I pull into the parking garage beneath my building downtown. It’s not too far from the arena. Several of my teammates live here—Locke, the goalie, Bowers, and Johnstone—and there’s another building a few blocks away where Bouchard and Dozer and Jenkins live.
“Oooh, so fancy,” Hailey says, straightening up and looking out the window as I punch in my security code to get into the garage.
“A parking garage is fancy?”
“You grew up in Poynette. You know my frame of reference. Having a secure garage under a building in a big city? Yeah, man. That’s pretty fancy.” She’s grinning now. “How fancy is your place?”
Pulling smoothly into my parking spot, I turn off the engine. “Guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Hailey
Jason climbsout of the car first, and I pop my door open before he can come around to my side. I stand slowly, moving to the back seat where my violin and oversized purse are safely stowed while he pulls my suitcase out of the trunk of his cozy luxury sedan. Soft leather seats that cradle you far better than the cramped airline seats made it hard to keep my eyes open, even though I want to see Seattle. I’ve never been to the West Coast before, and I want to drink it in, live in it as thoroughly as possible for however long I end up staying here.
We haven’t talked about what happens when I’ve gotten my feet under me. Or how long he’s willing to let me take to make that happen. But from the things he has said, I don’t think it’s a short timeline. Not like my parents, I’m sure, who’d expect me to stay with them for the shortest amount of time possible and would probably start charging me rent as soon as I made enough money to pay on a consistent basis.
And I mean, at that point, why not just help me get a car, give me a job, and let me stay where I was? If I’m paying for stuffanyway, why not save us all the trouble of living under the same roof again? We all saw how well that worked out before.
But I don’t have to worry about that. Not here. Not with Jason.
He leads the way to an elevator—it’s a pretty standard elevator, I have to admit, even though I gave him grief about the secure parking garage being fancy. I guess if you’re living in the middle of a big city, it’s a good idea, though. Especially if you’re kinda famous like he is.
“Do people recognize you? Like when you go to the grocery store or out to eat?”
He shrugs, his hand still resting on the handle of my suitcase. “Sometimes. It’s not as bad as for movie stars and pop stars who get hounded by paparazzi pretty often. Sometimes photos of me out and about show up on celebrity gossip sites, but I don’t do anything all that exciting, so mostly it’s just fans wanting selfies or autographs. And I don’t mind doing that, as long as I’m not in the middle of something important where being interrupted is extremely rude. That’s pretty rare, though.”
“What do you do? If you get interrupted like that, I mean.”
Another shrug. “I usually still give them what they want. It’s the quickest way to get rid of them. Otherwise, they’ll probably start a scene, and I don’t have it in me to deal with that.”
I frown. “Isn’t that just rewarding their bad behavior, though?”
“I guess. But they’d behave worse if I told them to leave me alone. Sometimes I make them wait a few minutes, when I don’t for fans who aren’t rude or interrupting things, but …” He shrugs again, seeming resigned to his fate. Which, I guess if the worst he has to deal with is a few rude fans every so often …
“How often would you say that happens?”
He screws up his face, looking up at the corner of the elevator as he considers the question. “Not very. Maybe a couple times ayear? That’s probably why I don’t let it get to me. It’s just not worth it.”
“Makes sense,” I murmur.
The elevator dings, and the door opens on the tenth floor. “I’m just down here on the right,” he says, pulling his keys back out of his pocket and leading the way down the hall. Plush dark gray carpet muffles our steps, and the walls are painted white with grayscale abstract art dotting the spaces between the black doors.
I was right. This is a fancy building.
He pushes open the door and nods for me to precede him. The carpet ends at his doorway, and I step onto the hardwood floor in his apartment, walking down a short hallway that spills into the living room. There’s a large, thick rug with a bold geometric design anchoring the living room, an overstuffed chair and a matching set of dove gray couches around its perimeter, a large TV hanging on the wall opposite the couch, and a glass-topped coffee table in the center. It’s clean, no stack of magazines or books or anything like that. Not even a remote.
Though there are a couple of black side tables on either side of the couch. They have drawers. Maybe the remote is in one of the drawers.
Jason steps behind me. “What do you think?”
“It’s nice.”
“Fancy enough for you?”
Laughing, I nod. “Yes. It’s very fancy. Well done, you.”
He squints at me. “Why do I feel like you’re mocking me?”
