Page 44 of Pucker Up
[Man shouts from background] ACER. Let’s go!
[Ace yells off message] I’m coming!
Meet me at Ultimate Sports. Fire me from your study and break your rule. I promise you, it will be worth it.
SIXTEEN
ACE
It wasthe longest three minutes of my life. Longer than the ‘five for fighting’penalty I got in game seven when I played for Chicago. Every few seconds I found my eyes being drawn to the far side of the room, waiting for Goldie to return.
Mel shimmied past Ethan and Evgeny, one of the new defensemen, and plopped down beside me. “Where’s Goldie?” She put on her coat and stretched her leather gloves over her hands.
“Are you going somewhere?” I asked.
“Something has come up.”
I hated evasive answers. “Are you leaving?” I repeated the question.
She crossed her arms. “Yes, but I need to find Goldie and put her in a cab.” I haven’t seen her tipsy like this since our freshman year.”
I finished my drink. “She went to the bathroom. She should be back any minute now.” It already felt like it had been hours, but I glanced at my watch and realized Goldie had only been gone for five minutes. “I can make sure she gets home okay,” I offered.
Mel stood and seemed a little unsteady on her feet. I couldn’t in good conscience let her stumble out onto the street alone. “I can make sure both of you get home safely.” My mom raised me to be a gentleman, and even though Goldie and Mel were full-grown women, they brought out the protector in me.
“No.” Her response was almost sharp. “I mean, I’m fine. I’m meeting someone, but I want to make sure Goldie gets home in one piece.” Mel checked her phone and her lips turned into a smile. I recognized the look—she was on her way to meet someone, someone that had the power to make her blush, someone you did the kind of things that you do after midnight when you’ve had one too many shots of tequila. A booty call.
Mel checked her phone again. “What the hell is she doing in there?” She gathered Goldie’s mittens and hat and shoved them into my arms. “Here, hold these. I’m going to make sure she’s not in there hugging a toilet bowl.”
Goldie was drunk and so was I. It wasn’t the way I wanted things to start with her. I’d been so confident about my decision to quit the study, but with every second Goldie was gone, alone with my rambling voice messages, I started to regret sending them. What was I thinking? Maybe she was offended. The study was important to her and one of her subjects, me, was willing to walk way from it, just to have a date with her.
Jostling her coat in my arms, I typed a message.
Delete the voicemails.
I slipped the phone in my back pocket of my jeans and once again, looked to the back of the room. Mel’s white hat glowed under the blue lights as she wove through the crowd. I hadn’t expected to see her back so soon. “Did you find her?”
She grinned and winked. “Goldie is out front and needs her coat.”
How had I missed Goldie leaving the restroom? “Oh.” I held out the coat and mitts. “Here you go.”
Mel gave a slight shake of her head and laughed. “You idiot. She’s waiting outside—for you.”
I gulped. “Really?”
“Get out there, Romeo.” I lurched forward as the tiny woman’s hand pressed in between my shoulder blades, shoving me off the VIP platform.
“What about you?”
“Don’t you worry about me. I have someone coming to get me. Worry about the woman standing outside in the freezing cold without a coat.”
A few of the guys had already left, some were on the dance floor, and who knows where the hell Ethan had gone. Goldie’s coat felt like a giant stuffed bear in my arms and I squeezed it tightly as I deked and wove through the crowd. The temperatures were well below zero and I didn’t want Goldie out there for one second longer than necessary. I broke into a run, my eyes trained on the door.
I burst onto the street. Steam billowed from the grates, and my breath puffed out in clouds. To my left, the line for the bar wound down the street and around the corner. Hushed voices whispered my name as I scanned the area. I couldn’t see her. Panic rose inside me. Was this some kind of cruel joke?
The street to my right was empty.
The electric streetcar whined and pulled away. There. Across the street. Goldie’s dark hair shone in the neon lights from Asada Taco. Her eyes met mine and she raised her hand in a tiny wave, then quickly tucked it back into her armpits.
