Avery clearly doesn’t use it a lot if he’s had it since last summer. There are fewer than twenty pictures. All of them have Avery in them and none look like media shots. They’re all personal. There’s him at a picnic table with the ocean behind him in Dieppe holding up a lobster roll with the caption “Cheat day.” Then there’s a short video of him practicing, just messing around with the puck, bouncing it on his stick like a million times before slapping it from midair into the net.
A few shots of him here in San Diego. One is a selfie of him sitting on his front porch steps smiling but looking away, like he’s unaware of the camera. Another was posted three days ago. It’s Avery at the beach, wind blowing his hair all over the place, with Liz tucked under his arm smiling brighter than the sun. My stomach is suddenly in my high heels, or possibly under them. I reach for my water bottle and take a sip, closing my eyes and trying to make sense of this. He wasn’t with Liz three days ago. I know that for a fact, so why do I still feel betrayed?
Daniel walks into the kitchen and stops at the sight of me. I straighten up and shove my phone in the pocket of my pants. He gives me a small, superior grin. “Catch you on your phone on company time? Tsk, tsk.”
I ignore his comment. “I’m about to make the coffee.”
“But you got distracted by your hockey boyfriend?”
“No. I…” I shake my head and slip past him to the coffeemaker on the counter. It’s not technically my job to make the coffee for the floor. In fact, my boss and I don’t ever drink it. But it’s an unspoken rule that the first legal assistant in gets it started. Besides, it’ll distract me from my thoughts of Avery two-timing me.
“I’m just kidding around,” Dan says as he steps closer—too close—to me. “I’m not looking for coffee anyway. I need some water.”
I grab the tin of gourmet coffee and open it as I watch him move to the watercooler and stick his coffee cup under the spout. “I’ve got an old college basketball injury and it’s acting up again. It’s my lower back and it’s a total bitch.”
I nod and scoop the coffee into the filter. I see him pull a small pill bottle from the inside pocket in his suit jacket. He rattles it and smiles. “These little babies make it possible for me to sit at my desk all day without moaning in pain. I doubt a moaning lawyer who can’t stand straight would go over well.”
He laughs at his own joke and pops two of the oval pills into his mouth, chasing them with water. I instantly identify them as tramadol. One of the odd “perks” of being a recovering pill popper is I can identify pills by just their shape and color most of the time.
When I’m done, I flip the on switch and turn back to face him, and once again he’s standing way too close for comfort. He’s smiling, but for some reason it doesn’t feel friendly. It feels lecherous and it makes me want to shiver. I fight the urge and subtly slip away from him.
“Are you really with that hockey guy? Avery Westwood?” Dan questions. He sounds incredulous, which is super insulting. “Like,datinghim?”
I turn to face him, hands on my hips and shoulders back. “Yes. I am. And it’s none of your business.”
“Hey! Whoa!” Dan puts up his hands and looks at me like I just boiled his pet rabbit or something. “No need to get snippy. I wasn’t in shock because I don’t think you’d attract someone like that. You’re a pretty girl, Steph. Definitely hot enough.”
“You do realize this is inappropriate workplace conversation, right?” I can’t help but snap back.
“It’s a compliment. I think you’re smart,” he blathers on, taking another step closer to me, and once again invading my personal space. “Smart enough to know that professional athletes are dogs. You deserve better than a dog, Steph.”
“Avery is not,” I reply, but it’s not as convincing as it would have been twenty minutes ago, before I saw his Instagram account. Still, I cross my arms and take a step back so now I’m mostly in the office and not the kitchen. Out of the corner of my eye I see another legal assistant, Joyce, standing next to her desk. She glances up. Good. I’m not alone with this pig. “And for the record, my brother is a professional hockey player, so you may want to rethink your stereotypes. Thanks.”
I turn and storm back to my desk, trying not to get too worked up. Daniel is a douche. I’ve known that almost since day one. But he shouldn’t be talking to me like that at work—or at all. I’m about to text Maddie and ask her if she thinks I should go to HR when my boss walks in. His smile falters when he sees the look on my face. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m…” I take a deep breath. “I’ll be fine. Latte?”
He pauses, like he doesn’t believe me, but then decides not to pursue it. He smiles. “Yes please, Steph. How about caramel today?”
“Oh, getting adventurous.” I smile and he chuckles.
I grab the company card out of my desk and gladly head downstairs to the Coffee Bean. Hopefully, Douchey Dan will have gone back to his office by the time I get back.
Ten minutes later I’m balancing a hazelnut latte for me and a caramel for my boss as I march back into the office. I notice Dan’s bottle of pills on my desk and freeze. There’s a Post-it stuck to them.
You left this in the kitchen. Joyce.
FUCK. I look up. Joyce isn’t at her desk, so I can’t tell her the error she just made. I grab the bottle. I want to leave it on Joyce’s desk with a note telling her they’re Dan’s so she has to return them, because I want nothing to do with that jerk, but Conrad calls from his office. “Steph! Can you get my Outlook calendar working? It’s all messed up again.”
I shove the pills in the pocket of my suit jacket and grab his latte and head into his office. I get so busy after that I honestly forget the pills are in my pocket until I get home that night. I had taken off the jacket earlier in the day and just grabbed it off the back of my chair and carried it with me. It wasn’t until I dropped it on my bed and the pill bottle rolled out that I remembered. I stare at the bottle as it rolls out onto my bed and curse in French under my breath.
Fucking hell. I stand there in nothing but my bra and underwear, holding the jeans I’m about to change into, and stare at it. That little bottle is as scary to me as a loaded Glock and just as dangerous. I should give it to Maddie and ask her to take them back to Douchey Dan or at least hold on to them over the weekend, but I don’t want to make her deal with him. Also, then I would have to explain why I don’t want the pills in my possession. Honestly, it’s not that I’m tempted. I’m not…yet. But there is always that possibility. I have never tested myself. I even opted for the ring contraceptive over the pill because even the motion of taking a pill regularly scares me. It just has bad associations for me.
One day I might need antibiotics, which aren’t a narcotic so I should be fine, but I hope I never have to find out. When I was living in Seattle, Sebastian even went cold turkey on medication. I used to housesit for him when he was on road trips and there wasn’t even a bottle of aspirin there. He refused painkillers from the team doctor, which is a big deal because my brother gets hit and punched a lot. He’s a bit of a goon on the ice.
I take a deep, cleansing breath and toss the bottle in my purse. That way it’ll be easy to return to Dan on Monday and I won’t forget it. Then I continue getting ready and force myself to shove any thoughts of the pills out of my mind. Instead I concentrate on what, if anything, I’m going to say to Avery about that Instagram account.
Forty minutes later, Maddie and I are outside the arena at the will call window and I’m opening the envelope with Avery’s family pass inside. I loop the lanyard around my neck and walk with Maddie to the VIP entrance. She’s already got Ty’s pass around her neck.
