Music played inside her condo—as usual—but there were also voices. A loud male laugh boomed through the heavy door and I frowned.
Jordyn opened the door, still laughing herself, looking all relaxed and happy. “Hey! You’re here!” She hooked an arm around my neck to pull me down, while she went up on her toes to kiss me.
I fucking loved kissing her, and for a few seconds I let myself sink into the feel of her soft mouth on mine and her sweet taste. But I was curious about the dude here with her, so my lips locked onto hers, but my eyes went behind her. In her living room I could see…two men.
What the…?
Jordyn broke the kiss, grabbed my arm, and drew me into her condo. “Come in and meet Aaron and Malik and Natosha.”
Three people.
I knew these names. I knew Jordyn had been in touch with all of them during her time in Chicago, emails and calls and even Skype meetings.
I now saw the woman sitting around the corner, who had to be Natosha, Jordyn’s assistant. Jordyn credited Natosha with keeping her from being a walking Bermuda Triangle.
“This is Natosha,” Jordyn said. “Nat, this is Chase.”
The African American woman smiled at me as she extended her hand. “Hi, Chase. Good to finally meet you.”
I strode toward her and shook her hand. “Yeah, good to meet you too.”
“And this is Malik,” Jordyn introduced one of the men.
I knew she and Malik were friends, even though I’d read rumors about them being a couple. She’d told me that wasn’t true and I believed her, but…I eyed the handsome guy with dark brown skin, dreads, and liquid dark eyes. I liked his music, but I didn’t like that he was so good-looking.
He rose from the couch to shake my hand, eyeing me appraisingly. I lifted my chin. “Good to meet you.”
“Likewise.” His eyes remained steady on me.
I turned to the other man, and damn, he was also handsome and way younger than I’d expected Jordyn’s manager to be. I shook his hand too, taking in expensive jeans and shoes, an untucked shirt fitted to his buff body, designer beard stubble, and cocky smirk. Huh. For some reason I’d expected an older dude like Steve, maybe rotund and bald.
“Chase.” Aaron’s handshake was firm. He didn’t give me the same kind of look Malik had, but I got the distinct impression that he was looking out for Jordyn every bit as much as Malik was.
In a way, I liked that. It was good that she had people looking out for her. I knew how strong and independent she was, but I also knew she was sweet and vulnerable and going through a rough time. I just…well, I guess I wanted it to be me who was there for her.
I wasn’t always going to be around her though. Ugh. It was good she had a squad to take care of her.
I turned back to Jordyn. “I didn’t realize you’d have people here.”
She clasped my hand and pulled me down to sit on the couch beside her. “It’s okay. They flew in for a couple of days so we could get some business things out of the way. But we’re done for tonight.”
“Business.”
“Yeah.” She smiled. I knew that even though her singing was on hold, her career wasn’t. “My booking agent, Martin, has gotten a bunch of performance requests that we have to deal with. We’re rejigging my whole schedule for the rest of the year now.” Her eyes shadowed, and I knew exactly what she was thinking—what if she couldn’t sing?
I squeezed her hand and gave my head a tiny shake.
Her eyes cleared, and the corners of her mouth lifted. She got my message. “And guess what? Tesla wants to use one of my songs in a TV commercial!”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Wow. That’s great.” She seemed pretty excited, so this had to be a big thing. I leaned forward to kiss her. “Congratulations!”
“Thank you!” Her eyes sparkled. “This is amazing.”
“How did that come about? Did Tesla contact you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “It was kind of roundabout. They have an advertising agency that develops the commercials. The ad agency went through my label, which has a sync publisher—she finds music for ads or movies or TV shows. They give her a brief for the ad they’re looking for music for, and she looks for a track that fits, and they decided to go with one of mine. Yay!”
I grinned. “Yeah.”
“We just need to be smart with the agreement,” Aaron said. “They pay a flat fee up front, but we have to waive public performance rights for a period of time, so we need to make sure the fee reflects the amount of money we would have earned from the work’s use. Or ideally, more.”
The music business was complicated. As I listened to them talk more about it, I was once again glad that Jordyn had smart people working with her.
“So we’ve been hearing lots about you,” Aaron said to me. “Sounds like you had a great trip to Aruba.”
“It was awesome. Too short, but we had a five-day break in the schedule and that’s about all I can do during the season.”
“How did your dinner with your agent go?” Jordyn asked.
“Good.” I didn’t want to share the frustrating part of the conversation with all her team here, so I skipped over that. “His daughters are big fans of yours. I, er, may have promised them autographed CDs.”
Jordyn laughed softly and leaned into me. “Of course! I can do that.”
My business meeting hadn’t gone quite as well as hers. I kept thinking about what Steve had said about the contract negotiations. Last time we’d been negotiating a contract had been in New York, and there’d been doubts about my abilities because of my off-ice antics. Now, fuck, this! And this time it wasn’t because I was screwing around. Luckily, last time the team had seen my abilities and potential and I’d gotten a decent five-year deal with good money. This time around, I wanted a longer contract and more money, but I was again facing doubts about my abilities.
Christ. My chest tightened at the unfairness of it.
* * *
—
“Jesus Christ!” The pain had me shooting off the chair and nearly smacking into the ceiling of the doctor’s office as he pressed on the outside of my wrist. “Uh, sorry.”
Dr. Engram smiled, looking weirdly satisfied. “Okay, that’s it. You have a split tear of the ulnotriquetral ligament.”
“Say what?”
“A split tear of the ulnotriquetral ligament. The UT is a ligament in the ulnar side of the wrist. It connects your two forearm bones. It’s located at the axis of the wrist’s rotation.”
I nodded, rubbing the spot he’d just pressed.
“This kind of condition is typically somewhat mysterious,” he continued. “I’ve had many patients come in with pain in that area of the wrist…” He indicated the bottom outside of his hand, which was where my pain was, when I had it. “They were stable, no sense of dislocation and the pain was mechanically related. Uh, meaning it happens with certain activities.”
“Yeah. It only happens sometimes. So I’m not crazy?”
“Not at all. We find normal X-rays and MRIs, just as you’ve had. Typically, ligament injuries involve a rupture, where the ligament is completely severed. But a UT split tear is different. The ligament is still attached to the bones on both ends, but is split open lengthwise.”
I winced.
“Years ago it was a mystery, but since the discovery of the ulnar fovea sign, which is the test I just did by pressing at that specific spot on your wrist, we can now be very accurate in diagnosing this condition.”
“Can it be fixed?”
“Yes. We can surgically repair it, and there’s about a ninety-five percent success rate.”
I let out a breath. “Okay. That’s good.”
“It’s an arthroscopic procedure where we’ll suture the ligament and repair the split. I’ve done it many times…there are a lot of people with this problem. Many of them can’t even relate their pain to a specific injury, so we’re not sure what the etiology is.”
“I think it probably happened last year when I injured my hand.”
“Very likely.”
“So what’s the recovery period like?”
“You’ll be in a cast for six weeks, then a splint while you do some physical therapy, and probably back to full strength within a few months.”