Page 87 of Pipe Dreams
“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?”
