Four days later I’m standing in my bedroom watching my sister as she laughs at me. Typical Steph. I frown at her and scowl, and she laughs harder so I ignore her and keep unpacking my suitcase. She thinks it’s hysterical that this dream girl—Shay—has decided I’m worse than global warming. When her laughter dies down, she says, “Poor nugget. You got wham, bammed and thank you, ma’amed.”
“Excuse me?”
She smiles and folds her arms over my Winterhawks T-shirt that she’s wearing. Steph lives outside of the city, in Renton, and works as a legal secretary. She often stays at my place when I go on road trips because it’s closer to her work in the city. I’d left for a quick road trip to western Canada the day after my rainy altercation with Shay and so Steph squatted. And brought her dirty laundry, as she always does, since her building has communal coin-operated machines and mine are state-of-the-art and free. It’s not the first time I’ve come home and found her in my T-shirt and shorts because everything she owns is in the washer or dryer. Honestly, none of it bothers me. I’m just so very glad she’s in my life because if you’d asked me when I was a kid, I’d have thought she’d be dead by now.
“Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. What guys do to women. She did it to you.”
“I don’t do that to women,” I reply and throw some dirty clothes from my suitcase into the laundry basket on the floor of my bedroom.
“Seb, your quest for love has left quite the body count.”
Is she kidding me right now? “I don’t mislead them or lie to them. Every girl I’m attracted to, that I start something with, it’s because it has potential. And then, unfortunately, the spark goes away and…it’s not like I want it to. What am I supposed to do? Stay with them even when it’s just not there anymore?”
“No. But maybe try harder to keep the potential or spark or whatever. Because a relationship is not always going to be unicorns and rainbows, Sebastian.” She gives me a small, soft smile. “And just because the flame flickers a little or there’s bumps in the road doesn’t mean it has to be over. It doesn’t mean you’ll end up like Mom and Dad or your buddy Chooch and the wicked witch of Seattle, Ainsley.”
“Wow. That’s a boatload of relationship advice from a woman who has been single since she was eighteen,” I say pointedly. Stephanie smiles and raises a perfectly manicured middle finger with a neon orange nail in my direction.
“And trust me, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Looks like I’m not the only one doing this whole love life thing wrong.” She takes a pair of rolled-up dirty socks out of my open suitcase and hurls them at my head.
“Did you even play on this trip?” she asks, changing the subject.
“I played one of the two games,” I reply and try not to frown. It’s irking the shit out of me that my wrist is acting up. Ever since I punched Beau Echolls it’s been sore, and the fight with Darby only aggravated it more. The trainers say it’s just a strain, which is good. If I rest it now, I’ll be fine for playoffs, which start in less than a week.
“Anyway, this Shay girl is probably just worried you’re playing her. Or that you guys moved too fast or something,” Stephanie says, and we’re back to unsolicited love life advice, apparently. “You’re a real Romeo. You make a girl feel special. You get their hopes up, whether you mean to or not. And not all girls feel the fizzle when you do, Seb.”
I digest her comments. I know she’s right, even if I don’t like to hear it. I’ve had three girlfriends in the last year—Andie, Melissa and Dawn. Dawn and I didn’t end amicably. She used to be a paralegal at Stephanie’s firm; I met her when I picked Steph up for lunch one day. Dawn was sexy and smart and I asked her out immediately. Our first date was two nights later. There was chemistry and there was good sex, but even though she was book-smart she wasn’t very witty and didn’t have a good sense of humor.
My life has had some really stressful moments and seriously bad things in it, and levity is all that got me through. I need a woman who can make a quip and not cry when something doesn’t go her way. Dawn was a crier. She cried when I was injured in a game and lost my front tooth. Cried like I had just lost a limb or something. Within two days I had a fake tooth implanted, but she cried for a week afterward whenever it was brought up. She cried when she didn’t get the promotion she was hoping for. She cried all the time. Within two months the spark between us had turned to ash.
Unfortunately, Dawn didn’t seem to see it. When I broke up with her, the day before I met Shay, she was shocked and devastated. And then she was angry. She texted me and called me for weeks insisting we “talk it out” and that we were “worth saving.” The morning of this most recent road trip, I got a new phone number. Now she was texting Stephanie about me, which my sister was less than impressed with. I know it made it awkward for her because she worked with Dawn, but I didn’t know how to fix it. I certainly wasn’t going to date her again.
“If women came with warning labels, I’d have steered clear from Dawn before anything ever started,” I tell Stephanie, and she laughs.
“Nah, you wouldn’t,” she snarks back. “Your dick doesn’t know how to read.”
“Ha-ha,” I deadpan and lean over and give her a tiny shove. She slips off the corner of the bed she’s sitting on and hits the floor with a thump. She throws the socks, which were still on the floor, at me again. “Can we get back on track? What am I going to do about Shay?”
“You’re going to drive your ass over to her work and confront her. Make her tell you what the problem is. Did she already get her heart broken by one of you lugs, or does she just hate athletes in general, or what? And then, whatever her excuse is, talk her out of it.”
She says it so matter-of-factly that it actually sounds simple. But it’s not.
“Won’t I look like a stalker? And it’s late. She might not even be working tonight or the gym might be closed when I get there,” I say, and then I realize it’s pointless. Steph’s right, no matter how illogical it is. I have to see Shay. When playoffs start I won’t have time to be running all over town at night looking for her. And I won’t be out late at bars where I might stumble into her. And the last thing I need is to be distracted by her—by not having her—while we fight for the Cup.
Stephanie knows me well enough to ignore my argument. Instead she simply points to the master bath. “Go shower. I’ll unpack the rest of your junk and head back home. Text me and let me know how it goes!”
She disappears down the hall toward the laundry room with the dirty clothes still left in my suitcase.
Twenty-two minutes later I pull my car into the parking lot for Elevate Fitness. The weather is typical Seattle weather—damp and on the verge of raining. That abnormally warm spring weather front we had when Audrey and Josh hosted the barbeque is long gone and our usual rainy spring is back. I check my watch because I don’t even know if the place is still open, but I have to try.
I reach the double glass doors and exhale in relief as it opens in my hand. But is she here? The first person I see as I walk down the empty front entrance toward the lobby with the juice bar is Sara.
“We’re just about to close.” Her voice is flat and unfriendly. I guess she wasn’t impressed by finding me banging an employee that wasn’t her in the laundry room.
“That’s okay. I’m just looking for Shay. Is she here?”
“Who?”
