Maxine waited for a scream of surprise, but there was only Stuart’s stream hitting the water in the toilet bowl, then the flush.
When he opened the door, she angled around his shoulders, looking for a tall shadow behind the shower curtain.
“Anxious much?” Stuart said.
In a daze, Maxine stood in the middle of her small bathroom. “Where’s Westley?” she asked.
Stuart laughed. “I just shit him down the toilet. Where do you think? He’s still at the club.” Then he added sulkily, “Smart bastard.”
“You left him at the club?” Maxine caught her refection in the mirror. Her hair! It was totally messed from making out! She patted it down, fighting the blush. She really was glowy. Then she caught sight of something else in the mirror—the bathroom window was all the way open.
“He pleaded a rock solid case against leaving,”
Stuart said. “He figured you’d left early to come home.”
“I guess he was right,” she said, staring at the open window.
The music started again, but this time it was much closer. She pulled back the shower curtain. There, on the bottom of the tub was a cell phone. The music stopped when Stuart picked up the phone.
“A hockey themed ring tone?” he cut a side-glance at Maxine. “Don’t tell me this is Johnny’s, too.”
Crosby snorted. “He thought stamp collecting was a sport.”
Maxine took the phone from Stuart. “I forgot the plumber was here this afternoon,” she lied again, surprised at how calm her voice sounded. “I’ll hand it into the landlord tomorrow.” She could see the missed call was from someone named ursexslave.
“It’s almost out of battery,” Crosby said. Then she saw the text. “He’s popular! I wonder if he’s cute.”
“You’re so sexist,” Stuart said. “The plumber could be a woman.”
Maxine leaned out the open window and saw a set of fresh tracks through the snow on the fire escape. He must have jumped the last part to the ground.
“What’s wrong?” Stuart asked her. “You lost your glow.”
“My battery just ran out, too,” she sighed.
After Crosby and Stuart left, Maxine turned off all her lights and returned to her bedroom. She studied the phone. Three more messages had come in; one more from ursexslave and two from someone with the contact name, thewife.
He wasn’t wearing a ring. How could she have known? Were all men pigs?
A strange veil of rationalization settled on the room. Maybe Johnny wasn’t so unique in his fumbling of their relationship. That small moment of desperate validation was all it took for the melancholy to take hold—like it usually did at night.
Maxine went to her closet, pulled down the long white box from the top shelf, and took it over to the bed. Hating herself but unable to stop, she opened the lid.
****
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Coach Foster strutted through the locker room, shouting down at the team as his black shoes tapped a beat. The game plan was rolled up in his hand like a diploma, slapping his thigh with every exclamation mark. “This is a winning team and you finally proved it tonight!” He took a sharp inhale through his enlarged nostrils. “And I expect the same performance tomorrow!”
Antony sat on the bench in front of his personal locker breathing hard, his number and name labeled the overhead shelf. Sweat dripped from his head in rivets. He stared at the floor, replaying the last-minute goal that won the game…his goal.
Coach Foster’s shoes stopped in front of Antony. “And what the fuck got into you tonight?” There was a delay then a burst of laughter came from the team. Antony looked up cautiously and saw Coach smiling down at him.
He hardly ever smiled.
Earlier, when Antony had arrived for the game in his usual suit and tie, he’d been unable to meet Coach Foster’s gaze, miserable with the rumors that he’d be traded to the minors, plus he wondered if he’d been spotted following the managers last night.
Coach Foster hardly spoke to him all game, even after he got an assist and blocked a shot on net, an act of heroism that sent him off the ice to get his wrist checked by the trainer. They gave him a shot of cortisone and wrapped it tightly, stating it was probably sprained, but Antony insisted on returning to the game. He had too much to lose. Plus, he was having the game of his life.
“One goal and two assists!” Coach Foster was still looking down at him. “Best game in over two months, Laurent.”
“More like six months,” someone jeered. A jockstrap flew at Antony.
Coach Foster nodded and moved along, the assistants followed behind him like ducks in a row.
Antony’s heart ripped a crazy beat. It was his best game tonight. And just when he needed it the most. Jax would be pleased, maybe even get off his back a bit. Last night she’d been frantic when she couldn’t reach him. When he finally got back to his place, freezing in his t-shirt, his landline was full of messages from her. She’d heard about the rumors too and was pissed when she found out he’d gone out after the managers.
“That makes you look desperate,” she’d said when he managed to call her back after a hot shower.
“I’m your agent,” she’d lectured. “It’s my job to do that shit for you. Don’t do it again.” She was doubly pissed when he told her he’d lost his cell phone. He didn’t bother saying he knew where it was, he only let on it was probably in the cab he’d taken home from the gym.
He’d cringed. Jax was excellent at knowing when he was lying, but he wasn’t about to share his unexpected encounter.
She’d ended the conversation with a veiled threat.
“You have to look sharp tomorrow night. You can’t afford to bring the team down.”
Antony gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to tell her he’d been trying to look sharp the whole season. Was it his fault half the team was plagued by injuries?
He was originally taken on as a player with potential, a big guy for the defense who also had mad skating skills. The intent was to groom him as a potential career player, but with all the bad luck with injuries and their captain being hounded in the media for a stupid tweet he’d sent out about fat and ignorant Toronto fans, Antony’s decline in his ice skills was magnified under the increasingly negative glare from the media.
After he’d ended the conversation with Jax, he’d laid in bed and thought of the redhead again. In the darkness of his bedroom, he conjured up the memory of them lying on the couch. When he’d touched her, she came for him. So easily.
It was pure torture when she’d shoved him in her bedroom and closed the door. Antony had listened, waiting for her friends to leave. Then his cell phone rang, bringing the voices down the hallway. He’d rushed to the bathroom. Once he listened to the voicemail he had no choice, he had to leave immediately. With his heart pounding and his erection protesting, Antony put the phone down on the edge of the tub and used both hands to open the window. He barely squeezed through and had to put a foot against the toilet seat to shove himself out. When his legs kicked out, his foot hit something. There was a loud clang against the porcelain.
He’d taken a cab straight to his apartment, glad he still had his wallet in his jeans. By that time, he realized he’d forgotten his phone. He pictured it on her bathroom floor. He called immediately, anxious to explain why he had to leave, but all he heard was the automated message—“the cellular customer you are trying to reach is unavailable.”
He reasoned the battery had run down or she’d shut it off. A weird mix of emotion battled for logic inside Antony. He could leave it there and never see her again, taking the chance she’d find out who he was, or…