; so hard he thought his sides would split open. “My career's at stake!” he howled, barely able to breathe as he punched the words out. “Oh, that's good! That's the best one you've come up with yet!”

“Michael.”

He forced himself to look in the direction of her voice, watching as her face reassembled itself. She was staring at him with frightened eyes that said
You're behaving like a lunatic.
Well, maybe he was. Maybe this was what months of being repeatedly kicked in the balls did to a man. Even so, in the interest of civilized conversation, he thought it might be wise to try to get his rage under control.

“What?” he said, angrily panting his way back to normal breath. He wanted to hear what she had to say, really he did, but when she opened her mouth to talk he was surprised to hear his own voice coming out instead.

“Wait, let me guess: You changed your mind and now you
can
go out with me?”

Theresa looked away, shamefaced.

“What, did I say the wrong thing?” Michael challenged. “Did I say the
right
thing? Because, with you, I never know whether I'm going to get kissed or kicked.”

She turned back to him, her expression pained. “Listen to me, Michael.”

“No,
you
listen to
me.
” A hot stream of long unspoken words shot up his throat, impossible to ignore. “First you won't go out with me because I'm a
toothless gavone
. Oh yeah, I
heard
you say that at Ty's wedding.
Then
you won't go out with me because I'm Italian. Now you won't go out with me because it'll screw up your career.
Do you have any idea how fucked up you are?
”

He knew he was shouting, but he didn't care. Righteous indignation was screaming through his veins, and he was determined to give it full vent. After all she'd put him through,
months
of watching and waiting and behaving, and for what?
For this?
“You know what your problem is, Theresa?” he asked, as he jumped up from the couch. “You're a head case.”

“Michael.” Her voice was trembling. “Let me just—”

“Explain?” he finished for her contemptuously as he paced back and forth like a caged beast. “Explain what? You're a mess. You don't know who you are, you don't know what you want, and you don't know where you're going.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw some of his teammates still hovering nervously in the doorway, but he didn't care. They wanted to see a show? They craved some drama in their lives? Well, they'd come to the right place. “I thought that if I was nice enough, and romantic enough, and patient enough, that eventually I'd win you over.” He slapped himself in the forehead. “
Ubatz!
What the hell was I thinking? Why couldn't I see what was right in front of my face? You might be beautiful, but
Madonn',
you are batshit crazy!”