Before she could had even make sense of the play, the game was over. Mike collapsed in frustration onto the ice, his head in his hands. And fifteen thousand Brooklyn fans made noises of frustration.
That was it. Time to hit the showers, boys. Nothing more to be done tonight.
Depressed, Lauren made her way downstairs, as if by habit. At a home game, with Becca covering the office again, there was no reason for her to stick around.
Except for one.
The corridor outside the dressing room was buzzing with journalists and family members. It was terribly crowded. Even as Lauren contemplated fighting her way through the scrum, she spotted Elsa and her babysitter down there, waiting for Mike to make an appearance.
Lauren hesitated. She hung back, trying to decide what to do. Whatever words of support she might offer Mike tonight would keep until tomorrow.
As she thought it through, the dressing room door opened and the man himself came through it, his hair wet from the shower. His daughter lunged. She threw herself at him, grabbing him around the neck and hugging him tightly.
Mike closed his eyes. He lifted his girl into the air and said something tender into her ear.
Lauren turned around then without another thought. The man had his hands full. She made her way out to street level, where she found a yellow cab with its light on and got inside.
I’m sorry, she texted Mike from the cab. Can’t win ’em all. Talk tomorrow?
When her phone vibrated a moment later, she looked for Mike’s reply. But the text wasn’t from him. It was from her father. I knew they’d choke, he said.
Nice, dad, she wanted to reply. The man was still bitter. Yet glued to the game. She could picture him in his lounge chair, yelling at the TV.
Lauren put her phone away and spent the rest of the ride looking out the window, watching the lights of New York City speed toward her on the Brooklyn Bridge. It was such a romantic view of a busy city that it was easy for her to imagine that she was the only one alone tonight.
Don’t go there, she coached herself. She was no more alone tonight than she’d been during her other single years.
When her cab arrived at her apartment building, she paid the man and got out. Inside her lobby, she gave Jerry, the night doorman, a wave on her way to the elevator.
“Hot date, maybe?” he asked as she waited for the car to descend. “Please don’t tell me you worked late again tonight.”
“Not this time. I was at the hockey game in Brooklyn.”
He leaned forward in his seat. “Yeah? I didn’t take you for a hockey fan, Miss Lauren.”
She laughed, because that was hysterical. Her whole life had been hockey until the minute she moved into this building. “For the record, I didn’t take you for a hockey fan, either. But I used to work for the team. Before I moved to Manhattan.”
His eyes popped wide. “Shut the front door! You know all the players?”
“Pretty much.” The elevator doors parted in front of her.
“Stay cool, Miss Lauren!” Jerry yelled as she stepped inside.
“You too, big man!” she returned.
Upstairs, her apartment was dark and quiet. She changed into a nightgown and took a prenatal vitamin. Then she got in bed, wondering if the game had left her too keyed up to sleep. She was just drifting off an hour or so later when the doorman’s buzzer blared through her small apartment.
She almost ignored it. Nobody ever knocked on her door at midnight.
But it buzzed again.
She got up and padded to the handset on the wall. “Jerry?” He never rang her this late.
“Sorry to ring you so late but you have a visitor. Mike Beacon is here to see you.” He said it as if announcing the pope.
“He is?” She failed to keep the surprise out of her voice.
“That’s what I said, too,” Jerry whispered. “It’s one thing to drop this bomb on me that you know the team. It’s, like, a whole other level of gossip when the goalie shows up asking for you at midnight.”
“Send him up already.”
“Go on, sir,” she heard Jerry say. “Apartment 12B.” But the doorman didn’t hang up yet. After a beat he whispered into the handset again. “We are going to have to discuss this later.”
“We are?”
“Most def. And do you know how a guy could get an autograph for his little girl?”
“Angelique is a hockey fan?” Hockey fans were just coming out of the woodwork tonight.
“She has a poster of Castro up on her wall. She said, ‘Look, Daddy, you can play hockey even if you have brown skin.’”
“Oh, man. I’ll have to hook that girl up with a jersey.”
“You are the coolest resident of 251 East 32nd Street, Miss Lauren.”
“I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”
There was a tap on her door.
“Gotta fly, Jerry. My visitor is knocking.”
“Don’t let me keep you!” He hung up laughing.
Lauren opened the door to Mike wearing his game night suit—the tie loosened haphazardly—and a haggard expression. Her smile slid off her face. “Hey. You okay?”
He shrugged. “No gold star on my phone tonight.”
“What? Gold star?” She stepped aside, motioning him inside.
“When we win, our Katt Phones all have gold stars on the login screen.”
“Okay. So, uh . . . How did you know where to find me?”
He dropped his gym bag on the floor and pulled her against his suit jacket. “Got your address from Becca when I sent you pickles and ice cream.”
“Mm.” She inhaled his scent—a mixture of shower soap and wool gabardine. “And you just decided to stop by for tea and crumpets at midnight?”
He pushed her hair aside and kissed her neck. “It’s been eleven days since I held you and I couldn’t take it anymore.” He kicked her door shut and then pushed her up against it. His mouth found her jawline, where he began to drop soft open-mouthed kisses. “I used to come home to you after a game.” He tongued the sensitive hollow between her neck and her shoulder. “Didn’t matter if I won or lost. You were happy to see me either way.”
She made an ineloquent noise of pleasure, but they both knew he was right. Lauren placed her hands on his chest, pushing the lapels of his jacket apart. His skin radiated warmth beneath his shirt. It was late, and it had been a long night. But when his hands skimmed down her bare arms, landing on her scantily covered hips, her libido woke up and offered to take his coat, and every other stitch of fabric on his body.
For starters, she loosened his tie and tossed it on the floor. “Won’t your family wonder where you are?”
“They don’t wait up,” he murmured against her skin. “Tomorrow’s a school day.” He cupped her jaw in one hand and raised her chin.
She waited, expecting to be kissed.
He only studied her instead, his dark eyes intense.
“What?” she breathed.
“I miss the hell out of you, that’s all. I miss you so much it hurts.”
When she threw her arms around him a second later, she knew she was in trouble. She was tired of playing it cool. “I miss you, too. But everything is just so complicated.”
He chuckled into her hair. “It’s like we invented complicated.”
“I love you, Mike.” In for a penny . . .