"Okay, Coach."
He watched Derek close the big door behind him before he approached his a.s.sistant. He was sure she"d want to talk about the kiss. "I"m sorry about grabbing you earlier," he said, getting it over with. "It won"t happen again."
She pushed up the corners of her lips. "Let"s just forget it ever happened."
"Can you do that?" In his experience, women didn"t tend to forget something like that. They liked to pick at it and dissect it for days.
"Oh yeah." She chuckled and waved a hand over her head as if the memory had been swept away. Her movement raised the hem of her hideous dress up her thigh. The laugh was a little too fake to convince anyone, least of all him. "Not a big deal. I"d already forgotten it."
Liar. He took a step closer and stopped a few inches from her, forcing her to tilt her head back and look up at him as if she was waiting for his kiss. "I"m glad you"re not going to make a big deal out of it. I was half asleep." Now it was his turn to lie. "And all doped up." He hadn"t taken any Vicodin since that morning.
Her smile fell. "I think we"ve already established that we are not even re-motely attracted to each other. You think my face is okay, but not my body. And while I find you..." She held up one hand and tilted it from one side to the other. "...okay, you"re rude and your personality sucks. And I like a man with a good personality."
He doubted that like h.e.l.l. "Right."
"I do," she tried to argue.
"You"re talking like a homely girl." And she was far from homely. "Only homely girls like guys for their personality."
She pointed at him. "That"s exactly what I"m talking about. That was really rude."
He shrugged. "Maybe, but it"s true."
She frowned and folded her arms beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "What happened earlier isn"t what I needed to talk over with you. An agent from Windemere called regarding a house in Bellevue. It"s about to go on the market, and the agent wanted to show it to you first."
"Set it up for next week."
"She wanted to show it today."
He shook his head and moved to the front door. The less time he spent with his a.s.sistant at the moment, the better. "I"ve got a date with the Hackster."
"The kid is trouble."
Derek wasn"t the only one. Mark looked over his shoulder at his cute little a.s.sistant with the sa.s.sy hair and smart mouth. The woman was nothing but trouble.
He opened the front door and closed it behind him. Derek sat on the porch fastening his skates. "That girl"s mean."
"Chelsea?" He put the tip of his cane on the stair below and stepped down. Chelsea was many things. Annoying being the most prominent, but she wasn"t mean.
"She gave me the stink eye."
Mark laughed. "She didn"t give you the stink eye." Although she had given Mark the stink eye on one or more occasions. The day she"d found out that sending her to buy those condoms had been a fool"s errand came to mind. "She just told you what you didn"t want to hear. You shouldn"t just show up at someone"s house. It"s rude." He pulled his cell out of his pocket and handed it to the boy. "Call your mom."
Derek finished buckling his skates. "Oh, man."
"Did you think I"d forgotten?"
"Yes." The kid punched the seven numbers and waited for the axe to fall. The grim line of his mouth turned to a smile and he whispered, "It"s going to her voice mail."
Lucky break.
"Hi Mom. I went on a bike ride and ran into Coach Mark. I"ll be home by six. Love you. Bye."
Mark let Derek"s little lie go for now.
The kid shut the phone and handed it to Mark. "I can skate backward now. I"ve been practicing in my bas.e.m.e.nt."
Mark dumped his phone in his back pocket. "Show me."
Derek stood, and his ankles fell inward. He held his arms out to the sides and slowly moved his skates back and forth until he rolled to the center of the drive. He used a one-foot drag to stop. Much better than the snowplow he"d been using last summer, but his balance still sucked.
"That"s pretty good."
Derek smiled as the late afternoon sun caught fire in his hair and bounced off his white forehead.
"Watch this." He bent his knees, hunched over, and put pressure on the in-sides of the skates. He rolled back a couple of inches and beamed like he"d just scored a hat trick. What Derek lacked in skill, he made up for in heart. Heart was the one indefinable element that made a good player into a great player. No amount of drills could teach heart.
"You"re getting there." Too bad heart wasn"t enough. "But you"re bent over looking at your feet. What"s the number one rule in hockey?"
"No whining."
"Number two."
"Keep your head up."
"That"s right." He pointed his cane at the boy. "Have you been practicing your step-overs and jumps?"
Derek sighed. "No."
He lowered his cane and looked at his watch. "Keep your head up and get going to the end of the driveway and back."
Chelsea pushed back the heavy drapes and watched Derek lift one knee and then the other. He marched toward the end of the driveway, his arms out from his shoulders. As he attempted to turn around, he fell on his skinny behind.
"Keep your head up," Mark yelled.
Derek dusted himself off and marched all the way back. He reminded Chelsea of Rupert Grint in the first Harry Potter movie. Only geekier.
Mark met him in the center of the drive and handed him a half-full bottle of Gatorade. Chelsea couldn"t hear what Mark said to the boy, just the deep timbre of his voice. Derek nodded and drank.
Mark took the bottle and returned it to the shade of the porch. "Two small. One big," he called out to the kid, and Derek began jumping in place. He immediately fell.
Chelsea let go of the curtain and moved from the office. She walked outside and stood next to Mark. "I thought he was going to show you a few stops and go home. Why are you making him march and jump up and down?"
"The kid needs to learn balance." He pointed his cane at the boy and hollered, "Now change it up. Small jump. Big jump. Small jump. Big jump. Bend your knees, Derek."
"Who are you? Mr. Miyagi?" She held her hands up in front of her, palms out. "Wax on. Wax off. Bend your knees, Derekson."
He chuckled. "Something like that." He walked to the center of the driveway, a slight hitch in his otherwise fluid steps and his cane a smooth extension of his arm. Chelsea folded her arms beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and sat on the porch. Mark pointed down the driveway, said something about pus.h.i.+ng and gliding. Falling down and getting back up again.
"Use your hips. Head up," Mark called after him. After about fifteen minutes of pus.h.i.+ng and gliding, the kid was clearly winded. His cheek had turned a bright red, one of his knees was skinned, and Chelsea almost felt sorry for him. Almost, but the little liar had made her look bad.
He collapsed on the porch next to Chelsea and reached for his Gatorade. "I"m getting good," he said before he upended the bottle and drained it. Chelsea was no expert, but even she could see the kid had a long way to go be-fore he approached "getting good."
The boy looked up at Mark, his eyes filled with exhaustion and hero wors.h.i.+p. "Maybe I could come back and practice some more."
Right, like Mark would want the kid hanging around. He didn"t like anyone hanging around.
A frown line creased Mark"s brow as if he had a sudden headache. "Check with Chelsea to see which days I"m free next week."
Chelsea was shocked. "You"re free Wednesday and Friday."
Derek set down the bottle and unbuckled his skates. "I have summer band practice on Wednesday."
Of course he did. He probably played the tuba. Most of the skinny band-os she"d ever known had played the tuba. Kind of like most of the short guys she"d ever known had driven trucks.
"How about Tuesday and Thursday?" Mark countered.
"You"re house hunting those two mornings."
"I can come in the afternoon," Derek said as he tied his shoes. He stood and shoved his skates into a backpack he"d hidden next to the porch. He zipped the backpack closed and threaded his stick arms through the straps.
"Have your mom call me." Mark placed his right hand on the kid"s sweaty head. "When you get home, drink lots of water and get lots of rest."
"Okay, Coach."
Chelsea bit the side of her lip. Inside his crusty, cantankerous, jerk-wad, wrapped-up-in-rhino-skin exterior, he was a softie.
She stood as Derek moved to the front of the garage where he"d left his bike. "Shouldn"t we give him a ride?"
"h.e.l.l no." Mark scoffed. "He needs to build up the strength in his legs. He"s as weak as a girl. Riding a bike will be good for him." He turned to look at Chelsea, at her two-tone hair and wild dress. He had an a.s.sistant who was more trouble than she was worth, and now a skinny, star-struck, wimpy kid stopping by twice a week. How in the h.e.l.l had that happened? "It"s getting close to five."
"I was just about to leave. Need anything before I go?"
There she went again. Asking him what he needed. "Not a thing." He moved back out into the driveway as Derek rode away.
"See you Monday, then," Chelsea called after him.
He raised a hand and moved to the garage door. He punched the code into the key pad, and the door slowly rose. If he was going to help the kid out, he needed his coach"s whistle. He ducked beneath the door and moved past his Mercedes. This week he hadn"t taken as much medication. His grasp was com-ing back in his right hand, and he was sure he could drive again soon. He flipped on a light and continued toward the shelves in the back.
The last time he"d seen his whistle and stopwatch, he"d shoved them in a gym bag. He leaned his cane against the wall and looked up at the floor-to-ceiling shelves. His gaze leveled on a blue equipment bag, and the air left his lungs as if he"d been punched in the chest. The bag was old and worn and had logged thousands of air miles. He didn"t need to look inside to know that it held his skates and pads. His helmet and jersey. His hockey shorts and socks were in there. Probably his protective cup too.
When management had come to him in the hospital to tell him the guys wanted to keep his stuff in his locker, he"d told them to pack it up and take it to his house. The guys had had enough to think about besides him. They hadn"t needed the daily reminder, and he hadn"t wanted to someday walk into the locker room and pack it all up.
Next to the equipment bag lay his long stick bag. And he didn"t need to see the Sher-Wood sticks inside to know that each blade had been manufactured especially for him, with a half-inch curve depth and a 6.0 lie. White grip tape wrapped around the handles, candy-caned down the black shafts, and wrapped heel to toe. His old life was in those two bags. Everything that he was and ever wanted to be. All that was left after nineteen years in the NHL was in those bags. That and the hero wors.h.i.+p of one eight-year-old boy with skinny legs and weak ankles.
He"d told the boy he"d coach him twice a week, and he wasn"t quite sure how that had happened. One second he"d been thinking about getting inside out of the heat, and in the next he"d told the kid to check with Chelsea to see which days worked out best. He hadn"t even been thinking about coaching Derek, but the kid had looked up at him like Mark had once looked at guys like Phil Esposito and Bobby Hull. That look had dropped him quicker than a cheap shot to the cup.
He was a sucker. That explained it.
Of course, another explanation was that he didn"t have a lot going on in his life. He reached up and grabbed a smaller gym bag from one of the upper shelves. He had no job and no family. He was thirty-eight, divorced, and had no kids. His grandmother and father lived several states away. They had their own lives, and he saw them only about once a year.
What he did have was a house that was too big, a Mercedes he couldn"t yet drive, and an a.s.sistant who was driving him insane. The crazy part was that he was beginning to like Chelsea for no explainable reason. She had a smart mouth, and physically she wasn"t his type of woman. He was at least a foot taller than she and had to outweigh her by a hundred pounds. And as a general rule, he was attracted to women who liked him, not who looked at him as if he was a d.i.c.khead. Although he supposed he couldn"t blame her for that. He was a d.i.c.khead, which, surprisingly bothered him more than it used to.
He unzipped the bag, and inside was a whistle, a stopwatch, and a ball cap the kids from last year"s hockey camp had given him, with "#1 Coach" em-broidered across it.
He took a few youth-sized sticks and orange cones off the shelf. Derek White didn"t have the innate skill to ever play professional hockey. He just wasn"t an athlete, but there were a lot of guys who loved the game and played in the beer leagues. Guys who were pa.s.sionate and still had a lot of fun. Mark couldn"t remember the last time he"d laced up his skates with the sole purpose of having a good time.
He put the hat on his head and adjusted it a few times until he found the perfect spot. It felt good. Right. Like nothing had felt in a real long time. He"d loved hockey. Loved everything about it, but somewhere along the line, it had stopped being fun. Playing had been about winning. Every game. Every time.
From outside, he heard Chelsea"s car pull out of the driveway, and he moved toward the back door. He"d known his a.s.sistant for less than two weeks. Twelve days. It felt longer. She took charge of his days and invaded his sleep.
The other day she"d told him that he looked in control of his life. Hardly. Before the accident, he"d been in control on and off the ice. He"d controlled his personal life as well as his chaotic career. He"d controlled the sometimes out-of-control antics of his fellow teammates, and he"d controlled who walked into his home.
A nagging ache settled in his hip and thigh as he moved through the door and into the kitchen. He reached inside a drawer and pulled out a bottle of Vicodin. Now he controlled neither. He opened the bottle and looked down at the white pills spilling into his palm. It would be so easy. So easy to take a handful. To pop them into his mouth like PEZ and forget all his problems. To let the strong opiate do more than take away his pain. To let it numb his brain and pull him into a nice, cozy place where nothing mattered.
He thought of Chelsea and their conversation about control. He dumped all the pills back in the bottle. He still needed them for pain, but a lot of the time, he hadn"t been taking them for the pain in his body. If he wasn"t very careful, he"d end up liking them too much.
He thought of Chelsea playing hockey in her little skirt. If he wasn"t very, very careful, he might end up liking her too much too.
TWELVE.
Friday night when Bo got home from work, she handed Chelsea a business card. On the front was the name and information of a media company that the Chinook organization used to produce all their commercials. Handwritten on the back was the name and number of the talent agency they used.
"I thought you might be interested," Bo said. "Most of the time we use the players in our advertising, but sometimes we use local actors."
She looked the card over and checked out the agency on the Internet. She"d be in Seattle for several more months. Depending on where she decided to have her breast surgery, maybe longer. She had to figure out something to do with her time, other than watch TV, go to nightclubs, answer Mark Bressler"s fan e-mail, and set up appointments with real estate agents. So why not? If she didn"t like the talent agency, she"d know within moments of walking in the doors. No harm, no foul. She"d take her resume and leave.
On her way to work Monday, she called the agency and set up a meeting for Tuesday when Mark would be coaching Derek. An hour later, she switched cars and drove Mark to see the house in Bellevue. The seven-thousand-square-foot mansion on the waterfront in Newport Sh.o.r.es was filled with hand-crafted parquet flooring and ma.s.sive oak timbers. The huge windows at the rear of the house looked out over a large backyard with a cabana and spa next to the swimming pool. It had a bar and a temperature-controlled wine room. As for opulence, it was on par with the house he currently lived in and had the added bonus of being priced a million dollars less.
Mark stood in the pantry about the size of Bo"s entire apartment and said, "I don"t need a house this big."
Chelsea was pretty sure she"d told him the total square footage before they left his house.
"And I don"t want to live behind gates," he added.
He"d never mentioned his aversion to gates, but if he"d looked at the information about the house that she"d printed out for him, he would have known. After they left the estate, she looked at him across the Mercedes and asked, "Do you sit around and think up ways to be difficult or is it a natural reflex? Like breathing."
He put his mirrored gla.s.ses on the bridge of his nose. "I thought I was being nice today."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah." He shrugged.