“Because it’s something you should know,” I reply, and pause as someone in a suit marches by, giving us side-eye. “I told you I wasn’t Liz.”
“Okay, well, I’m surprised because you never said anything.” Avery shrugs. “But I know now.”
“There’s more,” I say, and swallow hard.
“Avery!”
The stern voice is like a bucket of cold water, and we jump apart. A woman in a tailored suit is standing there looking annoyed. “You need to do interviews.”
“Right. Sorry, Marsha. I’ll do the interviews ASAP.” Avery gives me a quick kiss. “I’ll call you tomorrow after we’re settled at the hotel in Toronto, okay?”
I nod because I can’t find my voice, and it wouldn’t matter if I could. I know he doesn’t have a choice.
Now he looks worried again. “Steph, just tell me what’s wrong, because clearly something is wrong.”
“Avery…,” Marsha says tersely.
“We can talk when you land in Toronto,” I say firmly, and then reach up and tug off his helmet. To prove my point I rock up on my toes and kiss him lightly. Well, it’s supposed to be light, but he puts a gloved hand to my back again and holds me to him as he opens his mouth and deepens the kiss. Like every time I feel the forceful press of his lips and the dominant touch of his tongue, I melt. I forget where we are and what I’m thinking and just lose myself in him.
Marsha clears her throat like a trucker with a phlegm ball, and we grudgingly pull apart. He gives one quick, chaste kiss before clomping down the hall in his skates after the annoyed PR lady. I watch him walk away and then turn and make my way down the hall back toward the lounge. The last thing I want to do is drop all this on him over the phone, but if that’s the way it has to be, then that’s the way it’ll be.
Chapter 28
Avery
I never sleep on the overnight flights, even though every seat on our private plane reclines into beds, like first class on most jumbo jets nowadays. This flight, while everyone else slept, I grew increasingly uneasy and I couldn’t figure out why. The Saints aren’t exactly a top-ten team, but we won last night and Beau hasn’t gotten in my face about anything since that last incident. I still owe him an apology, but since he has actually been leaving me alone and not causing shit, I don’t want to poke the bear. Instead, I have just kept my distance.
By the time we get to the hotel, I’m bleary-eyed and exhausted. I text Stephanie and tell her I miss her and I had a crappy flight and I’m going to take a nap. I wait a couple of minutes for her to respond while I open my suitcase and change out of my travel clothes, but when she doesn’t respond right away I just turn off my phone and crawl under the crisp sheets. I’m out as soon as my eyes close.
I wake four hours later to Ty knocking on my door and calling my name. We’re not playing until tomorrow night and there’s no practice until tomorrow morning, so I don’t know why he’s bothering me at first. But by the time I stumble over to the door and open it, rubbing my sleepy eyes as I take in his appearance, I realize we have press. Sometimes on a nongame away day the PR people set up press time in a hotel conference room so local media and some of the larger networks, like ESPN and NBC and TSN, can get a chance at in-depth interviews.
“Ah, crap. Am I late?” I scratch my bed head.
“No, but you will be if you don’t get ready now,” Ty says, and pushes into my room. I yawn and try to focus. “You’ve got twenty minutes to shower and turn yourself into the clean-shaven, bright-eyed angelic Avery the media adores.”
“I’m hardly an angel,” I mutter as Ty drops into the chair in front of the window.
I head into the bathroom, pushing the door mostly closed. I turn on the shower and dig around my travel kit for my shower supplies.
“Name one law you’ve broken,” Ty calls out.
I shove my underwear off and frown at my reflection in the mirror. “I don’t break laws.”
I can hear him chuckle. “See? Angelic Avery. You’ve never even had a parking ticket.”
I’d argue that, but he’s right. I haven’t. So I choose not to answer and get into the shower instead. Roughly ten minutes later I walk back out into the hotel room with a towel around my waist. I feel five hundred percent better than I did when I went to sleep. I grab some clean clothes out of my suitcase on the rack at the end of the bed and glance up at him. “Have you talked to Maddie?”
“Yeah. I had Skype sex with her before my nap when we got here,” he says absently as he scrolls through something on his phone.
“TMI, dude,” I mutter, and pull on my underwear and pants. We don’t have to wear suits for this so I’m opting for some jeans and a black Saints T-shirt with our motto on the front—Strength, Passion, Persistence—Saints. Ty is wearing one of our branded black golf shirts.
“You haven’t talked to Stephanie?” he asks as I make my way back into the steamy bathroom to put some product in my hair.
“I texted her, but she didn’t respond before I turned my phone off to sleep,” I explain, wiping the steamed mirror with my palm before I grab my hair stuff and twist it open. I style my hair into a more casual tousled thing that I usually only do on weekends and then I glance at my five o’clock shadow but ignore it as I walk back out into the room. I grab my phone off the night table and a protein bar I always travel with from the front pocket of my suitcase and wave at Ty. “Come on, let’s go.”
He glances up and blinks. “But you haven’t shaved.”
“Oh, no. What will the world think?” I fake a gasp and he flips me his middle finger, but he gets up and follows me out of the room.
