“Greg?” Bridget squeezed her Gatorade bottle into her mouth. “Didn’t you hear? He was rehearsing or whatever for a Cirque show in Vegas. The audition was after Thanksgiving.”
“He get in?”
“How did you not hear about this? Yeah, he got in. Word is they both did.”
Wait,what?
The buzzer sounded. Caley tapped Nate’s helmet. “Let’s go. Think you got enough juice to finish that hat trick?”
Nate was so distracted in the third that he skated straight into an opposing player’s elbow with his head down and ended up flat on his ass with half of his own team laughing at him and the rest concerned. He stared up at the rafters and winced at the light in his eyes, but he knew concussions. This wasn’t that. Just a nasty headache and maybe a bruise on his cheekbone later.
“What is with you today?” Caley asked as she hauled him to his skates. Then her gaze got sharp. “Did something happen with Aubrey?”
He wanted to tell her. Maybe over their postgame drinks.
But his head hurt, and his face hurt, and his heart hurt, and he also wanted to sit in his dark apartment and eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and figure out how he’d done this to himself again.
“I think I’m gonna call it a night,” he said. “Obviously my head is not in the game.”
Caley frowned at him, but she didn’t try to stop him. “All right. You’re sure your head’s okay?”
“I’m sure.”
Back in his apartment, he dropped his keys in the bowl by the door and took off his shoes. The lights from the city shone in through his windows, casting more than enough glow to see by, so he didn’t bother with the overheads. Instead he went to the kitchen and pulled out the ice cream and a spoon, then returned to the living room. Before he could sit down, though, something sharp stabbed his foot, and he swore.
He sat down to have a look, left ankle propped on his right knee, holding his phone awkwardly.
It was a small piece of glass from the vase. It hadn’t gone deep—he was barely even bleeding. But as far as icing on the shit cake went, it seemed a little much.
When the bleeding stopped, Nate put the ice cream back in the freezer, unopened. Then he went to bed.
Saturday morning he got in the car to the airport by himself. He and Paul were filming this weekend’s episode in Vancouver, which just felt wrong. He’d been looking forward to seeing Aubrey’s hometown through his eyes. Instead he was stuck in a mental spiral of doubt about why Aubrey hadn’t told him about Cirque. Had Brigitte been mistaken? Maybe Aubrey had turned them down and simply hadn’t thought it was important enough to share.
When the plane touched down in Vancouver and Nate turned off airplane mode, he got a text from Aubrey:The downlow chicken shack on main has the best burgers in the city.
It wasn’t an admission of guilt, but it didn’t explain anything either.
Work with Paul was fine, but they were never going to connect as friends. Nate could deal with him on the set. As far as dinner companions went, he decided to reconnect with Kelly, who he realized now he’d ditched when he started sleeping with Aubrey.
“Hey.” He nudged her as they wheeled their suitcases toward the car that would take them to the arena since they were covering a matinee. “Lunch on me? I’ve got a line on a great burger, and I hear they deliver.”
Kelly slung her arm around his shoulders. “Finally, a man who understands me.”
Nate snorted and let his plans with Kelly distract him from everything else.
It worked out pretty well until the puck dropped.
Nate and Paul’s set for the game was basically a section of the bar. The majority of the screen time would show the ice, so they’d be audio only for that, but during stoppages and intermission, the cameras would cut to them as they sat on their stools, a green screen behind them to show any replays.
Nate hated it. It felt unprofessional. He didn’t think viewers should be able to see his socks. He definitely didn’t love that people not associated with the show could watch them tape live. He found it difficult to stay focused on the game.
Tonight, though, focusing was easy, mostly because game play was absolutely blistering. The away team scored to make it 2-2 only eleven minutes and change into the game.
At least, focusing was easy until someone went off after a dirty hit and Paul made a comment about how players weren’t “tough” anymore because they didn’t want to risk playing with a concussion when it couldruin the rest of their life. Then he mocked Nate for using the phraseperformative masculinity.
Nate stewed all the way back to the airport for the redeye home, until Kelly nudged him with her shoe. “Hey. If you don’t stop clenching your jaw, you’re gonna grind your teeth into dust. You need a Snickers or something?”
“Or something.” Nate thought longingly of the Ben & Jerry’s in his freezer. Then he remembered the emergency chocolate bar he kept in the outside pouch of his carry-on bag and dragged it close to dig it out.
