It’s also three hours earlier here than it is back home, so even though it’s eleven p.m., for us it feels like two a.m. I can’t wait to wash my face, get in bed and sleep for six straight hours.
Everyone else seems to feel the same way. None of the guys wants to go out. The team chef has a postgame meal of chicken and pasta packaged into containers for us to eat on the bus to the hotel.
It’s a quiet ride, everyone either eating or resting. I want to sleep, but if I get fifteen minutes in now, I’m not sure I’ll be able to fall asleep at the hotel. Instead, I make a post to the team socials about the win, using the video of Leo pouring champagne on Isaac.
One of the equipment people, Jason, always handles hotel check-ins. We all wait in the lobby with our bags until he comes over to distribute room keys. I’m in room 326, and with all the guys crowded at the elevator doors, I decide to take the stairs.
My feet ache after a twenty-hour day in heels, and I step out of them as soon as I reach the third floor, groaning with relief and picking them up. I don’t even want to take the time to wash my face before bed. I just want to fall face-first onto the mattress.
I open my door, step into the room, and toss my shoes to the floor. I can’t find a light switch, so I walk in farther, seeing the dark outline of a desk, and feel around for a lamp.
“I have a gun, and I will shoot you,” a deep male voice says.
I scream, my heart jumping to my throat. Who the fuck is in my room, and why does he want to kill me?
My hand is still wrapped around the handle of my rolling suitcase, so it comes with me as I race for the door, flinging it open. I race back toward the elevator, looking over my shoulder.
A man steps out of the room. He’s only wearing dingy white underwear and his belly hangs over the front waistband. “What the hell were you doing in my room?”
“It’s my room,” I call over my shoulder.
“The hell it is!”
Did I have the wrong room? My key card worked. I stop and look at the cardboard key holder in my hand. “Room 326.”
“I’m in three-twenty-six.” He snarls at me. “You woke me up, bitch.”
I’m not fighting with a guy who already threatened to shoot me. I pick up my suitcase and hurry into the stairwell, one of my stocking-covered feet landing on a small rock.
“Ow! Shit.”
I burst out of the stairwell, breathless as I race to the front desk.
“How may I help you?” a uniformed woman asks.
I look at her nametag. “Gwen, I just went into my room and a strange man threatened to shoot me. What kind of help is there for that?”
She frowns. “Why was there a man in your room?”
“Fantastic question. My room key is for three-twenty-six.” I hold it up to show her. “And he said that’s his room. We both have keys for the same room.”
“Hmm. Let me check that.”
I’m sweating and not remotely tired anymore. It’s going to take more than the hotel comping my room to make up for this. That guy could have shot me. I still can’t believe it happened.
“There must have been a mistake,” Gwen says.
“A big one.”
“I’m looking for another room, but ...” She furrows her brow. “We’re completely booked.”
I gape at her. “Try again. I’m with the Cleveland Crush.”
“Oh, the hockey team?”
“Yes. We have a block of rooms here.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I wish there was something I could do, but we’re completely full. Can you bunk with someone from your group?”
