Hot Ticket (12 page)

She threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his neck as the receptionist and producer threw themselves at the glass, gesturing wildly to Guido. “I didn’t think you’d ever come back,” she breathed, then lifted her head, kissed his face a thousand times. “I’ll quit ESPN. I don’t care—I love you, too, Parker, and that night you walked out of my apartment, I thought I would just die. Nothing mattered but you—not ESPN, not radio, nothing but you. I’ll quit, I’ll quit—”

“Are you kidding? You’re fabulous, baby. You deserve to be on ESPN. You deserve to anchor the nightly news or whatever you want to do. Just promise me you won’t go without me. I can’t stand to be away from you, and it’s not because of my game. It’s just because I need you.”

She promised with a kiss so hot that Guido felt compelled to turn on the smooch button that sounded like a giant bottom feeder having lunch. And then they cut to commercial, and the producer sagged against the wall, Guido fell back in his chair, and the receptionist ran to get the phones, which were ringing off the hook.

 Two weeks later, when they flashed Kelly’s image up on the Jumbotron before a record crowd during the pre-game, the fans got to watch Parker climb up in the stands and go down on his knee, asking her to marry him in front of millions.

The next morning, the airwaves were full of commentary about his form. Some of the sportscasters thought he really didn’t bring enough emotion to it and should have done a little more genuflecting. Others—mostly Mets fans like Mrs. Frankel—argued that it was a home run, that they’d never seen anything more beautiful than that proposal in the annals of baseball history.

No one knew what Parker and Kelly thought. After they game, they locked themselves away behind his gates and weren’t coming out for a few days, no matter how hot Kelly’s show was or how hot the Mets suddenly got. The world could go on without them for a time.

Same Rink, Next Year
Deirdre Martin

Friday, 3:10
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For most Chicagoans, January meant three things: biting cold, bitter winds, and howling snow. But for Tierney O’Connor, concierge at the Barchester, a four-star hotel on Chicago’s Miracle Mile, January meant just one thing: earth-shaking, catapulting-out-of-your-body sex with David Hewson, goaltender for the Buffalo Herd.

The Herd came to town once a year, and they always stayed at the Barchester. For three years running, Tierney and David had enjoyed a one-night, no-strings-attached tryst. The arrangements were always the same: David would slip her his key before the team headed to the United Center to play. When Tierney got off work at eleven, she would go to his room and wait for him. David would show up shortly afterward, and that’s when the fireworks would begin, lasting until the wee hours. The next day, David and the team would fly out for their next game, and Tierney would go home. The only person at the hotel who knew about this annual carnal rendezvous was Aggie Mullen, the hotel’s head chef and Tierney’s friend.

Standing behind the concierge’s desk in her crisp black suit, her
long brown hair pulled back in a tight, sleek ponytail and her expression inviting and open, Tierney knew she was a model of friendly efficiency. That is, until the Herd began sauntering through the door, their boisterous voices turning heads. The minute Tierney’s eyes found David’s, she could feel her professionalism beginning to wane as sheer animal lust took over. She wanted to push David down on the lobby’s Persian carpet and have her way with him behind the potted palms. She could tell by the way he was looking at her that he was thinking the same thing. David’s smile, heart stopping even when it was merely friendly, was slow and sexy. His smoky gray eyes, ever watchful from years behind the goalie’s mask, grew hooded and mysterious. Desperate for a diversion, Tierney was glad when a fur-clad, middle-aged couple planted themselves in front of her, wanting to know if the Art Institute was within walking distance.

“It is,” Tierney said brightly, handing them a small, complimentary map, which she used to point out to them the best route to get there.

“You want to walk?” the husband groused to his wife. “It’s snowing. Not to mention the fact it’s ten degrees out there.”

“A little exercise wouldn’t kill you,” the wife shot back.

Tierney glanced away. She couldn’t count all the times couples bickered in front of her. But the wife was right: the man was so big he looked like a grizzly bear in his fur coat.

“We’re taking a cab,” the husband declared. His eyes flicked back to Tierney. “Can you call us a cab?”

Tierney smiled again. She loved her job, but sometimes, at the end of the day, her face ached. “There should be some cabs waiting right outside the hotel, sir. If there aren’t, the doorman will hail one for you.”

“Thank you.” Without waiting for his wife, he began barreling toward the door.

The woman shot Tierney a long-suffering look as she pulled on her gloves. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

Tierney turned to watch them walk away, proud to have been of assistance. She loved being able to direct the hotel’s guests toward the best her adopted city had to offer. Chicago had energy, culture, soul—which is why she’d fled Nebraska for the Windy City the first chance she got. As a child, she’d dreamed of living in a place where there were always new things to do and explore, a place where she’d be able to reinvent herself. That she’d been able to make her dreams come true was a constant source of pleasure as well as pride.

“They looked happy—
not
.”

Tierney jolted at the sound of David’s voice, amazed at his ability to sneak up on her. “Hey, you,” she said quietly. “How was your flight from Buffalo?”

“Scary. A lot of turbulence. Some of the guys actually looked green around the gills.”

“They’re saying we might get a foot of snow overnight.” It had been a year since Tierney had seen him, but it felt like just yesterday. She didn’t want to think about how many times over the past twelve months her thoughts had strayed to him as she wondered what he was doing at that precise moment. But they’d agreed at the outset to keep things simple: The less they knew about each other’s personal lives, the better.

“A foot of snow, huh?” David’s eyes caressed hers. “Good cuddling weather if you ask me.” Tierney, afraid that every unholy thought she was having could be read on her face, looked at her watch.

“Room 334,” David said under his breath. “I’ll bring down the key when I leave for the game.”

“Gotcha.”

He reached out, discreetly squeezing her hand. “You look gorgeous, by the way.”

Tierney raised her eyes back to his, unable to hide her pleasure. “You say that every year.”

“That’s because it’s true every year.” David glanced over his shoulder at his waiting teammates, standing in a clump in front of the bank of elevators. “I should get going. I need to rest up before the game.”

“Think you’ll win?”

David flashed a confident smile. “We always do.”

“Hey, watch it,” Tierney warned, pointing a finger at him. “That’s my team you’re dissing.”

“Spoken like a true Chicago girl.”

Tierney swallowed, nervous of telling him the truth. She liked that he thought she was from the city.

“Yo, Hewson!” a voice called out from in front of the elevators. “C’mon!”

“Hold up!” David called back. He winked at Tierney. “See you later. Can’t wait.”

Tierney blushed. “Me, neither.”

Friday, 7:40
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Never fond of pregame warm-ups, David especially hated them when the Herd was the visiting team. Not only was he acutely aware of bad vibes being beamed his way by the home team’s fans, but he couldn’t perform his powerful home ice rituals. Back in Buffalo, he knew the only thing coming between him and certain failure was the order in which he laced up his skates (left then right) and the number of times he circled the net (four times clockwise, four times counterclockwise) before standing in goal. His teammates never ribbed him about his eccentricities. All hockey players were superstitious, goalies most of all. You’d have to be a bit crazy to stand there night after night and let people shoot pucks at your head.

Fighting to focus, David performed his less-powerful away-game rituals—four splits followed by swinging his stick back and
forth on the ice eleven times, the number of letters in his name—before standing in net for a drill, demonstrating to his teammates they had nothing to worry about. Kick save? No problemo. Blocker save? Puh-lease. High to the glove side? In his sleep, baby. As the drill dragged on, cockiness gave way to boredom, and he found himself daydreaming about Tierney—and all the things he planned to do to her when he got back to the hotel. Usually he was able to keep thoughts of her at bay until after the game. But tonight, he couldn’t. Desire built from a whisper to a scream as he pictured himself slowly peeling off Tierney’s blazer to get at the pristine white blouse below, the tiny pearl buttons like—

“Hey, Hewson! Wake up!”

David blinked at the sound of his coach’s voice, mortified to see that he’d been so deep inside his own head he’d let one in through the five hole. His teammates peered at him questioningly; it wasn’t like him to let a puck through his pads. Skating out of net, David approached Coach Kernan, whose scowl could reduce grown men to babbling idiots.

“What the hell just happened there?” Kernan demanded.

“Sorry,” David apologized. “I lost focus for a moment.”

“You lost focus? What kind of shit is that?”

David pushed his mask up onto his head so the coach could see his face. “It won’t happen again.”

Kernan poked him in the chest—a wasted gesture, since David couldn’t feel a thing through his padding. “You’re goddamn right it won’t happen again. Because if it does . . .”

Kernan let the threat hang there. David nodded curtly, pulling his goalie mask down over his face. “I hear you.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then get your ass back in goal and keep your eye on the little birdy, okay? This is one team we can’t afford to lose to.”

Throwing another scowl over his shoulder for good measure, Kernan shuffled back to the bench, and David returned to goal,
annoyed at himself for thinking about Tierney and screwing up his concentration. Usually, he thought about her when he was alone. A few times he even caught himself talking to her in his mind and was tempted to look up her home number and call her. But he held back, knowing it was a violation of the ground rules they’d so carefully laid down from the beginning.

He needed a ritual for banishing Tierney from his thoughts. Closing his eyes, he imagined the Herd decimating the Chicago team as he shifted side to side three times—one for each year of their arrangement. When he opened his eyes, he was ready to play.

Friday, 11:06
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Her shift over, Tierney decided to stop by the kitchen to see Aggie before heading upstairs to David’s room. Unlike most chefs, who tended to be temperamental or dramatic, Aggie was unusually centered and calm—unless, of course, there was some major screwup in the kitchen, in which case she’d threaten to quit. She never did; like Tierney, she loved her job, pressure and all.

“I thought you might stop by,” said Aggie as Tierney pulled up a stool to sit at one of the long, stainless-steel tables at the center of the kitchen. Though room service was available to guests twenty-four hours a day, orders were few the later the night wore on. Aggie, whose primary responsibilities were dinner at the hotel’s plush restaurant and handling all the hotel’s catered affairs, had already handed over the culinary reins to the night staff.

She pushed a piece of chocolate ganache toward Tierney. “I saved this for you.”

“Chocolate and sex in the same night,” Tierney joked, her stomach growling as she dug in. “I’m going to get spoiled.”

“Speaking of your boy toy and his teammates, they all ordered steak earlier,” Aggie revealed. “I bet if I threw a piece of raw meat in the middle of the room, they’d fight for it like wolves.”